110 Best Books of the 20th Century

Looking for more books to read? You have come to the right page. We have collected some of the best books ever written in 20th century. These are must read books for any book lover. I hope you will enjoy reading them all.

Most of these books can be easily available in your local library. Many digitized libraries also offer ebook rental for these books absolutely free. If you like to buy these, you can easily buy them on your favorite bookstore.

Animal Farm

(By: George Orwell)
This is an allegorical novel depicting the rising rebellion among all the animals living in the farm of Mr. Jones. The interesting story shows the animals try to take over the farm and then name it as “Animal Farm”.

To Kill a Mockingbird

(By: Harper Lee)
This book is a coming-of-age story with an anti-racist view and a historical drama. This is a touching yet funny book with warmest and most authentic humor. The story will remain in your memory for a long time.

Where The Wild Things Are

(By: Maurice Sendak )
This is the story of Max who gets dressed as a wolf and create havoc in his own house. He gets severe scolding from his mother for his act and was sent to his bedroom without supper.

The Lorax

(By: Dr. Seuss )
This another Dr. Seuss masterpiece that is created with riotous rhymes, zany pictures and hilarious stories. This is the perfect book for your children to learn reading and Dr. Seuss is doing it for over fifty years now.

Siddhartha

(By: Hermann Hesse)
This is the story of Siddhartha, a young man who leaves his family, conceives a son and ultimately sickened with greed and lust he moved on in search of real life and wisdom.

Love in the Time of Cholera

(By: Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
This is one of the most prominent voice of the Latin American literature. The book is actually a celebration of different kinds of love that can happen between men and women.

The Color Purple

(By: Alice Walker)
The story is of a young black woman named Celie – her birth between two wars and her struggle to get herself free from the torture she faces from the men in her life.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

(By: John Irving )
This story is of 11 year old Owen Meany who plays the Little League baseball in Gravesend, New Hampshire. The tragedy is while playing he hits a foul ball and accidentally killed his best friend’s mother, which he can’t believe.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 4 Novels and 56 Short Stories

(By: Arthur Conan Doyle )
This is the ultimate repository of Sherlock Holmes collection. The package contains all the 4 novels featuring 56 short stories. This is the must have collectible for all thriller lovers.

The Stand

(By: Stephen King)
This is an interesting read with an awesome fun. The lovely plot of the story is actually a treat for the readers. This is an impressive apocalypse fiction that you would love to possess.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

(By: Milan Kundera )
The story is about the life and times of human being in the 20th century. The life in 20th century has irrevocable choices and fortuitous events. The author has thrown light on both public and private lives.

Metamorphosis

(By: Franz Kafka)
This is the story of Gregor Samsa who finds him being transformed into a horrible vermin one morning after he woke up to a troubled dream. This is one of the seminal fictions works of the 20th century.

The Name Of The Rose

(By: Umberto Eco)
The plot of the story is set in the 1327 Italy wherein a suspicion of heresy was imposed on Franciscans in a wealthy abbey of the country and case is investigated by Brother William of Baskerville.

Rebecca (VMC)

(By: Daphne Du Maurier)
The story is of the heroine who is working as companion of a lady and learns where her place is. Her life takes a turn when she was proposed by a handsome widower Maxim de Winter in her trip to South France.

The Secret Garden (Vintage Classics)

(By: Frances Hodgson Burnett)
This is the story of Mary Lennox, a disagreeable-looking child who was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to stay with her uncle. The story starts when she wish to explore locked and hidden garden in Manor.

On the Road: Penguin UK Edition (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Jack Kerouac)
The book is an example of seminal post-war work. The theme and setting of the story is meant for an engaged reader. The theme is travelling of the author and his friend to North America.

The Pillars of the Earth

(By: Ken Follett )
The story is of Philip, a devout and resourceful monk who was driven and motivated to build the greatest Gothic cathedral in the world. He falls for beautiful Lady Aliena and a secret shame haunts him.

The Old Man and the Sea

(By: Ernest Hemingway)
The story is set in the Gulf Stream of the Havana coast. The story is all about a young biy, a =n old man and a giant fish. This is a uniquely crafted story with a timeless vision.

Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

(By: J.K. Rowling)
This story of Harry Potter has been a hit since its release like the other stories. He has never been a start in the Quidditch team and does not know any limit while riding his broom.

