The article was updated and supplemented in July 2018. We present a selection of 65 books that have become classics of world literature, and 10 online libraries where you can find a lot of fiction, scientific, historical and non-fiction literature in free access.
1. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ("Cien años de soledad" - Gabriel José de la Concordia "Gabo" García Márquez)
One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most characteristic and popular works in the direction of magical realism.
2. "Moby-Dick, or The Whale" - Herman Melville ("Moby-Dick, or The Whale" - Herman Melville)
The story is told on behalf of the American sailor Ishmael, who went on a voyage on the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain, Ahab, is obsessed with the idea of revenge on the giant white whale, the whaler killer known as Moby Dick.
3. "The Great Gatsby" - Francis Scott Fitzgerald ("The Great Gatsby" - F. Scott Fitzgerald)
The action of the novel takes place near New York, on the "gold coast" of Long Island, among the villas of the rich. In the 1920s, following the chaos of the First World War, American society entered an unprecedented period of prosperity: in the "roaring 20s", the US economy was developing rapidly.
At the same time, Prohibition made many bootleggers millionaires and gave a significant boost to organized crime. Admiring the rich and their charm, Fitzgerald at the same time denounces the unrestrained materialism and lack of morality of America at that time.
4. "The Grapes of Wrath" - John Steinbeck ("The Grapes of Wrath" - John Steinbeck)
The novel takes place during the Great Depression. A poor family of tenant farmers, the Joads, are forced to leave their Oklahoma home due to drought, economic hardship and changes in farming practices. In an almost hopeless situation, they head to California along with thousands of other Oki families, hoping to find a livelihood there.
5. "Ulysses" - James Joyce ("Ulysses" - James Joyce)
The novel tells about one day (June 16, 1904, currently this date is celebrated as Bloomsday, "Bloom's Day") of a Dublin inhabitant and a Jew by nationality - Leopold Bloom.
6. "Lolita" - Vladimir Nabokov ("Lolita" - Vladimir Nabokov)
Lolita is the most famous of all Nabokov's novels. The theme of the novel was unthinkable for its time - the story of an adult man who was passionately carried away by a twelve-year-old girl.
7. "The Sound and the Fury" - William Faulkner ("The Sound and the Fury" - William Faulkner)
The main storyline tells about the withering of one of the oldest and most influential families of the American South - the Compsons. During the roughly 30 years of the novel, the family faces financial ruin, loses respect in the city, and many family members end their lives tragically.
8. "To the Lighthouse" - Virginia Woolf ("To The Lighthouse" - Virginia Woolf)
The novel centers on two visits by the Ramsey family to a rented country house on the Isle of Skye in Scotland in 1910 and 1920. To the Lighthouse follows and expands on the tradition of modernist literature by Marcel Proust and James Joyce, where the plot fades into the background, giving way to philosophical introspection.
9. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina is a novel by Leo Tolstoy about the tragic love of the married lady Anna Karenina and the brilliant officer Vronsky against the background of the happy family life of the nobles Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya.
10. "War and Peace" - Leo Tolstoy
"War and Peace" is an epic novel describing Russian society in the era of the wars against Napoleon in 1805-1812.
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11. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - Mark Twain ("The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - Mark Twain)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, on the run from his abusive father, and Jim, a runaway black man, are rafting down the Mississippi River.
12. "1984" - George Orwell ("1984" - George Orwell)
The novel "1984", along with such works as "We" by Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (1920), "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley (1932) and "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (1953), is considered one of the most famous works in the dystopian genre.
13. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger)
In the novel, on behalf of a 16-year-old boy named Holden, in a very frank form, he tells about his heightened perception of American reality and the rejection of the general canons and morals of modern society.
14. "Invisible Man" - Ralph Ellison ("Invisible Man" - Ralph Ellison)
The Invisible Man is the only completed novel by Ralph Ellison, an African-American writer, literary critic, and literary scholar. The novel is dedicated to the search for identity and place in society.
15. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller ("Catch-22" - Joseph Heller)
1944 On the islet of Pianosa in the Tyrrhenian Sea, a US Air Force bomber regiment (flying North American B-25 Mitchell bombers) is stationed, in which Captain Yossarian, the protagonist of the novel, and his colleagues serve.
The command of the air regiment over and over again increases the rate of sorties, thereby extending the service of pilots who have flown their rate, after which they have the right to return home. Thus, flying off the norm becomes almost impossible.
16. "Midnight's Children" - Salman Rushdie ("Midnight's Children" - Salman Rushdie)
A multifaceted, fantastic, "magical" narrative covers the history of India (partly Pakistan) from 1910 to 1976. Political events, presented brightly and biasedly, do not exhaust the whimsical reality of the novel.
17. "On the Road" - Jack Kerouac ("On the Road" - Jack Kerouac)
The book, considered the most important piece of Beat generation literature, tells the story of the travels of Jack Kerouac and his close friend Neil Cassidy through the United States of America and Mexico.
18. "In Search of Lost Time" - Marcel Proust ("À la recherche du temps perdu" - Marcel Proust)
In Search of Lost Time is a magnum opus by the French modernist writer Marcel Proust, a semi-autobiographical cycle of seven novels. Published in France between 1913 and 1927.
