And the winner is...

October 24, 2018 (297/365)

"There are many little ways to enlarge your world. Love of books is the best of all. - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Last May, I blogged about The Great American Read on PBS -- the series that "celebrates the power, passion and joy of reading through the lens of America's 100 best-loved books as chosen by the public." This fall, I have really enjoyed the episodes that curated the books into collections such as Who am I?, Heroes, Villains and Monsters, What We Do for Love, and Other Worlds.

Spoiler Alert! DO NOT read any further if you don't want to know the results of the voting!

To date, I have read 59/100 of America’s favorite books. Last night on the series finale, all 100 books were ranked in order. Some rankings shocked me:

• Hemingway at #66 (The Sun Also Rises) - No! 
• Le Petit Prince #33 - mais non!
• The Catcher in the Rye at #30 - absolutely not!
• The Great Gatsby was #15? How is that possible?

Throughout the show, the top five books were revealed:

• #5 Lord of the Rings (read it, saw the movies, studied the archives at Marquette)
• #4 Pride and Prejudice (❤️ - read it countless times, saw the movies -- especially love the PBS series with Colin Firth)
• #3 Harry Potter (read all the books in the series, saw all of the movies)
• #2 Outlander (the only book of the top 5 that I haven’t read, although I have watched the series on Starz)

And America’s favorite book is: 

Read it, taught it, love it!