Big Read
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The Big Read was a 2003 survey carried out by the BBC, with the goal of finding the "Nation's Best-loved Book", by way of a viewer vote. The show attracted controversy for adopting an allegedly sensationalist approach to literature, though supporters praised it for raising the public awareness of reading.
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Results
- The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Hungarian Version
The Big Read has been imported into Hungary under the name A Nagy Könyv (see [1] (http://www.anagykonyv.hu/)) and is currently taking place in 2005. Voting for the Top 100 ended on April 23, when the 50 "foreign" and 50 Hungarian most popular novels were selected. This round proved to be far more popular in Hungary (with a population of 10 million) than in the U.K. (with a population of 60 million), with 400,000 votes arriving (as opposed to 140,000 votes in the U.K. competition in the corresponding period). On June 11, the Top 12 novels were chosen in the framework of a television show presented by cultural celebrities. Presently 12 short films are being made from these novels, so that on December 17, 2005, the population can select their ultimate favourite, which will then become "the most liked novel of Hungary 2005".
The Top 12 favourite novels in Hungary were the following:
- The Paul Street Boys (Ferenc Molnár; appeared under the same title in English)
- "Stars of Eger" (Géza Gárdonyi; appeared as Eclipse of the Crescent Moon)
- The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
- Winnie-the-Pooh (Milne)
- The Little Prince (Saint-Exupéry)
- "Abigail" (Magda Szabó; no English translation available)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
- "Thorn Castle" (István Fekete; no English translation available)
- Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell)
- The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov)
- "The Golden Man" (Mór Jókai; appeared as Timar's Two Worlds, Modern Midas, The man with the golden touch)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (García Márquez)
- (Titles in quotation marks are literal translations.)
See also
External links
BBC Big Read Website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/vote/)