THE MODERN LIBRARY'S TOP 100
THE MODERN LIBRARY'S TOP 100
This list was chosen after considerable reflection and debate by Modern Library's 10-member editorial board. With two exceptions, the members are all Random House authors: Christopher Cerf (son of Bennett Cerf, the firm's co-founder), Daniel Boorstin (the former Librarian of Congress), Shelby Foote (the acclaimed Civil War historian), A.S. Byatt (the English novelist and author of Possession), Edmund Morris (the biographer of Theodore Roosevelt and the forthcoming biography of Ronald Reagan to be published this fall by Random House), John Richardson (the art historian and biographer of Picasso in multi-volumes) and William Styron (author of Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner). The only board members not published by Random House are Vartan Gregorian, the former head of the New York Public Library, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., chronicler of John F. Kennedy's presidency. All writers making the list wrote their works in English.
Works followed by the initials (J.F.) indicate books that your teacher has read. This, however, does not constitute an endorsement. In fact, there are a few books on this list that are not appropriate for the high school classroom. Choose wisely and, when in doubt, ask for advice.
1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (J.F.)
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (J.F.)
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov (J.F.)
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (J.F.)
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (J.F.)
8. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence (J.F.)
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (J.F.)
11. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
12. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell (J.F.)
14. I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
15. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (J.F.)
16. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (J.F.)
18. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (J.F.)
19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (J.F.)
20. Native Son by Richard Wright (J.F.)
21. Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow (J.F.)
22. Appointment in Samarr a by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (Trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (J.F.)
25. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (J.F.)
26. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (J.F.)
27. The Ambassadors by Henry James
28. Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. Studs Lonigan (Trilogy) by James T. Farrell
30. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell (J.F.)
32. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (J.F.)
34. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
35. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
36. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (J.F.)
37. The Bridge of San Luis Re y by Thornton Wilder (J.F.)
38. Howard's End by E.M. Forster
39. Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
40. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
41. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (J.F.)
42. Deliverance by James Dickey (J.F.)
43. A Dance to the Music of Time (series) by Anthony Powell
44. Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
45. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
46. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
47. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
48. The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
49. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
50. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
51. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
52. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
53. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
54. Light in August by William Faulkner
55. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
56. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
57. Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
58. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
59. Zulieka Dobson by Max Beerbohm
60. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
61. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
62. From Here to Eternity by James Jones
63. The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
64. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (J.F.)
65. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (J.F.)
66. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (J.F.)
67. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (J.F.)
68. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
69. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
70. The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
71. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
72. A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
73. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
74. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (J.F.)
75. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (J.F.)
77. Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce
78. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
79. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
80. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
81. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
82. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
83. A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul
84. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
85. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (J.F.)
86. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (J.F.)
87. The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
88. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
89. Lovinig by Henry Green
90. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
91. Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
92. Ironweek by William Kennedy
93. The Magus by John Fowles (J.F.)
94. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
95. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
96. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (J.F.)
97. The Sheltering Sky by Pal Bowles
98. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain
99. The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy
100. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Most of my reading is concentrated near the top of the list. I've read 7 of the top 10 books, 24 out of the top 50 [nearly half] but only 10 of the bottom 50. Some of these works I've never heard of. But I'm going to use this list as motivation in my reading choices for the future.