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southernbohemian's "Random House Modern Library's "100 Best Books of the 20th Century: Fiction" - Most Read"

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I was interested in seeing in what order people who are trying to complete the Modern Library’s list read the books on it. I surveyed which books people who had read 50% or more had finished and then put them in order of popularity from most to least read. Ties are listed in the order they appeared on the Modern Library’s list. I was kind of surprised by the outcome (I had figured Finnegan’s Wake would be the least popular, but it actually is the Dance to the Music of Time series, which may be easier to read but consists of 12 novels).

  1. 1.
    Lolita
    by Vladimir Nabokov

  2. 2.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck

  3. 3.
    Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by George Orwell

  4. 4.
    The Sun Also Rises (Scribner Classics)
    by Ernest Hemingway

  5. 5.
    The Catcher in the Rye
    by J. D. Salinger

  6. 6.
    The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald

  7. 7.
    Brave New World
    by Aldous Huxley

  8. 8.
    Catch-22
    by Joseph Heller

  9. 9.
    The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
    by Carson McCullers

  10. 10.
    Animal Farm: Centennial Edition
    by George Orwell

  11. 11.
    Lord of the Flies (50th Anniversary Edition)
    by William Golding

  12. 12.
    A Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Anthony Burgess

  13. 13.
    Heart of Darkness (Hesperus Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad

  14. 14.
    Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
    by Kurt Vonnegut

  15. 15.
    Winesburg, Ohio (Worlds Classics)
    by Sherwood Anderson

  16. 16.
    Howard's End (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by E.M. Forster

  17. 17.
    On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
    by Jack Kerouac

  18. 18.
    The Call of the Wild (Aladdin Classics)
    by Jack London

  19. 19.

  20. 20.
    The Sound and the Fury: The Corrected Text
    by William Faulkner

  21. 21.
    The Age of Innocence (Barnes & Noble Classics)
    by Edith Wharton

  22. 22.
    A Farewell To Arms
    by Ernest Hemingway

  23. 23.
    A Room with a View
    by E. M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

  24. 24.
    Lord Jim
    by Joseph Conrad

  25. 25.
    Ragtime: A Novel
    by E.L. Doctorow

  26. 26.
    Sophie's Choice
    by William Styron

  27. 27.
    Sons and Lovers (Modern Library Classics)
    by D.H. Lawrence

  28. 28.
    To the Lighthouse
    by Virginia Woolf

  29. 29.
    A Passage to India (Penguin Classics)
    by E. M. Forster

  30. 30.
    As I Lay Dying (Modern Library)
    by William Faulkner

  31. 31.
    The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Perennial Classics)
    by Thornton Wilder

  32. 32.
    Portnoy's Complaint
    by Philip Roth

  33. 33.
    Brideshead Revisited
    by Evelyn Waugh

  34. 34.
    Wide Sargasso Sea (Essential Penguin)
    by Jean Rhys

  35. 35.

  36. 36.
    A Handful of Dust (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Evelyn Waugh

  37. 38.
    Ironweed
    by William Kennedy

  38. 39.
    Tender Is the Night (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by F.Scott Fitzgerald

  39. 40.
    Deliverance (Bloomsbury Film Classics)
    by James Dickey

  40. 41.
    The Day of the Locust (Signet Classic)
    by Nathanael West

  41. 42.
    Scoop (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Evelyn Waugh

  42. 43.
    Darkness at Noon
    by Arthur Koestler

  43. 45.
    Sister Carrie (Norton Critical Editions)
    by Theodore Dreiser

  44. 46.
    The Heart of the Matter
    by Graham Greene

  45. 47.
    Women in Love (Dover Thrift Editions)
    by D. H. Lawrence

  46. 48.
    Pale Fire (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Vladimir Nabokov

  47. 49.
    The Maltese Falcon
    by Dashiell Hammett

  48. 50.
    Native Son (Perennial Classics)
    by Richard A. Wright

  49. 51.
    Death Comes for the Archbishop (Virago Modern Classics)
    by Willa Cather

  50. 52.
    Go Tell It on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by James Baldwin

  51. 53.
    Nostromo (Barnes & Noble Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad

  52. 54.
    Tropic of Cancer (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
    by Henry Miller

  53. 55.
    Light in August (The Corrected Text)
    by William Faulkner

  54. 56.
    The Moviegoer
    by Walker Percy

  55. 57.
    Of Human Bondage (Signet Classics)
    by W. Somerset Maugham

  56. 58.
    Main Street (Modern Library)
    by Sinclair Lewis

  57. 59.
    The House of Mirth
    by Edith Wharton

  58. 60.
    A High Wind in Jamaica
    by Richard Hughes

  59. 61.
    A House for Mr.Biswas
    by V.S. Naipaul

  60. 62.
    ?
    Angle of Repose
    by Wallace Stegner

  61. 63.
    The Sheltering Sky
    by Paul Bowles

  62. 64.
    Invisible Man: A Novel
    by Ralph Ellison

  63. 65.
    All the King's Men
    by Robert Penn Warren

  64. 66.
    Kim
    by Rudyard Kipling

  65. 67.
    A Bend in the River
    by V.S. Naipaul

  66. 68.
    Under The Net
    by Iris Murdoch

  67. 69.
    The Postman Always Rings Twice (Crime Masterworks)
    by James M. Cain

  68. 70.
    Under the Volcano: A Novel (Perennial Classics)
    by Malcolm Lowry

  69. 71.

  70. 72.
    The Naked and the Dead: 50th Anniversary Edition
    by Norman Mailer

  71. 73.
    The Wapshot Chronicle (Perennial Classics)
    by John Cheever

  72. 74.
    Midnight's Children
    by Salman Rushdie

  73. 75.
    The Way of All Flesh (Giant Thrifts)
    by Samuel Butler

  74. 76.
    Appointment in Samarra: A Novel
    by John O'Hara

  75. 77.
    The Wings of the Dove (Modern Library Classics)
    by Henry James

  76. 78.
    The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion
    by Ford Madox Ford

  77. 79.
    The Secret Agent (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad

  78. 80.
    The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

  79. 81.
    The Magus
    by John Fowles

  80. 82.
    The Ginger Man
    by J. P. Donleavy

  81. 83.
    ?
    The Ambassadors (Norton Critical Edition Series)
    by Henry; edited by S.P. Rosenbaum James

  82. 84.
    The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson
    by Max Beerbohm

  83. 85.
    Loving (A novel by Henry Green)
    by Henry Green

  84. 86.
    Tobacco Road
    by Erskine Caldwell

  85. 87.
    The Magnificent Ambersons
    by Booth Tarkington

  86. 88.
    Ulysses (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by James Joyce

  87. 91.
    From Here to Eternity
    by James Jones

  88. 92.
    The Alexandria Quartet Boxed Set
    by Lawrence Durrell

  89. 93.
    The Death of the Heart
    by Elizabeth Bowen

  90. 94.
    The Old Wives' Tale
    by Arnold Bennett

  91. 95.
    James T Farrell: Studs Lonigan a Trilogy (Library of America)
    by James T. Farrell

  92. 96.
    The Golden Bowl (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by Henry James

  93. 97.
    Point Counter Point
    by Aldous Huxley

  94. 98.
    Parade's End
    by Ford Madox Ford

  95. 99.
    ?
    Finnegans Wake
    by James Joyce

  96. 100.
    ?
    A Dance to the Music of Time (series)
    by Anthony Powell

This is southernbohemian's list. Only southernbohemian can edit it. You can make your own version of this list.
Created by southernbohemian on Mar 23, 2007.
 

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