19. "Pale Fire" - Vladimir Nabokov ("Pale Fire" - Vladimir Nabokov)
Pale Fire is a novel by V. V. Nabokov, written in English in the United States and first published in 1962. The novel, conceived before moving to the United States (the passages "Ultima Thule" and "Solus Rex" were written in Russian in 1939), is built as a 999-line poem with commentary rife with literary allusions.
20. "Madame Bovary" - Gustave Flaubert ("Madame Bovary" - Gustave Flaubert)
The main character of the novel is Emma Bovary, the doctor's wife, living beyond her means and having extramarital affairs in the hope of getting rid of the emptiness and routine of provincial life.
21. "Middlemarch" - George Eliot ("Middlemarch" - George Eliot)
Middlemarch is the name of the provincial town in and around which the novel takes place. Many characters inhabit its pages, and their destinies are intertwined by the will of the author.
22. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The hero of the novel "Great Expectations", a young man Philip Pirrip, strives to become a "true gentleman", to achieve a position in society, but disappointment awaits him. Money stained with blood cannot bring happiness, and the "gentleman's world" in which Philip placed so many hopes turned out to be hostile and cruel.
23. "Emma" - Jane Austen ("Emma" - Jane Austen)
The daughter of a wealthy landowner and a big dreamer, Emma tries to diversify her leisure time by organizing someone else's personal life. Confident that she will never marry, she acts as a matchmaker for her friends and acquaintances, but life brings her surprise after surprise.
24. "And Destruction Came" - Chinua Achebe ("Things Fall Apart" - Chinua Achebe)
“And Destruction Came” is a story about a tribal warrior who cannot adapt to a new society under a colonial regime. The book has been translated into 45 languages and is by far the most widely read and translated book by an African writer among his contemporaries.
25. "Pride and Prejudice" - Jane Austen ("Pride and Prejudice" - Jane Austen)
Young girls who dream of marriage, respectable mothers who do not shine with their minds, selfish beauties who think that they are allowed to control the fate of other people - such is the world of the heroes of Jane Austen, an English writer who was far ahead of her time and ranked by subsequent generations among the classics of world literature.
26. "Wuthering Heights" - Emily Brontë ("Wuthering Heights" - Emily Brontë)
Wuthering Heights is a love-and-hate story about the fatal passion of Heathcliff, the adopted son of the owner of the Wuthering Heights estate, for the owner's daughter Katherine
27. "Nostromo" - Joseph Conrad ("Nostromo" - Joseph Conrad)
The novel tells about the liberation struggle of the fictional South American state of Costaguana. The author is occupied with the problem of imperialism and its corrupting effect even on the best people, which is the protagonist of the novel, the sailor Nostromo.
28. "The Brothers Karamazov" - F. M. Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov is the last novel by F. M. Dostoevsky. Three brothers, Ivan, Aleksey (Alyosha) and Dmitry (Mitya), “are busy resolving questions about the root causes and ultimate goals of being,” and each of them makes his choice, trying in his own way to answer the question about God and the immortality of the soul.
29. "To Kill a Mockingbird" - Harper Lee ("To Kill a Mockingbird" - Harper Lee)
The novel conveys the events of the 30s of the XX century, the period of the Great Depression, which took place in the state of Alabama. The narration is conducted on behalf of a child, but the severity of interracial conflicts and social problems does not lose its strength from this.
30. "Process" - Franz Kafka ("Der Prozess" - Franz Kafka)
“The Process” is a unique book by Franz Kafka, which actually “created” his name for the culture of the world postmodern theater and cinema of the second half of the 20th century, more precisely, “weaved” this name into the idea of postmodern absurdism.
31. "Slaughterhouse Five" - Kurt Vonnegut ("Slaughterhouse-Five" - Kurt Vonnegut)
Slaughterhouse Five is an autobiographical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about the bombing of Dresden during World War II.
32. "Mrs Dalloway" - Virginia Woolf ("Mrs Dalloway" - Virginia Woolf)
The novel tells about one day of the fictional character Clarissa Dalloway, a society woman in post-war England. One of the author's most famous novels.
33. "Jane Eyre" - Charlotte Brontë ("Jane Eyre" - Charlotte Brontë)
The book tells about the difficult fate of an orphan with a strong, independent character, about her childhood, growing up, finding her way and overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way.
34. The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien)
The Lord of the Rings is an epic novel by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, the most famous work of the fantasy genre.
35. "A Passage to India" - Edward Forster ("A Passage to India" - E.M. Forster)
At the center of Journey to India is the relationship between the Indian Aziz and the Englishman Fielding. The twists and turns of the plot, exciting in themselves, help to make these relations stand out more prominently, to reveal themselves in their extreme possibilities.
36. "All the King's Men" - Robert Penn Warren ("All the King "s Men" - Robert Penn Warren)
The protagonist of the novel is politician Willie Stark. Rising from the bottom of society, a born leader sincerely believed that he could make the world a better place. However, the truth of life revealed to him turns him into a cruel, unprincipled politician. His motto is: "Good can only be made out of evil, because there is simply nothing else to make of it."
37. "Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley ("Brave New World" - Aldous Huxley)
Brave New World is a dystopian satirical novel set in far-future London (around the 26th century of the Christian era, namely 2541). People all over the Earth live in a single state, whose society is a consumer society, the symbol of the consumer god is Henry Ford, and instead of the sign of the cross, people “sign themselves with the sign T”.
