Time Magazine's "100 Best English-language Novels (1923-present)"

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Time Critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present (2005).

Enjoy!

Non-fiction: http://www.listsofbests.com/list/96561-time-magazine-s-all-time-100-best-non-fiction-books

Pages: 1

  1. 1.
    The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow
  2. 2.
    All the King's Men
    by Robert Penn Warren
  3. 3.
    American Pastoral
    by Philip Roth
  4. 4.
    An American Tragedy (Signet Classics)
    by Theodore Dreiser
  5. 5.
    Animal Farm
    by George Orwell
  6. 6.
    Appointment in Samarra: A Novel
    by John O'Hara
  7. 7.
    Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
    by Judy Blume
  8. 8.
    The Assistant: A Novel
    by Bernard Malamud
  9. 9.
    At Swim-Two-Birds (Irish Literature Series)
    by Flann O'Brien
  10. 10.
    Atonement: A Novel
    by Ian McEwan
  11. 11.
    Beloved
    by Toni Morrison
  13. 13.
    The Big Sleep
    by Raymond Chandler
  14. 14.
    The Blind Assassin: A Novel
    by Margaret Atwood
  15. 15.
    Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
    by Cormac McCarthy
  16. 16.
    Brideshead Revisited
    by Evelyn Waugh
  17. 17.
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Perennial Classics)
    by Thornton Wilder
  18. 18.
    Call It Sleep: A Novel
    by Henry Roth
  19. 19.
    Catch-22
    by Joseph Heller
  20. 20.
    The Catcher in the Rye
    by J.D. Salinger
  21. 21.
    A Clockwork Orange
    by Anthony Burgess
  22. 22.
    The Confessions of Nat Turner
    by William Styron
  23. 23.
    The Corrections: A Novel
    by Jonathan Franzen
  24. 24.
    The Crying of Lot 49
    by Thomas Pynchon
  25. 25.
    A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement
    by Anthony Powell
  26. 26.
    The Day of the Locust (Signet Classic)
    by Nathanael West
  27. 27.
  28. 28.
    A Death in the Family
    by James Agee
  29. 29.
    The Death of the Heart
    by Elizabeth Bowen
  30. 30.
    Deliverance
    by James Dickey
  31. 31.
    Dog Soldiers
    by Robert Stone
  32. 32.
    Falconer
    by John Cheever
  33. 33.
    The French Lieutenant's Woman
    by John Fowles
  34. 34.
    The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition
    by Doris Lessing
  35. 35.
    Go Tell It on the Mountain
    by James Baldwin
  36. 36.
    Gone with the Wind
    by Margaret Mitchell
  37. 37.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck
  38. 38.
    Gravity's Rainbow (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin)
    by Thomas Pynchon
  39. 39.
    The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  40. 40.
    A Handful of Dust
    by Evelyn Waugh
  41. 41.
    The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)
    by Carson McCullers
  42. 42.
    The Heart of the Matter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
    by Graham Greene
  43. 43.
    Herzog (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow
  44. 44.
    Housekeeping: A Novel
    by Marilynne Robinson
  45. 45.
    A House for Mr. Biswas
    by V.S. Naipaul
  47. 47.
    Infinite Jest: A Novel
    by David Foster Wallace
  48. 48.
    Invisible Man
    by Ralph Ellison
  49. 49.
    Light in August (The Corrected Text)
    by William Faulkner

Pages: 1

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Created by Juliana on Mar 25, 2006.
 

Comments

qvetch

Mixed bag — 3 years ago

Some of these are not among the best, in my experience. For instance, missing is Harry Mulisch’s THEASSAULT, brilliant. Another is NIGHT by Wiesel, brilliant. ONEHUNDREDDAYS OF SOLITUDE, probably the best book written in the last half-century: missing: ridiculous. And yet books like the one by Kingsley Amis, about a drunk who is supposed to be funny, is questionable. As is Steinbeck’s dated book instead of his better EAST OF EDEN, or Hemingway’s FAREWELL TO ARMS (missing), or Faulkner’s Snopes trilogy, or the brilliant book by Gunter Grass, or any one of a number of books by the wonderful Penelope Fitzgerald. What about Pym? Louis Auchincloss? James Cain? Molly Gloss’s THEJUMP-OFFCREEK? Kawabatta? Ivan Doig? Mishima? In their place? – many lesser works.

Jan 17, 07:35PM | 4 comments | Reply to this

miss kiki

Why? — 4 years ago

Looks like someone deleted a book from the list (there’s only 99 now).

May 29, 05:46AM | 1 comment | Reply to this

angela65

Oprah's Book Club- Blah! — 4 years ago

Tamsinator, 100% agree. Seeing that ’Oprah’s Book Club choice’ sticker on a book makes me want to look elsewhere.

Jul 25, 12:24PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

miss kiki

Untitled — 4 years ago

Deleting The Handmaid’s Tale that was added recently. It’s a great book, but not on the list.

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

Jul 17, 11:22AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

Tamsinator

Is it just me... — 4 years ago

or does nothing turn you off a book more than the words “Oprah’s book club”?

Jun 09, 11:30AM | 3 comments | Reply to this

navpurewal

Missing! — 5 years ago

The Adventures of Augie March should be here, yet there are already 100. So which of the ones here doesn’t belong?

Mar 04, 02:00PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

Juliet

Found it! — 6 years ago

The missing one was The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler. :)

Mar 26, 03:52PM | 1 comment | Reply to this



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