The Books of the
Century
In
September 1996 Waterstones,
in association with Channel 4 television, launched a
U.K. search for the greatest books of the twentieth
century - a chance for you, the reading public, to
have your say. There was an overwhelming response,
and a huge variety of books and authors voted for;
over four thousand separate books, from On the Road
to The Highway Code, from The Female Eunuch to Men
Behaving Badly, from James Joyce to James and The
Giant Peach.
The
hundred books listed here illustrate the richness
and variety of twentieth century literature and some
others that got away.
1.
The Lord of the Rings , J. R. R. Tolkien
2. 1984
, George Orwell
3. Animal
Farm , George Orwell
4. Ulysses,
James Joyce
5. Catch-22,
Joseph Heller
6. The
Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Salinger
7. To
Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee
8. One
Hundred Years of Solitude , Gabriel Garcia
Marquez
9. The
Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
10.
Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
11.
Wild Swans, Jung Chang
12. The
Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. The
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
14. On
the Road, Jack Kerouac
15.
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
16. The
Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17.
Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
18. The
Color Purple, Alice Walker
19. The
Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
20. The
Outsider, Albert Camus
21. The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
22. The
Trial, Franz Kafka
23. Gone
with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
24 The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas
Adams
25.
Midnight's Children,
Salman Rushdie
26. The
Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
27. A
Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
28. Sons
and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
29.To
the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
30. If
This is a Man, Primo Levi
31.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
32. The
Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
33. A La
Recherche du Temps Perdu, Marcel Proust
34.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
35. Of
Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
36.
Beloved, Toni Morrison
37.
Possession, A. S. Byatt
38. The
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
39.A
Passage to India, E. M. Forster
40.
Watership Down, Richard Adams
41.
Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
42. The
Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
43. Love
in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44.
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
45. The
Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
46. The
Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
47.
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
48.
Howard's End, E. M. Forster
49.
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
50. A
Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
51. Dune,
- Frank Herbert
52. A
Prayer for Owen Meany, - John Irvine
53.
Perfume, - Patrick Süskind
54.
Doctor Zhivago, - Boris Pasternak
55.
Gormenghast, - Mervyn Peake
56.
Cider with Rosie, - Laurie Lee
57. The
Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
58. The
Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
59.
Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain
60.The
Magus, John Fowles
61.
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
62. The
Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists - Robert
Tressell
63. The
Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
64.
Tales from the City, Armistead Maupin
65. The
French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
66.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernières
67.
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
68. Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert
Pirsig
69. A
Room with a View, E. M. Forster
70.
Lucky Jim, - Kingsley Amis
71. It ,
Stephen King
72. The
Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
73. The
Stand, Stephen King
74. All
Quiet on the Western Front, - Erich Maria
Remarque
75.
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
76.
Matilda, Roald Dahl
77.
American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis
78. Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
79. A
Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
80.
James and the Giant Peach , Roald Dahl
81. Lady
Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence
82. The
Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
83.
Complete Cookery Course, Delia Smith
84. An
Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan
85. The
Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence
86. Down
and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
87. 2001
- A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
88. The
Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
89.One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander
Solzhenitsyn
90. A
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
91. The
Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
92.
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
93. The
Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
94. Cry
the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
95. High
Fidelity, Nick Hornby
96. The
Van, Roddy Doyle
97. The
BFG, Roald Dahl
98.
Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess
99. I,
Claudius, Robert Graves
100. The
Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
Top 10
books Written by Women
To Kill A
Mocking Bird Harper Lee
Wild Swans
Jung Chang
The Colour
Purple Alice Walker
Gone with
the Wind Margaret Mitchell
The Diary
of Anne Frank Anne Frank
To The
Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
Rebecca
Daphne Du Maurier
Beloved
Toni Morrison
Possession
A. S. Byatt
The Bell
Jar Sylvia Plath
Top 10
Living Authors
Joseph
Heller
Harper Lee
Irvine
Welsh
Jung Chang
J. D.
Salinger
Gabriel
Garcia Marquez
Douglas
Adams
Salman
Rushdie
Alice
Walker
Iain Banks
Nobel
Prize-winners in the Top 100
Toni
Morrison (1993)
William
Golding (1983)
Gabriel
Garcia Marquez (1982)
Alexander
Solzhenitsyn (1970)
John
Steinbeck (1962)
Albert
Camus (1957)
Top 10
books Written by American Authors
Catch-22,
Joseph Heller
The Catcher
In The Rye, J. D. Salinger
To Kill a
Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Grapes
of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Great
Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
On the
Road, Jack Kerouac
The Colour
Purple, Alice Walker
Gone with
the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Lolita,
Vladimir Nabokov
Of Mice
& Men John Steinbeck
Just
Missed Out - the next twenty-five
The Waste
Land & Other Poems, T. S. Eliot
East of
Eden, John Steinbeck
Waiting for
Godot, Samuel Beckett
Four
Quarters, T. S. Eliot
The Secret
History, Donna Tartt
Fever Pitch
Nick Hornby
The Old Man
& the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Darkness at
Noon Arthur Koestler
My Family
& Other Animals, Gerald Durrell
Under Milk
Wood, Dylan Thomas
For Whom
the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
London
Fields, Martin Amis
The Sound
& the Fury, William Faulkner
The
Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
The Female
Eunuch, Germaine Greer
Cat's Eye,
Margaret Atwood
The Plague,
Albert Camus
Interview
with the Vampire, Anne Rice
Women in
Love, D. H. Lawrence
The Second
Sex, Simone de Beavoir
The Good
Soldier, Ford Madox Brown
The
Go-Between, L. P. Hartley
Orlando,
Virginia Woolf
Good-bye to
All That, Robert Graves
Cold
Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
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