50 Great Books of the 20th Century

There are so many great books written with great intentions and some written without any intention whatsoever that just happen to be great. I have compiled a list of 50 books that I think are some of the key texts of the 20th century. However, this is simply an opinion so you may or may not find your own favourites on here and neither is this all of them. I have my reasons for choosing and leaving certain books out. They are in no particular order...

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1. Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov

I really love this book a lot, in fact it is my favourite Nabokov novel. It's about a man who is in prison and is tricked horribly. An ironic and satirical book about human relations, the human experience and what happens to us when we know that we're dying and there's nothing we can do about it - in my opinion, it is Nabokov's finest work.

2. The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac

This, in my opinion, is Jack Kerouac's finest work after "The Sea is My Brother" and is considerably better than "On the Road". I think it's because of the fact that it's so descriptive, so atmospheric and so incredibly vivid. You can seriously picture Jack Kerouac's travels and his life in terms of place, time and space. It is a fabulous piece of writing and a great accomplishment of literature.

3. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

Orwell's greatest book and one of the best autobiographies to come out of that time period. This is a brilliant book which includes two places, one in London and one in Paris where the average working class man (Orwell) is struggling to make it by working in restaurants, promised a job in a hotel but it never happens. He takes off for another city but there's not much hope there either. It's Orwell's greatest piece of writing.

4. Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

I loved reading this book so much because the racial politics were so hyper-realistic and the book was filled with things you could actually imagine happening at the time. There was murder, morality questions and a vigil over the deathbed of a controversial character for more than one reason. It is written beautifully and there's an even longer version of the book you can read if you're interested.

5. Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A book about survival and the lengths a man will go to in order to get himself home, this is my favourite Marquez novel of all time. I remember reading it when I was 18 and becoming completely engrossed in the meaning of the ending. The ending is both clever and beautiful, but you will never see the closure coming - it eases you in perfectly.

6. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh was one of the greatest authors of the 20th century in my opinion and this novel is one of the greatest novels ever written. My favourite character was always Sebastian Flyte and his teddy, Aloysius. Sebastian is the perfect image of the boy who never grew up mentally. He's got this childlike charm, but when it comes to manipulation - he's pretty psychotic. He can manipulate Charles Ryder from afar and no matter how much Ryder is warned against him - it is no use. The Marchmain family has their hold on Ryder's existence.

7. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

This is probably one of the greatest Southern Gothic Tragedies ever written. Actually, I want to change that. It is the greatest one ever written. About Thomas Sutpen and told through the eyes of side characters, it is a family tragedy about power and money, the southern gothic problem and the changing nature of the country. It echoes the structures of Shakespeare in its style.

8. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

About a deaf man and his friend, this book makes light of the best things about being human in the worst emotional scenarios. It's a book that gives us hope and sadness at the same time, it's a book that pulls us into the lives of others - different to ourselves. Carson McCullers writes it beautifully and it's one of the most important novels of the 20th century.

9. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Set during the Great Depression, there really isn't anyone who writes satire of the 1930s better than John Steinbeck. I love this book because unlike his others it has many characters with storylines of their own and yet, nobody gets what they want in the end. It is also different to his others because it's actually funny whereas his others I find quite depressing sometimes, especially "The Grapes of Wrath".

10. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

This is one of the most perfect books ever written. It stars Meggie, the daughter of two of the most emotional parents in the world. When the family move country, there is something deeply wrong with all the communication between the characters. When Meggie falls for a priest and her brother becomes slightly estranged, the family drama only intensifies. I cried at the end of this book and I read it ages ago. But I still remember every fine detail.

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11. The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was one of the gods of the short story and he wrote many humanity-based icons normally concerning people dying or people being born. The wants and needs of basic, simple humans such as a woman in want of a child, a woman in want of change, a man who wants to work in the matador and so much more. It's a beautiful book I've read a few times - I love it.

12. Answered Prayers by Truman Capote

This is Truman Capote's last novel and it is unfinished. It's also his most heart-filled novel because, unlike his others, I think he reveals more about himself in this one than he actually means to. The language is exquisitely beautiful and the atmosphere of nostalgia is ripe as it is brilliant. I'm pretty obsessed with Capote and this novel is one of the reasons why.

13. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

This is a family drama set within the wonderful Latin American Culture. It stars the patriarch, Esteban and three generations and going of his brilliant, magic realist family. The clairvoyant Clara has sons, the land and money grows. The revolution and the wars arrive and the family goes through turmoil after turmoil. With the book beginning with the death of 'Rosa the Beautiful', you could never understand what this book means to people unless you read it with your heart instead of your brain.

