My favourite 100 novels - 2021
- Andy
- Mar 12, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 24, 2024
It's been over three years now since I listed my favourite 100 books and it's time for a review. I've read about 300 books in that time, so some of those have slid in here. I've also changed my opinion on some of the books on my 2018 list.
My rules for this list are simple. Maximum one book per author. Fiction only. My favourite books I define as... books I love, which I reread regularly, which I want to reread again, and which I'd recommend. This is the order I would save them in a fire, heaven forbid!
Let me know what you think of my list and do comment your own personal top three.
1. Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
2. The Three Musketeers, by Alexander Dumas
3. Cider House Rules, by John Irving
4. Crime and Punishment, Fyedor Dostoyevsky
5. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
6. Villette, by Charlotte Bronte
7. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
8. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
9. David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
10. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
11. A Song of Ice and Fire, by GRR Martin
12. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
13. A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz
14. Kim, by Rudyard Kipling
15. Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
16. Matilda, by Roald Dahl
17. Jacob’s Room, by Virginia Woolf
18. A Secret History, Donna Tartt
19. Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger
20. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
21. Anne of Green Gables, by LM Montgomery
22. O Pioneers, by Willa Cather
23. Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks
24. The Honey Siege, by Gil Buhet
25. The 39 Steps, by John Buchan
26. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
27. Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons
28. All Quiet on the Western Front, by E.M. Remarque
29. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
30. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
31. The Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier
32. Sunset Song, by Lewis Grassic Gibbons
33. The Scarlet and the Black, by Stendhal
34. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
35. Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges
36. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
37. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
38. Miss Wyoming, by Douglas Coupland
39. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
40. Leave it to Psmith, by P.G. Wodehouse
41. As I walked out one Midsummer morning, by Laurie Lee
42. Zigzag Street, by Nick Earls
43. We have always lived in the castle, by Shirley Jackson
44. Silas Marner, by George Eliot
45. Journey to the River Sea, by Eva Ibbotson
46. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
47. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
48. Bonjour Tristesse, by Francoise Sagan
49. Pollyanna, by Eleanor Porter
50. Room with a view, by EM Forster
51. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
52. Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier
53. Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk
54. Restoration, by Rose Tremain
55. Stoneheart, by Charlie Fletcher
56. Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
57. A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle
58. Perfume, by Patrick Suskind
59. White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
60. Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre
61. Native son, by Richard Wright
62. Emma, by Jane Austen
63. Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami
64. Espedair Street, by Iain Banks
65. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
66. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, by Kiran Desai
67. Little Women, by Louisa M. Alcott
68. A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khalid Hosseini
69. The Beach, by Alex Garland
70. The Prisoner of Azkaban, by J K Rowling
71. By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept, by Elizabeth Smart
72. North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
73. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
74. Petronille, by Amelie Nothomb
75. Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafön
76. Treasure Island, by RL Stevenson
77. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
78. The Heart of a Dog, by Mikael Bulgakov
79. The Wall and the Wing, by Laura Ruby
80. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
81. The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope
82. Therese Raquin, by Emile Zola
83. The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureshi
84. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
85. The Time Traveller’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenberger
86. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
87. Any Human Heart, by William Boyd
88. Eugenie Grandet, by Honore de Balzac
89. Kristin Lavrensdatter, by Sigrid Undset
90. Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy
91. The Grass Harp, by Truman Capote
92. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
93. Manon Lescaut, by Abbe Prévost
94. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Bronte
95. Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch
96. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
97. Madonna in a Fur Coat, by Sabahattin Ali
98. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
99. The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley
100. The History of Mr Polly, by H.G. Wells
This is such an impressive list Andy! There are so many here that I love too. I think you are the best and most accomplished reader of anyone I know. And I'm even on a library board so I know a lot of readers! I am always inspired by your posts.
What a great list of favourite novels. I recognize many, but not all, so will have to check those ones out. It is really difficult making a list and keeping to only one novel per author, so well done.
As for my top 3:
#3) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)
#2) The Cider House Rules (John Irving)
#1) Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)
This is where I would run into the most trouble keeping the list to one per author, as Dickens is my favourite author.
Dave Quinn
Canada
Hmm interesting list. Emma instead of S&S and O Pioneers instead of My Ántonia. From all the lists in the world I love people’s favourite booklists the most. Btw I’m reading Bowie’s books now.
Hurray for "The Haunted Bookshop"!