# le monde's 100 books of the century the 100 books of the century (french: les cent livres du siècle) is a list of the hundred most memorable books of the 20th century regardless of language according to a poll performed during the spring of 1999 by the french retailer fnac and the paris newspaper le monde. the 19th-century the war of the worlds is included even with its 1898 publication date # overview starting from a preliminary list of 200 titles created by bookshops and journalists 17-000 french participants responded to the question "which books have stuck in your mind?" (quels livres sont restes dans votre memoire?) the list includes both classic novels and genre fiction (tolkien agatha christie a. c. doyle) as well as poetry drama and nonfiction literature (freud's essays and the diary of anne frank.) there are also comic books on the list one album from each of these five francophone or italian series: asterix tintin blake and mortimer gaston and corto maltese. the large number of french novels of the list is due to the demographics of the surveyed group likewise comparable lists by english language sources - such as the two lists of modern library 100 best novels published in 1998 one by the board of the modern library and the other by readers who responded - disproportionately favour british and american authors. non-english language works were not eligible for the two modern library lists # list no.: title: author: year: language 1: the stranger the outsider: albert camus: 1942: french 2: in search of lost time remembrance of things past: marcel proust: 1913-27: french 3: the trial: franz kafka: 1925: german 4: the little prince: antoine de saint-exupery: 1943: french 5: man's fate: andre malraux: 1933: french 6: journey to the end of the night: louis-ferdinand celine: 1932: french 7: the grapes of wrath: john steinbeck: 1939: english 8: for whom the bell tolls: ernest hemingway: 1940: english 9: le grand meaulnes: alain-fournier: 1913: french 10: froth on the daydream: boris vian: 1947: french 11: the second sex: simone de beauvoir: 1949: french 12: waiting for godot: samuel beckett: 1952: french 13: being and nothingness: jean-paul sartre: 1943: french 14: the name of the rose: umberto eco: 1980: italian 15: the gulag archipelago: aleksandr solzhenitsyn: 1973: russian 16: paroles: jacques prevert: 1946: french 17: alcools: guillaume apollinaire: 1913: french 18: the blue lotus: herge: 1936: french 19: the diary of a young girl: anne frank: 1947: dutch 20: tristes tropiques: claude levi-strauss: 1955: french 21: brave new world: aldous huxley: 1932: english 22: nineteen eighty-four: george orwell: 1949: english 23: asterix the gaul: rene goscinny and albert uderzo: 1959: french 24: the bald soprano: eugène ionesco: 1952: french 25: three essays on the theory of sexuality: sigmund freud: 1905: german 26: the abyss zeno of bruges: marguerite yourcenar: 1968: french 27: lolita: vladimir nabokov: 1955: english 28: ulysses: james joyce: 1922: english 29: the tartar steppe: dino buzzati: 1940: italian 30: the counterfeiters: andre gide: 1925: french 31: the horseman on the roof: jean giono: 1951: french 32: belle du seigneur: albert cohen: 1968: french 33: one hundred years of solitude: gabriel garcía márquez: 1967: spanish 34: the sound and the fury: william faulkner: 1929: english 35: therèse desqueyroux: françois mauriac: 1927: french 36: zazie in the metro: raymond queneau: 1959: french 37: confusion of feelings: stefan zweig: 1927: german 38: gone with the wind: margaret mitchell: 1936: english 39: lady chatterley's lover: d.h. lawrence: 1928: english 40: the magic mountain: thomas mann: 1924: german 41: bonjour tristesse: françoise sagan: 1954: french 42: le silence de la mer: vercors: 1942: french 43: life: a user's manual: georges perec: 1978: french 44: the hound of the baskervilles: arthur conan doyle: 1901-02: english 45: under the sun of satan: georges bernanos: 1926: french 46: the great gatsby: f. scott fitzgerald: 1925: english 47: the joke: milan kundera: 1967: czech 48: contempt/a ghost at noon: alberto moravia: 1954: italian 49: the murder of roger ackroyd: agatha christie: 1926: english 50: nadja: andre breton: 1928: french 51: aurelien: louis aragon: 1944: french 52: the satin slipper: paul claudel: 1929: french 53: six characters in search of an author: luigi pirandello: 1921: italian 54: the resistible rise of arturo ui: bertolt brecht: 1941: german 55: friday: michel tournier: 1967: french 56: the war of the worlds: h.g. wells: 1898: english 57: if this is a man se questo è un uomo survival in auschwitz: primo levi: 1947: italian 58: the lord of the rings: j.r.r. tolkien: 1954-55: english 59: the tendrils of the vine: colette: 1908: french 60: capital of pain: paul eluard: 1926: french 61: martin eden: jack london: 1909: english 62: the ballad of the salty sea: hugo pratt: 1967: italian 63: writing degree zero: roland barthes: 1953: french 64: the lost honour of katharina blum: heinrich böll: 1974: german 65: the opposing shore: julien gracq: 1951: french 66: the order of things: michel foucault: 1966: french 67: on the road: jack kerouac: 1957: english 68: the wonderful adventures of nils: selma lagerlöf: 1906-07: swedish 69: a room of one's own: virginia woolf: 1929: english 70: the martian chronicles: ray bradbury: 1950: english 71: the ravishing of lol stein: marguerite duras: 1964: french 72: the interrogation: j.m.g. le clezio: 1963: french 73: tropisms: nathalie sarraute: 1939: french 74: journal 1887-1910: jules renard: 1925: french 75: lord jim: joseph conrad: 1900: english 76: ecrits: jacques lacan: 1966: french 77: the theatre and its double: antonin artaud: 1938: french 78: manhattan transfer: john dos passos: 1925: english 79: ficciones: jorge luis borges: 1944: spanish 80: moravagine: blaise cendrars: 1926: french 81: the general of the dead army: ismail kadare: 1963: albanian 82: sophie's choice: william styron: 1979: english 83: gypsy ballads: federico garcía lorca: 1928: spanish 84: the strange case of peter the lett: georges simenon: 1931: french 85: our lady of the flowers: jean genet: 1944: french 86: the man without qualities: robert musil: 1930-42: german 87: furor and mystery: rene char: 1948: french 88: the catcher in the rye: j.d. salinger: 1951: english 89: no orchids for miss blandish: james hadley chase: 1939: english 90: blake and mortimer: edgar p. jacobs: 1950: french 91: the notebooks of malte laurids brigge: rainer maria rilke: 1910: german 92: second thoughts: michel butor: 1957: french 93: the origins of totalitarianism the burden of our time: hannah arendt: 1951: english 94: the master and margarita: mikhail bulgakov: 1967: russian 95: the rosy crucifixion: henry miller: 1949-60: english 96: the big sleep: raymond chandler: 1939: english 97: amers: saint-john perse: 1957: french 98: gaston gomer goof: andre franquin: 1957: french 99: under the volcano: malcolm lowry: 1947: english 100: midnight's children: salman rushdie: 1981: english note: classified by the language of the book's first publication which might not be the author's principal language // republic of bob