Reading for the Jubilee by Sarah Nicholson
Having a competitive nature, whenever a special book list is compiled, I immediately scan the list and count how many I have read. The BIG READ list in 2003 was decided by three quarters of a million votes from the British public, to determine the nation’s best loved novel. There are 200 books listed, many popular novelists feature more than once, including Pratchett, Rowling and Austen, so if you have devoured any of their writing you can score highly. I admit I have read all of the Harry Potter books and all of Jane Austen’s novels and my total for the Big Read List is approximately 50 out of the 200. I’ll say approximately because some I think I remember reading at school and might have skipped a few pages and then there are audio books – do they properly count? But even allowing for the multiple books by a single author my tally isn’t as great as I thought it would be. The BIG JUBLIEE READ of just seventy books has been drawn up with totally different criteria. There w...