38. "When I was dying" - William Faulkner ("As I Lay Dying" - William Faulkner)
W. Faulkner's novel "When I was dying" is unique. There is no authorial speech at all, the book is broken into a chain of monologues, sometimes long, sometimes short, or even fitting in one or two phrases, and they are led by fourteen characters - mainly Bandren, and next to them neighbors, the same farm poor.
39. "Deep Sleep" - Raymond Chandler ("The Big Sleep" - Raymond Chandler)
Deep Sleep is the first in a series of novels about private investigator Philip Marlowe. Classic "tough detective".
40. "Stories" - Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
A collection of short stories from a classic of world literature.
41. "Crime and Punishment" - F. M. Dostoevsky
"Crime and Punishment" is considered one of the most philosophical books in the world, which "poses the problems of good and evil, freedom and necessity, crime and moral responsibility, revolution, socialism, the philosophy of history and the state."
42. "Molloy", "Malone Dies" and "Nameless" - Samuel Beckett ("Molloy", "Malone Dies", "The Unnamable" - Samuel Beckett)
"Molla", "Malon Dies" and "Nameless" are three works that make up a trilogy and represent a separate milestone in Beckett's creative biography.
43. "Outsider" - Albert Camus ("L "Étranger" - Albert Camus)
The story is told by a 30-year-old Frenchman. His name remains unknown, but his last name is mentioned in passing - Meursault. Three key events in his life are described - the death of his mother, the murder of a local resident and the trial, as well as a brief relationship with a girl.
44. "Tin drum" - Günter Grass ("Die Blechtrommel" - Günter Grass)
The Tin Drum is Günther Grass' first novel. It was this work, which in a grotesque form reflected the history of Germany in the 20th century, brought world fame to its author.
45. "Sons and Lovers" - David Herbert Lawrence ("Sons and Lovers" - D. H. Lawrence)
The book describes the life of a young man named Paul Morel, who was born into a miner's family in the small town of Bestwood, Nottinghamshire. The love of children for their mother runs like a red thread through the novel. Paul is most attached to her: unlike his brothers and sister, he will never be able to leave his mother's house until her death.
46. The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The story of Anna Woolf, a talented writer and staunch feminist, who, balancing on the verge of insanity, writes down all her thoughts and experiences in four multi-colored notebooks: black, red, yellow and blue. But over time, a fifth, golden, notebook appears, the entries in which become a real revelation for the heroine and help her find a way out of the impasse.
47. "Magic Mountain" - Thomas Mann ("Der Zauberberg" - Thomas Mann)
Immediately after its release, The Magic Mountain was recognized as the key philosophical novel of German literature of the new century. It is generally accepted that, using the example of a closed microcosm of the sanatorium, Mann gave a panorama of the ideological life of European society on the eve of the World War.
48. "Beloved" - Toni Morrison ("Beloved" - Toni Morrison)
Beloved, the most famous novel by Toni Morrison, was awarded the Pulitzer and later the Nobel Prize. The book is based on real events that took place in Ohio in the 80s of the nineteenth century: the story of a black slave who kills her daughter, saving her from slavery.
49. "Blood Meridian" - Cormac McCarthy ("Blood Meridian" - Cormac McCarthy)
John Banville, Booker Laureate, called the novel "a kind of mixture of Dante's Inferno, Iliad, and Moby Dick." The protagonist of "Blood Meridian", a fourteen-year-old teenager from Tennessee, known only as "the kid", becomes the hero of the latest epic, based on real events and circumstances of the mid-19th century Tex-Mex border, where the Indian scalp market is booming.
50. "A Man Without Qualities" - Robert Musil ("Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften" - Robert Musil)
An ironic panorama of Austria-Hungary on the eve of the First World War, a partly autobiographical "novel of ideas" written by one of the most brilliant European intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century, a phenomenon of grandiose conception and execution.
51. "Fiesta (And the Sun Also Rises)" - Ernest Hemingway ("The Sun Also Rises" - Ernest Hemingway)
The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel by Ernest Hemingway. Based on real events that took place in the life of the author.
52. "Gone With the Wind" - Margaret Mitchell ("Gone With the Wind" - Margaret Mitchell)
A novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell set in the southern states of the United States in the 1860s, during (and after) the Civil War. The novel was released on June 30, 1936 and became one of the most famous bestsellers in American literature.
53. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" - Lewis Carroll ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" - Louis Carroll)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a fairy tale written by the English mathematician, poet and writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells about a girl named Alice, who falls through a rabbit hole into an imaginary world inhabited by strange, anthropomorphic creatures.
54. "Heart of Darkness" - Joseph Conrad ("Heart of Darkness" - Joseph Conrad)
The Heart of Darkness is a 1902 adventure novel by English writer Joseph Conrad. The story is told from the perspective of the protagonist, sailor Marlow, who remembers his journey to Central Africa.
55. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - Ernest Hemingway ("For Whom the Bell Tolls" - Ernest Hemingway)
The novel tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American fighter of the International Brigades, who was sent to the rear of the Francoists, to the partisans, during the Spanish Civil War. As a demolition expert, he is tasked with blowing up the bridge to prevent Francoist reinforcements from approaching Segovia.
