The Great American Read names a winner—where did A Game of Thrones place?

Since May, PBS has been airing episodes of The Great American Read, a series designed to discover America’s favorite book. (Note that this was about America’s favorite book, not the favorite book written by an American; foreign authors are very much in play.) Now, after over 4 million votes, America has picked a winner: To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s classic novel about racial tensions in 1934 Alabama:

I can’t be too mad about that; readers have been loving To Kill a Mockingbird for decades. Per PBS, it was in the lead since the very start. I do, however, wish George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones had placed a little higher in the rankings, although the author himself seemed perfectly pleased with it:

Here’s the full list:

  1. To Kill a Mockingbird
  2. Outlander (Series)
  3. Harry Potter (Series)
  4. Pride and Prejudice
  5. Lord of the Rings
  6. Gone with the Wind
  7. Charlotte’s Web
  8. Little Women
  9. Chronicles of Narnia
  10. Jane Eyre
  11. Anne of Green Gables
  12. The Grapes of Wrath
  13. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
  14. Book Thief
  15. The Great Gatsby
  16. The Help
  17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  18. 1984
  19. And Then There Were None
  20. Atlas Shrugged
  21. Wuthering Heights
  22. Lonesome Dove
  23. The Pillars of the Earth
  24. The Stand
  25. Rebecca
  26. A Prayer for Owen Meany
  27. The Color Purple
  28. Alice in Wonderland
  29. Great Expectations
  30. The Catcher in the Rye
  31. Where the Red Fern Grows
  32. Outsiders
  33. The Da Vinci Code
  34. The Handmaid’s Tale
  35. Dune
  36. The Little Prince
  37. Call of the Wild
  38. The Clan of the Cave Bear
  39. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy
  40. The Hunger Games
  41. The Count of Monte Cristo
  42. The Joy Luck Club
  43. Frankenstein
  44. The Giver
  45. Memoirs of a Geisha
  46. Moby Dick
  47. Catch 22
  48. Game of Thrones (series)
  49. Foundation (series)
  50. War and Peace
  51. Their Eyes Were Watching God
  52. Jurassic Park
  53. The Godfather
  54. One Hundred Years of Solitude
  55. The Picture of Dorian Gray
  56. The Notebook
  57. The Shack
  58. A Confederacy of Dunces
  59. The Hunt for Red October
  60. Beloved
  61. The Martian
  62. The Wheel of Time (series)
  63. Siddhartha
  64. Crime and Punishment
  65. The Sun Also Rises
  66. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
  67. A Separate Peace
  68. Don Quixote
  69. The Lovely Bones
  70. The Alchemist
  71. Hatchet (series)
  72. Invisible Man
  73. The Twilight Saga (series)
  74. Tales of the City (series)
  75. Gulliver’s Travels
  76. Ready Player One
  77. Left Behind (series)
  78. Gone Girl
  79. Watchers
  80. The Pilgrim’s Progress
  81. Alex Cross Mysteries (series)
  82. Things Fall Apart
  83. Heart of Darkness
  84. Gilead
  85. Flowers in the Attic
  86. Fifty Shades of Grey
  87. The Sirens of Titan
  88. This Present Darkness
  89. Americanah
  90. Another Country
  91. Bless Me, Ultima
  92. Looking for Alaska
  93. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
  94. Swan Song
  95. Mind Invaders
  96. White Teeth
  97. Ghost
  98. The Coldest Winter Ever
  99. The Intuitionist
  100. Doña Bárbára

Outlander beat A Game of ThronesOutlander beat Harry Potter? People really like Outlander.

It’s also interesting that, in the voting rounds, A Game of Thrones specifically was in contention, but what’s actually honored is the Game of Thrones series. And of course, as we all know, it should be listed as the Song of Ice and Fire series, but whatever. Congratulations to all the books that made it on!

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Even if A Game of Thrones didn’t place as highly as it could have, The Great American Read was a fun watch, not least because George R.R. Martin occasionally popped up to give his thoughts on literature, both his and other people’s. Here he is on his process for writing villains…

…here he is talking about The Lord of the Rings, probably the single biggest influence on A Song of Ice and Fire

…and here he discusses The Great Gatsby, a favorite of his:

If PBS does this again in the near future, after The Winds of Winter comes out, I bet A Song of Ice and Fire will place higher. Food for thought.

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h/t Entertainment Weekly