Le Monde’s Best 50 Books of the Century
There are the best 50 Books of the Century, from Le Monde’s “100 Books of the Century” list. It blends revolutionary novels, philosophical milestones, and unforgettable stories that shaped modern thought and taste. From Camus to Orwell, these are the titles that defined a century.
Items in this hypelist
Ranked from 1-50 (highest to lowest)
Nadja
André Breton · 1994
"Nadja, " originally published in France in 1928, is the first and perhaps best Surrealist romance ever written, a book which defined that movement's attitude toward everyday life.<br> <br> The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in teh city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work -- pictures of various "surreal" people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in naja's presence and which inspire him to mediate on their reality or lack of it. "The Nadja of the book is a girl, but, like Bertrand Russell's definition of electricity as "not so much a thing as a way things happen, " Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, k a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (The Hercule Poirot Mysteries Book 4)
Agatha Christie · 2022
A Ghost at Noon
Alberto Moravia · 1976
The Joke (Definitive Version)
Milan Kundera · 1993
The Great Gatsby
Francis Scott Fitzgerald · 2022
Under Satan's Sun
Georges Bernanos · 2001
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle · 2001
Life A User's Manual
Georges Perec · 2025
<p><b>"One of the great novels of the century. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the late 20th century has produced a novel on the level of Joyce, Proust, Mann, Kafka, and Nabokov."--<i>Boston Globe</i></b><br> <br> Structured around a single moment in time -- 8:00 p.m. on June 23, 1975 -- Perec's spellbinding puzzle begins in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, like an onion being peeled, an extraordinary rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, moving, funny, or (sometimes) quite ordinary.<br> <br> From the confessions of a racing cyclist to the plans of an avenging murderer, from a young ethnographer obsessed with a Sumatran tribe to the death of a trapeze artist, from the fears of an ex-croupier to the dreams of a sex change pop star to an eccentric English millionaire who has devised the ultimate pastime, <b><i>Life A User's Manual</i></b> is a manual of human irony, portraying the mixed marriages of fortunes, passions and despairs, betrayals and bereavements, of hundreds of lives in Paris and around the world.<br> <br> But the novel is more than an extraordinary range of individual stories; it is a closely observed account of life and experience. The apartment block's one hundred rooms are arranged in a magic square, and the book as a whole is peppered with a staggering range of literary puzzles and allusions, acrostics, problems of chess and logic, crosswords, and mathematical formula. All are there for the reader to solve.</p>
The Silence Of The Sea,
Vercors
Bonjour tristesse
Françoise Sagan
La villa est magnifique, l'été brûlant, la Méditerranée toute proche. Cécile a dix-sept ans. Elle ne connaît de l'amour que des baisers, des rendez-vous, des lassitudes. Pas pour longtemps. Son père, veuf, est un adepte joyeux des liaisons passagères et sans importance. Ils s'amusent, ils n'ont besoin de personne, ils sont heureux. La visite d'une femme de coeur, intelligente et calme, vient troubler ce délicieux désordre. Comment écarter la menace ? Dans la pinède embrasée, un jeu cruel se prépare. C'était l'été 1954. On entendait pour la première fois la voix sèche et rapide d'un " charmant petit monstre " qui allait faire scandale. La deuxième moitié du XXe siècle commençait. Elle serait à l'image de cette adolescente déchirée entre le remords et le culte du plaisir.
The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann · 1996
Lady Chatterley’s Lover: Unexpurgated edition
D. H. Lawrence · 2015
In Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lawrence argues for individual regeneration, which can be found only through the relationship between man and woman (and, he asserts sometimes, man and man). Love and personal relationships are the threads that bind this novel together. Lawrence explores a wide range of different types of relationships. The reader sees the brutal, bullying relationship between Mellors and his wife Bertha, who punishes him by preventing his pleasure. There is Tommy Dukes, who has no relationship because he cannot find a woman who he respects intellectually and at the same time finds desirable. There is also the perverse, maternal relationship that ultimately develops between Clifford and Mrs. Bolton after Connie has left. Masterfully written, one of the most important novels of all time. This in the original unexpurgated edition.
Gone with the Wind
Margaret Mitchell · 2011
Since its original publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the bestselling novels of all time—has been heralded by readers everywhere as The Great American Novel.<br/><br/>Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.<br/><br/>This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life. A sweeping story of tangled passion and courage, in the pages of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell brings to life the unforgettable characters that have captivated readers for decades.<br/><br/>Widely considered an American classic, and often remembered for its epic film version, Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Confusion
Stefan Zweig · 2002
In the autumn of his days, a distinguished privy councillor contemplates his past and looks back at the key moments of his life. A reluctant and indolent student, he recalls a chance meeting with a reclusive professor and his frustrated wife, with whom he ends up sharing lodgings. His thirst for knowledge leads him to form an ambiguous and close relationship with the professor. But the professor harbours a secret which changes and scars both men for ever.
