People talk a lot about the wisdom of crowds, but the truth is that large packs of people are better at judging some things than others.
Almost 16,000 of you cast some 136,000 votes in our Best Beach Books Ever poll. Whether such a vote can determine literary quality, who can say? But there's one thing a multitude of book-loving NPR types can most definitely do, and that's pick a list of books that will appeal to... book-loving NPR types.
Which means, if you're reading this, you stand an excellent chance of finding the book that will make your summer vacation among the 100 audience favorites below. Happy travels!
1.The Harry Potter series, byJ.K. Rowling
2.To Kill a Mockingbird, byHarper Lee
3.The Kite Runner, byKhaled Hosseini
4.Bridget Jones's Diary,byHelen Fielding
5.Pride and Prejudice,byJane Austen
6.Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,byRebecca Wells
7.The Great Gatsby,byF. Scott Fitzgerald
8.The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,byDouglas Adams
9.Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe,byFannie Flagg
10.The Poisonwood Bible,byBarbara Kingsolver
11.The Time Traveler's Wife,byAudrey Niffenegger
12.Life of Pi,byYann Martel
13.The Joy Luck Club,byAmy Tan
14.The Hobbit,byJ.R.R. Tolkien
15.The Catcher in the Rye,byJ.D. Salinger
16.Gone with the Wind,byMargaret Mitchell
17.Bel Canto,byAnn Patchett
18.The Lord of the Rings,byJ.R.R. Tolkien
19.Middlesex,byJeffrey Eugenides
20.Water for Elephants,bySara Gruen
21.The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,by Mark Twain
22.The Bean Trees,byBarbara Kingsolver
23.The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency,byAlexander McCall Smith
24.The World According to Garp,byJohn Irving
25.Catch-22,byJoseph Heller
26.The Prince of Tides,byPat Conroy
27.Like Water for Chocolate,byLaura Esquivel
28.The Princess Bride,byWilliam Goldman
29.The Accidental Tourist, byAnne Tyler
30.Twilight,byStephenie Meyer
31.A Confederacy of Dunces,byJohn Kennedy Toole
32.East of Eden,byJohn Steinbeck
33.The Red Tent,byAnita Diamant
34.Beach Music,byPat Conroy
35.One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36.Rebecca,byDaphne Du Maurier
37.Ender's Game,byOrson Scott Card
38.Lonesome Dove,byLarry McMurtry
39.The Thorn Birds,byColleen McCullough
40.The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,byMichael Chabon
41.Pillars of the Earth,byKen Follett
42.Anna Karenina,byLeo Tolstoy
43.Interview with the Vampire,byAnne Rice
44.Cold Mountain, byCharles Frazier
45.Empire Falls,byRichard Russo
46.Under the Tuscan Sun,byFrances Mayes
47.The Count of Monte Cristo,byAlexandre Dumas
48.Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,byTom Robbins
49.I Know This Much Is True,byWally Lamb
50.Murder on the Orient Express,byAgatha Christie
51.Little Women,byLouisa May Alcott
52.The Stand,byStephen King
53.She's Come Undone,byWally Lamb
54.Dune,byFrank Herbert
55.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,byMary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
56.Love in the Time of Cholera,byGabriel Garcia Marquez
57.Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,byLewis Carroll
58.Lolita, byVladimir Nabokov
59.The Godfather,byMario Puzo
60.A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,byBetty Smith
61.Animal Dreams,byBarbara Kingsolver
62.Jaws,byPeter Benchley
63.Good in Bed,byJennifer Weiner
64.Angle of Repose,byWallace Stegner
65.Snow Falling on Cedars,byDavid Guterson
66.The Old Man and the Sea,byErnest Hemingway
67.The Fountainhead,byAyn Rand
68.Breakfast of Champions,byKurt Vonnegut
69.Cat's Cradle,byKurt Vonnegut
70.The Big Sleep,byRaymond Chandler
71.The Sun Also Rises,byErnest Hemingway
72.The Hunt for Red October,byTom Clancy
73.Cold Sassy Tree,byOlive Ann Burns
74.The Lord of the Flies,byWilliam Golding
74.Bonfire of the Vanities,byTom Wolfe [tie]
76.Wuthering Heights,byEmily Bronte
77.Outlander,byDiana Gabaldon
78.The Shell Seekers,byRosamunde Pilcher
79.Prodigal Summer,byBarbara Kingsolver
80.Eye of the Needle,byKen Follett
81.Cannery Row,byJohn Steinbeck
81.The Pilot's Wife,byAnita Shreve [tie]
83.All the Pretty Horses,byCormac McCarthy
84.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,byStieg Larsson
85.The Little Prince,byAntoine De Saint-Exupery
86.The Road,byCormac McCarthy
87.One for the Money,byJanet Evanovich
88.Shogun,byJames Clavell
89.Dracula,byBram Stoker
90.The Unbearable Lightness of Being,byMilan Kundera
91.Presumed Innocent,byScott Turow
92.Franny and Zooey,byJ.D. Salinger
93.The Secret History,byDonna Tartt
94.Dead Until Dark,byCharlaine Harris
95.Summer Sisters,byJudy Blume
96.The Shining,byStephen King
97.How Stella Got Her Groove Back,byTerry McMillan
98.Lamb,byChristopher Moore
99.Sick Puppy,byCarl Hiaasen
100. Treasure Island,byRobert Louis Stevenson
More Beach Reading
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