By Title

It’s hard to come up with a list of the top novels of all time.  No one agrees on what they are.  The best you can do is come up with a combination of lists from different sources.  This is a list of the top 272 books from a combination of lists. The list is numbered, but this is not meant to imply a ranking system. Instead they are in order by title. If you want to see how I rank the novels, you would have to see if it is listed on my personal reading page. I've put a checkmark next to the ones I've read.

This list is a combination of 7 different sources; one of those in fact a consolidation on its own.  I count them as 5 sources.  They are as follows:

(1) MODERN LIBRARY book publishers.

(2) Time Magazine

(3) The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels All Time (Checkmark Books/Facts On File, Inc.: New York, 2004), written by Daniel S. Burt

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

(5) The Friendswood library has consolidated four sources' lists:

a. Harvard Bookstore's Top 100 Recommended Titles,

b. Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, - which means this got twice the weight.. hum...

c. Koen Book Distributors' Top 100 Books of the Past Century, and

d. Library Journal's 150 20th-century Most Influential Fiction. (list includes only English-language books written in the 1900's)

The colors mean:

RED – The book appears on all 5 lists

ORANGE – The book appears on 4 lists

YELLOW– The book appears on 3 lists

GREEN – The book appears on 2 lists

means I've read it. A review on my books page.

The movie projector symbols mean 2 things.. means there is a movie and means I've seen it. NOTE: You can click on the projector to see the IMDB link to that movie. Also, I did not include TV productions (for example Their Eyes Were Watching God)

(#) - next to the Author's name indicates that the author appears more than once on the list, and how many times.

And it should be obvious what.. and mean

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How to use this page

I use this page to explore books and authors when deciding what to read next. Every author and every title is linked to it's matching WIKIPEDIA entry. The Wikipedia is a free on-line encyclopedia of information available to all. The articles will contain information about the author, plot summaries, analysis, etc. that will make the reading more enjoyable.

