A couple of months ago the Guardian published a list of 100 books as chosen by a select few writers, critics and academics. We at Longridge Book thought we could do much better, so set about compiling our own list which we felt better resonated with our members.

Chair of Longridge Book Club Millie Roberts said

“This list is compiled by our members with the aim of being relevant to modern readers. 

It contains a wonderful mix of classic books and contemporary works which reflects the diverse reading tastes of our members.”

Longridge Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month at Applejacks in Longridge.

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The List

1. Jane Eyre — Charlotte Bronte

2. To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee

3. Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë

4. The Lord of the Rings — JRR Tolkien

5. Pride and Prejudice — Jane Austin

6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo — Taylor Jenkins Reid

7. 1984 — George Orwell

8. A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini

9. Mort — Terry Pratchett

10. The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood

11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — J. K. Rowling

12. The Housemaid — Frieda McFadden

13. The Colour Purple — Alice Walker

14. Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens

15. The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkien

16. The Women — Kristin Hannah

17. The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini

18. Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury

19. The Northern Lights — Philip Pullman

20. Lord of the flies — William Golding

21. 11.22.63 — Stephen King

22. A Rural Affair — Catherine Alliott

23. Chasing Cassandra — Lisa Kleypas

24. Fourth Wing — Rebecca Yarros

25. Catcher in the Rye — J D Salinger

26. The Paper Palace — Miranda Cowley Heller

27. The Nightingale — Kirstin Hannah

28. No Country for Old Men — Cormac McCarthy

29. Nothing to Envy — Barbara Demick

30. The Magus — John Fowles31. To Sir with Love — ER Braithwaite

32. Duplicity — Sibel Hodge

33. Marrying Winterbourne — Lisa Kleypas

34. American Dirt — Jeanie Cummins

35. Midnight’s Children — Salman Rushdie

36. The Rosie Project — Graeme Simsion

37. Verity — Colleen Hoover

38. Life of Pi — Yann Martel

39. Humanly Possible — Sarah Bakewell

40. The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper — Hallie Rubenhold

41. Watership Down — Richard Adams

42. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time — Mark Haddon

43. Trainspotting — Irvine Welsh

44. Rebecca — Daphne de Maurier

45. An offer from a Gentleman — Julia Quinn

46. Angels & Demons — Dan Brown

47. The Beekeeper of Aleppo — Christy Lefteri

48. The Fountainhead — Ayn Rand

49. Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry

50. The Midnight Library — Matt Haig

51. Half a World Away — Mike Gayle

52. The Reformatory — Tananarive Due

53. It Ends with Us — Colleen Hoover

54. War of the Worlds — H G Wells

55. Tegami Bachi Volume 20 — Hiroyuki Asada

56. Never — Ken Follett

57. The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald

58. Shuggie Bain — Douglas Stuart

59. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley

60. The Only Way is Up — Carole Matthews

61. Romancing Mr Bridgerton — Julia Quinn

62. City of Girls — Elizabeth Gilbert

63. Dune — Frank Herbert

64. A Fine Balance — Rohinton Mistry65. The Five People You Meet In Heaven — Mitch Albom

66. Wrong Place Wrong Time — Gillian McAllister

67. A Court of Mist and Fury — Sarah J Maas

68. Kill for Me Kill for You — Steve Cavanagh

69. The Kamogawa Food Detectives — Hisashi Kashiwai

70. The Picture of Dorian Gray — Oscar Wilde

71. American Psycho — Bret Easton Ellis

72. Moonwalking with Einstein — J Foer

73. The Perfect Couple — Lisa Hall

74. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde — Robert Louis Stevenson

75. Once Upon A River — Diane Setterfield

76. The Stand — Stephen King

77. Let Me In — Clare Mackintosh

78. Bewitched — Laura Thalassa

79. The Inmate — Freida McFadden

80. All the Pretty Horses — Cormac McCarthy

81. Howl’s Moving Castle — Diana Wynne Jones

82. Joyland — Stephen King

83. A Little Life — Hanya Yanugihara

84. The Beach — Alex Garland

85. My Left Foot — Christy Brown

86. The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck

87. Between you and me — Lisa Hall

88. Northanger Abbey — Jane Austin

89. Yellowface — R. F. Kuang

90. The Dutch House — Ann Patchett

91. Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami

92. All the Light We Cannot See — Anthony Doerr

93. The Silent Patient — Alex Michaelidis

94. Boy — Roald Dahl

95. One Day — David Nicholls

96. Weyward — Emilia Hart

97. The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett

98. Gender Queer — Maia Kobabe99. Rotherweird — Andrew Caldecott

100. I Who Have Never Known Men — Jacqueline Harpman