Green Eggs and Ham (Green Back Book)

(By: Dr Seuss)
This is another Dr. Seuss masterpiece created for your child. The book teaches your child perseverance and makes us understand that you will not know how a thing is until you try it.

The Alchemist

(By: Paulo Coelho)
This is a story of protagonist living in Spain. However, he is driven by the child in his dreams who constantly pester to go to Egypt to find the treasure hidden under the Egyptian pyramids.

The Poisonwood Bible

(By: Barbara Kingsolver)
The story is the remarkable journey and reconstruction of life of a family who had a tragic life. The plot of the story is set at the post-colonial era of Africa. The story features Nathan Prices wife and three daughters.

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises

(By: Ernest Hemingway )
This is the story of a group of young men from the UK and US who visits Spain in order to live their life in fun in Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona.

Dune

(By: Frank Herbert)
This is a novel that is always considered to be a triumph of imagination. The story is set in the desert planet called Arrakis and is of a young boy named Paul Atreides transformed into mysterious man Muad'Dib.

The Master & Margarita (Alma Classics)

(By: Mikhail Bulgakov)
This is the story of a professor of black magic who comes with his fleet of servants to Moscow to create havoc. But his mission got changed post his meeting with Master, who is man of substance.

Outsider

(By: Thorndike)
This boo tops the list of books suggested by Warren Buffet. The book is mainly for the CEOs of various companies and their experiences. The book is the repository of knowledge that evry corporate leader must read.

A Confederacy of Dunces (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Walker Percy)
This is a masterful comic novel by John Kennedy Toole that was never published during his lifetime. This is a hilarious satire of created by him and this edition contains a foreword by Walker Percy.

(By: All Quiet on the Western Front)
This is the story of full-room German schoolboys who were idealistic and patriotism has imposed on them. The story takes the turn when an unknown soldier comes to know disillusionment and horror of life in the trenches.

Atlas Shrugged/The Fountainhead: Atlas Shrugged/The Mountainheaded

(By: Ayn Rand)
This is a must have collectible for every reader. It is a boxed set of two much admired novels of Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. This is the original piece of work of Rand.

The Joy Luck Club

(By: Amy Tan )
This is a story set in the year 1949 and is of four Chinese women who had recently migrated to the US. These four women meet every week for playing mahjong and share their stories back from China.

The Sound And The Fury (Vintage Classics)

(By: William Faulkner )
This is a towering and intense story of Compson family that had faced gradual decomposition. The story explores very passionate and intense family relationships that does not have love within them.

Angela's Ashes

(By: Frank McCourt )
The story depicts extreme suffering and hardship of a mother with too many children and loo little money. The story is set in New York during the 30s and in Ireland during the 40s.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

(By: Ernest Hemingway)
This is the story that is set in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, where a guerilla gang is setting up the plan of blow up an important bridge and Robert Jordan has given the responsibility of dynamiting.

The World According to Garp

(By: John Irving)
This is a remarkable piece of art and literature that depicts the extraordinary power of an artist. The characters depicted in the story are powerful and plot of it is intense.

Little House on the Prairie

(By: Laura Ingalls Wilder)
This is a classic tale by Laura Ingalls Wilder who has depicted life on the basis of frontier and also the one that is led by best-loved pioneer family of America.

A Farewell To Arms

(By: Ernest Hemingway )
The story is of an American citizen Frederic Henry who volunteered form an ambulance service in Italy fell in love with a British nurse named Catherine Barkley. The story beautifully narrates their budding relationship.

Invisible Man (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Ralph Ellison)
This book is lovely portraying of life and times of a generation of black Americans. The author has created a fabulous story of a man who is virtually invisible in the society since he is black.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

(By: Zora Neale Hurston )
This is a soulful and deep novel that beautifully comprehends love and cruelty. The author has depicted the story beautifully to segregate people of big heart with small heart but does not lose the sympathy.

Where the Red Fern Grows

(By: Wilson Rawls )
This is a beautiful story of Billy who dreams of owning two dogs, which he ultimately fulfills and despite of being in crunch situations, he and his two dogs roam the hills od Ozarks.

Modern Classics a Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Anthony Burgess)
The book is written with teenage slangs and it narrates the story of 15 years old Alex who loves the acts of ultra-violence. He along with his gang commit crimes like rape, murder and robbery.