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1	1984		Orwell, George (2)		1,2,3,4,5
2	2001: A Space Odyssey		Clarke, Arthur C.		5
3	Absalom, Absalom!		Faulkner, William (4)		3
4	The Adventures of Augie March		Bellow, Saul (3)		1,2,4
5	Adventures of Huckleberry Finn		Twain, Mark	*	3
6	The Age of Innocence		Wharton, Edith (3)		1,3,5
7	The Alexandria Quartet		Durrell, Lawrence		1,5
8	All Quiet on the Western Front		ReMarque, Erich Maria		5
9	All the King's Men		Warren, Robert Penn	*	1,2,4,5
10	The Ambassadors		James, Henry (4)		1,3,5
11	American Pastoral		Roth, Phillip (2)		2,4
12	An American Tragedy		Dreiser, Theodore (2)		1,2,3,4,5
13	Angle of Repose		Stegner, Wallace		1,5
14	Animal Farm		Orwell, George (2)	*	1,2,4,5
15	Anna Karenina		Tolstoy, Leo (2)	*	3
16	Appointment in Samarra		O' Hara, John		1,2,4,5
17	Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.		Blume, Judy		2,4
18	As I Lay Dying		Faulkner, William (4)		1,5
19	The Assistant		Malamud, Bernard		2,4
20	At Swim Two Birds		O'Brien, Flann		2,4
21	Atlas Shrugged		Rand, Ayn (2)		5
22	Atonement		McEwan, Ian		2,4
23	The Awakening		Chopin, Kate		3
24	Bastard out of Carolina		Allison, Dorothy		5
25	The Bean Trees		Kingsolver, Barbara		5
26	The Bell Jar		Plath, Sylvia	*	5
27	Beloved		Morrison, Toni (2)		2,3,4,5
28	A Bend in the River		Naipaul, V. S (2)		1
29	Berlin, Alexanderplatz		Doblin, Alfred		3
30	The Berlin Stories		Isherwood, Christopher		2,4
31	The Betrothed		Manzoni, Alessandro		3
32	The Big Sleep		Chandler,Raymond	*	2,4
33	Bleak House		Dickens, Charles (3)		3
34	The Blind Assassin		Atwood, Margaret (2)		2,4
35	Blood Meridian		McCarthy, Cormac		2,4
36	Brave New World		Huxley, Aldous (2)		1,5
37	Brideshead Revisited		Waugh, Evelyn (3)		1,2,3,4,5
38	The Bridge of San Luis Rey		Wilder, Thornton	*	1,2,4,5
39	The Brothers Karamazov		Dostoevsky, Feodor (2)	*	3
40	Buddenbrooks		Mann, Thomas (2)		3
41	The Burger's Daughter		Gordimer, Nadine		5
42	Call It Sleep		Roth, Henry		2,3,4,5
43	The Call of the Wild		London, Jack	*	1,5
44	Candide		Voltaire		3
45	Catch-22		Heller, Joseph		1,2,4,5
46	The Catcher in the Rye		Salinger, J. D.		1,2,3,4,5
47	Charlotte's Web		White, E. B.	*	5
48	Cities of Salt		Munif,'Abd al-Rahman		3
49	Clarissa		Richardson, Samuel		3
50	A Clockwork Orange		Burgess, Anthony		1,2,4,5
51	Cold Sassy Tree		Burns, Olive Ann		5
52	The Color Purple		Walker, Alice		5
53	A Confederacy of Dunces		Toole, John K		5
54	The Confessions of Nat Turner		Styron, William (2)		2,4
55	The Corrections		Franzen, Jonathan		2,4
56	The Counterfeiters		Gide. Andre		3
57	Crime and Punishment		Dostoevsky, Feodor (2)	*	3
58	Cry the Beloved Country		Paton, Alan	*	5
59	The Crying of Lot 49		Pynchon, Thomas (2)		2,4
60	A Dance to the Music of Time - 12 Volumns		Powell, Anthony		1,2,4,5
61	Darkness at Noon		Koestler, Arthur		1,5
62	The Day of the Locust		West, Nathanael		1,2,4
63	Dead Souls		Gogol, Nikolai		3
64	Death Comes for the Archbishop		Cather, Willa (2)		1,2,4,5
65	A Death in the Family		Agee, James		4,5
66	The Death of Artemio Cruz		Fuentes, Carlos		3
67	The Death of the Heart		Bowen, Elizabeth		1,4
