Don't Miss Lists and Other Reading Resources

Madison's 100 Best Novels

When the Modern Library Board published its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels of the century in 1998, there was much debate in the media about the titles on the list and who selected them. Madison Public Library took that debate to heart and set up its own vote. The novels had to have been English language novels published in the 20th century. Here's what Madison readers chose

Madison's Top 100 List:

• 1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (1960)
• 2. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger (1951)
• 3. 1984 - George Orwell (1949)
• 4. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (1982)
• 5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
• 6. On the Road - Jack Kerouac (1957)
• 7. Beloved - Toni Morrison (1987)
• 8. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (1939)
• 9. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (1936)
• 10. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (1932)
• 11. Animal Farm - George Orwell (1954)
• 12. Charlotte's Web - E. B. White (1952)
• 13. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison (1952)
• 14. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (1955)
• 15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (1962)
• 16. Ulysses - James Joyce (1922)
• 17. East of Eden - John Steinbeck (1952)
• 18. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
• 19. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison (1977)
• 20. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (1955)
• 21. Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (1973)
• 22. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)
• 23. My Antonia - Willa Cather (1918)
• 24. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (1989)
• 25. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan (1989)
• 26. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (1962)
• 27. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway (1952)
• 28. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway (1926)
• 29. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
• 30. The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver (1988)
• 31. Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller (1939)
• 32. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
• 33. All the Kings Men - Robert Penn Warren (1946)
• 34. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (1927)
• 35. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood (1986)
• 36. Deliverance - James Dickey (1970)
• 37. Howard's End - E. M. Forster (1910)
• 38. The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy (1922)
• 39. Dune - Frank Herbert (1965)
• 40. The World According to Garp - John Irving (1978)
• 41. A Separate Peace - John Knowles (1959)
• 42. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand (1943)
• 43. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (1957)
• 44. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (1980)
• 45. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (1937)
• 46. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)
• 47. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (1945)
• 48. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton (1920)
• 49. Native Son - Richard Wright (1940)
• 50. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe (1959)
• 51. The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles (1949)
• 52. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner (1929)
• 53. The Book of Ruth - Jane Hamilton (1988)
• 54. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway (1929)
• 55. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway (1940)
• 56. From Here to Eternity - James Jones (1951)
• 57. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce (1916)
• 58. Sometimes a Great Notion - Ken Kesey (1964)
• 59. Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver (1990)
• 60. Being There - Jerzy Kosinski (1970)
• 61. The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. LeGuin (1969)
• 62. Martha Quest - Doris Lessing (1952)
• 63. The Four-Gated City - Doris Lessing (1969)
• 64. The Call of the Wild - Jack London (1903)
• 65. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy (1992)
• 66. Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry (1985)
• 67. Hawaii - James Michener (1959)
• 68. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller (1934)
• 69. Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice (1976)
• 70. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair (1906)
• 71. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner (1971)
• 72. Rabbit Run - John Updike (1960)
• 73. Trinity - Leon Uris (1976)
• 74. Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut (1973)
• 75. The Temple of My Familiar - Alice Walker (1989)
• 76. Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin (1953)
• 77. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (1952)
• 78. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck (1931)
• 79. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card (1985)
• 80. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke (1968)
• 81. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (1902)
• 82. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies (1970)
• 83. Ragtime - E. L. Doctorow (1975)
• 84. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett(1930)
• 85. Stones from the River - Ursula Hegi (1994)
• 86. Ironweed - William Kennedy (1984)
• 87. The Stand - Stephen King (1978)
• 88. Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence (1913)
• 89. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - John Le Carre (1963)
• 90. Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis (1922)
• 91. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham (1915)
• 92. The Enigma of Arrival - V. S. Naipaul (1987)
• 93. The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher (1987)
• 94. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (1963)
• 95. Housekeeping - Marilynne Robinson (1980)
• 96. My Life as a Man - Philip Roth (1974)
• 97. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith (1943)
• 98. Sophie's Choice - William Styron (1979)
• 99. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler (1982)
• 100. Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison (1992)

The original Modern Library list is below.

The Modern Library Board's 100 Best:

• 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 Durell
• 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