Below is the league table of all books read based on annual member surveys. Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square has been No. 1 since 2007.
Note: This table is out of date, there will be a new methodology launched as part of our 20 Lovely Years celebration in July 2023.
| Title | Author | Rating | Year | Month | Owner | |
| 1 | Hangover Square | Patrick Hamilton | 3.93 | 2007 | July | Anthony |
| 2 | One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch | Aleksandr Solzhenstenitsyn | 3.80 | 2009 | June | Kay |
| 3 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | Ken Kesey | 3.71 | 2004 | March | EmmaJ |
| 4 | David Copperfield | Charles Dickens | 3.61 | 2010 | September | John |
| 5 | The Quiet American | Graham Greene | 3.50 | 2003 | July | EmmaT |
| 6 | London Belongs to Me | Norman Collins | 3.44 | 2016 | Sept | DKB |
| 7 | Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | 3.38 | 2008 | November | Anthony |
| 8 | What a Carve Up! | Jonathan Coe | 3.35 | 2007 | November | EmmaJ |
| 9 | Stoner | John Williams | 3.13 | 2013 | November | Sue |
| 10 | Brighton Rock | Graham Greene | 3.06 | 2004 | June | John |
| 11 | Therese Raquin | Emile Zola | 3.00 | 2013 | February | Sue |
| 12 | To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | 2.88 | 2014 | August | Miranda |
| 13 | Scoop | Evelyn Waugh | 2.80 | 2005 | January | EmmaJ |
| 14 | Alone in Berlin | Hans Fallada | 2.78 | 2011 | September | EmmaT |
| 15 | Brick Lane | Monica Ali | 2.74 | 2003 | September | EmmaJ |
| 16 | The Night Watch | Sarah Waters | 2.63 | 2012 | August | EmmaJ |
| 17 | City of Glass | Paul Auster | 2.53 | 2005 | May | EmmaT |
| 18 | In Cold Blood | Truman Capote | 2.50 | 2006 | July | John |
| What We Talk About When We Talk About Love | Raymond Carver | 2.50 | 2013 | July | John | |
| 20 | All Quiet on the Western Front | Erich Remarque | 2.48 | 2008 | June | Catherine |
| 21 | The Children Act | Ian McEwan | 2.44 | 2015 | July | EmmaT |
| 22 | Eleven Kinds of Loneliness | Richard Yates | 2.38 | 2013 | August | Baljit |
| 23 | The Sun Also Rises | Ernest Hemmingway | 2.36 | 2006 | August | Baljit |
| 24 | The Vegetarian | Han Kang | 2.33 | 2016 | April | EmmaT |
| 25 | The Pillowman | Martin McDonagh | 2.28 | 2009 | April | Catherine |
| Ethan Frome | Edith Wharton | 2.28 | 2009 | January | EmmaT | |
| 27 | Death and the Penguin | Andrew Kurkov | 2.25 | 2008 | May | John |
| The Talented Mr. Ripley | Patricia Highsmith | 2.25 | 2012 | November | Catherine | |
| A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickens | 2.25 | 2014 | January | Anthony | |
| 30 | Far from the Madding Crowd | Thomas Hardy | 2.22 | 2016 | July | Catherine |
| 31 | The Hound of the Baskervilles | Arthur Conan Doyle | 2.15 | 2009 | February | Baljit |
| 32 | The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | 2.13 | 2003 | December | Baljit |
| 33 | The Martian | Andy Weir | 2.11 | 2015 | Sept | JoS |
| In the Approaches | Nicola Barker | 2.11 | 2015 | June | EmmaJ | |
| The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet | David Mitchell | 2.11 | 2015 | May | Sue | |
| 36 | Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | 2.09 | 2004 | July | EmmaT |
| 37 | Nights at the Circus | Angela Carter | 2.08 | 2006 | February | EmmaT |
| 38 | To Build a Fire | Jack London | 2.02 | 2010 | July | DKB |
| 39 | Life After Life | Kate Atkinson | 2.00 | 2014 | February | EmmaT |
| Elizabeth is Missing | Emma Healey | 2.00 | 2015 | February | Baljit | |
| Brooklyn | Colm Toibin | 2.00 | 2016 | February | Sue | |
| 42 | The Sisters Brothers | Patrick deWitt | 1.95 | 2011 | October | EmmaJ |
| 43 | I, Claudius | Robert Graves | 1.89 | 2016 | January | Anthony |
| 44 | The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories | Leo Tolstoy | 1.88 | 2010 | February | Catherine |
| Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy | 1.88 | 2014 | December | DKB | |
| 46 | One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Marquez | 1.87 | 2005 | February | John |
| 47 | The Big Sleep | Raymond Chandler | 1.80 | 2008 | April | Anthony |
| 48 | Brideshead Revisited | Evelyn Waugh | 1.69 | 2012 | January | John |
| 49 | Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | 1.67 | 2006 | December | DKB |
| Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | 1.67 | 2006 | September | EmmaT | |
| 51 | Gone Girl | Gillian Flynn | 1.63 | 2013 | March | DKB |
| 52 | Under the Skin | Michel Faber | 1.62 | 2007 | August | Catherine |
| 53 | A Room with a View | EM Foster | 1.60 | 2005 | August | DKB |
| Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim | David Sedaris | 1.60 | 2005 | April | Baljit | |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | 1.60 | 2012 | October | Baljit | |
| 56 | Pereira Maintains | Antonio Tabucchi | 1.56 | 2016 | May | Jo |
| 57 | We Need To Talk About Kevin | Lionel Shriver | 1.55 | 2011 | December | DKB |
| The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | 1.55 | 2011 | November | Baljit | |
| 59 | If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller | Italo Calvino | 1.52 | 2003 | October | DKB |
| The Alchemist | Paulo Coelho | 1.52 | 2003 | August | Kay | |
| 61 | Christie Malry’s Own Double-entry | B.S. Johnson | 1.50 | 2007 | October | John |
| Bonfire of the Vanities | Tom Wolfe | 1.50 | 2007 | May | Kay | |
| Tender is the Night | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 1.50 | 2007 | February | John | |
| 64 | Catch 22 | Joseph Heller | 1.44 | 2010 | June | Baljit |
| Black Swan Green | David Mitchell | 1.44 | 2011 | June | Miranda | |
| 66 | The Man Who Fell to Earth | Walter Tevis | 1.41 | 2012 | April | Miranda |
| 67 | Dark Entries | Robert Aickman | 1.38 | 2014 | June | Catherine |
| 68 | The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle | Haruki Murakami | 1.29 | 2004 | October | Nate |
| The Outsider | Albert Camus | 1.29 | 2004 | August | Baljit | |
| 70 | Lie in the Dark | Dan Fesperman | 1.25 | 2006 | June | EmmaJ |
| 71 | A Country Doctor’s Notebook | Mikhail Bulgakov | 1.22 | 2015 | December | DKB |
| 72 | The Age of Innocence | Edith Wharton | 1.16 | 2010 | May | EmmaT |
| 73 | The Invention Of Morel | Adolfo Bioy Casares | 1.14 | 2009 | March | John |
| 74 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time | Mark Haddon | 1.13 | 2004 | February | Kay |
| 75 | Bright Lights, Big City | Jay McInerney | 1.03 | 2011 | April | John |
| The Spy Who Came in From the Cold | John le Carré | 1.03 | 2011 | March | Catherine | |
| Mrs Palfrey At The Claremont | Elizabeth Taylor | 1.03 | 2012 | June | DKB | |
| The Sense of an Ending | Julian Barnes | 1.03 | 2012 | May | Sue | |
| 79 | Alias Grace | Margaret Atwood | 1.00 | 2015 | January | Catherine |
| 80 | Mister Pip | Lloyd Jones | 0.90 | 2008 | August | Baljit |
| The Stars My Destination | Alfred Bester | 0.90 | 2008 | July | DKB | |
| 82 | A Far Cry from Kensington | Muriel Spark | 0.89 | 2009 | May | EmmaJ |
| 83 | The End of the Affair | Graham Greene | 0.88 | 2013 | September | Catherine |
| 84 | Clybourne Park | Bruce Norris | 0.83 | 2011 | July | DKB |
| 85 | Death of a Salesman | Arthur Miller | 0.81 | 2004 | December | DKB |
| 86 | Small Island | Andrea Levy | 0.80 | 2005 | September | EmmaJ |
| 87 | The Bottle Factory Outing | Beryl Bainbridge | 0.78 | 2015 | November | Baljit |
| As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning | Laurie Lee | 0.78 | 2016 | Oct | Anthony | |
| 89 | Will you Please Be Quiet, Please? | Raymond Carver | 0.72 | 2010 | January | John |
| 90 | The Enchantment of Lily Dahl | Siri Hustvedt | 0.67 | 2005 | December | DKB |
| High-Rise | J.G. Ballard | 0.67 | 2015 | April | Miranda | |
| 92 | Moon Tiger | Penelope Lively | 0.63 | 2013 | May | EmmaT |
| The Maltese Falcon | Dashiell Hammett | 0.63 | 2014 | July | Anthony | |
| 94 | Strangers on a Train | Patricia Highsmith | 0.58 | 2010 | December | DKB |
| Revolutionary Road | Richard Yates | 0.58 | 2010 | October | Catherine | |
| 96 | Home | Marilynne Robinson | 0.51 | 2009 | November | Baljit |
| 97 | Hard Times | Charles Dickens | 0.47 | 2012 | February | Catherine |
| 98 | December Heat | Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza | 0.45 | 2008 | March | EmmaJ |
| The Prime Minister: The Job and Its Holders Since 1945 | Peter Hennessy | 0.45 | 2008 | January | Baljit | |
| 100 | Beyond Black | Hilary Mantel | 0.44 | 2015 | October | Catherine |
| The Ministry of Fear | Graham Greene | 0.44 | 2016 | Dec | DKB | |