Zazie in the Metro (Penguin Classics)
Raymond Queneau · 2001
Thérèse Desqueyroux
François Mauriac · 1979
The Sound and the Fury: SeaWolf Press Classic
William Faulkner · 2025
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez · 2006
Modern Classics Her Lover (belle Du Seigneur) (Penguin Modern Classics)
Albert Cohen, David Coward · 2005
The Horseman on the Roof
Jean Giono · 1982
Counterfeiters With Journal Of The Counterfeiters
Gide, Andre
The Tartar Steppe
Dino Buzzati · 2018
Ulysses
James Joyce · 2022
Lolita (Vintage International)
Vladimir Nabokov · 2010
The Abyss
Marguerite Yourcenar · 1976
Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality
Sigmund Freud · 2000
The Bald Soprano & Other Plays
Eugène Ionesco · 2020
Asterix the Gaul
René Goscinny, Albert Uderzo · 2004
Nineteen Eighty-four
George Orwell · 2017
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley · 2006
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring masterwork must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit<br/>"A masterpiece. ... One of the most prophetic dystopian works." —Wall Street Journal<br/>Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.<br/>"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune
Tristes Tropiques
Claude Levi-Strauss · 2012
<b> A milestone in the study of culture from the father of structural anthropology<br></b><p>This watershed work records Claude Lévi-Strauss's search for "a human society reduced to its most basic expression." From the Amazon basin through the dense upland jungles of Brazil, Lévi-Strauss found the societies he was seeking among the Caduveo, Bororo, Nambikwara, and Tupi-Kawahib. More than merely recounting his time in their midst, <i>Tristes Tropiques</i> places the cultural practices of these peoples in a global context and extrapolates a fascinating theory of culture that has given the book an importance far beyond the fields of anthropology and continental philosophy. The author's fresh approach, sense of humor, and openness to the sensuous mystique of the tropics make the scientific thrust of the book eminently accessible.<br><br>For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.</p>
The Diary of a Young Girl
Anne Frank · 2010
<b>THE DEFINITIVE EDITION <b>•</b> Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, the remarkable diary that has become a world classic—a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.<br></b><br><b>Updated for the 75th Anniversary of the <i>Diary</i>’s first publication with a new introduction by Nobel Prize–winner Nadia Murad<br><br>“The single most compelling personal account of the Holocaust ... remains astonishing and excruciating.”—<i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b><br><br>In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, they and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and amusing, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
The Blue Lotus
Hergé · 2008
These editions are a must for the Tintin enthusiast. The stories are as they appeared almost 60 years ago when Herge first drew them. Fans will be able to appreciate the developments in Herge's artistic style by taking a look at some of his early work on the Tintin adventures.
Alcools
Guillaume Apollinaire · 2016
Paroles
Jacques Prévert · 2017
The Gulag Archipelago
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN · 2018
The Name Of The Rose
Umberto Eco · 2014
Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre · 2021
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts (Beckett, Samuel)
Samuel Beckett · 2011
The Second Sex
Simone de Beauvoir · 2012
Froth on the daydream
Boris Vian · 2015
The Lost Estate (Pocket Penguins)
Henri Alain-Fournier · 2016
<b>'He too began to chase the great pierrot through the corridors of the château...'</b><p>A novel of desperate yearning and vanished adolescence, the story of Meaulnes and his restless search for a lost, enchanted world has the atmosphere of a dream and the purity of a fairy tale. </p><p>A new series of twenty distinctive, unforgettable Penguin Classics in a beautiful new design and pocket-sized format, with coloured jackets echoing Penguin's original covers.</p>
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway · 1995
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck · 2006
Journey to the End of the Night
Louis-Ferdinand Céline · 2006
Man's Fate
Andre Malraux · 1990
As explosive and immediate today as when it was originally published in 1933, Man's Fate (La Condition Humaine), an account of a crucial episode in the early days of the Chinese Revolution, foreshadows the contemporary world and brings to life the profound meaning of the revolutionary impulse for the individuals involved. As a study of conspiracy and conspirators, of men caught in the desperate clash of ideologies, betrayal, expediency, and free will, Andre Malraux's novel remains unequaled. Translated from the French by Haakon M. Chevalier
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 2000
<p>This beloved, world-famous allegorical classic about a young prince on a quest for knowledge is an essential read for every home library.</p> <p>Combining Richard Howard's translation with restored original full-color art, this definitive English-language edition of The Little Prince will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.</p> <p>Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince. When a pilot crashes in the Sahara Desert, he meets a little boy who asks him to draw a sheep. Gradually the Little Prince reveals more about himself: He comes from a small asteroid, where he lived alone until a rose grew there.</p> <p>But the rose grew demanding, and he was confused by his feelings about her. The story unfolds further from one planet to the next in a thoughtful philosophical exploration of love and the ephemeral.</p>
The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text (The Schocken Kafka Library), Book Cover May Vary
Franz Kafka · 1999
<b>A brilliant translation of one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, revealing a tale that is as full of energy and power as it was when it was first written. From the author of <i>The Metamorphosis.<br></i></b><br>Written in 1914, <i>The Trial</i> is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.
In Search of Lost Time
Marcel Proust, C. K. Scott Moncrieff · 2020
In Search of Lost Time , also translated as Remembrance of Things Past—is a novel in seven volumes, written by Marcel Proust (1871–1922). It is considered to be his most prominent work, known both for its length and its theme of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine" which occurs early in the first volume. In Search of Lost Time follows the narrator's recollections of childhood and experiences into adulthood during late 19th century to early 20th century aristocratic France, while reflecting on the loss of time and lack of meaning to the world.
The Stranger
Albert Camus · 1989
