The 100 Favorite Novels of Librarians

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

About this list

Bookman.com, 100 Books

The “100 Favorite Novels of Librarians” list was put together by Brodart Book Services as an informal, grassroots rejoinder to the Modern Library “100 Best” splash of 1998. Marc Sheaffer—then a marketing manager at Brodart—posted an open note to library list-servs that autumn titled “The Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century: Who Is to Judge?” and invited colleagues to e-mail him their own five all-time favourite novels. Over the next six months (September 1998 → March 1999) he tallied every ballot and ranked the one hundred most-mentioned titles, releasing the results as a single-page flyer and on Brodart’s now-defunct Bookman.com site.
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librarything.com

Unfortunately, almost everything beyond that headline data has vanished. The original PDF/HTML isn’t in the Wayback Machine, trade magazines never printed the final flyer, and neither Brodart nor Sheaffer published a voter roll or even a head-count. What survives are fragmentary list-serv messages that prove the call for votes, plus countless second-hand reposts (LibraryThing, Goodreads, ListChallenges and even Pinterest) that repeat the dates but add no methodology. In other words, we can document when and why the list was made—and that librarians were simply asked for their personal top-five—but not how many librarians responded or whether any weighting scheme was applied. Until someone uncovers a surviving copy of the 1999 Brodart flyer, the list remains a fascinating yet mist-shrouded snapshot of late-1990s librarian taste.

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
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
1395 The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley 1983 American English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
2108 The Shell Seekers Rosamunde Pilcher 1987 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
2158 The Clan of the Cave Bear Jean M. Auel 1980 American English
5391 The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans 1995 British English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
5410 The Prince of Tides Pat Conroy 1986 American English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
14985 Follow the River James Alexander Thom 1981 American English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
2074 Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson 1994 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
1799 The Giver Lois Lowry 1993 American English
1877 Cold Mountain Charles Frazier 1997 American English
5123 Cold Sassy Tree Olive Ann Burns 1984 American English
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
13066 Bridge to Terabithia Katherine Paterson 1977 American English
1830 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler 1982 American English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
2098 The Bean Trees Barbara Kingsolver 1988 American English
1998 Ben-Hur Lew Wallace 1880 American English
191 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
814 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 1911 British English
1307 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred D. Taylor 1976 American English
2255 Busman’s Honeymoon Dorothy L. Sayers 1937 British English
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
17152 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Rebecca Wells 1996 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
2606 Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 1985 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
17152 A Patchwork Planet Anne Tyler 1998 American English
805 Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers 1935 British English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
1645 Shogun James Clavell 1975 British English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
623 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry 1985 American English
842 Outlander Diana Gabaldon 1991 American English
14051 Pigs in Heaven Barbara Kingsolver 1993 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
1676 Time and Again Jack Finney 1970 American English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
2273 The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler 1985 American English
1615 Giants in the Earth Ole Edvart Rolvaag 1927 Norwegian Norwegian
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
4298 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Fannie Flagg 1987 American English
17152 Tisha Robert Specht 1976 American English
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
17152 Christy Catherine Marshall 1967 American English
828 Lost Horizon James Hilton 1933 British English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
4285 Boy's Life Robert R. McCammon 1991 American English
17152 Chesapeake James A. Michener 1978 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
2442 How Green Was My Valley Richard Llewellyn 1939 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
822 I, Robot Isaac Asimov 1950 American English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English