| 102 | The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox | Maggie O’Farrell | 0.43 | 2010 | November | EmmaJ |
| Mrs Dalloway | Virginia Woolf | 0.43 | 2010 | April | Anthony | |
| 104 | Blink | Malcolm Gladwell | 0.42 | 2006 | November | Kay |
| 105 | Frankenstein | Mary Shelley | 0.38 | 2013 | October | Miranda |
| 106 | The End of Mr. Y | Scarlett Thomas | 0.35 | 2007 | December | DKB |
| 107 | Three Days of Rain | Richard Greenberg | 0.34 | 2008 | December | DKB |
| 108 | 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen R. Covey | 0.32 | 2004 | November | Kay |
| 109 | The Beautiful and Damned | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 0.28 | 2012 | December | DKB |
| Oedipus the King | Sophocles | 0.28 | 2012 | September | John | |
| 111 | The Fault in Our Stars | John Green | 0.25 | 2013 | December | DKB |
| Every Contact Leaves a Trace | Elanor Dymott | 0.25 | 2013 | June | EmmaJ | |
| No One Belongs Here More Than You | Miranda July | 0.25 | 2014 | November | EmmaJ | |
| We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves | Karen Joy Fowler | 0.25 | 2014 | September | Sue | |
| 115 | A Thousand Splendid Suns | Khaled Hosseini | 0.23 | 2008 | February | Kay |
| 116 | Uncommon Danger | Eric Ambler | 0.22 | 2016 | Nov | Sue |
| 117 | In the Company of the Courtesan | Sarah Dunant | 0.14 | 2006 | April | DKB |
| Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds | Charles Mackay | 0.14 | 2006 | March | Kay | |
| Neuromancer | William Gibson | 0.14 | 2006 | January | Nate | |
| The Tell-Tale Heart | Edgar Allan Poe | 0.14 | 2010 | July | DKB | |
| 121 | Quantity Theory of Insanity | Will Self | 0.13 | 2005 | July | Kay |
| The Black Dahlia | James Ellroy | 0.13 | 2009 | September | DKB | |
| Something to Tell You | Hanif Kureishi | 0.13 | 2009 | July | Anthony | |
| 124 | The Blindfold | Siri Hustvedt | 0.13 | 2013 | April | Anthony |
| 125 | The Girl in the Photograph | Kate Riordan | 0.11 | 2015 | March | Anthony |
| How to Be Both | Ali Smith | 0.11 | 2016 | March | EmmaJ | |
| 127 | The End of the Party | Andrew Rawnsley | 0.10 | 2011 | February | Baljit |
| Seven Years in Tibet | Heinrich Harre | 0.10 | 2011 | January | EmmaT | |
| Bin | Hey Nostradamus! | Douglas Coupland | 0.00 | 2004 | May | DKB |
| Diary | Chuck Palahniuk | 2004 | April | Nate | ||
| A Canticle for Leibowitz | Walter M. Miller | 2004 | January | EmmaT | ||
| Ways Of Hearing: A User’s Guide To The Pop Psyche From Elvis to Eminem | Ben Thompson | 2005 | November | John | ||
| Letters from the Earth | Mark Twain | 2006 | October | Nate | ||
| Catfish and Mandala | Andrew Pham | 2007 | April | EmmaT | ||
| Difficult Daughters | Manju Kapoor | 2007 | March | Baljit | ||
| Arlington Park | Rachel Cusk | 2008 | October | EmmaJ | ||
| What I Talk About When I Talk About Running | Haruki Murakami | 2008 | September | Kay | ||
| The Crying of Lot 49 | Thomas Pynchon | 2009 | December | DKB | ||
| Answering Back | Carol Ann Duffy | 2009 | October | EmmaT | ||
| The Lottery | Shirley Jackson | 2010 | July | DKB | ||
| The Cask of Amontillado | Edgar Allan Poe | 2010 | July | DKB | ||
| The Purloined Letter | Edgar Allan Poe | 2010 | July | DKB | ||
| The Minister’s Black Veil | Nathaniel Hawthorne | 2010 | July | DKB | ||
| Shadow Web | NM Browne | 2010 | March | EmmaJ | ||
| Rabbit, Run | John Updike | 2011 | May | Anthony | ||
| The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop | Lewis Buzbee | 2012 | July | EmmaT | ||
| In Patagonia | Bruce Chatwin | 2012 | March | Anthony | ||
| Love in a Cold Climate | Nancy Mitford | 2013 | January | Miranda | ||
| A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine | Tony Benn | 2014 | May | Baljit | ||
| Autobiography | Morrissey | 2014 | April | John | ||
| The Invisible Circus | Jennifer Egan | 2014 | March | EmmaJ | ||
| The Mandibles | Lionel Shriver | 2016 | June | Willow |
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How This Table is Calculated
Each year, our membership is asked to sequence the year’s titles in order of enjoyment, as well as rate the overall quality of the year’s selections. A weighted calculation of both is combined to create the above table which is updated annually.