Waterstone's Books of the Century

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

About this list

LibraryThing, 102 Books

Waterstones is a bookstore chain with more than 200 stores in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and Europe. In January 1997, Waterstones announced the results of its Books of the Century poll to find out what the public considered to be the hundred greatest books of the twentieth century. Over 25, 000 people took part in the poll and the Book of the Century was revealed as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

This list was originally published in 1997 and was added to this site about 8 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
2208 Trainspotting Irvine Welsh 1993 Scottish English
903 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
165 Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne 1926 British English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
126 If This Is a Man Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italian
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
1210 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
1377 Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 1964 British English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
1835 Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder 1991 Norwegian Norwegian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
735 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Indian English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
1953 Titus Alone Mervyn Peake 1959 British English
629 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake 1946 British English
525 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
642 Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain 1933 British English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
700 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
1934 Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernières 1994 British English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
981 It Stephen King 1986 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
4632 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Roddy Doyle 1993 Irish English
1346 Matilda Roald Dahl 1988 British English
570 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
1444 James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl 1961 British English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
9152 How to Cook Delia Smith 1971 British English
13225 An Evil Cradling Brian Keenan 1991 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
1245 Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell 1933 British English
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
91 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
2275 Long Walk To Freedom Nelson Mandela 1994 South African English
2307 The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins 1976 British English
1531 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 1990 American English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
6905 The Van Roddy Doyle 1991 Irish English
1397 The BFG Roald Dahl 1982 British English
1374 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess 1980 British English
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
5389 The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans 1995 British English