Lists

Updated: 18 October 2021

I love a good list! There is something about seeing a list of books - 'top 100' novels, 'best books'  of the year - which gives me joy. I love ticking off the books I have read, adding new titles to my 'To Be Read' list and investigating titles and authors I do not know. 

I have been tracking my progress against the 1001 books you must read before you die, slowly marking off the books I have read and blogged about. But there are other great lists so thought I would add them here and do the same.

Lists explored below:

  • The Guardian's 100 best books of the 21st Century 
  • Modern Library's 100 best novels

Note: Bold if read, linked to my blog post 

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (The Guardian)

100.  Nora Ephron - I Feel Bad About My Neck (2006)
99.    Alain Mabanckou - Broken Glass (2005) 
97.    JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000)
96.    Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life (2015)
95.    Bob Dylan - Chronicles: Volume One (2004)
94.    Malcolm Gladwell - The Tipping Point (2000)
93.    Nicola Barker - Darkmans (2007)
92.    Helen Dunmore - The Siege (2001)
91.    M John Harrison - Light (2002)
90.    Jenny Erpenbeck - Visitation (2008)
89.    Lorna Sage - Bad Blood (2000)
88.    Malorie Blackman - Noughts and Crosses (2001)
87.    Patricia Lockwood - Priestdaddy (2017)
86.    Yanis Varoufakis - Adults in the Room (2017)
85.    Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion (2006)
84.    Deborah Levy - The Cost of Living (2018)
83.    Valeria Luiselli - Tell Me How It Ends (2016)
82.    Neil Gaiman - Coraline (2002)
81.    Jim Crace - Harvest (2013)
80.    Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)
78.    NK Jemisin - The Fifth Season (2015)
77.    Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding the End of the World (2009)
76.    Daniel Kahneman - Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011)
75.    Olga Tokarczuk - Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2009)
74.    Sebastian Barry - Days Without End (2016)
73.    Barbara Demick - Nothing to Envy (2009)
72.    Shoshana Zuboff - The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)
70.    Zoe Heller - Notes on a Scandal (2003)
69.    Javier Marias - The Infatuations (2011)
68.    John Le Carre - The Constant Gardener (2001)
66.    Carlo Rovelli - Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (2014)
65.    Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl (2012)
64.    Stephen King - On Writing (2000)
63.    Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010)
62.    Edward St Aubyn - Mother's Milk (2006)
60.    Alice Oswald - Dart (2002)
59.    Anne Carson - The Beauty of the Husband (2002)
58.    Tony Judt - Postwar (2005)
57.    Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
56.    Robert Macfarlane - Underland (2019)
54.    Mary Beard - Women & Power (2017)
53.    Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
48.    Terry Pratchett - Night Watch (2002)
47.    Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis (2000-2003)
46.    Seamus Heaney - Human Chain (2010)
45.    Julian Barnes - Levels of Life (2013)
44.    Rebecca Solnit - Hope in the Dark (2004)
43.    Claudia Rankine - Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)
42.    Michael Lewis - Moneyball (2010)
39.    Zadie Smith - White Teeth (2000)
38.    Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty (2004)
37.    Anne Enright - The Green Road (2015)
36.    Martin Amis - Experience (2000)
35.    Edmund de Waal - The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010)
33.    Alison Bachdel - Fun Home (2006)
32.    Siddhartha Mukherjee - The Emperor of All Maladies (2010)
31.    Maggie Nelson - The Argonauts (2015)
30.    Colson Whitehead - The Underground Railroad (2016)
29.    Karl Ove Knausgaard - A Death in the Family (2009)
28.    Carol Ann Duffy - Rapture (2005)
27.    Alice Munro - Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001)
26.    Thomas Piketty - Capital in the Twenty First Century (2013)
25.    Sally Rooney - Normal People (2018)
23.    Andrew Solomon - The Noonday Demon (2001)
22.    George Saunders - Tenth of December (2013)
21.    Yuval Noah Harari - Sapiens (2011)
20.    Kate Atkinson - Life After Life (2013)
18.    Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine (2007)
16.    Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections (2001)
15.    Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction (2014)
14.    Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (2002)
13.    Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimmed (2001)
12.    Philip Roth - The Plot Against America (2004)
11.    Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend (2011)
10.    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)
09.    David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (2004)
08.    Ali Smith - Autumn (2016)
06.    Philip Pullman - The Amber Spyglass (2000)
05.    WG Sebald - Austerlitz (2001)
04.    Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (2005)
03.    Svetlana Alexievich - Secondhand Time (2013)
02.    Marilynne Robinson - Gilead (2004)
01.    Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (2009)