56. "An American Tragedy" - Theodore Dreiser ("An American Tragedy" Theodore Dreiser)
In the novel An American Tragedy, Dreiser portrays the tragedy of Clive Griffiths - a young man who has tasted all the charm of the life of the rich, is so eager to establish himself in their society that he commits a crime for this.
57. The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
Captivating, touching, multifaceted, full of philosophical meaning is the story of a boy who was destined to grow up, make discoveries, love and find his place in the world in the most dramatic moments of history.
58. "The Call of the Wild" - Jack London ("The Call of the Wild" - Jack London)
The novel takes place in the Yukon (Canada) during the gold rush. The protagonist dog Beck (a cross between a Scottish Shepherd and a St. Bernard), brought from a shepherd's ranch in California, finds himself in the harsh reality of the life of a sled dog. The novel tells about the difficulties that Buck experiences, trying to survive, despite the harsh treatment of the owners, other dogs and the cruelty of nature.
59. "American Pastoral" - Philip Roth ("American Pastoral" - Philip Roth)
The protagonist - Swede Leyvou - married the beautiful "Miss New Jersey", inherited his father's factory and became the owner of an old mansion in Old Rimrock. It would seem that dreams have come true, but one day the American leaf happiness turns to dust at once...
60. "Deliverance" - James Dickey ("Deliverance" - James Dickey)
The four embark on a journey into the wilderness and wilderness of the Appalachians. They go down the river in two boats. Their intentions are just to relax, unwind and see picturesque places ... But they did not know that they would be ambushed by illiterate local highlanders, thugs and sadists.
61. "Lucky Jim" - Kingsley Amis ("Lucky Jim" - Kingsley Amis)
A young teacher on probation at a provincial university.
The only "living soul" in a world of dull snobbery and meaningless rules of conduct.
Jim Dixon is sick of this, but he wants to get into the state! So, you have to be like everyone else. But one day love invades Jim's life, and all his conformist undertakings fly to hell overnight...
62 Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The novel is set in 1930s France (mainly Paris). The novel describes the life of struggling writer Henry Miller in Paris.
63. "Lord of the Flies" - William Golding ("Lord of the Flies" - William Golding)
A strange, terrible story of boys who, by the will of fate, ended up on a desert island. Boys who played cruelty, hunting, war. A book about the hidden corners of the human soul and the desire for power.
64. Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
At the Foot of the Volcano is a novel set in a small Mexican town during one November day in 1939 - All Souls' Day. This day is the last in the life of Geoffrey Fermin, a former British consul who finds refuge from life in unrestrained drunkenness. Fermin's ex-wife Yvonne, his half-brother Hugh and friend, film director Laruelle, are trying to save the consul, persuade him to stop drinking and start life anew...
65. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Fragment of the film based on the book "Return to Brideshead".
The novel, published at the end of World War II, subtly depicts the characters of the outgoing era of prosperity of the English aristocracy. The protagonist of the novel, a young artist, Charles Ryder, meets Sebastian Flight, a representative of a well-known aristocratic family, while studying at Oxford. After his arrival in Brideshead, the family estate of the Flytes, Charles falls into the whirlpool of bohemian life, and over the next years his fate is inextricably linked with this family.
Free Literature Libraries
American History Reading Room, New York Public Library. Photo: Warren Weinstein. 500px. Creative Commons. (CC).
2. Project Gutenberg
One of the oldest online libraries where you can download or read over 33,000 free e-books online.
3. Google Books
If the book you are looking for is not copyrighted, you can read it online using Google Books by searching for "full preview books".
4. University of Pennsylvania Books Page
Here you can find over a million free resources to read and download.
5.Open Library
The Open Library also contains over a million books of classical literature, including some of the rarest works.
6. eBooks at Adelaide
The online library of the University of Adelaide offers classical, non-fiction, philosophy and medical books.
7 Bartleby
Free Encyclopedia of World History and Harvard Classics.
8 Bibliomania
On the site you can find more than 2,000 free classical texts, including scientific works.
9. Internet Archive
The largest digital library with free resources.
10.ManyBooks
Here you will find over 29,000 books available for download.
Recently, it has become very popular to make lists of the 100 most needed and popular books of all time. Each such list is a curious and indisputable spectacle. Which is not at all surprising, because there is and cannot be any exact guideline for such a choice: the books are selected from a purely subjective point of view. Each of us has our favorite novels, which we recommend with great pleasure to others. But this is just the opinion of one individual, based on his tastes and preferences. We approached the solution of this issue more realistically and made our own list of books. Of course, the editors of the site are well aware that there can be no complete objectivity in such a list. Nevertheless, we tried to impartially approach the solution of this issue and conduct an independent study.
Book selection method
The lists of the best books of nine publications, corporations and communities were subjected to the study. Of course, there are many other lists and online surveys, but we have chosen the most popular and objective, in our opinion, at the moment. The works included in them are classics: they touch upon issues of faith and choice, tell about the culture and life of different peoples, tell about world historical events and the history of a single country, and appeal to universal values - love and betrayal. There are also works for children, but useful for reading and adults. It is worth mentioning that such lists include only "thick" books, that is, novels. Let's take a look at these lists:
- List of the Top 200 Novels, published in 2003 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). More than one million viewers participated in the survey.
