The Times has done an online survey to find readers' 'most loved novels of the past 60 years' . "Hundreds" ( ) replied . Here's the top ten in the list:

1) To Kill a Mockingbird
2) The Pillars of the Earth [Follett]
3) Catch-22
4) The Lord of the Rings
5) The Catcher in the Rye
6) Nineteen Eighty-four
7) The Time Traveller's Wife [Niffenger]
8) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
9) The Secret History [Tartt]
10)Birdsong [Faulks]

What would you list?

[No dg, I haven't got a list. I have read novels but never finished any. I can say that I have seen the films though. Well, put it this way, I've seen the trailers of the films ]

Wow ! A Top Ten list of books that contains books that I have actually read. I am not sure I could do a Top 10, but, some faves of the era in my estimation (in no real order):

• The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
• The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
• It - Stephen King
• Insomnia - Stephen King
• The Stand - Stephen King

Actually, I guess all of the remaining Harry Potter books could round out my list at 12, as I look at the series more as one large, enjoyable adventure rather than seven books.

I enjoyed one on their list. Pillars of the Earth quite a bit, but, doubt I would ever rate it that high. It has been so long since I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy that I really do not know where I would rank it, but, likely it would fall just below the above list. I plan on re-reading the three all in 2010.

Goodness! Readers of The Times are pretty good, aren't they? The fact that they can work out that a list of novels of the last 60 years by definition excludes anything pre-1949 does NOT exclude Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. For even though he wrote it in 1948 (reversing the last two digits of the year to get the date he would use for his futuristic vision), the novel itdrlf wasn't published until the year after (1949), so it just qualifies. Wow!

Yes, Colin, we are an exceptional lot on matters literary ! Or, and more likely, we know that 1948 gave the novel its title, but it didn't appear until 1949, because that's the basis of a favourite question in pub quizzes. (You may guess how I know )

nice suggestions... thanks a lot