14. All Quiet on the Western Front by EM Remarque

This book was the world book day assigned book for one year when I was in school and my teacher provided us all with a copy of the book. I was the only one in my class who actually read it because it was free reading material. It terrified me to the bone. It shook me. I stayed up all night with my head in my hands wondering where it all went wrong and sobbed quietly to myself. It's so realistic and I came to adore the book because of its rich atmosphere and hyper-realism when it came to the war.

15. The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

This book is one of those novels which explores identity in a way and time that wasn't really done before. From sexuality to the nature of human sadness, from great happiness to great depression. The 1960s has never looked so human before. It's not just about drugs and music, it's about relationships, it's about dating someone for their appearance and then realising they're horrid, it's about your husband being a closeted homosexual and so much more. It's about coping when you're falling apart in a quickly changing world.

16. Blindness by Jose Saramago

This is one of the best novels to read if you're looking for some very realistic human emotion to do with something that would scare the living crap out of everyone ever (and I can relate because I'm partially blind myself). It's about a man who stops his car in the middle of the road because he's gone blind, and he has to go home and tell his wife. He breaks down, his life and marriage break down - and that's just the beginning. It's a beautiful book to do with human extremes. Everyone should read it.

17. The Trial by Franz Kafka

This is a book I think that everyone knows that they should read once in their life. It concerns a man called Josef K who finds that he has been arrested. He is never told why he's arrested but he is told what he will be subjected to. Josef K works in the legal and finance system himself and it's only a matter of time when you get to see the brutality of the government against a man who is, in all terms, one of their own. It's a brilliantly clever novel and is highly philosophical.

18. Perfume by Patrick Suskind

I used to work with a woman who called this one of her favourite books of all time and I have to say that it is a brilliantly written book. It's about a murderous man who concentrates on smell. It's written with such beauty and raw horror that you sometimes find it unreal that someone thought about this for so long. It's amazing and twisted, it contains humanity and no humanity all at the same time. But the weirdest thing about it is that it makes you feel sorry for the protagonist.

19. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

One of the greatest books about travels across America including drugs, alcohol and a lot of trouble since Kerouac's "On the Road". The only difference was that these people were going on it professionally. Hunter S Thompson went to write about a motorcycle race in Las Vegas and this book is an example of his Gonzo Journalism style in which we are completely immersed in the story-like tell-all of his journey, arrival and experience. It is a turning point in both literature and journalism and Thompson is a hero of both.

20. The Early Stories of Truman Capote

This book showcases the early talents of one of the greatest writers of all time. Truman Capote's early stories are a great gateway into the dark and intense writings of a boy that was practically abandoned by his mother from an early age and forced to grow up with relatives. A boy who never really knew his father and a boy who had an extreme talent with words, by making them do beautiful things. In stories like "Ms. Belle Rankin", you will find the brooding intensity of Capote's later works bubbling under the surface.

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21. Cathedral by Raymond Carver

This is the book that proves how much of an amazing short story author Raymond Carver really is. It's filled with raw human emotion without the flowery language, but instead it has an awful lot of symbolism. It has meaningful conversation and dialogue that sounds philosophical and filled with the most extreme aspects of the human experience.

22. Just Above My Head by James Baldwin

This book is, in my opinion, James Baldwin's best effort and producing a book primarily about grief and redemption. It's about a man who finds out his brother has died and then, recalls his life in memories and aspects that constantly change our opinions about him throughout the book. It's written with such power and such class, we find out things about this brother that you could only find out from the narrator and nobody else knew. It's like seeing into someone's soul.

23. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

This book is Cormac McCarthy's greatest effort at what is essentially an epic American novel. It is about outlaws, love, morality, romance, relationships and much more. The language is beautiful and the symbolism of horses (and dreams of them!) is just one of the most breathtaking things you will ever read. I read it when I was 14 and it took my breath away pretty quickly.

24. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

I bloody love these books. I read them when I was a teenager and none of them ever left me. It's a brilliant series and the book that starts them all off is the interview conducted by Daniel and starring the vampire Louis - Lestat's fledgling. He goes through Babette and Claudia, the eating of chickens and rats, the Theatre Des Vampires and much more. But most importantly, it is a small piece of Lestat de Lioncourt's massive story arc. It's a brilliant book that changed the course of literature forever.

25. The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

This book is one of the most incredible things you'll ever read because it's about one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century. Malcolm X was an amazing figure and his autobiography tells his story from the very start and it is shocking. It talks about the racism that was rife in the USA at that time and his family, it talks about his politics, his religion, how he converted, how he was imprisoned, everything. There is a greatness to reading this book because it feels like you're holding a man's history in your hands. But it's not just any man. It's one of the greatest men in the history of the world.

26. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

This book turned me vegetarian for about three weeks after I read it because it's all about the meat industry and how it develops through the help of migrants. The problem was that the meat industry seemed to have no concern for not only the cleanliness of the location but it had no concern for the health of its workers either - making the argument that because they were migrants it wasn't necessary to give them healthcare properly. It's an awfully honest book and I'm scared that it may depict real life.

27. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

"In Cold Blood" was really the beginning of the true-crime obsession in the literary world. It is considered, to this day, Truman Capote's greatest work because it involves a great amount of research and journalism in order to depict a heinous crime by two individuals who are scarily human. It is nothing like Truman Capote has ever embarked on before but it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest books ever written in the history of literature. It's a brilliant novel with a greatness to it that means it will never die. If you like Capote's "In Cold Blood" then please read Masha Gessen's "The Brothers" because I find them very similar in their attempt to explain horrid crimes by individuals who are considered once, normal and one of us.

28. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

When you think of Italo Calvino, the first thing you think of is the philosophical and twisted writings of a man exploring the greatest aspects of humanity, including journey, adventure and self-discovery. This book is just that but it is also something else. It is the seminal work of post-modernism, a puzzle of a book, it is a brilliant piece of writing and a book for the ages.

29. Maus by Art Spiegelman

"Maus" is possibly one of the greatest, if not the greatest graphic novel ever written. All about the treatment of the Jewish People in World War 2, it is a classic story of pain and anguish in the style of an emotionally raging novel that deals with hardship and brutality whilst also presenting you with graphics and most importantly, dialogue. It won the Pulitzer Prize for a reason. A very good reason.

30. The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

This is one of the smartest books I've read in a long, long time. It's all about knowledge and that the glass bead game can only be won by having knowledge, finding knowledge and acquiring more knowledge. To be the smarter person is to win the game and the knowledge isn't limited to philosophy and literature, it is about languages, mathematics, chemistry, ancient history and so much more. It's a brilliantly devious book with a moral lesson buried deep within it as one man tries to win the game and becomes obsessed with it.

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31. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis

I read this book whilst I was in secondary school. It's about a boy called Clayton who returns home to find that his closest friends have changed and none of them for the better. Whilst being concerned for his friends Rip and Finn, he manages to see for himself what they are doing and, whilst trying to locate his friend Julian, he is pulled into the dire details concerning Trent and others. It is a horrid yet truthful account of the transgressive teenage 80s. Scary as it is honest, the characters really do have 'nothing to lose'.

32. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

This mysterious account of murder and intrigue is set against the backdrop of a Medieval monastery which only makes it all the darker and more intense. The language is brilliant and the book leaves you wondering about the truths and lies hidden within the Catholic Church's grandiose history.

33. Kafka was the Rage by Anatole Broyard

This book was one that I've read many, many times before. It's by one of my personal heroes - Anatole Broyard. He writes about the dislocation of being after returning from service in WW2. He finds that Sherri, his girlfriend, is slowly slipping into this new style of obsessive-compulsive madness and seems to be regressing into the stage of neediness. He finds that he himself has no space in this new ever-changing space and hastily tries to change with it before it is too late. It's a short but brilliantly vibrant novel filled with concerning philosophies on human usefulness and uselessness.

34. Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates

This book is really about eleven different kinds of loneliness because it begins with the story of a boy who is new at school and doesn't fit in and moves through the different stories with deep intensity and humanity. It's a beautiful book which is also different to anything by Yates I've ever read, I would argue that it is more thorough at exploring human connection than "Revolutionary Road" - and everyone loves that book, (even me).

35. The Hours by Michael Cunningham

I read this book in university but I had a friend recommending it to me for years before that and well, I only read it when it was recommended reading at university. But I absolutely loved it. It's all about these three women in three different times who do not know each other but have a connection to each other in a very small yet vibrant way. Including one of the characters being Virginia Woolf, it is a brilliant, brilliant book which I enjoyed so thoroughly, I read it twice.

36. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard

I loved this book in school. It's a play about the two side characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet who are sent along with him when Claudius sends the letter to England to execute Hamlet. It's a brilliant play because it's based on one particular line from the original play that another side character walks on to the stage to say in the midst of the end of "Hamlet". Stoppard's funny and original brilliance shines through from start to finish. It is dark humour at its best on stage.

37. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

This book is an amazing Shakespearean feat of a novel. It's all about power, class and ambition in the businessman's world of the 1980s. It's basically like the atmosphere of "American Psycho" when Patrick Bateman is at work rather than killing people. The personalities are strong, the madness of power is rife and there is definitely the smell of money in the air. It's a classic Wall Street-esque tragic satire.

38. The Last Temptation by Nikos Kazantzakis

A strange and blasphemous account of the final years of Jesus Christ, it was made into a fairly average movie. The book is far darker though, it has efforts of great language technique and symbolism that comes straight out of the Old Testament. It's a brilliantly satirical book that seems to both prove and defy the existence of higher powers on the part of Jesus Christ. A revolutionary book that seeks to do the new religious revolution justice, it's incredible as an achievement of literature.

39. Misery by Stephen King

I love this book because it sounds like something us bookworms would definitely do until it doesn't. The book, I found, was far darker and more intense than the movie experience (even though that was amazing too). It's a brilliant account of obsession, compulsion and the want to have good intentions but then change intentions when things don't go their way. It's rife with the smell of control. It's psychotic.

40. Wait 'Till I'm Dead by Allen Ginsberg

In my opinion, this is Ginsberg's greatest collection and even though it was only recently published, it counts as 20th century because of the fact it was written back then. It's a brilliant collection of some of Ginsberg's most abstract poems. I remember that there's one about him being on a plane and it's one of the most psychedelic things you'll ever read.

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41. The Third Man by Graham Greene

This is one of my favourite crime novels ever because the movie is also brilliantly done. Graham Greene is most famous for his noir novels and I read this one shortly after I read "Our Man in Havana" so you can imagine my experience of Greene. It was amazing. After this, I read his entire bibliography.

42. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Set in France in the 1920s, there is something anti-romantic about this book that I love. It takes our own view of France and turns it into a place of dislocation and dissonance. Somewhere that doesn't have the romance of France that we once knew, somewhere where the romance is only there if you're looking for it. But mostly, France is a bohemian bubbling pot of people who find themselves aptly useless.

43. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

This book I only read fairly recently but it really got me as one of those books you don't come across every day. It's about a family purposefully breeding deformed and disabled children and that in itself is a terrifying prospect. In all aspects, it is a book purely based on child abuse of the worst kind which is psychological abuse through exploitation. It's written brilliantly but seriously, the poor kids.

44. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

This is a strange book because for a long time during my teens, I didn't want to read Thomas Mann. This was the reason. Thomas Mann was interested in young boys romantically and "Death in Venice" shows us this young Polish boy he becomes obsessed with and it's almost disgusting when you're in your youth. When I read this book in more detail recently, it still disgusted me, but it also made me feel that this was a man in need of psychological assistance who didn't get it. I don't know which is worse. Mann's writing is absolutely brilliant though.

45. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

I loved this book when I was a teen and I love it now. I love the film and I love everything about the symbolism in this book. It's about two strangers who meet on a train and one talks about doing deeds for the other that will leave them anonymous and therefore, not able to be prosecuted for lack of known motive. When the other states it is a bad idea, there is no point because obsession has already got a hold of the situation. Sometimes, things just go bad. It's a great achievement of literature, especially obsession in literature.

46. The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch is a writer I didn't read until my 20s, but this was the first book I read by her. I always love books about the sea and I think Murdoch's writing allows the reader to really experience the poetry of the ocean. It is one beautiful book with great atmosphere.

47. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

I read this book whilst I was still in school and I'm not going to lie, it took me forever to understand it even though it was fairly short. It's about an Irish student who writes characters for a novel. But then again, it is metafiction. So the book is told as an autobiography but also as the characters aware of themselves as characters. The question is, which book are you really reading? This book is one of the strangest things I've read but is a great example of the post-Modern.

48. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre

I don't think I can think of a spy novel more interesting than having a Soviet undercover in the British Intelligence Service. They have to fish out the soviet before it's too late. George Smiley recruits various characters to help him with his masterplan. It is awe-inspiring.

49. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

This was called 'the scariest book ever written' and then made into 'the scariest movie ever made' for a reason. It's a brilliantly terrifying account of evil taking place in the home of an actress through her young daughter, Reagan. Through all of this, a priest is having trouble when his mother dies and he's recruited to wipe the evil from this young girl by helping his fellow priest. Father Karras is one of the greatest and most perplexing characters of modern fiction.

50. The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

When I first read this I was blown away by the amount of detail in the book. It's a true-crime like account of a real life criminal who is executed. His life is told by Norman Mailer who used interviews from family and friends to compile what I believe is Mailer's magnum opus. This book is written brilliantly with key attention paid to every detail that made Gary Gilmour both a criminal and yet, still a human.