- List of 100 books of the twentieth century, published by the French edition of Le Monde. Journalists and librarians worked on the list, then ordinary citizens took part in the survey.
- List of 100 books presented by the Norwegian Book Club. The books were published under the name "World Library". Famous novelists from around the world were involved in the compilation. The books they have chosen do not have a rating, as the compilers said, they are all equal in importance.
- 100 works of the 20th century published in English. The list was compiled by the editors and published in 1998 by the American publishing house Modern Library.
- List of 100 novels published in 2009 by the American socio-political publication Newsweek.
- "Library of World Literature", published by the publishing house "Fiction" in the USSR. Includes two hundred volumes, divided into three series: the literature of the ancient world, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The publication is very popular and has great literary value.
- The list of "100 books" for schoolchildren, recommended as independent reading. He absorbed books on history, cultural studies, literature of Russia. Approved in 2012 by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
- 100 novels that had a huge impact on culture and literature, according to the newspaper "NG-Ex libris". This is a popular Russian publication that analyzes the current literary situation abroad and in Russia.
- "110 Must-Read Books" published by the British broadsheet Daily Telegraph. The publication included in its list of books by famous world authors that are necessary for reading in order to be considered an educated person.
During the analysis, we selected all the works that were discussed in each of these nine lists. The rating is compiled in such a way that the leading places were occupied by those books that were more often found in each list.
The list of recommended reading books that we have compiled has nothing to do with other similar lists. It's kind of like a list of lists. Its result was a unique list of literary works covering a wide historical range: from ancient times to the present. This includes the world's creations of English-speaking and Russian-speaking authors, without which literature is unthinkable, as well as modern novels and bestsellers. With great surprise, our editors discovered works by new authors unknown to it until now. Of course, there are a number of other wonderful books that could not make this list due to their lesser popularity. But when choosing, we tried to take into account the historical and cultural significance of the book, its exceptional popularity and relevance at the moment. We boldly recommend this list of works for reading, because it is compiled in such a way that each reader can find something necessary and useful for himself in it.
You can spend the evening not at the usual TV, tablet, phone, but how nice it is to take and read a book on a winter evening.
1. "Dead Zone", Steven King
The hero of the book, John Smith, gets a concussion, this happens when there was a collision on the ice. After that, the hero of this book begins to suffer visions, discovers psychic abilities in himself ...
2. "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
Today, this work is not criticized for excessive fantasy, this novel helps a lot in solving psychological problems, the author considers the themes of responsibility and love. And the novel itself won the hearts of millions of people ...
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
There are five daughters in the Bennet family, all of them need to be married well, of course, this is not easy. The author psychologically supports the girls and is sure that every girl can meet "Mr. Darcy".
4. Manyunya, Narine Abgaryan
This book is great for bringing back childhood. A warm, affectionate book full of adventure, sunshine, sweets! We all come from childhood.
5. "35 kilos of hope", Anna Gavalda
The book is about a thirteen-year-old boy who loves to craft, and his grandfather is an idol for him, and he also dreams of getting into a lyceum where boys study and make something.
6. The Green Mile, Stephen King
The Green Mile is a suicide block in the colony, there is no way out in this prison, only one - the electric chair. But everything changes when John enters the prison...
7. "I am not afraid" by Niccolò Ammaniti
The state of the soul is measured not by the number of years in the passport, but by how many good deeds a person has done or negative ones.
8. “Suitcase”, Sergey Dovlatov
9. The Thirteenth Tale, Diana Setterfield
Our heroine of the book, moves to the house of the writer and unraveling the secrets of the house, realizes that her situations in the house and secrets are very similar to her own life.
10. "Airport", Arthur Hailey
The airport becomes detached from the surrounding world, where many people gather, everyone lives a “whole life”.
11. Nowhere, Neil Gaiman
To get into a certain secret world, you need to open the door where she is - no one knows.
12 The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
This is a tournament between people in the world of the future, whose name is Panem.
13. Five Orange Quarters by Joan Harris
The heroine of the book inherits: an album with recipes, and her brother a farm. A girl can solve riddles about her family by reading a book.
14. Vague Smile, Francoise Sagan
A novel about how the destinies of a lawyer who ceases to enjoy life and a young student crossed paths. It would seem that feelings have nowhere to come from, yes ...
15. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
16. The Help, Katherine Stockett
A cheerful girl comes to a boring town who dreams of becoming a writer...
17. The Multiple Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes
The protagonist of the novel, the consciousness was divided into as many as 24 parts ...
18. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The book is a prerequisite for the script of the film of the same name, recommended reading.
19. Pasinks of the Universe, Robert Heinlein
20. "P.Sh.", Dmitry Khara
Oleg works hard, one fine day, he finds a travel agency that offers an unusual tour, but only for those who are prepared.
Anna Karenina. Lev Tolstoy
The greatest love story of all time. A story that has not left the stage, filmed countless times - and still has not lost the boundless charm of passion - a destructive, destructive, blind passion - but all the more bewitching with its grandeur.
