100 Novels That Shaped Our World

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

About this list

BBC, 100 Books

Stories have the power to change us. We asked a panel of leading writers, curators and critics to choose 100 genre-busting novels that have had an impact on their lives, and this is the result. These English language novels, written over the last 300 years, range from children’s classics to popular page turners. Organised into themes, they reflect the ways books help shape and influence our thinking.

The panel are Radio 4 Front Row presenter and Times Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell, broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, authors Juno Dawson, Kit de Waal and Alexander McCall Smith, and Bradford Festival Literary Director Syima Aslam

This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site over 6 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
5338 Days Without End Sebastian Barry 2016 Irish English
2955 Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels 1996 Canadian English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
2502 Homegoing Yaa Gyasi 2016 Ghanaian English
2485 Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 British English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
4148 Forever... Judy Blume 1975 American English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
5222 Riders Jilly Cooper 1985 British English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
786 The Far Pavilions Mary Margaret Kaye 1978 British English
9816 The Forty Rules of Love Elif Shafak 2009 Turkish Turkish
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
3817 City of Bohane Kevin Barry 2011 Irish English
1494 Eye Of The Needle Ken Follett 1978 British English
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
7871 Mr Standfast John Buchan 1919 British English
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
1388 The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 American English
921 Master and Commander Patrick O'Brian 1969 British English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
9701 Astonishing the Gods Ben Okri 1995 Nigerian English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
234 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
1626 The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett 1983 British English
278 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
1348 Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
2058 A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini 2007 Afghan English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
4754 Home Fire Kamila Shamsie 2017 British English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
2170 Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman 2001 British English
5477 Strumpet City James Plunkett 1969 Irish English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
5620 V for Vendetta Alan Moore 1982 British English
2927 Unless Carol Shields 2002 Canadian English
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
942 Cannery Row John Steinbeck 1945 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
7871 Poor Cow Nell Dunn 1967 British English
1006 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe 1958 British English
1773 The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne Brian Moore 1955 Irish English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
2591 Emily of New Moon L. M. Montgomery 1923 Canadian English
13276 Golden Child Claire Adam 2019 Trinidadian English
3129 Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood 2003 Canadian English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
2852 Swami and Friends R. K. Narayan 1935 Indian English
1202 The Country Girls Edna O'Brien 1960 Irish English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
779 The Outsiders S. E. Hinton 1967 American English
1741 The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 Sue Townsend 1982 British English
2682 Twilight Stephenie Meyer 2005 American English
735 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Indian English
762 Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild 1936 British English
3828 Cloudstreet Tim Winton 1991 Australian English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
700 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 American English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
1103 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 British English
1931 The Witches Roald Dahl 1983 British English
6273 American Tabloid James Ellroy 1995 American English
8379 American War Omar El Akkad 2017 Canadian English
5307 Ice-Candy-Man Bapsi Sidhwa 1988 Pakistani English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
6920 The Reluctant Fundamentalist Mohsin Hamid 2007 Pakistani English
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
637 The Quiet American Graham Greene 1955 British English
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
460 Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853 American English
10075 Habibi Craig Thompson 2011 American English
2334 How to be both Ali Smith 2014 British English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
7871 Psmith, Journalist P. G. Wodehouse 1915 British English
4368 The Moor's Last Sigh Salman Rushdie 1995 British English
1666 Zami Audre Lorde 1982 American English