Top 25 Books for a Desert Island, Chosen by YOU

Wow, what an experience! I loved getting your book lists, all 300+ of them. I think that many lists were influenced partly by what is popular right now, but the list of classics is heart-warming. Here’s the way you voted.

1. The Bible

2. Tied for 2^nd place!

• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis

• The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

• Harry Potter series

3. Tied for 3rd place!

• Jane Austen’s books

• Mark Twain's books

• Shakespeare's plays

• The Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

4. The next tier of books, in no particular order, includes:

• Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

• Anne of Green Gables (Children's Classics), by L.M. Montgomery

• Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

• Books by Charles Dickens (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens)

• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte

• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

• Books by John Irving, esp. The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany

5. The third tier of books, also in no particular order:

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

• Books by Roald Dahl (Roald Dahl Gift Set

• Winnie-the-Pooh, plus others by A.A. Milne

• The Poetry of Robert Frost

• The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, by Rick Warren

• Charlotte's Web (Trophy Newbery), by E.B. White

• Poisonwood Bible; Prodigal Summer, etc., by Barbara Kingsolver

• James Herriot’s books, beginning with All Creatures Great and Small

• The Secret Garden, etc. by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Hearty also-rans, with a great many votes, include:

• John Steinbeck’s novels (The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Winter of Our Discontent)

• Agatha Christie’s mysteries (Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None (Mystery Masters)v, After the Funeral )

• Willa Cather’s novels Great Short Works of Willa Cather (My Antonia<, Death Comes for the Archbishop, O Pioneers! )

• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold

• The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

• The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom

• Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo

• The Once and Future King, by T. H. White

• Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt

• The Secret Life of Bees<, by Sue Monk Kidd

• Watership Down, by Richard Adams

• Anything by Rudyard Kipling

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by A. C. Doyle

• --and many poets’ work, including Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe (short stories and poetry), Longfellow, and Tennyson.

And so many other really good books! (Note how many in the listed titles are works of fantasy.) We were right to think it would be awfully tough to limit ourselves to just 25.

^{THANKS FOR SENDING SUCH TERRIFIC BOOK LISTS!!}