Lists of Great Reads for an Entire Lifetime

In the space below, I am providing lists of many of the world's greatest books ever written. If you are looking for one of the greats to kick start that itch or resolution to read more - or you are looking for a list of reading that will last an entire lifetime - you'll likely find it.

My Everyman's Library collection has lead me straight to the front door, page one, of many of these amazing works of literature and I am forever grateful for their curation of such an amazing collection.  I hope the lists below inspires you to pick  a title or two or fifty - in whatever edition you can find them - and go for it!

Troy Farlow

A Few Words about Modern Library and the List:

In addition to Everyman’s Library, Modern Library is another great collection of books that many here in America have likely heard of or grown up with. And as for this list, I first saw this list in the same book that I learned about the above list, in Rabinowitz and Kaplan’s “A Passion for Books.”

How the 100 Top Novels were Chosen:

From Modern Library’s website: “The [Modern Library’s] readers’ poll for the best novels published in the English language since 1900 opened on July 20, 1998 and closed on October 20, 1998, with 217,520 votes cast.”

So out of those 217,520 votes, what were the top 100 novels chosen?

Here’s the list:

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce 
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce 
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov 
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley 
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner 
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller 
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler 
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence 
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck 
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry 
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler 
13. 1984 by George Orwell 
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves 
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf 
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser 
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers 
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut 
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison 
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright 
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow 
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara 
23. U.S.A.(trilogy) by John Dos Passos 
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson 
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster 
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James 
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James 
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell 
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford 
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James 
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser 
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh 
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner 
36. ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren 
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder 
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster 
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin 
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene 
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding 
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey 
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell 
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley 
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway 
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad 
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad 
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence 
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence 
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller 
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer 
52. PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth 
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov 
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner 
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac 
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett 
57. PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford 
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton 
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm 
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy 
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather 
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones 
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever 
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger 
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess 
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham 
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad 
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis 
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton 
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durrell 
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes 
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul 
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West 
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway 
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh 
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark 
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce 
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling 
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster 
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh 
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow 
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner 
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul 
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen 
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad 
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow 
87. THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett 
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London 
89. LOVING by Henry Green 
90. MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie 
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell 
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy 
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles 
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys 
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch 
96. SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron 
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles 
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain 
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy 
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

And How About the 100 Best Non-Fiction Books:

From Modern Library’s website: “The [Modern Library’s] reader’s poll for the best non-fiction published in the English language since 1900 opened on April 29, 1999 and closed on September 30, 1999 with a total of 194,829 votes cast.” 

So out of those 194,829 votes, what were the highest rated 100 best non-fiction books?

Here’s the list:

1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams 
2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James 
3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington 
4. A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN by Virginia Woolf 
5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson 
6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot 
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson 
8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov 
9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken 
10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes 
11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas 
12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner 
13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright 
14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster 
15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote 
16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman 
17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin 
18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr 
19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin 
20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein 
21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White 
22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal 
23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell 
24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould 
25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams 
26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar 
27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson 
28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls 
29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich 
30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson 
31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois 
32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore 
33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey 
34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D’Arcy Thompson 
35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein 
36. THE AGE OF JACKSON by Arthur Schlesinger by Jr. 
37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes 
38. BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON by Rebecca West 
39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats 
40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham 
41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves 
42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell 
43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain 
44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles 
45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee 
46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith 
47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson 
48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough 
49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson 
50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate 
51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X 
52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe 
53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey 
54. WORKING by Studs Terkel 
55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron 
56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling 
57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill 
58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen 
59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone 
60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams 
61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner 
62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow 
63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling 
64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper 
65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates 
66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney 
67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann 
68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence 
69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn 
70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward 
71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill 
72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels 
73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann 
74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith 
75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell 
76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford 
77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson 
78. WHY WE CAN’T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr. 
79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris 
80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky 
81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan 
82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield 
83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing 
84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan 
85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham 
86. THIS BOY’S LIFE by Tobias Wolff 
87. A MATHEMATICIAN’S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy 
88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman 
89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard 
90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer 
91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison 
92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro 
93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter 
94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams 
95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly 
96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote 
97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm 
98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking 
99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott 
100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil

The Guardian is a daily newspaper in England.  I like the Guardian.  I always click on a news link if the article title trips my fancy and I see that it has been printed in The Guardian. 

Here's an article with a list of 100 of the greatest novels according to a gentleman named Robert McCrum, who took two years to compile his list. And then, in August of 2015, the Guardian ran this article with McCrum's list.

I'll leave it up to the viewer to simply check out the article itself - rather than list the 100 here - as the article does a nice job with explaining the details of the list and also gives a few-sentence blurb about each book that is nice and helpful and informative.

Who doesn't love the BBC?  And books?  And Britain?  And here are all three together!  A perfect storm (and bit of an alliteration of sorts, ha!)

Here's the list of 25, but I've also provided the link straight to the article, as there is great commentary on each book and pictures of each as well.

The List and RANKED as well:

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot
2. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
3. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
4. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
6. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
8. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
9. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
10. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
11. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
12. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
13. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
14. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
15. Atonement by Ian McEwan
16. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
17. Howards End by EM Forster
18. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
19. Emma by Jane Austen
20. Persuasion by Jane Austen
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding
23. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
24. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
25. White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Here is the bibliography for the above lists of great books that you might want to simply throw a dart at and start reading!

The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman

“A Passion for Books” by Harold Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan, p. 49-54.

Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major’s The New Lifetime Reading Plan (HarperCollins, 1998).

I also found the list electronically and simply copied and pasted the list and after some formatting, added it above. The website that I copied it from said that there is no copyright and that all material is for free use, but regardless, here’s credit due to the website that I retrieved the Fadiman list from – and it seems to be a great literary site for those interested in having a look: 

http://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/book-lists/fadiman.htm

Modern Library List of 100 Top Novels

http://www.modernlibrary.com/

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/

“A Passion for Books” by Harold Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan, p. 334-336

Modern Library Best 100 Non-Fiction Books

http://www.modernlibrary.com/100-best-novels-subfeature/

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/

The Guardian List of 100 Novels

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list

25 Greatest British Novels

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-25-greatest-british-novels

100 Books Every Man Should Read

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/100-books-every-man-read/

At the beginning of this "Great Reading List" link, I began with a list of 130 authors (over 220 books) that is a list that is referred to as "The New Lifetime Reading Plan" list.  I discovered this list from another book (as mentioned and credited above), but upon creating this website and digging more, discovered the book itself that the list came from - written by the two authors' that worked hard to compile the list itself!

So, without further ado (again!), here is a picture of their book!  A worthy book to pick up and check out for sure.

This list of classics flying under the moniker "100 Books Every Man Should Read" shows up on the website called "The Art of Manliness" - and while I like a lot of books on the list - and am a man, ha! - the just "man" part bothers me.  Why can't this list be for anyone who loves some or all of these 100 books - for him OR her OR they/them, right?!  So, two things: 1), regardless of the title of the list and how you identify, have a look, and, 2) thank you to the hes, shes, and/or theys over at Art of Manliness for putting together this list for ALL of us to enjoy!  Much appreciated! :-)