Mere Christianity (Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis)

(By: C. S. Lewis )
This is a classic creation by one of the top novelist of 20th century, C. S. Lewis, wherein he depicts all the common grounds on which the faith of Christianity stands together.

Waiting for Godot

(By: Becket)
This is a story of two men – Estragon and Vladimir – waiting to meet another person named Gogot. They both talk and share many of their thought as two other men – Pozzo and his slave Lucky.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (Modern Library)

(By: Hunter S. Thompson)
This is book is features the story of drug abuse as well as rollicking good times that has ever been came out as print. This is a story of long weekend road trip moving down the lanes of American pop culture.

The Red Tent

(By: Anita Diamant )
This book is one of the finest creations that narrate ancient womanhood and family horror told in the voice of Dinah. The story starts with her mother and ends with her life full of grief, love and betrayal.

Sophie's Choice (Vintage War)

(By: William Styron)
This is a story of Stingo who stays in a boarding where he meets Nathan and Sophie. As the story progresses Stingo reaches to a deep dark secret of Sophie from the past war and ultimately her choice.

Lonesome Dove: A Novel

(By: Larry McMurtry )
This is Pulitzer Prize winning story that narrates a love story, an adventure and an epic of frontier. This is regarded as the most celebrated novel that depicts the last defiant wilderness of America.

The Things They Carried

(By: Tim O'Brien)
The book is not just another book on Vietnam. The book is created in such a way that it can easily be called as a creation of master stroke and imagery.

Franny & Zooey

(By: J.D. Salinger)
The story is about the two characters – FRANNY and ZOOEY who come out of their houses in New York in 1955 and 1957, respectively. From then on the struggle that they had is beautifully depicted in the novel.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

(By: J Joyce)
The novel is written in a modernist style that traces the intellectual and religious awakening of young and dynamic Stephen Dedalus who questions as well as rebels against the Irish and Catholic convention under which he was raised.

Flowers for Algernon

(By: Daniel Keyes)
This is one of the most touching stories that you would have read. The characters of the book are truly lovable and the story has the ability to provoke a thought in your mind.

Cat's Cradle: A Novel

(By: Kurt Vonnegut )
The book is satirical commentary of Kurt Vonnegut on the modern man and the madness. This book is one of the important works of the 20th century. The story is hilarious and blackly fatalistic.

Blindness (Vintage Classics)

(By: Jose Saramago)
This is the story of a driver who is standing in a traffic signal and goes blind while waiting post which an ophthalmologist diagnose the white blindness, which is very much distinctive.

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Boxed Set

(By: J.R.R. Tolkien)
The story is completely engrossing that will make you immerse in the middle-earth and telling a complete story of Bilbo Baggins along with the epic encounter of Hobbit with monsters and dragons, Gollum and Gandalf – the quest of destroying One Ring.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

(By: George Orwell)
The story is set in Oceania wherein a timeless satirical attack has made by Orwell on the political and social structures of the world. It is an entertaining read that deals beautifully with political structures of the time.

The Catcher in the Rye

(By: J. D. Salinger)
The story is of a reclusive and lazy boy Holden Caulfield who is thrown out of his fourth school. The profanities that the author used in the story has perfectly described the frustrated mind of Holden.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (International Writers)

(By: Gabriel Garcia Marquez )
The book is tale of events that is portrayed very beautifully using a magic realism. The story is set in a small town of Macondo, Colombia and how the character Aureliano Buendia understands this mysterious place.

Trainspotting

(By: Irvine Welsh )
The story is a loud laughter and a real McCoy. The story is set in Edinburgh where the central character goes through a jarring and fragmented ride through the city.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

(By: Jung Chang)
This is regarded as one of the best books ever produced with 13 million copies being sold. This is a story of critically acclaimed China, which is a tragic story of utter cruelty, bravery and survival.

The Great Gatsby (Collins Classics)

(By: F. Scott Fitzgerald )
This book is regarded as one of the all-time great creation of fiction. This is a great American novel of all time portraying love and betrayal, which is produced to a great film as well.

Lord Of The Flies

(By: William Golding)
The story is of a group of British boys who got stuck in an uninhabited island after their plane crashed in that island. They wait in the island for the rescue to arrive.

