More Fiction Classics

Pride & Prejudice.
by Austen, Jane

Jane Austen wrote Pride & Prejudice when she was only 21 years old, in 1797. Originally entitled First Impressions, the novel was rejected, revised, retitled, and finally published--anonymously--in 1813, four years before her death. In Pride & Prejudice, sharp observations of vanity, venality, pomposity, and downright nuttiness in a story about a respectable but far from wealthy family full of daughters - girls who desperately need to find husbands if they are to have any kind of economic security. The eldest of the Bennett family, Elizabeth, is a bright, opinionated, and complacent young woman whose reaction to an offer of marriage is revulsion. A highly satisfying and offbeat love story, but it is also an unparalleled examination of human nature at both its best and its hilarious worst.


Brave New World.
by Huxley, Aldous Rogers, David.

A satirical novel depicting a scientific and industrialized utopia in which Ford and Freud are worshipped, eugenics policies have eliminated class conflicts (while strengthening the division of the classes), and personal unhappiness is assuaged through drugs and pornography.

The Great Gatsby.
by Fitzgerald, F Scott

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote THE GREAT GATSBY in the early 1920s, the American Dream was already on the skids. Based on the idea that the pursuit of happiness involves not only material success but moral and spiritual growth. But the dream become increasingly focused on money and pleasure -a phenomenon the high-living writer was familiar with. In the story, James Gatz, a self-educated nobody from Kentucky has amassed a fortune and adopted the persona of Jay Gatsby, an Oxford-educated man for the sole purpose of winning back the heart of Daisy now married to Tom Buchanan - a brutal, ignorant racist who embodies the corruption that can come with unlimited wealth. Fitzgerald makes it clear that life is meaningless without the solid American values of self-reliance and hard work. Celebrated as the archetypal American novel, out of the tradition that included Henry James and Edith Wharton, it influenced J. D. Salinger and John O'Hara.

Good Earth.
by Buck, Pearl S.

Pearl Buck (1892-1973) wrote THE GOOD EARTH in three months, based on her observations of Chinese life and culture while she lived in China as the daughter of American missionaries. In the novel, a simple, traditional small-farmer, Wang Lung, whose highest priority is the land he farms himself with his wife, O-lan. Throughout, Wang Lung's family is contrasted to the wealthy and decadent Huangs, whose tie to the precious land has long been cut: they hire outsiders to do their farming and devote themselves to luxury. As the years go by, Wang Lung prospers as the corrupt Huangs decline- but by novel's end, he has become more like them, and his own children fall into the traps that wealth sets. Through Wang Lung and his family, Buck depicts the changes that were taking place in Chinese culture in the early 20th century. One interesting element of the novel is her attitude toward missionaries which is highly critical of their detachment from the people they are there to serve. Another is the description of foot-binding, a torturous practice indulged in mainly by the wealthy. The powerful novel won the Pulitzer Prize and Buck received the Nobel Prize in 1938.

Anna Karenina.
by Tolstoy, Leo

Tolstoy's great novel, one of his last works of fiction, tells the story of a harmless flirtation that gradually develops into a destructive passion: the love affair between Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. Anna turns to Vronsky, a dashing military man, as a refuge from her passionless marriage to a pompous, chilly bureaucrat...

Fountainhead.
by Rand, Ayn

Ayn Rand's bestseller tells the story of a staunchly individualist architect (based on Frank Lloyd Wright) who combats the collectivist (i.e., mediocre) impulses of his fellow Americans. The book is both a compulsively readable, steamy novel and an articulation of Rand's views.

Atlas Shrugged.
by Rand, Ayn

Rand's 1200-page novel is a hymn of praise to the concept of rugged individualism, personified in John Galt. This polemic for Rand's philosophy of "rational self-interest" has been a steady seller since it was published in 1957.

Catch-22.
by Heller, Joseph

Joseph Heller's manic, bleak, blackly humorous, and brilliant novel has become a classic of American literature, and "Catch-22" has entered the language as a term describing a no-win situation. Set during the last months of World War II, the novel tells the story of an Air Force bombardier, the hapless Yossarian, who is convinced...

