Madison Public Library 100 Best Novels (Readers' Choice)

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When the Modern Library Board published its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels of the century in 1998, there was much debate in the media about the titles on the list and who selected them. Madison Public Library took that debate to heart and set up its own vote. The novels had to have been English language novels published in the 20th century. Here’s what Madison readers chose.

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  1. 1.
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    by Harper Lee

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  2. 2.
    The Catcher in the Rye
    by J.D. Salinger

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  3. 3.
    Nineteen Eighty-Four
    by George Orwell

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  4. 4.
    ?
    The Color Purple
    by Alice Walker

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  5. 5.
    The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  6. 6.
    On the Road (Penguin Classics)
    by Jack Kerouac

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  7. 7.
    Beloved
    by Toni Morrison

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  8. 8.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics)
    by John Steinbeck

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  9. 9.
    Gone with the Wind
    by Margaret Mitchell

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  10. 10.
    Brave New World
    by Aldous Huxley

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  11. 11.
    Animal Farm: Centennial Edition
    by George Orwell

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  12. 12.
    Charlotte's Web
    by E. B. White

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  13. 13.
    Invisible Man
    by Ralph Ellison

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  14. 14.
    ?
    Catch-22

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  15. 15.
    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Penguin Classics)
    by Ken Kesey

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  16. 16.
    Ulysses
    by James Joyce

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  17. 17.
    East of Eden
    by John Steinbeck

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  18. 18.
    Slaughterhouse-Five
    by Kurt Vonnegut

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  19. 19.
    Song of Solomon
    by Toni Morrison

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  20. 20.
    Lord of the Flies (50th Anniversary Edition)
    by William Golding

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  21. 21.
    Gravity's Rainbow
    by Thomas Pynchon

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  22. 22.
    The Hobbit
    by J.R.R. Tolkien

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  23. 23.
    My Antonia
    by Willa Cather

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  24. 24.
    A Prayer for Owen Meany (Modern Library)
    by John Irving

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  25. 25.
  26. 26.
    A Clockwork Orange
    by Anthony Burgess

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  27. 27.
    Old Man And The Sea (Scribner Classics)
    by Ernest Hemingway

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  28. 28.
    Sun Also Rises (Scribner Classics)
    by Ernest Hemingway

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  29. 29.
    Their Eyes Were Watching God
    by Zora Neale Hurston

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  30. 30.
    The Bean Trees: A Novel
    by Barbara Kingsolver

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  31. 31.
    Tropic of Capricorn
    by Henry Miller

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  32. 32.
    Lolita
    by Vladimir Nabokov

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  33. 33.
    All the King's Men
    by Robert Penn Warren

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  34. 34.
    To the Lighthouse (Annotated)
    by Virginia Woolf

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  35. 35.
    The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library)
    by Margaret Atwood

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  36. 36.
    ?
    Deliverance
    by James Dickey

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  37. 37.
    Howards End (Dover Thrift Editions)
    by E. M. Forster

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  38. 38.
    The Forsyte Saga (Penguin Modern Classics)
    by John Galsworthy

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  39. 39.
    Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition (Dune Chronicles, Book 1)
    by Frank Herbert

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  40. 40.
    The World According to Garp (Modern Library)
    by John Irving

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  41. 41.
    A Separate Peace
    by John Knowles

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  42. 42.
    The Fountainhead (Centennial Edition Hardcover)
    by Ayn Rand

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  43. 43.
    Atlas Shrugged
    by Ayn Rand

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  44. 44.
    Midnight's Children: A Novel
    by Salman Rushdie

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  45. 45.
    Of Mice and Men: (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck

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  46. 46.
    The Lord of the Rings
    by J.R.R. Tolkien

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  47. 47.
    Brideshead Revisited
    by Evelyn Waugh

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  48. 48.
    The Age of Innocence (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Edith Wharton

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  49. 49.
    Native Son (Perennial Classics)
    by Richard A. Wright

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  50. 50.
    Things Fall Apart
    by Chinua Achebe

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Created by eatdrinktravel wind + water = bliss on May 29, 2006.
 

Comments

Anglofan1
Baltimore

Sensuous One ... — 39 weeks ago

So, talk to me about Gatsby. What is FSF saying about The American Dream and the most elemental questions about democracy and The West? What does it mean to be a “nobody” or a “somebody” in Gatsby’s world? How does this Jibe with your American world? Ooops …. think I went back into teacher mode. Shake it off. Make it go away.

Whew!

Anyway, what do you think, Beautiful.

Nov 04, 03:48PM | 0 comments | Reply to this

tassini

Untitled — 1 year ago

Number 71 should read “Angle of Repose”.

Feb 20, 07:39AM | 1 comment | Reply to this

Anglofan1
Baltimore

Hello! — 2 years ago

I’m excited to meet you, and excited by this list! I’ll read my way throught it with you!

I’m Edward, by the way. Glad to meet you.

Jun 18, 02:43PM | 0 comments | Reply to this