Koen Book Distributors Top 100 Books of the Past Century

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

themodernnovel.com, 100 Books

Intended as a companion to the infamous Modern Library ranking of the top 100 books of the past century, this list represents a different viewpoint--that of the booksellers themselves. Compiled from the responses of over 150 Koen Book Distributors customers, the following titles represent the very best in modern literature.

This list was originally published in 1999 and was added to this site almost 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
490 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911 American English
1643 Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt 1996 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
722 Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison 1992 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
713 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara 1974 American English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
230 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
2074 Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson 1994 American English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
2022 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
2098 The Bean Trees Barbara Kingsolver 1988 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
2967 Kane and Abel Jeffrey Archer 1979 British English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
4446 Ellen Foster Kaye Gibbons 1987 American English
5122 Cold Sassy Tree Olive Ann Burns 1984 American English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
8415 War and Remembrance Herman Wouk 1978 American English
320 Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak 1963 American English
3050 Centennial James A. Michener 1974 American English
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
5772 The Road from Coorain Jill Ker Conway 1989 Australian English
560 Sula Toni Morrison 1973 American English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
1676 Time and Again Jack Finney 1970 American English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
242 The Godfather Mario Puzo 1969 American English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
3874 The Alienist Caleb Carr 1994 American English
9142 Talk Before Sleep Elizabeth Berg 1994 American English
2108 The Shell Seekers Rosamunde Pilcher 1987 British English
1536 Rubyfruit Jungle Rita Mae Brown 1973 American English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
5410 The Prince of Tides Pat Conroy 1986 American English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
564 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
1934 Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières 1994 British English
2176 Hawaii James A. Michener 1959 American English
8273 The Education of Little Tree Forrest Carter 1976 American English