68	Deliverance		Dickey, James		1,4,5
69	Dog Soldiers		Stone, Robert		4
70	Don Quixote		Cervantes, Miguel de	*	3
71	Dracula		Stoker, Bram	*	3
72	Dream of the Red Chamber		Xueqin, Cao		3
73	Dune		Herbert, Frank		5
74	East of Eden		Steinbeck, John (2)	*	5
75	Ellen Foster		Gibbons, Kaye		5
76	Emma		Austen, Jane (2)	*	3
77	Ethan Frome		Wharton, Edith (3)		5
78	Exodus		Uris, Leon		5
79	Fahrenheit 451		Bradbury, Ray	*	5
80	Falconer		Cheever, John (2)		4
81	Fathers and Sons		Turgenev, Ivan		3
82	A Farewell to Arms		Hemingway, Ernest (4)		1,3,5
83	Finnegan’s Wake		Joyce, James (3)		1,3
84	For Whom the Bell Tolls		Hemingway, Ernest (4)		5
85	The Fountainhead		Rand, Ayn (2)		5
86	Frankenstein		Shelley, Mary	*	3
87	The French Lieutenant's Woman		Fowles, John (2)		4
88	From Here to Eternity		Jones, James		1,5
89	Germinal		Zola, Emile		3
90	The Ginger Man		Donleavy, J.P.		1
91	Go Tell It on the Mountain		Baldwin, James		1,4,5
92	The Godfather		Puzo, Mario		5
93	The Golden Bowl		James, Henry (4)		1,5
94	The Golden Notebook		Lessing, Doris		3,4,5
95	Gone with the Wind		Mitchell, Margaret		3,4,5
96	The Good Earth		Buck, Pearl S. (2)		5
97	A Good Man is Hard to Find		O'Connor, Flannery		5
98	The Good Soldier		Ford, Ford Madox (2)		1,3,5
99	The Grapes of Wrath		Fitzgerald, F. Scott (3)		1,3,4,5
100	Gravity's Rainbow		Pynchon, Thomas (2)		3,4,
101	Great Expectations		Dickens, Charles (3)		3
102	The Great Gatsby		Fitzgerald, F. Scott (3)	*	1,3,4,5
103	A Handful of Dust		Waugh, Evelyn (3)		1,4,5
104	The Handmaid's Tale		Atwood, Margaret (2)		5
105	The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter		McCullers, Carson		1,4,5
106	Heart of Darkness		Conrad, Joseph (4)		1,5
107	The Heart of the Matter		Greene, Graham (2)		1,4,5
108	Henderson the Rain King		Bellow, Saul (3)		1,5
109	Herzog		Bellow, Saul (3)		3,4
110	A High Wind in Jamaica		Hughes, Richard		1,5
111	The Hobbit		Tolkien, J.R.R. (2)		5
112	The Hound of the Baskervilles		Doyle, Arthur Conan		3,5
113	A House for Mr. Biswas		Naipaul, V.S. (2)		1,4
114	The House of Mirth		Wharton, Edith (3)		1,5
115	Housekeeping		Robinson, Marilynne		4
116	Howards End		Forster, E. M. (3)		1,5
117	Hunger		Hamsun, Knut		3
118	I, Claudius		Graves, Robert		1,4,5
119	In Search of Lost Time		Proust, Marcel		3
120	Infinite Jest		Wallace, David Foster		2,4
121	Invisible Man		Ellison,Ralph		1,2,3,4,5
122	Ironweed		Kennedy, William		1,5
123	Jane Eyre		Bronte, Charlotte	*	3
124	The Joy Luck Club		Tan, Amy		5
125	The Jungle		Sinclair, Upton		5
126	Kane and Abel		Archer, Jeffrey		5
127	The Killer Angels		Shaara, Michael		5
128	Kim		Kipling, Rudyard		1
129	Lady Chatterley's Lover		Lawrence, D. H. (4)		5
130	The Last Chronicle of Barset		Trollope, Anthony		3
131	The Last of the Mohicans		James Fenimore Cooper	*	3
132	Le Pere Goriot		de Balzac, Honore	*	3
133	The Leopard		Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di		3
134	Les Miserables		Hugo, Victor	*	3
135	Light in August		Faulkner, William (4)		1,2,4,5
136	The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe		Lewis, C.S.		2,4,5
137	Little House on the Prarie		Wilder, Laura Ingalls		5
