The 50 best books of the past 100 years

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

About this list

The Times, 51 Books

On the 100th anniversary of Ulysses, our jury of authors and critics picked the finest novels published since Joyce’s classic — and readers picked the 51st. Here's who voted:

● Kamila Shamsie is the author of Home Fire, which won the Women’s Prize.
● David Nicholls is the author of One Day and Starter for Ten.
● Aminatta Forna has written four novels, including Happiness.
● John Carey is chief literary critic of The Sunday Times. He has been reviewing in these pages for 50 years.
● Sarah Waters has written six novels, including Fingersmith.
● Sebastian Faulks is the author of 17 novels, including Birdsong.
● Anne Enright has written seven novels, including her Booker-winning The Gathering.
● Megan Nolan wrote Acts of Desperation.
● Peter Kemp is chief fiction reviewer for The Sunday Times.
● Colm Tóibín has written ten novels, including Brooklyn.
● Claire Lowdon is a novelist and literary critic.
● Yiyun Li writes short stories and novels, including A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.
● David Mitchell is the author of Cloud Atlas.
● Johanna Thomas-Corr is a journalist and literary critic.
● Diana Evans is the award-winning author of Ordinary People.
● Carys Davies is the author of West and The Mission House.

This list was originally published in 2022 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
735 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Indian English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
1354 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
849 Regeneration Pat Barker 1991 British English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
2280 The Corner That Held Them Sylvia Townsend Warner 1948 British English
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
2597 A Fringe Of Leaves Patrick White 1976 Australian English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English