Modern Library's 100 Best Books: Fiction

10 The Grapes Of Wrath --- John Steinbeck
11 Under The Volcano --- Malcolm Lowry
12 The Way Of All Flesh --- Samuel Butler
13 1984 --- George Orwell
14 I Claudius --- Robert Graves
15 To The Lighthouse --- Virginia Woolf
16 An American Tragedy --- Theodore Dreiser
17 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter --- Carson McCullers
18 Slaughterhouse-Five --- Kurt Vonnegut
19 Invisible Man --- Ralph Ellison

20 Native Son --- Richard Wright
21 Henderson The Rain King --- Saul Bellow
22 Appointment In Samarra --- John O'hara
23 U.S.A. --- John Dos Passos
24 Winesburg, Ohio --- Sherwood Anderson
25 A Passage To India --- E.M. Forster
26 The Wings Of The Dove --- Henry James
27 The Ambassadors --- Henry James
28 Tender Is The Night --- F. Scott Fitzgerald
29 The Studs Lonigan Trilogy --- James T. Farrell

30 The Good Soldier --- Ford Madox Ford
31 Animal Farm --- George Orwell
32 The Golden Bowl --- Henry James
33 Sister Carrie --- Theodore Dreiser
34 A Handful Of Dust --- Evelyn Waugh
35 As I Lay Dying --- William Faulkner
36 All The King's Men --- Robert Penn Warren
37 The Bridge Of San Luis Rey --- Thornton Wilder
38 Howards End --- E.M. Forster
39 Go Tell It On The Mountain --- James Baldwin

40 The Heart Of The Matter --- Graham Greene
41 Lord Of The Flies --- William Golding
42 Deliverance --- James Dickey
43 A Dance To The Music Of Time --- Anthony Powell
44 Point Counter Point --- Aldous Huxley
45 The Sun Also Rises --- Ernest Hemingway
46 The Secret Agent --- Joseph Conrad
47 Nostromo --- Joseph Conrad
48 The Rainbow --- D.H. Lawrence
49 Women In Love --- D.H. Lawrence

50 Tropic Of Cancer --- Henry Miller
51 The Naked And The Dead --- Norman Mailer
52 Portnoy's Complaint --- Philip Roth
53 Pale Fire --- Vladimir Nabokov
54 Light In August --- William Faulkner
55 On The Road --- Jack Kerouac
56 The Maltese Falcon --- Dashiell Hammett
57 Parade's End --- Ford Madox Ford
58 The Age Of Innocence --- Edith Wharton
59 Zuleika Dobson --- Max Beerbohm

60 The Moviegoer --- Walker Percy
61 Death Comes For The Archbishop --- Willa Cather
62 From Here To Eternity --- James Jones
63 The Wapshot Chronicles --- John Cheever
64 The Catcher In The Rye --- J.D. Salinger
65 A Clockwork Orange --- Anthony Burgess
66 Of Human Bondage --- W. Somerset Maugham
67 Heart Of Darkness --- Joseph Conrad
68 Main Street --- Sinclair Lewis
69 The House Of Mirth --- Edith Wharton

70 The Alexandria Quartet --- Lawrence Durell
71 A High Wind In Jamaica --- Richard Hughes
72 A House For Mr Biswas --- V.S. Naipaul
73 The Day Of The Locust --- Nathanael West
74 A Farewell To Arms --- Ernest Hemingway
75 Scoop --- Evelyn Waugh
76 The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie --- Muriel Spark
77 Finnegans Wake --- James Joyce
78 Kim --- Rudyard Kipling
79 A Room With A View --- E.M. Forster

80 Brideshead Revisited --- Evelyn Waugh
81 The Adventures Of Augie March --- Saul Bellow
82 Angle Of Repose --- Wallace Stegner
83 A Bend In The River --- V.S. Naipaul
84 The Death Of The Heart --- Elizabeth Bowen
85 Lord Jim --- Joseph Conrad
86 Ragtime --- E.L. Doctorow
87 The Old Wives' Tale --- Arnold Bennett
88 The Call Of The Wild --- Jack London
89 Loving --- Henry Green

90 Midnight's Children --- Salman Rushdie
91 Tobacco Road --- Erskine Caldwell
92 Ironweed --- William Kennedy
93 The Magus --- John Fowles
94 Wide Sargasso Sea --- Jean Rhys
95 Under The Net --- Iris Murdoch
96 Sophie's Choice --- William Styron
97 The Sheltering Sky --- Paul Bowles
98 The Postman Always Rings Twice --- James M. Cain
99 The Ginger Man --- J.P. Donleavy
100 The Magnificent Ambersons --- Booth Tarkington

At the request of the Modern Library, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled its own list of the century's top 100 novels. The final list is a tally of 100 student lists, compared to the 100 board members of the Modern Library used to create the list above.

