Your 25 Favorite Books From Assigned Reading
In our latest reader poll, we asked you to tell about your favorite books from assigned school reading. There were no rules or restrictions, no genre requirements, no statements about which years of school counted or didn’t: just your favorite books from school reading, period.
1142 Riot readers answered the call, sharing 660 unique titles. (Participants were allowed to nominate up to 3 books.) Here are the top 25 selections. Any surprises? Do these square with your favorites? If you’re in the mood for a deeper dive, here’s the full data set.
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (281 votes)
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (165)
It’s no surprise to see Harper Lee in first place here, as To Kill a Mockingbird is by far the most common (and has become the most expected) response to almost any survey about favorite books/characters/authors we conduct. Interesting to see that 8 of the 20 writers mentioned here are women. That’s a better gender balance than I would have expected given dead white guys’ popularity on syllabi. It’s disappointing but also not terribly surprising, given the popularity of dead white guys, to see only one book by a person of color. I was happy to see some young adult titles make the list, including The Outsiders, which is arguably the first modern young adult novel, and The Giver.
Here’s how these favorite assigned books overlap with Riot readers’ favorite novels, most-hated books, and the ones we just pretend to have read.
What are your thoughts and questions and theories about these results?
Check out other Riot polls:
Book Riot Readers’ 50 Favorite Novels
The 25 Most-Hated Books (by Book Riot Readers)
19 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read FOREVER
20 Books You Pretend to Have Read
Top 10 Books You’re Embarrassed to Admit You’ve Read
20 Most-Loved Literary Characters
Are These the 13 Most Underrated Books?
20 Books You Love to Give as Gifts
Your 25 Favorite Authors of Color
The Book Riot 2013 Reading Habits Survey
The Top 17 Books That Make You Feel Dumb
The 35 Most Powerful Books You’ve Read
____________________
Book Riot Live is coming! Join us for a two-day event full of books, authors, and an all around good time. It’s the convention for book lovers that we’ve always wanted to attend. So we are doing it ourselves.
