How Many of the BBC 100 Books Have You Read?

It is The Big Read, the BBC's 2003 search for the UK's best-loved novel. More than 700,000 votes came in, with a final round between the top 21. It is a reader vote, not a critics' list, so classics sit next to Harry Potter, Roald Dahl and several Terry Pratchett novels. The ranks and titles here match the BBC's published results.

No source for that claim has ever turned up. The social media meme that opens with "the BBC believes most people will have only read 6" uses a list that differs from the real Big Read in a number of places (it adds things like the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible). This checklist uses the actual Big Read top 100 and does not show any made-up average, only your own count and your friends'.

The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials and Gormenghast were voted for as whole series, so each counts as one book. The first four Harry Potter books were voted for separately, so they have four entries. If you only read part of a series, mark it "Unfinished".

There are 10 ranks based on finished books: 0 Picking the First Book, 1-5 Shelf Browser, 6-10 Weekend Reader, 11-20 Steady Reader, 21-30 Shelf Explorer, 31-40 Library Regular, 41-55 Story Collector, 56-70 Bookworm, 71-85 Walking Library, 86-100 Big Read Champion. Every rank adds one book to the stack the bear sits on. Unfinished books are counted separately and do not raise your rank.

Books you left unfinished come first, so you can pick them back up. After that it suggests short books (roughly under 300 pages, such as Animal Farm, A Christmas Carol or The Great Gatsby) from the category you read most, then short books from other categories, then the highest-ranked books you have not read.

Copy link puts your ticks into a short code at the end of the address (?r=...). When a friend opens it they see how many books you share, and which ones only one of you has read, updating as they tick their own. Nothing is sent to a server: your ticks live only in this browser and in the link you share.

No. There are many lists with that name, put together by magazines, bookshops and critics, and they disagree a lot. The Big Read is the one most often shared as "the BBC list", and it has a public source, which is why it is used here.

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