138	Lolita		Nabokov, Vladimir (2)	*	1,2,3,4,5
139	Lonesome Dove		McMurtry, Larry		5
140	Look Homeward, Angel		Wolfe, Thomas		5
141	Lord Jim		Conrad, Joseph (4)	*	1
142	Lord of the Flies		Golding, William		1,2,4,5
143	The Lord of the Rings		Tolkien, J.R.R. (2)		2,4,5
144	Loving		Green, Henry		1,2,4
145	Lucky Jim		Amis, Kingsley		2,4
146	Madame Bovary		Flaubert, Gustave		3
147	The Magic Mountain		Mann, Thomas (2)		3
148	The Magnificent Ambersons		Tarkington, Booth		1
149	The Magus		Fowles, John (2)		1
150	Main Street		Lewis, Sinclair		1,5
151	The Maltese Falcon		Hammett, Dashiell (2)	*	1,5
152	The Man Who Loved Children		Stead, Christina		2,4
153	The Man Without Qualities		Musil, Robert		3
154	Middlemarch		Eliot, George		3
155	Midnight's Children		Rushdie, Salman		1,2,4
156	The Mists of Avalon		Bradley, Marion Zimmer		5
157	Moby-Dick		Melville, Herman	*	3
158	Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable		Beckett, Samuel		3
159	Money		Amis, Martin		2,4
160	The Moviegoer		Percy, Walker		1,2,4,5
161	Mrs. Dalloway		Woolf, Virginia (2)		2,4
162	My Antonia		Cather, Willa (2)		3,5
163	The Naked and the Dead		Mailer, Norman		1,5
164	Naked Lunch		Burroughs, William		2,4
165	Native Son		Wright, Richard	*	1,2,3,4,5
166	Neuromancer		Gibson, William		2,4
167	Never Let Me Go		Ishiguro, Kazuo (2)		2,4,
168	Nostromo		Conrad, Joseph (4)		1,3,5
169	Oblomov		Goncharov, Ivan		3,
170	Of Human Bondage		Maugham, W. Somerset	*	1,5
171	Of Mice and Men		Steinbeck, John (3)	*	5
172	The Old Man and the Sea		Hemingway, Ernest (4)		5
173	The Old Wives' Tale		Bennett, Arnold		1
174	On the Road		Kerouac, Jack		1,2,3,4,5
175	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest		Kesey, Ken		2,4,5
176	One Hundred Years of Solitude		Marquez, Gabriel Garcia		3
177	Pale Fire		Nabokov, Vladimir (2)		1,2,4,5
178	Pale Horse, Pale Rider		Porter, Katherine Anne		5
179	The Painted Bird		Kosinski, Jerzy		2,4
180	Parade's End		Ford, Ford Madox		1,5
181	A Passage to India		Forster, E. M. (3)		1,2,3,4,5
182	Petersburg		Bely, Andrey		3
183	The Pickwick Papers		Dickens, Charles (3)		3
184	Play It As It Lays		Didion, Joan		2,4
185	Point Counter Point		Huxley, Aldous (2)		1,5
186	Portnoy's Complaint		Roth, Phillip (2)		1,2,4,5
187	The Portrait of a Lady		James, Henry (4)		3
188	Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man		Joyce, James (4)		1,3,5
189	a Prayer for Owen Meany		Irving, John (2)		5
190	Possession		Byatt, A.S.		2,4,5
191	The Postman Always Rings Twice		Cain, James M.	*	1
192	The Power and the Glory		Greene, Graham		2,4
193	Pride and Prejudice		Austen, Jane (2)	*	3
194	The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie		Spark, Muriel		1,2,4,5
195	The Princess of Cleves		Lafayette, Madame de		3
196	Rabbit, Run		Updike, John		2,4,5
197	Ragtime		Doctorow, E. L.		1,2,4,5
198	The Rainbow		Lawrence, D. H. (4)		1
199	The Rainbow		Buck, Pearl S. (2)		5
200	Rebecca		Maurier, Daphne du		5
201	The Recognitions		Gaddis, William		2,4
202	The Red and the Black		Stendhal		3
203	The Red Badge of Courage		Crane, Stephen		3,5
204	Red Harvest		Hammett, Dashiell (2)		2,4
205	The Remains of the Day		Ishiguro, Kazuo (2)		5
