Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird tops list of 100 of America's best-loved novels

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is the book that American readers loved best, according to the PBS television series The Great American Read. The results were announced on Oct. 23, 2018. 

Over the course of eight episodes, The Great American Read explored the power of reading through the prism of the country's 100 best-loved novels. The list was based on an initial survey of about 7,000 Americans, with an advisory panel of experts organizing the list.

More than 4 million votes were cast in the six-month-long contest that pitted the 100 titles against one another. Books that were published as a series counted as a single entry. 

To Kill a Mockingbird topped a list that included classics like Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger as well as contemporary titles like the The Book Thief by Markus Zuszak, the series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, The Martian by Andy Weir and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

Rounding out the top five are Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.

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To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and remains a fixture on school reading lists. The 1962 screen adaptation won three Oscars, including a best-actor trophy for Gregory Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch.

"The novel started out at No. 1 on the first day of the vote and it never wavered," said U.S. television personality series and host Meredith Vieira.

Lee won the Pulitzer Prize for the book after it was published in 1960. It remained the only book of her career until she published a sequel called Go Set a Watchman in 2015. Lee died in 2016 at the age of 89.

This fall, a graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted and illustrated by British writer Fred Fordham.

Four novels by Canadian authors made the 100-book list: Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (#11), A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (#26), who is a permanent resident of Canada, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (#34) and The Shack by William P. Young (#57).​

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Here is the complete list:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2. Outlander (series) by Diana Gabalon
3. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. Lord of the Rings (series) by J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
7. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
9. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by C.S. Lewis
10. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
11. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
12. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
13. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
14. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
17. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
18. 1984 by George Orwell
19. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
20. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
21. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
22. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
23. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
24. The Stand by Stephen King
25. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
26. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
27. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
28. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
29. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
30. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
31. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
32. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
33. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
34. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
35. Dune by Frank Herbert
36. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
37. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
38. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams
40. The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins
41. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 
42. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
43. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
44. The Giver by Lois Lowry
45. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
46. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
47. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
48. A Song of Ice and Fire (series) by George R.R. Martin
49. Foundation (series) by  Isaac Asimov
50. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
51. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
52. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
53. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
54. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
55. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
56. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
57. The Shack by William P. Young
58. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
59. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
60. Beloved by Toni Morrison
61. The Martian by Andy Weir
62. The Wheel of Time (series) by James Oliver Rigney 
63. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
64. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
65. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
66. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
69. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
70. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
71. Hatchet (series) by Gary Paulsen
72. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
73. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer 
74. Tales of the City (series) by Armistead Maupin
75. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
76. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
77. Left Behind (series) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
78. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
79. Watchers by Dean R. Koontz
80. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
81. Alex Cross (series) by James Patterson
82. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
83. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
84. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
85. Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
86. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
87. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
88. This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti
89. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
90. Another Country by James Baldwin
91. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
92. Looking for Alaska by John Green
93. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
94. Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
95. Mind Invaders by Dave Hunt
96. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
97. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
98. The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
99. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
100. Doña Bárbára by Rómulo Gallegos

— with files from the Associated Press