Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Best 100 Books of the 20th Century

Monde's 100 Books of the Century

The 100 Books of the Century (FrenchLes cent livres du siècle) is a list of the one hundred best books of the 20th century, according to a poll conducted in the spring of 1999 by the French retailer Fnac and the Paris newspaper Le Monde.

Starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists, 17,000 French voters responded to the question, "Which books have remained in your memory?" (Quels livres sont restés dans votre mémoire?).[1]

The list of acclaimed titles mixes great novels with poetry and theatre, as well as the comic strip. The list emphasizes French novels more, because of the demographics of the surveyed group.

The 100 Books of the CenturyEdit

No.TitleAuthorYearLanguage
1The Stranger
The Outsider
Albert Camus1942French
2In Search of Lost Time
Remembrance of Things Past
Marcel Proust19131927French
3The TrialFranz Kafka1925German
4The Little PrinceAntoine de Saint-Exupéry1943French
5Man's FateAndré Malraux1933French
6Journey to the End of the NightLouis-Ferdinand Céline1932French
7The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck1939English
8For Whom the Bell TollsErnest Hemingway1940English
9Le Grand MeaulnesAlain-Fournier1913French
10Froth on the DaydreamBoris Vian1947French
11The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir1949French
12Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett1952English
13Being and NothingnessJean-Paul Sartre1943French
14The Name of the RoseUmberto Eco1980Italian
15The Gulag ArchipelagoAleksandr Solzhenitsyn1973Russian
16ParolesJacques Prévert1946French
17AlcoolsGuillaume Apollinaire1913French
18The Blue LotusHergé1936French
19The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank1947Dutch
20Tristes TropiquesClaude Lévi-Strauss1955French
21Brave New WorldAldous Huxley1932English
22Nineteen Eighty-FourGeorge Orwell1949English
23Asterix the GaulRené Goscinnyand Albert Uderzo1959French
24The Bald SopranoEugène Ionesco1952French / Romanian
25Three Essays on the Theory of SexualitySigmund Freud1905German
26The Abyss
Zeno of Bruges
Marguerite Yourcenar1968French
27LolitaVladimir Nabokov1955English
28UlyssesJames Joyce1922English
29The Tartar SteppeDino Buzzati1940Italian
30The CounterfeitersAndré Gide1925French
31The Horseman on the RoofJean Giono1951French
32Belle du SeigneurAlbert Cohen1968French
33One Hundred Years of SolitudeGabriel García Márquez1967Spanish
34The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner1929English
35Thérèse DesqueyrouxFrançois Mauriac1927French
36Zazie in the MetroRaymond Queneau1959French
37Confusion of FeelingsStefan Zweig1927German
38Gone with the WindMargaret Mitchell1936English
39Lady Chatterley's LoverD. H. Lawrence1928English
40The Magic MountainThomas Mann1924German
41Bonjour TristesseFrançoise Sagan1954French
42Le Silence de la merVercors1942French
43Life: A User's ManualGeorges Perec1978French
44The Hound of the BaskervillesArthur Conan Doyle19011902English
45Under the Sun of SatanGeorges Bernanos1926French
46The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald1925English
47The JokeMilan Kundera1967Czech
48Contempt/A Ghost at NoonAlberto Moravia1954Italian
49The Murder of Roger AckroydAgatha Christie1926English
50NadjaAndré Breton1928French
51AurélienLouis Aragon1944French
52The Satin SlipperPaul Claudel1929French
53Six Characters in Search of an AuthorLuigi Pirandello1921Italian
54The Resistible Rise of Arturo UiBertolt Brecht1941German
55FridayMichel Tournier1967French
56The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells1898English
57If This Is a Man
Se questo è un uomo, Survival in Auschwitz
Primo Levi1947Italian
58The Lord of the RingsJ. R. R. Tolkien19541955English
59Les Vrilles de la vigneColette1908French
60Capital of PainPaul Éluard1926French
61Martin EdenJack London1909English
62Ballad of the Salt SeaHugo Pratt1967Italian
63Writing Degree ZeroRoland Barthes1953French
64The Lost Honour of Katharina BlumHeinrich Böll1974German
65The Opposing ShoreJulien Gracq1951French
66The Order of ThingsMichel Foucault1966French
67On the RoadJack Kerouac1957English
68The Wonderful Adventures of NilsSelma Lagerlöf19061907Swedish
69A Room of One's OwnVirginia Woolf1929English
70The Martian ChroniclesRay Bradbury1950English
71The Ravishing of Lol SteinMarguerite Duras1964French
72The InterrogationJ. M. G. Le Clézio1963French
73TropismsNathalie Sarraute1939French
74Journal, 1887–1910Jules Renard1925French
75Lord JimJoseph Conrad1900English
76ÉcritsJacques Lacan1966French
77The Theatre and its DoubleAntonin Artaud1938French
78Manhattan TransferJohn Dos Passos1925English
79FiccionesJorge Luis Borges1944Spanish
80MoravagineBlaise Cendrars1926French
81The General of the Dead ArmyIsmail Kadare1963Albanian
82Sophie's ChoiceWilliam Styron1979English
83Gypsy BalladsFederico García Lorca1928Spanish
84The Strange Case of Peter the LettGeorges Simenon1931French
85Our Lady of the FlowersJean Genet1944French
86The Man Without QualitiesRobert Musil19301942German
87Furor and MysteryRené Char1948French
88The Catcher in the RyeJ. D. Salinger1951English
89No Orchids For Miss BlandishJames Hadley Chase1939English
90Blake and MortimerEdgar P. Jacobs1950French
91The Notebooks of Malte Laurids BriggeRainer Maria Rilke1910German
92Second ThoughtsMichel Butor1957French
93The Origins of Totalitarianism
The Burden of Our Time
Hannah Arendt1951German
94The Master and MargaritaMikhail Bulgakov1967Russian
95The Rosy CrucifixionHenry Miller19491960English
96The Big SleepRaymond Chandler1939English
97AmersSaint-John Perse1957French
98Gaston
Gomer Goof
André Franquin1957French
99Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry1947English
100Midnight's ChildrenSalman Rushdie1981English

Note: Classified by the language of the book's first publication, which may not be the author's principal language.

No comments:

Post a Comment