100 Best Novels in English Since 1900

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

About this list

Counterpunch, 98 Books

Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn's favorite novels since 1900.

This list was originally published in 2014 and was added to this site almost 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
1856 Under Western Eyes Joseph Conrad 1911 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
3426 The Violent Bear It Away Flannery O'Connor 1960 American English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
556 The Code of the Woosters P. G. Wodehouse 1938 British English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
3851 JR William Gaddis 1975 American English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
536 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett 1929 American English
1281 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 1972 American English
1857 A Lost Lady Willa Cather 1923 American English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
10360 Far Tortuga Peter Matthiessen 1975 American English
14713 The Iron Heel Jack London 1908 American English
2537 Jazz Toni Morrison 1992 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
7085 Nothing Like the Sun Anthony Burgess 1964 British English
831 Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers 1903 British English
2547 The Thinking Reed Rebecca West 1936 British English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
15898 Beat the Devil Claud Cockburn 1951 British English
17131 The Indian Lawyer James Welch 1990 Native American English
4079 The White Hotel D. M. Thomas 1981 British English
893 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
16511 The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold Evelyn Waugh 1957 British English
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
17131 The Almanac of the Dead Leslie Marmon Silko 1991 American English
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
6214 The Monkey Wrench Gang Edward Abbey 1975 American English
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
3034 Novel on Yellow Paper Stevie Smith 1936 British English
17131 A Feast of Snakes Harry Crews 1976 American English
14984 Vida Marge Piercy 1979 American English
2132 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
5702 A Place of Greater Safety Hilary Mantel 1992 British English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
2954 Dog Soldiers Robert Stone 1974 American English
14984 Animal Dreams Barbara Kingsolver 1990 American English
681 Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963 American English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
790 The Mask of Dimitrios Eric Ambler 1939 British English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
3845 Written on the Body Jeanette Winterson 1992 British English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
1852 July's People Nadine Gordimer 1981 South African English
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
14194 Julian Gore Vidal 1964 American English
1679 The Killer Inside Me Jim Thompson 1952 American English
17131 An American Dream Norman Mailer 1965 American English
5324 If He Hollers Let Him Go Chester Himes 1945 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
10418 Matterhorn Karl Marlantes 2010 American English
1695 The Last Good Kiss James Crumley 1978 American English
1368 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
3236 The Radiant Way Margaret Drabble 1987 British English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
1597 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992 American English
17131 Ray Barry Hannah 1980 American English
2634 Tripmaster Monkey Maxine Hong Kingston 1989 American English
12249 The Golden Gate Vikram Seth 1986 Indian English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
7152 Gateway Frederik Pohl 1977 American English
2303 Machine Dreams Jayne Anne Phillips 1984 American English
1292 Two Serious Ladies Jane Bowles 1943 American English
17131 Mr. American George MacDonald Fraser 1980 British English
963 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm 1911 British English
17131 The Dogs of March Ernest Hebert 1979 American English
14890 The Deceivers John Masters 1952 British English
14231 The King Must Die Mary Renault 1958 British English
17131 Sleeping Beauty Ross Macdonald 1973 American English
2101 Tree of Smoke Denis Johnson 2007 American English
14984 The House Of Splendid Isolation Edna O'Brien 1994 Irish English
14984 Lucy Jamaica Kincaid 1990 Antiguan English
4538 Affliction Russell Banks 1989 American English
805 Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers 1935 British English
3184 Flicker Theodore Roszak 1991 American English
1524 Greenmantle John Buchan 1916 British English