206	Revolutionary Road		Yates, Richard		2,4
207	Robinson Crusoe		Defoe, Daniel	*	3
208	A Room With a View		Forster, E. M. (3)		1,5
209	Roots		Haley, Alex		5
210	The Scarlet Letter		Hawthorne, Nathaniel	*	3
211	Scoop		Waugh, Evelyn (3)		1
212	The Secret Agent		Conrad, Joseph (4)	*	1,5
213	The Sheltering Sky		Bowles, Paul		1,2,4
214	The Shipping News		Proulx, Annie		5
215	Sister Carrie		Dreiser, Theodore		1,5
216	Slaughterhouse Five		Vonnegut, Kurt		1,2,4,5
217	Snow Country		Yasunari, Kawabata		3
218	Snow Crash		Stephenson, Neal		2,4
219	Snow Falling on Cedars		Guterson, David		5
220	Song of Solomon		Morrison, Toni (2)		5
221	Sons and Lovers		Lawrence, D. H. (4)		1,5
222	Sophie's Choice		Styron, William		1,5
223	The Sorrows of Young Werther		Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von		3
224	The Sot-Weed Factor		Barth, John		2,4
225	The Sound and the Fury		Faulkner, William (4)	*	1,2,3,4,5
226	The Sportswriter		Ford, Richard		2,4
227	The Spy Who Came in From the Cold		Carre, John le		2,4
228	Stone Diaries		Shields, Carol		5
229	The Stranger		Camus, Albert		3
230	Stranger in a Strange Land		Heinlein, Robert		5
231	The Studs Lonigan Trilogy		Farrell, James T.		1,5
232	The Sun Also Rises		Hemingway, Ernest (4)		1,2,4,5
233	The Tale of Genji		Shikibu, Murasaki	*	3
234	Tender Is the Night		Fitzgerald, F. Scott (2)	*	1,5
235	Tess of the D'Urbervilles		Hardy, Thomas	*	3
236	Their Eyes Were Watching God		Hurston, Zora Neale		2,3,4,5
237	Things Fall Apart		Achebe, Chinua		2,3,4
238	The Three Musketeers		Dumas, Alexandre	*	3
239	The Tin Drum		Grass, Gunter		3
240	Thousand Acres		Smiley, Jane		5
241	To Kill a Mockingbird		Lee, Harper		2,4,5
242	To the Lighthouse		Woolf, Virginia (2)		1,2,3,4,5
243	Tobacco Road		Caldwell, Erskine		1
244	Tom Jones		Fielding, Henry		3
245	A Tree Grows in Brooklyn		Smith, Betty		5
246	The Trial		Franz Kafka		3
247	Tristram Shandy		Sterne, Laurence		3
248	Tropic of Cancer		Miller, Henry		1,2,4,5
249	U.S.A. (trilogy)		Passos, John Dos		1,3,5
250	Ubik		Philip K. Dick		2,4
251	Ulysses		Joyce, James (4)		1,3,5
252	Uncle Tom's Cabin		Stowe, Harriet Beecher	*	3
253	Under the Net		Murdoch, Iris		1,2,4
254	Under the Volcano		Lowry, Malcolm		1,2,3,4,5
255	Vanity Fair		Thackeray, William Makepeace		3
256	The Wapshot Chronicles		Cheever, John (2)		1,5
257	War and Peace		Tolstoy, Leo (2)		3
258	Watchmen		Moore, Alan & Gibbons, Dave		2,4
259	Watership Down		Adams, Richard		5
260	Waverley		Scott, Sir Walter		3
261	The Way of All Flesh		Butler, Samuel		1,5
262	Where the Wild Things Are		Sendak, Maurice		5
263	White Noise		DeLillo, Don		2,4,5
264	White Teeth		Smith, Zadie		2,4
265	Wide Sargasso Sea		Rhys, Jean		1,2,4,5
266	Winesburg, Ohio		Anderson, Sherwood		1,5
267	The Wings of the Dove		James, Henry (4)		1,5
268	Winnie-the-Pooh		Milne, A. A.	*	5
269	Women in Love		Lawrence, D. H. (4)		1,3,5
270	The Woman in White		Collins, Wilkie	*	3
271	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz		Baum, Frank L.	*	5
272	The World According to Garp		Irving, John (2)		5
273	Wuthering Heights		Bronte, Emily	*	3
274	Zuleika Dobson		Beerbohm, Max		1,5