2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44
Poems, plays and novels that have influenced human history and inspired millions of readers.
BBC Culture asked experts from around the world to select their favorite books that have changed their worldview and human history. More than 100 writers, journalists, critics and translators from 35 countries responded. The resulting list of works is far from exhaustive, but any of these books will make you think about your views on life. Choose what you haven't read yet.
1. Odyssey, Homer (read in Liters →).
2. Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (buy on Liters →).
3. "Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus", Mary Shelley (buy on Liters →).
4. 1984 by George Orwell (buy from Liters →).
5. “And Destruction Came,” Chinua Achebe.
6. “One Thousand and One Nights” (buy on Litres →).
7. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (buy on Litres →).
8. Hamlet, William Shakespeare (buy at Chitai-gorod →).
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez (buy on Litres →).
10. The Iliad, Homer (read on Liters →).
11. "Beloved", Toni Morrison (buy on Liters →).
12. "Divine Comedy", Dante Alighieri (buy on Litres →).
13. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (buy at Litres →).
14. "Epic of Gilgamesh", author unknown.
15. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (buy on Liters →).
16. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (buy at Litres →).
17. Ulysses, James Joyce (buy on Litres →).
18. Animal Farm, George Orwell (buy on Liters →).
19. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (buy on Litres →).
20. "Madame Bovary", Gustave Flaubert (buy on Litres →).
21. Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong.
22. Journey to the West, Wu Cheng'en (buy from Labirint Vol. 1, Vol. 2 →).
23. "Crime and Punishment", Fyodor Dostoevsky (read on Liters →).
24. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (buy at Liters →).
25. "River backwaters", Shi Nai-An (buy on Chitai-gorod →).
26. "War and Peace", Leo Tolstoy (read on Liters →).
27. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (buy on Litres →).
28. Antoinette by Jean Ries
29. "Fables", Aesop (buy on Litres →).
30. "Candide, or Optimism", Voltaire (read on Liters →).
31. Medea, Euripides (read in Liters →).
32. Mahabharata, Vyasa.
33. King Lear by William Shakespeare (buy on Liters →).
34. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.
35. The Suffering of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (buy on Labirint →).
36. The Process, Franz Kafka (buy on Litres →).
37. “In Search of Lost Time”, Marcel Proust (read on Litres →).
38. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (buy on Litres →).
39. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
40. "Moby Dick, or White Whale", Herman Melville (buy on Litres →).
41. “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Zora Niel Hurston.
42. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (buy on Litres →).
43. The True Story of AQ by Lu Xin.
44. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (buy on Liters →).
45. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (read on Liters →).
46. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (buy at Liters →).
47. Monkey Power by Helen Garner.
48. Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (buy on Litres →).
49. "King Oedipus", Sophocles (buy on Liters →).
50. "Metamorphosis", Franz Kafka (buy on Litres →).
51. Oresteia, Aeschylus (buy on Litres →).
52. Cinderella, author unknown.
53. Howl by Allen Ginsberg.
54. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (buy on Liters →).
55. Middlemarch, George Eliot (buy on Liters →).
56. "Pedro Paramo", Juan Rulfo.
57. Butterflies in love, a Chinese legend.
58. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (buy from Bookvoed →).
59. Panchatantra, Vishnu Sharma.
60. Death Notes of Braz Cubas, Joaquín Maria Machado de Assis.
61. Miss Jean Brodie in Her Prime by Muriel Spark.
62. The Ragged Trousers Philanthropists by Robert Tressel.
63. "Song of Avalanche", Okot p'Bitek.
64. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.
65. Midnight Children by Salman Rushdie.
66. Troubled Circumstances, Tsitsi Dangarembga.
67. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (buy on Litres →).
68. "The Master and Margarita", Mikhail Bulgakov (buy at Liters →).
69. "Ramayana", Maharishi Valmiki (buy on Liters →).
70. Antigone, Sophocles (read on Litres →).
71. Dracula by Bram Stoker (buy on Liters →).
72. "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin (buy on Litres →).
73. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (buy at Liters →).
74. America, Raul Otero Reiche.
75. Before the Law, Franz Kafka (buy on Litres →).
76. “Children of Our Street”, Naguib Mahfouz.
77. "Book of Songs", Petrarch.
78. Kebra Negast, Ethiopian Legends.
79. Little Women, Louise May Alcott (buy from Liters →).
80. "Metamorphoses", Ovid (buy on Litres →).
81. Omeros by Derek Walcott.
82. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn (buy on Litres →).
83. Orlando, Virginia Woolf (buy on Litres →).
84. The Rainbow Serpent, an Australian Aboriginal myth.
85. Change Road by Richard Yates (buy at Litres →).
86. "Robinson Crusoe", Daniel Defoe (buy on Litres →).
87. Song of Myself by Walt Whitman.
88. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (buy at Litres →).
89. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain (buy on Liters →).
90. Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges.
91. "The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant", an ancient Egyptian tale.
92. "The King's New Dress" by Hans Christian Andersen (buy on Labirint →).
93. Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
94. Poems, Abu Nuwas.
95. Radetzky March, Joseph Roth.
96. The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (buy on Liters →).
97. Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.
98. The Secret History, Donna Tartt (buy on Liters →).
99. Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.
100. Toba-Tek-Singh, Saadat Hasan Manto.
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