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The Master and Margarita. Michael Bulgakov
This is the most mysterious of the novels in the entire history of Russian literature of the 20th century. This is a novel that is almost officially called the "Gospel of Satan". This is The Master and Margarita. A book that can be read and re-read dozens, hundreds of times, but most importantly, which is still impossible to understand. So, which pages of The Master and Margarita were dictated by the Forces of Light?
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Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
Mystery novel, included in the top ten best novels of all time! The story of a stormy, truly demonic passion, which excites the imagination of readers for more than a hundred and fifty years. Katie gave her heart to her cousin, but ambition and a thirst for wealth push her into the arms of a rich man. Forbidden attraction turns into a curse for secret lovers, and one day.
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Eugene Onegin. Alexander Pushkin
“Have you read "Onegin"? What can you say about Onegin? These are the questions that are constantly repeated among writers and Russian readers, ”the writer, enterprising publisher and, by the way, the hero of Pushkin’s epigrams, Thaddeus Bulgarin, noted after the publication of the second chapter of the novel. For a long time ONEGIN has not been accepted to evaluate. In the words of the same Bulgarin, it is “written in Pushkin's verses. That's enough."
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Notre Dame Cathedral. Victor Hugo
A story that survived the centuries, became a canon and gave its heroes the glory of common nouns. A story of love and tragedy. The love of those to whom love was not given and not allowed - by religious rank, physical weakness or someone else's evil will. The gypsy Esmeralda and the deaf hunchback bell ringer Quasimodo, the priest Frollo and the captain of the royal shooters Phoebe de Chateauper, the beautiful Fleur-de-Lys and the poet Gringoire.
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Gone With the Wind. Margaret Mitchell
The great saga of the American Civil War and the fate of the wayward and head-on Scarlett O'Hara was first published over 70 years ago and has not aged to this day. This is the only novel by Margaret Mitchell for which she won a Pulitzer Prize. A story about a woman who is not ashamed to be equal to either an unconditional feminist or a staunch supporter of house building.
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Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare
This is the highest of love tragedies that human genius can create. A tragedy that has been filmed and will be filmed. A tragedy that does not leave the stage to this day - and to this day it sounds like it was written yesterday. Years and centuries go by. But one thing remains and will forever remain unchanged: “There is no sadder story in the world than the story of Romeo and Juliet ...”
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The Great Gatsby. Francis Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is not only the pinnacle of Fitzgerald's work, but also one of the highest achievements in world prose of the 20th century. Although the action of the novel takes place in the “turbulent” twenties of the last century, when fortunes were made literally from nothing and yesterday’s criminals became millionaires overnight, this book lives outside of time, because, telling about the broken fates of the “Jazz Age” generation.
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Three Musketeers. Alexandr Duma
The most famous historical adventurous novel by Alexandre Dumas tells about the adventures of the Gascon d'Artagnan and his Musketeer friends at the court of King Louis XIII.
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Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandr Duma
The book presents one of the most exciting adventure novels of the classic of French literature of the 19th century, Alexandre Dumas.
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Triumphal Arch. Erich Remarque
One of the most beautiful and tragic love stories in the history of European literature. The story of a refugee from Nazi Germany, Dr. Ravik, and the beautiful Joan Madu, entangled in the "unbearable lightness of being," takes place in pre-war Paris. And the disturbing time in which these two happened to meet and fall in love with each other becomes one of the main characters of the Arc de Triomphe.
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The person who laughs. Victor Hugo
Gwynplaine is a lord by birth, as a child he was sold to bandits-comprachos, who made a fair jester out of a child, carving a mask of “eternal laughter” on his face (at the courts of the European nobility of that time there was a fashion for cripples and freaks who amused the owners). Despite all the trials, Gwynplaine retained the best human qualities and his love.
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Martin Eden. Jack London
A simple sailor, in whom it is easy to recognize the author himself, goes a long, full of hardships path to literary immortality ... By chance, finding himself in a secular society, Martin Eden is doubly happy and surprised ... and the creative gift awakened in him, and the divine image of the young Ruth Morse, so not similar to all the people he knew before ... From now on, two goals relentlessly stand before him.
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Sister Kerry. Theodore Dreiser
The publication of Theodore Dreiser's first novel was so difficult that it led its creator into a severe depression. But the further fate of the novel "Sister Kerry" turned out to be happy: it was translated into many foreign languages, reprinted in millions of copies. New and new generations of readers are happy to plunge into the vicissitudes of the fate of Caroline Meiber.
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American tragedy. Theodore Dreiser
The novel "An American Tragedy" is the pinnacle of the work of the outstanding American writer Theodore Dreiser. He said: “No one creates tragedies - life creates them. The writers only portray them.” Dreiser managed to depict the tragedy of Clive Griffiths so talentedly that his story does not leave the modern reader indifferent.
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Outcasts. Victor Hugo
Jean Valjean, Cosette, Gavroche - the names of the heroes of the novel have long become household names, the number of its readers for a century and a half since the publication of the book has not decreased, the novel has not lost its popularity. A kaleidoscope of faces from all walks of French society in the first half of the 19th century, vivid, memorable characters, sentimentality and realism, a tense, exciting plot.
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The adventures of the good soldier Schweik. Yaroslav Gashek
Great, original and hooligan novel. A book that can be perceived both as a "soldier's story" and as a classic work, directly related to the traditions of the Renaissance. This is a sparkling text that makes you laugh to tears, and a powerful call to “lay down your arms”, and one of the most objective historical evidence in satirical literature..
