The Nation's Top 100 ReadsHow Many Have You Read?

In 2003, the BBC compiled a list of the nation's favourite 100 books. Obviously having nothing better to do, I decided to see how many of them I've read. The entire list is below and the ones highlighted are the ones I've read...

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie 

So, I've read 40 out of 100. Not too shabby.

Why I love Young Adult Fiction...

When I was about nine years old, my mother started to realise that books for kids my own age were too easy for me and so didn't capture my attention. She made the decision to encourage me to read books aimed at an older audience, and inevitably I started reading teen fiction.

Back then (we're talking the late 90's here) teen fiction was mostly Judy Blume, Paula Danziger and their ilk. Some of the books dealt with big issues ('The Cat Ate My Gymsuit' is a prime example) and yet I never truly connected with the characters. Their lives seemed so distant from my own, their American up-bringing so alien in comparison with my 'it's grim up North' English childhood.

But, I did learn A LOT from these teen novels. Most of my sex education and information on puberty came from these books. I learnt about politics and bullying and feminism. It was an interesting education.

And yet I can't help but feel I missed out on something.

Today's Young Adult fiction is incredible. The market has evolved so much since I was a teenager. Young Adult novels are grittier now, full of strong female protagonists and subjects that would have seemed taboo two decades ago. Young Adult writers talk about suicide, rape, incest, depression. Their characters are gay or disabled, even dying in some cases. They are wise and full of passion. And they go on amazing inner journeys to find themselves. The characters in today's Young Adult fiction are inspiring. And I wish that these books had been around to help me on my way to adulthood when I was fourteen and struggling with my identity.

The Young Adult market is a difficult one. Writers have to cater to a core audience with a lot going on in their lives. Teens (especially boys) can be reluctant readers. So how do YA writers manage to pull in the fans? As I've already said, they're writing about the things their audience are dealing with themselves, the characters tend to be well fleshed out, as real as the people we know in our real lives. The writing is usually taut, fast-paced and gripping, and the plots are rarely flabby in the middle section like their Adult counterparts can be.

For me though, one of the things I like best about YA titles, and the thing that often draws me to them in the first place is the cover. YA books have amazing cover art. Take 'Paper Towns' for example. That's a great cover. Laid out on those presentation tables they have in book stores, it really caught my eye. It was the same with' The Moth Diaries', the beautiful cover just called to me.

I think the main reason I love Young Adult fiction so much is the realism, the fact that when I'm reading a YA title, I'm reminded of my own teen years. I can identify with and understand the characters. The books speak to me. 

And that is why I unashamedly purchase and read Young Adult fiction, despite being well into my 20's.