The Great American Read

You don’t have to be 21 or even a citizen to cast your vote to choose “America’s Best-Loved Novel” from the 100 novels already chosen by the public. People have already cast their votes to the tune of nearly 2 million.

Host Meredith Vieira said, “People tend to forget how wonderful it is to fall in love with a piece of fiction.”

If the panel is any indicator, the multi-part series which features reflections by ordinary people as well as entertainment, sports, news and literary figures, will prove inspirational for writers as well as readers.

Consider Diana Gabaldon who learned how to not get writer’s block after while finishing her dissertation on (as simplistically translated from science speak by her husband) “Why Birds Build Nests Where They Do and Who Cares Anyway.” She was working two full-time jobs and had three children under the age of nine and got up and worked until 4 in the morning to write her first novel, “Outlander.” “I keep track of every word I write. The only bottom line is you just keep writing.” And you don’t need to have a plan. “I don’t plan books out ahead of time,” but works on bits and pieces before putting them all together. “I don’t write in a straight line.”

Gabaldon’s impetus for writing was turning 36. “I was 36 years old; at 36, Mozart was dead.” What became her first book wasn’t meant to be a book at all, “‘Outlander’ was my practice book.” Now that it is a TV series, more people are reading it. “You can’t have better advertisement for a book than a TV show.”

Like Gabaldon, Nicholas Sparks’ first novel, “The Notebook,” is on the list. He works by writing after coffee until 3 p.m., when the kids are out of school.  With his characters, Sparks believes, “less is more.” On the main character, Noah, he said, “I have no idea what he looks like. He looks like Ryan Gosling.”  But he also noted that television and movies are different. “In a movie, people like the story to end.” So he is fine with how the ending was changed in the movie because “people don’t like open ended movies.”

Of course, the panelists, which included actor, blogger and writer, Wil Wheaton, had favorites. There was no question which book (actually a series) Eliyannah Yisrael, creator of the YouTube series “Hermione Granger and the Quarter-Life Crisis” is voting for. She is “a proud Ravenclaw,” although “I was absolutely certain I was a Gryffindor.” She was actually 20 years old and assigned to check out Harry Potter by her mother who was concerned that the book was “too dark” for her 11-year-old brother. Twenty-four hours later, she had finished the first book, convinced that Hermione was “my long-lost twin sister” and totally hooked.

Executive producer Jane Root doesn’t feel that “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Vieira commented, “It would say something about our culture if it did.” Wheaton will be voting for “Dune” and he hoped Russia was listening. You can listen to people talking about these books on “The Great American Read,” Tuesdays, September 11 through October 23.

How to Vote:

1) – Go to pbs.org/greatamericanread – Click on “Vote” – Choose your favorite book 2) – Select your favorite book’s hashtag below – Post the hashtag on Facebook, or – Tweet the hashtag on Twitter

3) – Select your favorite book(s)’ hashtag below – Text it to 97979. Vote once a day, every day for every one of your favorite novels on the list.