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Iliad. Homer
The attraction of the Homeric poems is not only that their author introduces us to a world separated from modernity by tens of centuries and yet unusually real thanks to the genius of the poet, who preserved in his poems the beating of contemporary life. Homer's immortality lies in the fact that his brilliant creations contain inexhaustible reserves of universal human values - reason, goodness and beauty.
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St. John's wort. James Cooper
Cooper managed to find and describe in his books that originality and unexpected brightness of the newly discovered continent, which managed to fascinate all of modern Europe. Each new novel by the writer was eagerly awaited. The exciting adventures of the fearless and noble hunter and tracker Natty Bumpo conquered both young and adult readers..
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Doctor Zhivago. Boris Pasternak
The novel “Doctor Zhivago” is one of the outstanding works of Russian literature, which for many years remained closed to a wide range of readers in our country, who knew about it only through scandalous and unscrupulous party criticism.
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Don Quixote. Miguel Cervantes
What do the names of Amadis the Gallic, the English Palmerine, the Greek Don Belianis, the White Tyrant tell us today? But it was precisely as a parody of the novels about these knights that “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha” by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was created. And this parody outlived the parodied genre for centuries. "Don Quixote" was recognized as the best novel in the history of world literature.
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Ivanhoe. Walter Scott
"Ivanhoe" is a key work in the cycle of novels by W. Scott, which takes us to medieval England. The young knight Ivanhoe, who secretly returned from the Crusade to his homeland and was disinherited by the will of his father, will have to defend his honor and the love of the beautiful Lady Rowena ... King Richard the Lionheart and the legendary robber Robin Hood will come to his aid.
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Headless horseman. Reed Mine
The plot of the novel is built so skillfully that it keeps you in suspense until the very last page. It is no coincidence that the exciting story of the noble mustanger Maurice Gerald and his beloved, the beautiful Louise Poindexter, investigating the sinister secret of the headless horseman, whose figure, when he appears, terrifies the inhabitants of the savannah, was extremely fond of readers of Europe and Russia.
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Dear friend. Guy de Maupassant
The novel "Dear friend" has become one of the symbols of the era. This is Maupassant's most powerful novel. Through the story of Georges Duroy, making his “way up”, the true morals of high French society are revealed, the spirit of venality that reigns in all its areas contributes to the fact that an ordinary and immoral person, such as the hero of Maupassant, easily achieves success and wealth.
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Dead Souls. Nikolay Gogol
The release of the first volume of N. Gogol's "Dead Souls" in 1842 caused a heated controversy among contemporaries, splitting society into admirers and opponents of the poem. “…Speaking of “Dead Souls”, one can talk a lot about Russia…” – this judgment of P. Vyazemsky explained the main reason for the controversy. The author’s question is still relevant: “Rus, where are you going, give me an answer?”
No matter how unusual it may sound, but in the modern world of various gadgets, applications and IT technologies, our youth still read books, this is evidenced by many modern authors with a new style and approach to writing books.
What are these books, or rather, stories that excite the modern reader?
Let's find out what they are - the most interesting modern books. Although it will not be easy to make a choice among a huge amount of interesting literature, we will still try to do it.
E.L. James - "Fifty Shades of Grey"
Well, how to remember the most sensational and scandalous book under the intriguing title "Fifty Shades of Grey"? This half romantic and half erotic story of a touching and hot relationship between a journalist and a successful businessman made a splash, and also had the effect of an exploding bomb.
For the first time in many years, someone dared to write not only about sex, but also about the possibilities and desires of a person during lust and passion.
What an appropriate name for this love story, because this is the trouble of the modern world. Yes, yes, the Internet is a destructive web, how many opportunities it gives and takes the same amount. People get acquainted, meet and communicate in the virtual world, forgetting about living emotions and experiences. And when, having met in the real world, they don’t fit together, they can’t understand what’s the matter and why virtual love and sympathy are so different from the real world, because everything was perfect in social networks ...
George R.R. Martin A Song of Ice and Fire. The game of thrones"
We could not ignore the most discussed and popular novel of the 21st century. A whole series of fantasy novels captivated the minds of young people and made a whole generation of fans of this trilogy. The plot of the book revolves around the fictional continent of Westeros and its mysterious, and I would even say, a little mystical inhabitants. A mysterious saga about the life of the seven kingdoms, where love reigns, hatred rules and the war for the iron throne never stops. Here, as is customary in science fiction novels, there are dragons, magicians and fearless warriors. If you are no longer a child, but still love fairy tales, then this series of books about the magical kingdom is just for you.
Markus Zusak - "The Book Thief"
A very touching story about a girl who was adopted as an adult. The plot takes place during the Second World War in a small German town, where everyone is afraid of death and repression. But a strong girl named Liesel finds strength and a great desire to comprehend science and read interesting books beyond her age. Although she gets them out in a not very honest and humane way, but simply to say, she steals a person respected by all from the library, but the end justifies all the means, right? Everyone should read this book, it's easy to read and the plot is just amazing.