On the Road: Penguin UK Edition (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Jack Kerouac)
The story is a post-war work and the setting of the theme is done such a way that it has become an engaging story to read. The story is of Sal Paradise, an alter ego of Jack Kerouac.

Brave New World

(By: Aldous Huxley)
The novel is written based upon the science-fiction theme. The story is set at a far future time of 2540 AD featuring how the utopian view of the society is pertaining to reproductive rechnology, classical conditioning and sleep learning.

The Wind in the Willows (Vintage Classics)

(By: Kenneth Grahame)
This is the best book that you can gift your children. The book is written with the intent of breaking almost all the rules of modern children’s fiction. The story is about a Toad and his merry antics.

Winnie-the-Pooh (Puffin Modern Classics)

(By: A.A. Milne)
This is one of the best children books of all time. The book has been delighting the children for about 17 years. The book is paired with the perfect drawings of Ernest H.

The Color Purple

(By: Alice Walker)
The book is written by Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker and it depicts the life and struggle of a young black woman named Celie born in between two wars in deep American South.

The Hobbit (Film tie-in edition)

(By: J.R.R. Tolkien)
This is a story of Bilbo Baggins who is a Hobbit enjoying a unanimous and comfortable life. He does not want to travel anywhere beyond pantry in his hobbit hole in Bag End.

The Stranger (Vintage International)

(By: Albert Camus)
This is a classic literary masterpiece is a story about Meursault, an Algerian national, a titillating character who commits a murder post attending the funeral of his mother. It depicts his emotional spectrum.

Gone with the Wind

(By: Margaret Mitchell)
The story is set up in the dramatic backdrop of the Civil War in America. This is a lovely historical epic tale of love and loss circling around beautiful Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler, a dashing soldier.

The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

(By: Douglas Adams)
This is a hilarious book and makes you laugh until you shed tears from eyes – tears of joy. The story is about the unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit who feel sick looking at the night sky.

Midnight's Children

(By: Salman Rushdie)
The story is about Saleem Sinai who was born in the midnight of 15 August 1947 when India is welcoming independence. He was welcomed to the world with firecrackers and cheering swarms.

The Diary of a Young Girl

(By: Anne Frank)
The book needs no introduction. The book is a memoir of a young girl that is beautifully depicted and caught at one of the most horrific moment of human history.

Modern Classics a Clockwork Orange (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Anthony Burgess)
This book is a completely restored edition of original text of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This is a story of 15 year old Alex who is in spree of robbery, killing and rape with his gang of friends.

Sons and Lovers

(By: D.H. Lawrence)
The novel is developed into two significant psychological themes. The first theme is of Paul Morel and his terrible relation with his mother and second theme is his love affairs with two different women.

To the Lighthouse (Collins Classics)

(By: Virginia Woolf )
This is the story that is developed in the wake of First World War. The story narrates the times of Ramsays who visits his summer home and the visits is surrounded by chatter and excitement.

If This Is A Man/The Truce (Abacus Books)

(By: Primo Levi )
The story is of intellectual pose and moral stamina of 20th century Titan who dutiful, unassuming and slightly built chemist and is setting out in systematically remembering German world.

Lolita

(By: Vladimir Nabokov )
This is one of the best known novels written in the 20th century. This is a controversial love story of Humbert who fell in love with Lolita, a 12 year old girl.

The Wasp Factory: A Novel

(By: Iain Banks )
This book is a disturbing, imaginative and bizarre story looking into the darkly comic mind of a child psychopath. The story brings Meet Frank Cauldhame, a 16 year old boy.

Modern Classics in Search of Lost Time #1 Way By Swanns (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: Marcel Proust)
This book is one of the most entertaining and gives greatest reading experience in any language as a matter of fact. The story depicts the impression of a small boy upon his family and neighbors.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

(By: Roald Dahl )
It is rightly said that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the ultimate children’s story ever produced. The story is about Charlie and his Golden Ticket with Willy Wonka and the amazing chocolate factory.

Of Mice and Men (Penguin Modern Classics)

(By: John Steinbeck )
The novel is reining the segment in the last 75 years. It is a beautiful tale of hope, loneliness, loss and commitment. This book remained as the most widely read and taught novels of America.

Possession: A Romance: Booker Prize Winner 1990

(By: A S Byatt )
This is a perfect gift for your Valentine’s Day as this is a book with perfect blend of wit and romance. The story is a literary detective from one end and a beautiful romance story from the other.