List of Books

1. 1984 George Orwell #VOTE1984
2. A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole #VOTEDuncesBook
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving #VOTEOwenMeany
4. A Separate Peace John Knowles #VOTEPeaceBook
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith #VOTEBrooklyn
6. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain #VOTESawyer
7. The Alchemist Paulo Coelho #VOTEAlchemist
8. Alex Cross Mysteries (series) James Patterson #VOTEAlexCross
9. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll #VOTEAlice
10. Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie #VOTEAmericanah
11. And Then There Were None Agatha Christie #VOTEAndThen
12. Anne of Green Gables Lucy Maud Montgomery #VOTEGables
13. Another Country James Baldwin #VOTECountryBook
14. Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand #VOTEAtlas
15. Beloved Toni Morrison #VOTEBeloved
16. Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya #VOTEUltima
17. The Book Thief Markus Zusak #VOTEBookThief
18. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz #VOTEOscarWao
19. The Call of the Wild Jack London #VOTECallWild
20. Catch-22 Joseph Heller #VOTECatch22
21. The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger #VOTECatcherRye
22. Charlotte’s Web E.B. White #VOTECharlotte
23. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) C.S. Lewis #VOTENarnia
24. The Clan of the Cave Bear Jean M. Auel #VOTECaveBear
25. The Coldest Winter Ever Sister Souljah #VOTEWinterBook
26. The Color Purple Alice Walker #VOTEColorPurple
27. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas #VOTEMonteCristo
28. Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky #VOTECrimeBook
29. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon #VOTECurious
30. The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown #VOTEDaVinci
31. Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes #VOTEQuixote
32. Doña Bárbára Rómulo Gallegos #VOTEBarbara
33. Dune Frank Herbert #VOTEDune
34. Fifty Shades of Grey (series) E.L. James #VOTE50Shades
35. Flowers in the Attic V.C. Andrews #VOTEFlowers
36. Foundation (series) Isaac Asimov #VOTEFoundation
37. Frankenstein Mary Shelley #VOTEFrankenstein
38. A Game of Thrones (series) George R.R. Martin #VOTEGOT
39. Ghost Jason Reynolds #VOTEGhost
40. Gilead Marilynne Robinson #VOTEGilead
41. The Giver Lois Lowry #VOTETheGiver
42. The Godfather Mario Puzo #VOTEGodfather
43. Gone Girl Gillian Flynn #VOTEGoneGirl
44. Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell #VOTEGoneWind
45. The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck #VOTEGrapesWrath
46. Great Expectations Charles Dickens #VOTEGreatExpect
47. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald #VOTEGatsby
48. Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift #VOTEGulliver
49. The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood #VOTEHandmaid
50. Harry Potter (series) J.K. Rowling #VOTEPotter
51. Hatchet (series) Gary Paulsen #VOTEHatchet
52. Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad #VOTEHeartDark
53. The Help Kathryn Stockett #VOTETheHelp
54. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams #VOTEGalaxy
55. The Hunger Games (series) Suzanne Collins #VOTEHungerGames
56. The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy #VOTERedOctober
57. The Intuitionist Colson Whitehead #VOTEIntuition
58. Invisible Man Ralph Ellison #VOTEInvisible
59. Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë #VOTEJaneEyre
60. The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan #VOTEJoyLuck
61. Jurassic Park Michael Crichton #VOTEJurassic
62. Left Behind (series) Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins #VOTELeftBehind
63. The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry #VOTEPrinceBook
64. Little Women Louisa May Alcott #VOTELittleWomen
65. Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry #VOTELonesome
66. Looking for Alaska John Green #VOTEAlaska
67. The Lord of the Rings (series) J.R.R. Tolkien #VOTELOTR
68. The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold #VOTELovelyBones
69. The Martian Andy Weir #VOTEMartian
70. Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden #VOTEGeisha
71. Mind Invaders Dave Hunt #VOTEInvaders
72. Moby-Dick Herman Melville #VOTEMobyDick
73. The Notebook Nicholas Sparks #VOTENotebook
74. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez #VOTE100Years
75. Outlander (series) Diana Gabaldon #VOTEOutlander
76. The Outsiders S.E. Hinton #VOTEOutsiders
77. The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde #VOTEDorian
78. The Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan #VOTEPilgrims
79. The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett #VOTEPillars
80. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen #VOTEPridePrej
81. Ready Player One Ernest Cline #VOTEPlayer1
82. Rebecca Daphne du Maurier #VOTERebecca
83. The Shack William P. Young #VOTETheShack
84. Siddhartha Hermann Hesse #VOTESidd
85. The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut #VOTESirens
86. The Stand Stephen King #VOTETheStand
87. The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway #VOTESunRises
88. Swan Song Robert R. McCammon #VOTESwanSong
89. Tales of the City (series) Armistead Maupin #VOTETalesCity
90. Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston #VOTEWatchingGod
91. Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe #VOTEFallApart
92. This Present Darkness Frank E. Peretti #VOTEDarkness
93. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee #VOTEMockingbird
94. The Twilight Saga (series) Stephenie Meyer #VOTETwilight
95. War and Peace Leo Tolstoy #VOTEWarPeace
96. Watchers Dean Koontz #VOTEWatchers
97. The Wheel of Time (series) Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #VOTEWheelTime
98. Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls #VOTERedFern
99. White Teeth Zadie Smith #VOTEWhiteTeeth
100. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë #VOTEWuthering