The Guardian's "100 Best Books of All Time"

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Full list of the 100 best works of fiction, alphabetically by author, as determined from a vote by 100 noted writers from 54 countries as released by the Norwegian Book Clubs. Don Quixote was named as the top book in history but otherwise no ranking was provided.

You can see the 100 writers who voted here:

http://www.bokklubben.no/SamboWeb/side.do?dokId=547576

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  1. 51.
    Independent People
    by Halldor Laxness
  3. 53.
    The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition
    by Doris Lessing
  4. 54.
    Pippi Longstocking (Puffin Modern Classics)
    by Astrid Lindgren
  5. 55.
    Diary of a Madman, and other stories
    by Lu Xun
  6. 56.
    The Mahabharata

  7. 57.
    ?
    Children of Gebelawi
    by Naguib Mahfouz
  8. 58.
    Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
    by Thomas Mann
  9. 59.
    The Magic Mountain
    by Thomas Mann
  10. 60.
    Moby-Dick
    by Herman Melville
  11. 61.
    Montaigne: Essays
    by Michel de Montaigne
  12. 62.
    History: A Novel
    by Elsa Morante
  13. 63.
    Beloved
    by Toni Morrison
  14. 64.
    The Tale of Genji (Penguin Classics)
    by Murasaki Shikibu
  15. 65.
    The Man without Qualities
    by Robert Musil
  16. 66.
    Lolita, 50th Anniversary Edition
    by Vladimir Nabokov
  17. 67.
    Njal's Saga (Penguin Classics)
    by Anonymous
  18. 68.
    Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by George Orwell
  19. 69.
    Metamorphoses (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Ovid
  20. 70.
    The Book of Disquiet (Penguin Classics)
    by Fernando Pessoa
  21. 71.
    The Complete Stories (Everyman's Library)
    by Edgar Allan Poe
  22. 72.
    Remembrance of Things Past Volumes 1-3 Box Set
    by Marcel Proust
  24. 74.
    Pedro Paramo
    by Juan Rulfo
  26. 76.
    Midnight's Children (Everyman's Library)
    by Salman Rushdie
  27. 77.
    The Bostan of Saadi (The Orchard), Books I and II
    by Sheikh Muslihu-d-Din Sa'adi of Shiraz
  28. 78.
    Season of Migration to the North
    by Tayeb Salih
  29. 79.
    Blindness
    by Jose Saramago
  30. 80.
    Hamlet
    by William Shakespeare
  31. 81.
    King Lear (New Folger Library Shakespeare)
    by William Shakespeare
  32. 82.
    OTHELLO
    by William Shakespeare
  33. 83.
    Oedipus Rex - Literary Touchstone Edition
    by Sophocles
  36. 86.
    Confessions of Zeno
    by Italo Svevo
  37. 87.
    Gulliver's Travels (Signet Classics)
    by Jonathan Swift
  38. 88.
    War and Peace (Modern Library)
    by Leo Tolstoy
  39. 89.
    Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics)
    by Leo Tolstoy
  40. 90.
    The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Bantam Classics)
    by Leo Tolstoy
  43. 93.
    The Song of Rama: Visions of the Ramayana
    by Devi Vanamali
  44. 94.
    The Aeneid (Vintage Classics)
    by Virgil
  45. 95.
    Leaves of Grass
    by Walt Whitman
  46. 96.
    Mrs. Dalloway
    by Virginia Woolf
  47. 97.
    To the Lighthouse
    by Virginia Woolf
  48. 98.
    Memoirs of Hadrian
    by Marguerite Yourcenar
  49. 99.
    Things Fall Apart
    by Chinua Achebe

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Created by Robot Co-op on Nov 30, 2005.
 

Comments

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abnoos

Untitled — 6 years ago

Where’s Adieu Gary Cooper? where’s Mortelle? or The blindness? where’s The catcher of the rye? gee! this list is too old!

Feb 09, 01:19AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

dandv

Give me a break... — 6 years ago

…this list is crap! Where’s Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”, the second most influential book after the Bible (http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2002-09-23-ayn-rand_x.htm)?

And where are the Mars trilogy, the Foundation series, and other amazing Science Fiction novels?

Dec 28, 02:10AM | 3 comments | Reply to this

Tadeusz598

I'm not doing this — 6 years ago

I’ve half-read quite a few on this list: such as Ulysses or the Dostoievsky, but found them ashtonishingly dull; the sort of books that could only really be reccomended by misanthropists.

Perhaps that should come as no surprise given that the list was produced by The Guardian, a life-hating Mancunian rag.

Nov 22, 02:34PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

SuperHussy

Nice List — 6 years ago

While I won’t deny that this list has some great work, I think that there shoud be more work from the last 50 years!

Oct 11, 06:12PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

IsntPrettyToThinkSo

This one is the best — 6 years ago

I’m super surprised these lists ignore amazing authors like richard yates and orhan pamuk. But I still want to read everything. Anyone in the NYC area interested in starting a guardian list book club?

Jul 27, 11:52AM | 0 comments | Reply to this

franzianne

Re-added Pride and Prejudice — 6 years ago

Pride and Prejudice had been deleted so added it. Handmaid’s Tale added but not on the list so deleted it. Also checked the list against the original and made a couple of changes in order.

Jul 11, 07:55AM | 1 comment | Reply to this

burntsienna

Untitled — 7 years ago

there are so many books on so many of these lists that i have started but never finished. does that count as “i am consuming this” even if i haven’t picked it up in years? how bad is that?

May 09, 02:15PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

dewchic

i feel bad — 7 years ago

i have read ONE of these books… but i have a lot of time to read the rest if feel like it

Apr 10, 12:56PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

jpinstripes

The Aeneid — 7 years ago

Although I am sure Robert Fitzpatrick is a fine translator, Virgil wrote The Aeneid.

Apr 04, 09:55AM | 1 comment | Reply to this

alwaysearly

Untitled — 7 years ago

this makes me feel ashamed, especially since the majority of the ones i’ve ticked are cheats – i didn’t finish them! oh well, I’ve got quite a lot of life left!

Mar 27, 02:47AM | 0 comments | Reply to this


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