The Big Jubilee Read

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

BBC, 70 Books

The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign celebrating the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II by promoting reading for pleasure. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, with 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by the BBC and The Reading Agency on April 18, 2022. The selection process involved a long-list compiled from readers' suggestions, refined by librarians, booksellers, and literature specialists, and aims to engage readers in discovering and celebrating great books. Supported by the Arts Council, Libraries Connected, and the Booksellers Association, the project highlights the joy of reading and its power to connect people. The list includes 19 Booker Prize winners, mainly novels in English, but also features poetry and short story collections, as well as works originally published in Welsh and French.

This list was originally published in 2022 and was added to this site almost 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
859 The Palm-Wine Drinkard Amos Tutola 1952 Nigerian English
15910 The Hills Were Joyful Together Roger Mais 1953 Jamaican English
14788 In The Castle Of My Skin George Lamming 1953 Barbadian English
15910 My Bones And My Flute Edgar Mittelholzer 1955 British English
989 The Lonely Londoners Sam Selvon 1956 Trinidadian English
1300 The Guide R. K. Narayan 1958 Indian English
15910 To Sir, With Love E. R. Braithwaite 1959 British English
15910 One Moonlit Night Caradog Prichard 1961 Welsh Welsh
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
15910 Sunlight On A Broken Column Attia Hosain 1961 British English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
2140 The Interrogation J. M. G. Le Clezio 1963 French French
956 The Girls of Slender Means Muriel Spark 1963 British English
733 Arrow of God Chinua Achebe 1964 Nigerian English
15910 Death Of A Naturalist Seamus Heaney 1966 Irish English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
2267 A Grain Of Wheat Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 1967 Kenyan English
14200 Picnic At Hanging Rock Joan Lindsay 1967 Australian English
1502 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
14898 When Rain Clouds Gather Bessie Head 1968 Botswana English
15910 The Nowhere Man Kamala Markandaya 1972 British English
633 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John le Carré 1974 British English
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
17152 The Crow Eaters Bapsi Sidhwa 1978 Pakistani English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
1766 Who Do You Think You Are? Alice Munro 1978 Canadian English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
17152 Tsotsi Athol Fugard 1980 South African English
2538 Clear Light of Day Anita Desai 1980 Indian English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
9790 Beka Lamb Zee Edgell 1982 Belizean English
1145 The Bone People Keri Hulme 1984 New Zealand English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
17152 Summer Lightning Olive Senior 1986 Jamaican English
17152 The Whale Rider Witi Ihimaera 1987 New Zealand English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
17152 The Adoption Papers Jackie Kay 1991 British English
3827 Cloudstreet Tim Winton 1991 Australian English
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
5997 Paradise Abdulrazak Gurnah 1994 British English
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
14985 Salt Earl Lovelace 1996 Trinidadian English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
17152 The Blue Bedspread Raj Kamal Jha 1999 Indian English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
2486 Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 British English
3065 The Secret River Kate Grenville 2005 Australian English
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
17152 A Golden Age Tahmima Anam 2007 Bangladeshi English
6967 The Boat Nam Le 2008 Australian English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
8530 The Book Of Night Women Marlon James 2009 Jamaican English
17152 The Memory Of Love Aminatta Forna 2010 British English
14985 Chinaman Shehan Karunatilaka 2010 Sri Lankan English
9507 Our Lady Of The Nile Scholastique Mukasonga 2012 French French
3272 The Luminaries Eleanor Catton 2013 New Zealand English
14985 Behold the Dreamers Imbolo Mbue 2016 Cameroonian English
17152 The Bone Readers Jacob Ross 2016 British English
17152 How We Disappeared Jing-Jing Lee 2019 Singaporean English
3532 Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo 2019 British English
14985 The Night Tiger Yangsze Choo 2019 Malaysian English
7757 Shuggie Bain Douglas Stuart 2020 Scottish English
17152 A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam 2021 Sri Lankan English
8591 The Promise Damon Galgut 2021 South African English