Modern Library 100 Best Novels  (Modern Library)

100.  Booth Tarkington - The Magnificent Ambersons
99.    JP Donleavy - The Ginger Man
98.    James M Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice
97.    Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky
96.    William Styron - Sophie's Choice
95.    Iris Murdoch - Under the Net
94.    Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea
93.    John Fowles - The Magus
92.    William Kennedy - Ironweed
91.    Erskine Caldwell - Tobacco Road
90.    Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children
89.    Henry Green - Loving
88.    Jack London - The Call of the Wild
87.    Arnold Bennett - The Old Wives' Tale
86.    EL Doctorow - Ragtime
85.    Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim
84.    Elizabeth Bowen - The Death of the Heart
83.    VS Naipaul - A Bend in the River
82.    Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
81.    Saul Bellow - The Adventures of Augie March
80.    Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
79.    EM Forster - A Room With a View
78.    Rudyard Kipling - Kim
77.    James Joyce - Finnegans Wake
75.    Evelyn Waugh - Scoop
74.    Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms
73.    Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust
72.    VS Naipaul - A House for Mr Biswas
71.    Richard Hughes - A High Wind in Jamaica
70.    Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet
69.    Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth
68.    Sinclair Lewis - Main Street
67.    Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
66.    W Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage
65.    Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
63.    John Cheever - The Wapshot Chronicles
62.    James Jones - From Here to Eternity
61.    Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop
60.    Walker Percy - The Moviegoer
59.    Max Beerbohm - Zuleika Dobson
57.    Ford Madox Ford - Parade's End
56.    Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon
55.    Jack Kerouac - On The Road
54.    William Faulkner - Light in August
53.    Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire
52.    Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
51.    Norman Mailer - The Naked and the Dead
50.    Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
49.    DH Lawrence - Women in Love
48.    DH Lawrence - The Rainbow
47.    Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
46.    Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent
45.    Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
44.    Aldous Huxley - Point Counter Point
43.    Anthony Powell - A Dance to the Music of Time (series)
42.    James Dickey - Deliverance
41.    William Golding - The Lord of the Flies
40.    Graham Greene - The Heart of the Matter
39.    James Baldwin - Go Tell it on the Mountain
38.    EM Forster - Howards End
37.    Thornton Wilder - The Bridget of San Luis Rey
36.    Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men
35.    William Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
32.    Henry James - The Golden Bowl
31.    George Orwell - Animal Farm
30.    Ford Madox Ford - The Good Soldier
29.    James T Farrell - The Studs Lonigan Trilogy
28.    F Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night
27.    Henry James - The Ambassadors
26.    Henry James - The Wings of the Dove
25.    EM Forster - A Passage to India
24.    Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio
23.    John Dos Passos - USA (trilogy)
22.    John O'Hara - Appointment in Samarra
21.    Saul Bellow - Henderson the Rain King
20.    Richard Wright - Native Son
19.    Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
18.    Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
17.    Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
16.    Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy
15.    Virginia Woolf - To the Lighthouse
14.    Robert Graves - I, Claudius
13.    George Orwell - 1984
12.    Samuel Butler - The Way of All Flesh
11.    Malcolm Lowry - Under the Volcano
10.    John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
09.    DH Lawrence - Sons and Lovers
08.    Arther Koestler - Darkness at Noon
07.    Joesph Heller - Catch-22
06.    William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
05.    Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
04.    Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
03.    James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
02.    F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
01.    James Joyce - Ulysses