1. The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye -- J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath -- John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple -- Alice Walker
6. Ulysses -- James Joyce
7. Beloved -- Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies -- William Golding
9. 1984 -- George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury -- William Faulkner

11. Lolita -- Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men -- John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web -- E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- James Joyce
15. Catch-22 -- Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm -- George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises -- Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying -- William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms -- Ernest Hemingway

21. Heart of Darkness -- Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh -- A.A. Milne
23. Their Eyes are Watching God -- Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man -- Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon -- Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind -- Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son -- Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five -- Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls -- Ernest Hemingway

31. On the Road -- Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea -- Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild -- Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse -- Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady -- Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain -- James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp -- John Irving
38. All the King's Men -- Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View -- E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings -- J.R.R. Tolkien

41. Schindler's List -- Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence -- Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead -- Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake -- James Joyce
45. The Jungle -- Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway -- Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz -- L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover -- D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange -- Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening -- Kate Chopin

51. My Antonia -- Willa Cather
52. Howards End -- E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood -- Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey -- J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses -- Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz -- Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice -- William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! -- William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India -- E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome -- Edith Wharton

61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find -- Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando -- Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers -- D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities -- Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle -- Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace -- John Knowles
68. Light in August -- William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove -- Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart -- Chinua Achebe

71. Rebecca -- Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch -- William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited -- Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love -- D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel -- Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time -- Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias -- Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon -- Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead -- Norman Mailer

81. Wide Sargasso Sea -- Jean Rhys
82. White Noise -- Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! -- Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer -- Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds -- H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim -- Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians -- Henry James
88. An American Tragedy -- Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop -- Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows -- Kenneth Grahame

91. This Side of Paradise -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged -- Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman -- John Fowles
94. Babbitt -- Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim -- Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run -- John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread -- E.M. Forster
99. Main Street -- Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children -- Salman Rushdie

The category for the Modern Librarys 100 best books was "The best novels published in the English language since 1900". Which explains the lack of Camus, Marquez and other International writers. I agree with pimephalis, the works of Nobel prize laureates make an excellent reading list.

Creating top 100 lists of any artistic product necessarily implies some degree of subjectivity and personal preference. I understand that, and accept it. For example, when MTV or MuchMusic do a top 100 videos of the year show, I prepare myself by shutting off the television because I know that 98.4% of the songs they choose are likely to drive me mad with fury. So when a publishing group produces a list of the top 100 books of the last century, I should steel myself and look away. However, in perusing the two lists above I can't let this go without comment.

One would think that no non-english speaking person has written anything of note in the last 100 years. Where is Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Pablo Neruda? Miguel Angel Asturias? I'm sure others could add hundreds of names to this list, but I'm limited by my reading preferences. Have no Russians written anything of note in the last 100 years? Are the Italians so devoid of literary merit as to not even warrant a mention?

Just to check on the international (or lack thereof) flavour of the Modern Library and Radcliffe Publishing Course lists, I examined the Nobel Prize winners for literature over the past twenty years:

• 2000 -- Gao Xingjian
• 1999 -- Gunter Grass
• 1998 -- Jose Saramago
• 1997 -- Dario Fo
• 1996 -- Wislawa Szymborska
• 1995 -- Seamus Heany (anglophone)
• 1994 -- Kenzaburo Oe
• 1993 -- Toni Morrison (anglophone)
• 1992 -- Derek Walcott (anglophone)
• 1991 -- Nadine Gordimer (anglophone)
• 1990 -- Octavio Paz
• 1989 -- Camilo José Cela
• 1988 -- Naguib Mahfouz
• 1987 -- Joseph Brodsky (anglophone)
• 1986 -- Wole Scyinka (anglophone)
• 1985 -- Claude Simon
• 1984 -- Jaroslav Seifert
• 1983 -- Sir William Golding (anglophone)
• 1982 -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• 1981 -- Elias Canetti

I guess what I'm trying to say is that these lists are definitely not the canonical lists of decent literature. If you're looking for something to read, consider a work in translation if you can't read something written in the author's native tongue. If you pick up something written by a Nobel Prize winner, I guarantee you will be enchanted.

If you take a look at the list of books, many, if not most are now old enough to be out of copyright and fair-play for the likes of the Modern Library.