According to a new Harris poll, The Bible has retained its place atop the list of America's favorite books. In fact, the second-ranked book, Gone with the Wind kept its spot for the second consecutive poll as well. The last poll was tallied in 2008.
Newcomers include: Moby Dick, Little Women, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Great Gatsby (feels odd calling them newcomers).
The four books that fell off the list are: Stephen King's The Stand (previously at #5), Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (#9), and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons (#s 6 and 8 respectively).
Here's the full list:
1) The Bible
2) Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
3) Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
4) The Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien
5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
7) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
8) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
9) The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
10) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gone With the Wind? Really? Have they read it lately? Are they thinking of the movie? And Little Women beats The Great Gatsby? Who are these people?
But it didn’t say “the best written books”, it said the “favorite” books. There is a big difference. Even people who aren’t big readers may have read “Gone with the Wind” & “Little Women”. And they may have found “Gatsby” a bit of a struggle. Anyway, I know if I had to rank them both ways, the lists would be in different orders.