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The Votes Are In: Announcing Kansas City’s Best Loved Books

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by
Lindsey Foat
• Published on • Last modified on
Local Connections
Nearly 1,200 people weighed in on Kansas City’s best-loved book as part KCPT’s local engagement around the PBS series The Great American Read.

Casting votes online and at our voting booth, which visited 14 libraries across the metro, readers chose their favorite title from The Great American Read’s list of 100 books. More than 100 voters opted to submit a write-in candidate, the most popular of which was “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.

We met many readers who were working their way through all 100 books, and discovering new favorites along the way. Others knew what title they would vote for right away, including members of the Kansas City chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, who visited the voting booth to campaign for “Pride and Prejudice.”

Kansas City’s Best-Loved Books

20. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
19. "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
18. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
17. "The Handmaid’s Tale" by Margaret Atwood
16. "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon
15. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
14. "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C. S. Lewis
13. "1984" by George Orwell
12. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
11. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
10. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
9. "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery
8. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusack
6. "The Lord of the Rings" by J. R. R. Tolkien
5. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
4. "Charlotte’s Web" by E. B. White
3. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
2. "Harry Potter" by J. K. Rowling
1. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee


KCPT’s Storybooth also toured metro library branches, and readers young and old shared how they voted in The Great American Read.

Jane Austen Devotees Campaign during The Great American Read

Members of the Kansas City chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America visited KCPT's Great American Read voting booth to campaign for "Pride and Prejudice."

KCPT Storybooth | The Great American Read

The KCPT Storybooth traveled across the Kansas City Region asking readers how they're voting in The Great American Read.