Heart of Darkness

(By: Joseph Conrad )
The book depicts the story of life of Charles Marlow works as an ivory transporter in the Congo River of central Africa. The story is about his perilous journey of his work.

A Passage to India (Penguin Classics)

(By: E.M. Forster )
This Penguin Classic is about the prejudice between the British and Indian people during the 1920s. The theme of the story is set during the pre-independence India and addressed the question if a British and an Indian can be friend.

Watership Down

(By: Richard Adams)
The book is the saga of motley band of rabbit. This novel is one of the most loved ones. This novel is the 40th anniversary edition of the novel that narrates the state of Sandleford Warren.

Sophie's World (20th Anniversary Edition)

(By: Jostein Gaarder)
The book narrates the story of 14 year old Sophie who encounters a mysterious mentor who helps him get introduced to philosophy. Mystery deepens in her life when stared getting postcards that were addressed to another girl.

The Name Of The Rose

(By: Umberto Eco)
The story is set in the year 1327 and Franciscan, a wealthy Italian man, was suspected for heresy. His brother William of Baskerville comes for his rescue as he takes the charge to investigate the case.

Love in the Time of Cholera

(By: Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
This story is regarded as one of the greatest love stories ever told. The heartbreaking and shining novel narrates a love story that has astonishing power. The major theme of the novel is love, death and torments of memory.

Rebecca (VMC)

(By: Daphne Du Maurier )
The heroine of the story is an orphan and works as a lady’s assistance. While working so she learns about her place. Her life remained colorless until her trip to southern France where she met Maxim de Winter.

The Remains of the Day: Booker Prize Winner 1989

(By: Kazuo Ishiguro )
The Remains of the Day is a classic fiction novel that won the Booker Prize in 1989. The novel is a love story told in the first person perspective and narrates the story of Stevens, a butler.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

(By: Milan Kundera)
The novel is the story of irreconcilable loves and infidelities. The author of the book, Milan Kundera, addressed himself to be the 20the century ‘Being’. The story is set in the places like Geneva, United States, Thailand and Prague.

Birdsong (Vintage War)

(By: Sebastian Faulks)
The novel narrates the story of overwhelming emotional power. The story is a perfect mixture of love, sex, survival and death. A young Englishman Stephen Wraysford comes to France and meets unhappily married Isabelle.

Howards End

(By: E.M. Forster )
The USP of this novel is the vibrant and beautiful portray of life and times of the Edwardian England. The author has beautifully crafted the characters of the book living the house in Hertfordshire named Howards End.

Brideshead Revisited

(By: Evelyn Waugh )
Evelyn Waugh has beautifully depicted the impediments to love and wellsprings of desire. The story will make you immerse in the seductive and glittering world of English aristocracy in the ending days of the empire.

A Suitable Boy: 20th Anniversary Edition

(By: Vikram Seth)
The novel is set in the post-independence India during the 1950s. The story is set in the backdrop of the scars of partition and the people who had gone through that pain.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

(By: John Irving )
This is the story of 11 year old Owen Meany who is playing in the Little League baseball game taking place in Gravesend, New Hampshire and he killed the mother of his best friend by hitting a foul ball.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

(By: Patrick Süskind)
The story is set in the 18th century France. There was a man named Jean-Baptiste Grenouille who had abominable and gifted personage. This is a fantastic tale of twisted eroticism and murder.

Doctor Zhivago

(By: Boris Pasternak )
This is an epic story of love and life of a poet-physician, Yuri Zhivago, in the turmoil times of the Russian Revolution. The novel was a ban in the Soviet Union until 1988.

Gormenghast

(By: Mervyn Peake)
The novel is more than just a sequel of Titus Groan. The mature and fertile incidents and characters of the novel blended perfectly with the rich atmosphere make the novel the most remarkable feast of 20th century in the imaginative writing.

Cider With Rosie (The Autobiographical Trilogy)

(By: Laurie Lee Mbe)
The story is a beautifully created vivid memoir of childhood story in the remote village of Cotswold. The central character Laurie Lee is growing up among the woods and fields of the place.

The Bell Jar

(By: Sylvia Plath )
The story is of a young American woman, Esther Greenwood, from the suburbs of Boston receives an internship in the prominent magazine in New York. But Esther is not stimulated or excited with the life and times of the big city.

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