The Booklist Century: 100 Books, 100 Years

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

About this list

BookList, 100 Books

The Booklist Century: 100 Books, 100 Years" is a curated list of 100 books created by Booklist to commemorate its 100th anniversary. The list celebrates a century of literature, selecting one book from each year that has had a significant impact over time. The impact considered is broad, encompassing literary, economic, sociological, and behavioral effects, showcasing the diversity in the criteria for selection. The process of choosing books highlighted the challenges of comparing different kinds of impacts and dealing with years that offered either an abundance of influential works or a scarcity of notable publications.

The compilation was undertaken by the Booklist staff, who also faced the task of acquiring a copy of each book, relying on their own collections and the resources of several Chicago-area libraries. This effort underscores the commitment and collaborative effort behind the project. The list includes a wide range of genres and types of books, from literature and cookbooks to children's books and sociological reports, indicating a comprehensive approach to recognizing books' varied impacts on society.

This list was originally published in 2005 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
814 The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett 1911 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
5321 My First Summer in the Sierra John Muir 1911 American English
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
14404 The Titan Theodore Dreiser 1914 American English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
10072 Prufrock and Other Observations T. S. Eliot 1917 British English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
2752 My Fight for Birth Control Margaret Sanger 1931 American English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
142 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 American English
675 The Joy of Cooking Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker 1931 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
12554 Histoire de Babar Jean de Brunhoff 1931 French French
469 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain 1934 American English
693 Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder 1935 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
914 The Yearling Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 1938 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
456 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee 1941 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
10155 A Bell for Adano John Hersey 1944 American English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
795 Baby And Child Care Benjamin Spock 1946 American English
113 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
945 Sexual Behavior in the Human Male Alfred C. Kinsey 1948 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
3155 Notes of a Native Son James Baldwin 1955 American English
1294 Peyton Place Grace Metalious 1956 American English
778 The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss 1957 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
620 The Elements of Style E. B. White, William Strunk Jr. 1918 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
709 The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan 1963 American English
987 Harriet the Spy Louise Fitzhugh 1964 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
540 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe 1968 American English
242 The Godfather Mario Puzo 1969 American English
573 Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Judy Blume 1970 American English
17152 The Pentagon Papers New York Times 1971 American English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
3148 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
1293 Salem's Lot Stephen King 1975 American English
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
2284 Smiley's People John le Carré 1979 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
5755 Blue Highways William Least Heat-Moon 1982 American English
2417 Bright Lights, Big City Jay McInerney 1984 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
1873 And the Band Played On Randy Shilts 1987 American English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
6835 There Are No Children Here Alex Kotlowitz 1991 American English
4507 Truman David McCullough 1992 American English
2492 A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines 1993 American English
2694 Waiting to Exhale Terry McMillan 1992 American English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
7682 Left Behind Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins 1995 American English
1877 Cold Mountain Charles Frazier 1997 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
14985 Galileo's Daughter Dava Sobel 1999 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
1693 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 2002 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
9607 The 9/11 Commission Report 9/11 Commission 2004 American English