John Green - "The Fault in Our Stars"
Love is the most important and primary feeling in our life and throughout the world. At the same time, a very romantic and sad love story of two terminally ill people. Hazel Grace and August Waters meet at a cancer support group meeting and fall in love. They know that a quick death will separate them, but they are happy that before leaving they experienced tender feelings and found happiness. An unusual love story, where pain is intertwined with tenderness and happiness, and which is a must read.
Pavel Sanaev "Bury me behind the plinth"
A touching and very vital story about how love turns into hatred and tyranny. The story is autobiographical, it is told by a little boy who was abandoned by his own mother, leaving him in the care of his grandparents. And those, in turn, are not too happy with such a prospect, but are ready to fulfill this duty of conscience without unnecessary feelings and emotions. A strict grandmother is sure that she will raise the boy as an obedient and insensitive robot. But Sasha Savelyev doesn’t think so, and he has his own opinion on everything ... Yes, you don’t dream of such a childhood ... This story is included in the list of books that you should definitely read.
Bernhard Schlink - "The Reader"
Each of us has our secrets and secrets. The Reader is a rather complicated psychological story of love, passion, hopelessness and betrayal.
A fifteen-year-old boy and a fully grown woman start an affair, they are united by an interest in books, and an educated guy reads books that are important and interesting, in his opinion, to his illiterate lover.
Stormy passion and unusual relationships end as unexpectedly as they begin. But fate is preparing another meeting for former lovers, only now the circumstances will not be too pleasant for them. Whoever has not read this popular story is highly recommended to read, because this is one of the books that will make you think and touch all the notes of your soul.
Mitchell David - "Cloud Atlas"
A novel on the verge of fantasy - that's how critics dubbed it. The plot tells about six different people from different time periods, namely the past, future and present, but as it turns out later, they have one soul, it is simply subject to reincarnation and wanders, visiting one body or another. Everything is very confusing and the storylines are strongly intertwined, although the meaning and morality are still present here. But what they are - you decide. But for this you first need to read the book from beginning to end.
Moyes, Jojo - "Me Before You"
We all have our own past, and throughout our lives we all meet a necessary and important person for us who will change it beyond recognition once and for all.
This touching novel is about just that. Already in the first weeks of sales, more than half a million copies were sold, and the book itself entered the top real bestsellers according to the New York Times. And this turn of events is not at all surprising, because we all love love stories that end in a happy ending.
Khaled Hosseini - The Wind Runner
A story about friendship that two eastern boys Amir and Hasan carried through their whole lives, despite all the disagreements and social inconsistencies, because they are from different social strata and classes. Life scattered them in different places and forced them to be on different sides of the barricades, but despite this they are true to their conscience and friendship.
A very moralizing and life story, written by a talented writer, showed the whole world how to value friendship, and in spite of everything, not turn into blood enemies and protect friendly relations with all your might.
Sebastian Barry "Tables of Destiny"
An interesting story about how a poor old woman, who is already a hundred years old, living her old age in a lunatic asylum, keeps her own diary, where she writes down heavy and sad memories related to her fate and the country in which she was born.
Ray Bradbury - "Dandelion Wine"
An ordinary life story that takes place in a small town. Two boys come to the village every summer to visit their beloved grandfather and help the old man collect dandelions for his drink according to his own recipe. This interesting wine preserves their family history, traditions and memories, including all-consuming love, friendship, quarrels and tragedies.
Colm Toybin - "Brooklyn"
The best novel of the year about a young girl and a real wanderer who returns to her native land after so many years of wandering and searching for herself. Life forces her to leave her native Ireland and settle in New York's Brooklyn. Maybe this is for the best, because the chance to find love here is much higher.
Homesickness makes her thoughts constantly return to her native land, and when Eilis gets used to a strange city and becomes her own in it, life circumstances return her to Ireland.
What's this? A joke or a simple irony of fate? What will happen next and what tests fate has prepared for her? To find out the whole truth, you need to read the most interesting novel of 2017.
Gillian Flynn - "Gone Girl"
The detective of the decade will tell us about how you can live with a person for five years and not know him at all. A married and, at first glance, happy couple is preparing to celebrate their wedding anniversary, but in an instant everything changes.
The thing is that the main character disappears without a trace, leaving a lot of bad evidence pointing to her death and even more questions. But we will know the answers to them only when we read this most interesting book.
Gregory David Roberts - "Shantaram"
The story of an Australian guy who chose the wrong path in life and ended up in prison. By chance, he manages to escape, and to get out of sight, he goes to Bombay. In India, a guy named Lindsay doesn't reform and becomes a con man and a cheat again. The moral of this novel is: "People don't change." Here is such a strange life story, but we will not reveal all the secrets and will give you a chance to read this book yourself.
Bernard Werber - "Empire of Angels"
We all ask ourselves the question: “Is there life after death and what awaits us beyond the line?” A story that touches on this topic and gives us a chance to reflect and realize what evil and good are, why we are given life and how to properly dispose of it.
The protagonist of a science fiction novel named Michelle Panson, after death, goes to heaven (that's lucky), and becomes a guardian angel, gets three wards.
It turns out that it is not so easy to watch worldly life and be on the other side of the screen, and his new profession is not easy. This is the author's fantasy that brought him and his novel worldwide fame. It's just that the topic is very interesting and in demand. After all, we are not eternal ...
