On 5 November 2019, the BBC published a list of english novels selected by a panel of six writers and critics, who had been asked to choose 100 English language novels "that have had an impact on their lives". The resulting list of "100 novels that shaped our world", called the "100 Most Inspiring Novels" by BBC News, was published by the BBC to kick off a year of celebrating literature.

The list triggered comments from critics and other news agencies. News agencies from outside the United Kingdom, like Canadian broadcaster CBC News and Nigerian news website Legit.ng, profiled authors with works included in the list who were nationals of their countries. The Guardian noted surprising titles missing from the list, like Moby-Dick (1851), and writing in The Daily Telegraph, Jake Kerridge called it "a short-sighted list that will please nobody."

The BBC relied on six experts: Stig Abell, Mariella Frostrup, Juno Dawson, Kit de Waal, Alexander McCall Smith and Syima Aslam. The CBC characterized the panel as composed of "writers, curators and critics". According to The Guardian, the list commemorated the publication of Robinson Crusoe (1719), 300 years earlier – "widely seen as the progenitor of the English-language novel".

The panel broke their list into ten categories of ten items.

+ List of BBC's "100 Most Inspiring Novels" Title Author Firstpublished BBCcategory Author'snationality Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 Identity American Days Without End Sebastian Barry 2016 Identity Irish Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels 1996 Identity Canadian Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Identity Nigerian Homegoing Yaa Gyasi 2016 Identity Ghanaian American Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 Identity British The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 Identity American The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Identity Indian Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Identity Nigerian White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 Identity British Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 Love, Sex & Romance British Forever... Judy Blume 1975 Love, Sex & Romance American Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 Love, Sex & Romance American Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 Love, Sex & Romance British Riders Jilly Cooper 1985 Love, Sex & Romance British Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 Love, Sex & Romance American The Far Pavilions M. M. Kaye 1978 Love, Sex & Romance British The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak 2009 Love, Sex & Romance Turkish The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 Love, Sex & Romance British The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 Love, Sex & Romance British City of Bohane Kevin Barry 2011 Adventure Irish Eye of the Needle Ken Follett 1978 Adventure British For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 Adventure American His Dark Materials (trilogy) Philip Pullman 1995 Adventure British Ivanhoe Walter Scott 1819 Adventure British Mr Standfast John Buchan 1919 Adventure British The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 Adventure American The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 Adventure American The Jack Aubrey Novels (series) Patrick O’Brian 1969 Adventure British The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1954 Adventure British A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 Life, Death & Other Worlds American Astonishing the Gods Ben Okri 1995 Life, Death & Other Worlds Nigerian Dune Frank Herbert 1966 Life, Death & Other Worlds American Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 Life, Death & Other Worlds British Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 Life, Death & Other Worlds American The Chronicles of Narnia (series) C. S. Lewis 1950 Life, Death & Other Worlds British Discworld (series) Terry Pratchett 1983 Life, Death & Other Worlds British Earthsea (trilogy) Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 Life, Death & Other Worlds American The Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 Life, Death & Other Worlds British The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 Life, Death & Other Worlds American A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini 2007 Politics, Power & Protest Afghan-American Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 Politics, Power & Protest British Home Fire Kamila Shamsie 2017 Politics, Power & Protest British Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 Politics, Power & Protest British Noughts & Crosses Malorie Blackman 2001 Politics, Power & Protest British Strumpet City James Plunkett 1969 Politics, Power & Protest Irish The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 Politics, Power & Protest American To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 Politics, Power & Protest American V for Vendetta Alan Moore 1982 Politics, Power & Protest British Unless Carol Shields 2002 Politics, Power & Protest Canadian A House for Mr Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Class & Society Trinidadian Cannery Row John Steinbeck 1945 Class & Society American Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 Class & Society South African Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 Class & Society British Poor Cow Nell Dunn 1967 Class & Society British Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe 1958 Class & Society British The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne Brian Moore 1955 Class & Society British Canadian The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 Class & Society British The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 Class & Society British Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 Class & Society British Emily of New Moon L. M. Montgomery 1923 Coming of Age Canadian Golden Child Claire Adam 2019 Coming of Age Trinidadian Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood 2003 Coming of Age Canadian So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1979 Coming of Age American Swami and Friends R. K. Narayan 1935 Coming of Age Indian The Country Girls Edna O’Brien 1960 Coming of Age Irish Harry Potter (series) J. K. Rowling 1997 Coming of Age British The Outsiders S. E. Hinton 1967 Coming of Age American The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ Sue Townsend 1982 Coming of Age British Twilight (series) Stephenie Meyer 2005 Coming of Age American A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Family & Friendship Indian Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild 1935 Family & Friendship British Cloudstreet Tim Winton 1991 Family & Friendship Australian Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 Family & Friendship British I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 Family & Friendship British Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 Family & Friendship British Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 Family & Friendship American The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Family & Friendship American The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 Family & Friendship British The Witches Roald Dahl 1983 Family & Friendship British American Tabloid James Ellroy 1995 Crime & Conflict American American War Omar El Akkad 2017 Crime & Conflict Egyptian Canadian Ice Candy Man Bapsi Sidhwa 1988 Crime & Conflict British Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 Crime & Conflict British Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 Crime & Conflict British The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 Crime & Conflict British The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1901 Crime & Conflict British The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid 2007 Crime & Conflict Pakistani The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 Crime & Conflict American The Quiet American Graham Greene 1955 Crime & Conflict British A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 Rule Breakers American Bartleby, the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853 Rule Breakers American Habibi Craig Thompson 2011 Rule Breakers American How to Be Both Ali Smith 2014 Rule Breakers British Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 Rule Breakers British Nights at the Circus Angela Carter 1984 Rule Breakers British Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell 1949 Rule Breakers British Psmith, Journalist P. G. Wodehouse 1909 Rule Breakers British The Moor's Last Sigh Salman Rushdie 1995 Rule Breakers British Zami: A New Spelling of My Name Audre Lorde 1982 Rule Breakers American

See also Criticism of the BBC Classical Literature Old English literature Medieval Literature Renaissance Literature

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