The Best Of The Century
This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
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Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
A young girl named Fern saves a runt piglet from being slaughtered and names him Wilbur. When Wilbur grows too large, he is sent to live in her uncle's barn, where he befriends a clever spider named Charlotte. When Wilbur's life is in danger again, Charlotte weaves messages into her web to convince the farmer that Wilbur is too special to kill. The book explores themes of friendship, sacrifice, and the cycle of life.
The 107th Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
Ulysses by James Joyce
Set in Dublin, the novel follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman, as he navigates the city. The narrative, heavily influenced by Homer's Odyssey, explores themes of identity, heroism, and the complexities of everyday life. It is renowned for its stream-of-consciousness style and complex structure, making it a challenging but rewarding read.
The Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
An Experiment in Literary Investigation
"The Gulag Archipelago" is a comprehensive and stark account of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system. The narrative, based on the author's own experiences as a prisoner and on extensive research, documents the history, operation, and life inside the Gulag system. It also provides a critical examination of the regime's legal system, police operations, and political leadership. The book is an intense indictment of the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime, revealing its brutality, inhumanity, and vast scale of its prison camp network.
The 206th Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
This seven-part series follows the adventures of various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the fantastical realm of Narnia. The children are magically transported to Narnia from our world, where they aid the noble lion Aslan in his struggles against evil forces in order to restore peace and justice. The series explores themes of good versus evil, the nature of faith, and the power of sacrifice, all set against a richly imagined magical world full of diverse creatures and landscapes.
The 233rd Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The novel follows the story of a young girl named Meg Murry, her younger brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe as they embark on a cosmic journey to rescue Meg and Charles Wallace's father. The father, a scientist, has been missing since he discovered a new planet using the concept of Tesseract, which is a wrinkle in time. Guided by three mysterious celestial beings, the children travel across different dimensions, face evil forces, and learn about the power of love and self-sacrifice.
The 292nd Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
This novel is a multi-generational saga that focuses on the Buendía family, who founded the fictional town of Macondo. It explores themes of love, loss, family, and the cyclical nature of history. The story is filled with magical realism, blending the supernatural with the ordinary, as it chronicles the family's experiences, including civil war, marriages, births, and deaths. The book is renowned for its narrative style and its exploration of solitude, fate, and the inevitability of repetition in history.
The 5th Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
or, The Confession of a White Widowed Male
The novel tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a man with a disturbing obsession for young girls, or "nymphets" as he calls them. His obsession leads him to engage in a manipulative and destructive relationship with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Lolita. The narrative is a controversial exploration of manipulation, obsession, and unreliable narration, as Humbert attempts to justify his actions and feelings throughout the story.
The 14th Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
This book is a real-life account of a young Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis during World War II, written in diary format. The girl and her family are forced to live in a secret annex in Amsterdam for two years, during which she writes about her experiences, fears, dreams, and the onset of adolescence. The diary provides a poignant and deeply personal insight into the horrors of the Holocaust, making it a powerful testament to the human spirit.
The 113th Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon -
The Double Helix by James D. Watson
A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA
This book is a personal account of the race to discover the structure of DNA, told from the perspective of one of the co-discoverers. It provides an insider's view of scientific research, the collaboration and competition, the dedication, the doubt, the exhilaration of discovery, and the often fraught relationship between science and the rest of life. The book also explores the personalities, quirks, and conflicts of the scientists involved in the groundbreaking discovery.
The 301st Greatest Book of All TimePurchase from Bookshop.org or Amazon
TIME, 9 Books
This list is from Time Magazine from Dec. 31, 1999. This lists the best books of the 20th century. It only has Children's Books, Fiction, and non-fiction, and only lists 1 book as the winner, and the rest as runners up
This list was originally published in 1999 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.
This list has a weight of 1%. To learn more about what this means please visit the Rankings page.
Here is a list of what is decreasing the importance of this list:
- Voters: unknown count
- List: only covers 1 specific genre
- List: only covers 100 years
- Voters: are mostly from a single country/location
- Voters: Unknown Names
If you think this is incorrect please contact us.
- Voter Count Unknown:
- Yes
- Voter Names Unknown:
- Yes
- High Quality Source:
- No
- Location Specific:
- No
- Category Specific:
- Yes