The Great British Literary Census

The British bookseller Waterstone's recently asked its 5,000 employees to name their five favorite books written since 1982, when the chain was founded. I've posted the list behind the cut; I bolded the books that I've read, and underlined those I started but never finished. The books, for some reason, are listed in reverse order of publication.

1. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
2. Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
3. Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian
4. Kate Mosse, Labyrinth
5. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
6. David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
7. Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
8. Andrea Levy, Small Island
9. Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
10. Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
11. Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
12. Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
13. Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
14. Zoe Heller, Notes On A Scandal
15. D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little
16. Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
17. Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
18. Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
19. Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things
20. Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White
21. Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
22. Yann Martel, The Life of Pi
23. Ian McEwan, Atonement
24. Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl
25. Glen David Gold, Carter Beats The Devil
26. Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier and Clay
27. Sophie Kinsella, The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic
28. Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
29. Zadie Smith, White Teeth
30. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
31. Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad
32. Julia Donaldson, The Gruffalo
33. Joanne Harris, Chocolat
34. Michael Coetzee, Disgrace
35. Louis Sacher, Holes
36. Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
37. Douglas Coupland, Girlfriend In A Coma
38. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
39. Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha
40. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
41. Ian McEwan, Enduring Love
42. Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
43. Iain Pears, An Instance Of The Fingerpost
44. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary: A Novel
45. Alex Garland, The Beach
46. Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes:A Memoir of a Childhood
47. Philip Pullman, Northern Lights: His Dark Materials
48. Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island
49. Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
50. Kate Atkinson, Behind The Scenes At The Museum
51. Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
52. David Guterson, Snow Falling On Cedars
53. Dava Sobel, Longitude
54. Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
55. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
56. Jonathan Coe, What A Carve Up
57. John Berendt, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil
58. Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong
59. Louis De Bernieres, Captain Corelli's Mandolin
60. Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
61. E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
62. Donna Tartt, The Secret History
63. Jung Chang, Wild Swans
64. Iain M. Banks, Crow Road
65. Peter Hoeg, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow
66. Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses
67. Robert Harris, Fatherland
68. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
69. Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
70. Bret Easton Elllis, American Psycho
71. Pat Barker, Regeneration
72. James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential
73. A.S. Byatt, Possession
74. John Irving, A Prayer For Owen Meany
75. Ken Follet, The Pillars Of The Earth
76. Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains Of The Day
77. Thomas Harris, The Silence Of The Lambs
78. Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
79. Stephen Hawkings, A Brief History of Time
80. Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye
81. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
82. Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire Of The Vanities
83. Ian Rankin, Knots and Crosses
84. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
85. Patrick Suskind, Perfume
86. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
87. Paul Auster, The New York Trilogy
88. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love In The Time Of Cholera
89. Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
90. Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor
91. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
92. William Gibson, Neuromancer
93. Iain M Banks, The Wasp Factory
94. Martin Amis, Money
95. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
96. Susan Hill, Woman In Black
97. Terry Pratchett, The Colour Of Magic
98. Roald Dahl, The BFG
99. Raymond Feist, The Magician
100. Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged Thirteen and Three quarters

A couple of quick comments about the list above. First of all, the original list named Alan Moore as the sole author of Watchmen; I added Dave Gibbons, the artist. Second, I'm not entirely convinced that the book listed at no. 83 is the right book. Knots and Crosses is a real book; it's the first novel in Ian Rankin's popular Inspector Rebus series, and it's not entirely out of the question that it would make the list, especially since the list appears to list the first book in popular series to represent all the books in said series. (I mean, how many people really think Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the best of the Harry Potter books, or The Color of Magic the best Discworld novel?) But I wonder if they meant to list Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. Back in 2003, the BBC published a list of Britain's 100 best loved novels. None of Ian Rankin's books appear on that list, but Noughts and Crosses shows up at no. 61. Makes me wonder.

I'm sort of glad I didn't have to participate in this survey, because when I read the list I tried to think of what five books I would have listed, and I found that it was very hard to narrow it down to a mere five books. But I did try, and here's what I came up with, in reverse order of publication:

1. Bill Bryson, Walk About (2002)
2. J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
3. Nick Hornby, About a Boy (1998)
4. Robert Crais, Indigo Slam (1997)
5. Wilton Barnhardt, Gospel (1993)

The first book on the list might be considered a cheat, since it's an omnibus edition of two different books by Bryson, A Walk in the Woods and In a Sunburned Country (a.k.a. Down Under). I decided it was OK to list it because both books were written during the eligibility period.