One Hundred Years of Solitude.
by García Márquez, Gabriel

A beguiling mix of politics, magic, romance, and sex, the saga of the mysterious history of the Buendia family of the village of Macondo does nothing less than recapitulate the entire history of the human race. Written with little regard for traditional novelistic conventions, Garcia Marquez's novel incorporates emotional responses in lieu of plot...

Heart is a Lonely Hunter.
by McCullers, Carson

Carson McCullers wrote THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER when she was only 23 years old--her first book. It was an immediate success and is widely considered to be her greatest novel. McCullers tells the story of young Mick Kelly, a 12-year-old girl growing up during the Great Depression. Mick is a gifted pianist--as was McCullers--who longs...

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN.
by James Joyce

DARKNESS AT NOON
by Arthur Koestler
1941 (Hun.) A loyal party official is jailed in a purge. Why him? What went wrong?

To The Lighthouse.
By Virginia Woolf

A book in three parts. All of it is laid at the Summer home of an English family named Ramsay in the Hebrides, the first portion occupying an afternoon and evening, the second portion constituting an interlude of ten years during which the house remains unoccupied, the third portion occupying a morning at the end of these ten years. The Ramsays are a middle-aged couple, when the book opens, with eight children, who have with them at their Summer place about half a dozen friends. Husband and wife, though very different, are in love with each other. Mrs. Ramsay, who though fifty is beautiful, has charm, intelligence, understanding; also she is a little anxious to have a hand in things, a little anxious to be liked, a little anxious to keep her illusions and have others keep theirs. Her children love her; they do not love their father -she works harder to hold their love. The best minds about her seemingly mistrust her a little, dislike her a little, for her charm is persuasive rather than compelling. She watches those about her without mingling too much; both because she chooses a vantage point--symbolized by the window--and because of her personality she becomes the dominant and focal figure of the group.

The Brothers Karamazov. 1851
Fedor Dostoevsky

Crime and Punishment
Fedor Dostoevski, 1866 (Rus.)

The title is the plot in this my favorite of one of the world's great novelists. Besides his usual incredible skills - psychological insight, tension, philosophy, scope, passion, well drawn characters - this is a page turner.

Mademoiselle De Maupin
Theophile Gautier (the 'art for art's sake' writer) 1835 (Fr.)

Perhaps the most romantic of all novels, a young girl disguises as a man and still wins her love.

First Love
Ivan Turgenev, 1860 (Rus.)

A Russian novelist with a French accent. All his novels are favorites but I really got swept up into the intensity and passion of this story of a boy's first love - and what a finale!

Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte.

Two generational love story with Cathy and Heathcliff.

Silas Marner
George Eliot (female), 1861.

Silas, a linen weaver and miser, finds true wealth in a stray child, Eppie. A perfect little novel, and her best.

Ulysses (1922)
James Joyce

The banned stream-of-consciousnous novel, the 3rd - greatest novel of the 20th century.

1984
George Orwell, 1949.

Big Brother controls all! Also note his innovative essay on 'newspeak'.

The Tale of Genji Lady Murasaki, 1000 A.D (?) (Japanese)
Perhaps the first novel in the world, one of the greatest novelists, arguably the greatest female novelist, greatest Japanese novel - superlative superlative! An epic, poetic, and somewhat gloomy tale about the loves of Prince Genji, written by a lady from the Emperor's Court.


The Lost World 1912.
sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

Time frozen plateau in the middle of the jungle

Rendezvous With Rama
Arthur C. Clarke.

A world just passing through.

Arabian Nights
Present form by 1450, mostly from the 10th century. 264 tales of resourcefulness in the face of danger.

more links to more books...
Best latin America books

A book lover's personal list [some of the title http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifin my list come from this one].

A classics of the 20th century list with no description though.

The Friendswood library consolidated 150 20th century titles.
A consolidation from four sources' lists: Harvard Bookstore's Top 100 Recommended Titles, Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, Koen Book Distributors' Top 100 Books of the Past Century, and Library Journal's 150 20th-century Most Influential Fiction. Note: this list includes only English-language books written in the 1900's.

The New York Times list of 100's Best.

The weird bookshelf of the best fantasy books

The Modern Library's bests 100.