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- Miguel
De Cervantes— “Don Quixote De La Mancha”
- Jonathan
Coe — “What A Carve Up”
- Günter
Grass — “The Tin Drum”
- Harper
Lee— “To Kill A Mockingbird”
- Kurt Vonnegut
— “Slaughterhouse Five”
- V.S. Naipaul
— “A House For Mr. Biswas”
- Guillermo
Cabrera Infante — “Three Trapped Tigers”
- Michael
Chabon — "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Clay"
- Fowles,
John — “The Magus”
- Smith,
Zadie — "White Teeth"
- De Bernières,
Luis — "The War of Don Emanual's Nether Parts"
- De Bernières,
Luis— "Señor Vivo & the Coca Lord"
- De Bernières,
Luis— "The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman
"
- Nathanael
West — "A Cool Million"
- Paul Auster
— "The Book of Illusions"
- Hornby,
Nick — "Fever Pitch"
- Baker,
Nicholson— “The Mezzanine”
- Bellow,
Saul — “The Adventures of Augie March”
- Dave Eggers
— "We Shall Know Our Velocity"
- Katherine
Dunn — "Geek Love"
- Glen Gold
— "Carter Beats the Devil"
- Barbara
Kingsolver — "The Poisonwood Bible"
- Sterne,
Laurence — “The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy”
- Carroll,
Lewis — “Alice in Wonderland”
- Carroll,
Lewis — “Through the Looking Glass”
- Carroll,
Lewis — “The Hunting Of The Snark”
- Steinbeck,
John — “East Of Eden”
- Desnoes,
Edmundo — “Inconsolable Memories”
- Hammett,
Dashiell— “Maltese Falcon”
- Adoum,
Jorge Enrique — “Between Marx and a Naked Woman”
- Julio
Cortázar — “Hopscotch”
- Arenas,
Reinaldo — “Palace of the White Skunks”
- Juster,
Norton — “Phantom Tollbooth”
- Greene,
Graham — “Our Man In Havana”
- Conrad,
Joseph — “The Secret Agent”
- Eco, Umberto
— “The Name Of The Rose”
- Argueta,
Manlio — “A Day in the Life”
- Albert
Camus — "The Plague"
- Vargas
Llosa, Mario — “The City and the Dogs”
- Luis de
Bernières — "Captain Corelli's Mandolin"
- Esquivel,
Laura — “Like Water For Chocolate”
- Roa Bastos,
Augusto — “Yo El Supremo”
- Carpentier,
Alejo — “The Lost Steps”
- Donoso,
José — “Obscene Bird of Night”
- Milligan,
Spike — “Puckoon”
- Vivian
Stanshall - "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End"
- Steinbeck,
John — “Of Mice And Men”
- Kafka,
Franz — “The Metamorphosis”
- Scieszka,
Jon & Lane Smith — “Stinky Cheese Man”
- Faulkner,
William — “Mosquitoes: A Novel”
- Sallinger,
J.D. — “The Catcher In The Rye”
- Orwell,
George — “Animal Farm”
- Adams,
Douglas — “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” Trilogy
- Lawrence,
D.H. —“Kangaroo”
- Irving,
John — “The World According to Garp”
- Hornby,
Nick— “High Fidelity”
- Steinbeck,
John — “Grapes Of Wrath”
- Tressell,
Robert — "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists"
- Adams,
Richard — “Watership Down”
- Golding,
William— “Lord Of The Flies”
- Keillor,
Garrison — “WLT-A Radio Romance”
- Amis,
Kingsley — “Lucky Jim”
- Jansson,
Tove — “The Exploits of Moominpapa”
- Hadden,
Mark — "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Time"
- Maugham,
Sommerset — "Gentlemen in the Parlour"
- Bradbury,
Ray — “The Martian Chronicles”
- Heller,
Joseph — “Catch-22”
- Iyer,
Pico — “Cuba And The Night”
- Greene,
Graham — “The Heart Of The Matter”
- Kipling,
Rudyard — “The Jungle Book”
- Kerouac,
Jack— “On The Road”
- Dick,
Phillip K. — “The Man In The High Castle”
- Chandler,
Raymond — “The Big Sleep”
- Wyndham,
John — ‘The Day Of The Triffids”
- Cherryh,
C. J. — “Downbelow Station”
- Vonnegut,
Kurt — “Breakfast Of Champions”
- Paul Auster
— "Timbuktu"
- Dick,
Phillip K. — “Counter Clock World”
- Frish,
Max— “Homo Faber”
- Grahame,
Kenneth — “The Wind In The Willows”
- Burgess,
Anthony — “A Clockwork Orange”
- Greene,
Graham — “The Third Man”
- Boulle,
Piere — “Monkey Planet”
- Huxley,
Aldus — “Brave New World”
- Nathanael
West — "Miss Lonleyhearts"
- Fitzgerald,
F. Scott — “The Great Gatsby”
- Hoyle,
Fred — “The Black Cloud”
- Milne,
A.A. — “The House at Pooh Corner”
- Rhinehart,
Luke— “The Dice Man”
- Hijuelos,
Oscar— “Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”
- Walker,
Alice — “The Color Purple”
- Himes,
Chester— “ Cotton Comes To Harlem”
- Cortázar,
Julio — “62: A Model Kit”
- White,
E.B. — “Charlotte’s Web”
- Orwell,
George — “1984”
- Greene,
Graham — “Travels With My Aunt”
- Allende,
Isabel — “The House of the Spirits”
- Camus,
Albert — “The Stranger”
- Heinlein,
Robert — “Stranger in a Strange Land”
- Hesse,
Herman — “Steppenwolf”
- Kesey,
Ken — “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
- Kundera,
Milan — “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”
- Maugham,
Somerset — “Of Human Bondage”
- Pirsig,
Robert — “Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance”
- Pynchon,
Thomas — “The Crying of Lot 49”
- Grass,
Günter — “Cat And Mouse
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Note
from Lemon... This is fiction only. No short stoy compilations.
I read about 20-30 books a year which still isn't enough to keep
up so understandably this list in highly incomplete and personal.
Selected on entertainment value more than literary criteria, (i.e.
Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” should by rights be included but
I prefer “Secret Agent” because I’m a sucker for political espionage
detective thrillers), and restricted to the books I have actually
read in the past 33 years. Without wanting to sound like a pretentious
git, the novel genre generally only constitutes about half of
what I read. It is not intended to be my version of the Modern
Library’s Top 100 English language Novels of the 20th Century.
There is a definite personal bias not to mention several embarrassing
titles that could offend but I defend them on the grounds that
these had a big impact on me when I read them. I admit I haven’t
read as much as I should and there are many classics that I just
found too boring to finish and really should give a second chance
now that I’m older and less culturally specific. Some of these
books I have read and not fully understood, but they have been
included because they make me look intellectual. Others I did
not enjoy but I feel I have the right to include them for enduring
the suffering. I have also excluded many books by the same few
authors (Greene, Steinbeck, Vonnegut) who would have dominated
the list had I been strict about including them. See also my Top
100 20th Centuary Spanish Language Novels list!
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