Monday, 19 September 2011

The World Book Night 2012



I learned about this amazing effort by the charity World Book Night Ltd when I was still in London, towards the end of my study (early 2011). The process started by inviting people to nominate the books that they love, and the books receiving the highest votes would make it to top 100. The books would then be shortlisted, and the selected books would be given free on that night. The interesting part is that everyone can register to be a 'giver', whom will be given free books that he/she loves to be distributed to family and friends. What a great way to encourage reading, and at the same time to promote the titles (though many of them need not any introductions!).
This is happening again this year, let's see the books selected for WBN 2012:

The 2012 Long List - ordered by number of votes:
1    To Kill a Mockingbird    Harper Lee   
2    Pride and Prejudice    Jane Austen  
3    The Book Thief    Markus Zusak  
4    Jane Eyre    Charlotte Bronte  
5    The Time Traveler's Wife    Audrey Niffenegger  
6    The Lord of the Rings    J. R. R. Tolkien  
7    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy    Douglas Adams  
8    Wuthering Heights    Emily Bronte   
9    Rebecca    Daphne Du Maurier  
10    The Kite Runner    Khaled Hosseini  
11    American Gods    Neil Gaiman  
12    A Thousand Splendid Suns    Khaled Hosseini  
13    Harry Potter Adult Hardback Boxed Set    J. K. Rowling 
14    The Shadow of the Wind    Carlos Ruiz Zafon  
15    The Hobbit    J. R. R. Tolkien  
16    One Day    David Nicholls   
17    Birdsong    Sebastian Faulks   
18    The Help    Kathryn Stockett   
19    Nineteen Eighty-Four    George Orwell  
20    Good Omens    Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman   
21    The Notebook    Nicholas Sparks  
22    The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo    Stieg Larsson 
23    The Handmaid's Tale    Margaret Atwood  
24    The Great Gatsby    F. Scott Fitzgerald   
25    Little Women    Louisa M. Alcott   
26    Memoirs of a Geisha    Arthur Golden   
27    The Lovely Bones    Alice Sebold   
28    Atonement    Ian McEwan   
29    Room    Emma Donoghue  
30    Catch-22    Joseph Heller 
31    We Need to Talk About Kevin    Lionel Shriver  
32    His Dark Materials    Philip Pullman  
33    Captain Corelli's Mandolin    Louis De Bernieres 
34    The Island    Victoria Hislop  
35    Neverwhere    Neil Gaiman 
36    The Poisonwood Bible    Barbara Kingsolver   
37    The Catcher in the Rye    J. D. Salinger 
38    Chocolat    Joanne Harris  
39    Never Let Me Go    Kazuo Ishiguro  
40    The Five People You Meet in Heaven    Mitch Albom   
41    One Hundred Years of Solitude    Gabriel Garcia Marquez   
42    Animal Farm    George Orwell   
43    The Pillars of the Earth    Ken Follett  
44    The Eyre Affair    Jasper Fforde   
45    Tess of the D'Urbervilles    Thomas Hardy 
46    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory    Roald Dahl   
47    I Capture the Castle    Dodie Smith   
48    The Wasp Factory    Iain Banks   
49    Life of Pi    Yann Martel  
50    The Road    Cormac McCarthy   
51    Great Expectations    Charles Dickens   
52    Dracula    Bram Stoker   
53    The Secret History    Donna Tartt  
54    Small Island    Andrea Levy   
55    The Secret Garden    Frances Hodgson Burnett  
56    Lord of the Flies    William Golding  
57    Persuasion    Jane Austen  
58    A Prayer for Owen Meany    John Irving   
59    Notes from a Small Island    Bill Bryson  
60    Watership Down    Richard Adams   
61    Night Watch    Terry Pratchett  
62    Brave New World    Aldous Huxley   
63    The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time    Mark Haddon   
64    Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell    Susanna Clarke   
65    The Color Purple    Alice Walker   
66    My Sister's Keeper    Jodi Picoult   
67    The Stand    Stephen King  
68    Cloud Atlas    David Mitchell   
69    The Master and Margarita    Mikhail Bulgakov   
70    Anna Karenina    Leo Tolstoy  
71    Cold Comfort Farm    Stella Gibbons  
72    Frankenstein    Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley   
73    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society    Mary Ann Shaffer   
74    The Picture of Dorian Gray    Oscar Wilde 
75    Gone with the Wind    Margaret Mitchell   
76    The Graveyard Book    Neil Gaiman   
77    The Woman in White    Wilkie Collins   
78    The Princess Bride    William Goldman  
79    A Suitable Boy    Vikram Seth
80    Perfume    Patrick Suskind   
81    The Count of Monte Cristo    Alexandre Dumas   
82    The God of Small Things    Arundhati Roy  
83    Middlemarch    George Eliot   
84    Dune    Frank Herbert   
85    Wolf Hall    Hilary Mantel   
86    Stardust    Neil Gaiman   
87    Lolita    Vladimir Nabokov   
88    Midnight's Children    Salman Rushdie   
89    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone    J. K. Rowling   
90    Shantaram    Gregory David Roberts  
91    The Remains of the Day    Kazuo Ishiguro   
92    Possession: A Romance    A. S. Byatt   
93    Tales of the City    Armistead Maupin   
94    Kafka on the Shore    Haruki Murakami   
95    The Magus    John Fowles   
96    The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas    John Boyne   
97    A Fine Balance    Rohinton Mistry  
98    Alias Grace    Margaret Atwood 
99    Norwegian Wood    Haruki Murakami   
100    The Wind-up Bird Chronicle    Haruki Murakami
To read more: http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books
So looking at the long list, it looks like my reading list is still a longg way to go.
Happy reading everyone!

11 comments:

  1. Honestly I don't know what it is about :D :D :D but it's also the film that I haven't watch yet and I wanna watch it :) Tho only thing I know is the song from the film is very beautiful ^_^

    https://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/bookseaohb.cgi?ISBN=0061689246&AREA=07&LANG=E

    Oh it's not expensive :) I should buy

    So which no. are you interested in ?

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  2. well i have read no 8, 42. that's all as i am more into non-fictions. many of the books are fictions i think. but i am keen to add up to my 'read' list, be it fic or non-fic :)
    get the book and tell me how does it go.

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  4. Bagaimanakah dgn penebangan anda ? :D
    (If it's not right, tell me na ka)

    Hmmmm no.8 and 42 :( not interesting for me hahaha
    betul betul betul most of them are fictions

    OK I will get it soon but I haven't finish the last one I have, 'Why is sex fun' hahahahaha just 3 chapters but already bored :(

    PS I just type something wrong :D :D :D

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  5. hi jeab, i'm back in the office today. still tired though from the long flight home. but happy that everything's done :)
    where is your new entry that i read?

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  6. O_O OH!!! I just notice your comment lol
    I'm waiting for finally proofread from someone hehehe :D

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  7. okay2 that's pressure on 'that' side :D

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