'To Kill a Mockingbird' is America's favorite novel, reports PBS 'The Great American Read'

And "America’s best-loved novel” is … “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

PBS crowned Harper Lee’s 1960 Southern classic the winner Tuesday night during the final episode of “The Great American Read,” an eight-part series devoted to discovering readers’ favorite work of fiction.

Diana Gabaldon’s romantic time-traveling series “Outlander,” made even more popular by the Starz cable series, was second. J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books had the magic touch at third.

PBS invited the public to vote on 100 finalists, an ethnically and internationally diverse list that included literary classics, contemporary novels, young-adult favorites, children's books and mass-audience best-sellers such as the erotic “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy and James Patterson’s Alex Cross mysteries.

Host Meredith Vieira leads the final countdown to the winner of PBS' "The Great American Read."

Series like “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” competed with individual books including "Beloved" by Toni Morrison and "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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