100 best books of all time

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

World fiction is formed from the heritage of tens of thousands of books from all times and peoples. Getting acquainted with the content of each of them is an impossible task even for geeks. Experts have found that in a lifetime a person is able to read no more than a thousand books, including non-fiction. Do not waste your time on empty ideas and tabloid novels, and then you will enjoy reading real masterpieces. Make a list of the 100 best books of all time and discover great authors and their timeless ideas.

Relevance of ancient literature

American magazines often rank the best movies, games and books. Experts take into account the taste of each person and come up with results that impress the romantic, the skeptic and the realist.

Two great poems, written by Homer in the 8th century BC, arouse the interest of readers even now. "Odyssey" - a tale about the adventures of the king of Ithaca,who was held captive by the nymph Calypso for ten years, and then by cunning returned home. He made nine journeys: he visited lotophages and cyclops, on the island of Aeola, with the cannibal giants, the sorceress Kirka, in the kingdom of the dead, at the sirens, between Scylla and Charybdis, on the island of Helios.

In the list of "100 best books of all time" in eighth place with the "Odyssey" is the "Iliad". This is a heroic epic about the war between Troy and Sparta. The culprit of the conflict was Queen Helen, whom Paris stole with the help of Aphrodite. Odysseus himself appears in the poem: he comes up with the construction of a wooden Trojan horse in which warriors hide and attack the city at night.

Why does everyone love Tolstoy?

The great Russian writer of the 19th century Lev Nikolaevich is known as the author of the epic "War and Peace". It is this work that opens the list of the 100 best books of all time according to Newsweek. The novel consists of four volumes, in which there are over one and a half thousand pages, but this figure does not frighten connoisseurs of literature. Tolstoy introduced over 500 characters into the story, the main ones being the Rostov and Bolkonsky families. In the novel, everyone will find interesting moments for themselves: descriptions of battle scenes, social balls, stories of love and betrayal.

"Anna Karenina" is Tolstoy's second most famous book, which has earned a place in the list of Newsweek and BBC magazines. The novel has been made into about thirty films around the world. What is the secret of such success?Tolstoy depicts an unfortunate woman typical of the nineteenth century, married not for love and forced to seek her fortune on the side.

Shakespearean legacy

The name of the great English poet and playwright of the Renaissance appears in the ranking of "The 100 Best Books of All Time" four times. The list includes the tragedies "Hamlet", "King Lear", "Othello" and a collection of sonnets. Curiously, the poetic masterpieces of other authors were not included in the list.

The main conflict in Shakespeare's tragedies is the eternal confrontation between good and evil. The author skillfully creates positive and negative images of the characters. In tragedies, Shakespeare does not teach the reader, but seeks to show the real properties of human nature.

People are not divided into races, races are divided into humans and non-humans…

Recently, American schools began to censor books. Anti-racism writing is on the list of the 100 best books of all time, but the social movement believes that it is not necessary for children to cover this issue.

Until recently, Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" was read with pleasure by teenagers in many US schools, but today its study is being questioned. The book tells about the activities of the lawyer Atticus Finch, who defended the Negro. The poor man became a victim of deceit: he was seduced by a white girl. Her father caught her doing this and cruellybeaten, and attributed the blame to a black man. Atticus made enemies, but did not stop retreating from the truth and fought for it to the end, proving the innocence of the black guy.

Ralph Ellison's novel "The Invisible Woman" tells about the plight of a black man living in America. The young man is forced to constantly wander in order not to become a victim of racism.

"Lolita". Confessions of a Writer

Outstanding ideas of Vladimir Nabokov were rejected in the Soviet Union, so the writer carried out his activities abroad. The famous novel "Lolita" was written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, and half a century later entered the list of "100 best books of all time". Nabokov was afraid that the novel would not be understood, so he tried to burn the first version, but his wife saved the manuscript.

In many European countries, the book is still banned. Experts assure that it contains propaganda of pedophilia, since the main characters of the book - forty-year-old Humbert-Humbert and a twelve-year-old girl - experience carnal attraction to each other. To get closer to Lolita, the man marries her mother, who is subsequently hit by a car.

Scarred boy conquers the world

English writer JK Rowling rose to fame after writing the Harry Potter novels. The boy lost his parents in infancy, and tyrant relatives take up his upbringing. One day, Harry receives a letter in the mail with an invitation to study at Hogwarts, the school of wizardry. Laterthe boy learns that his parents were magicians, and he received a scar on his forehead from Voldemort. Soon Potter meets the black magician in person and defeats him twice.

To date, 8 films have been made based on all the books about the boy with the scar. The first four novels were included in the list of "The 100 Best Books of All Time" (BBC). By 2004, J. K. Rowling had made the first billion dollars in human history by writing books, and 10 years later, she was ranked 13th in the ranking of the most influential women in the country.

What other authors are on the "100 Best Books of All Time" list?

According to the BBC, 200 works by mostly foreign writers deserve to be included in the ranking of masterpieces of world literature. The list was compiled more than ten years ago by audience voting. First place went to The Lord of the Rings, followed by Pride and Prejudice and His Dark Materials. Rounding out the top five are The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The top ten included To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Winnie the Pooh and All, All, All, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Catch-22.

Writer Terry Pratchett made the list 15 times, Jacqueline Wilson 14, Roald Dahl 9, Charles Dickens 7. JK Rowling made it four times, as did Thomas Hardy; Stephen King three times and Gabriel Garcia Marquez twice.

From Russian writers, American citizensthey singled out Leo Tolstoy with the novels "War and Peace" (20th place) and "Anna Karenina" (54th place); Fyodor Dostoevsky and his "Crime and Punishment" (60th place), Mikhail Bulgakov with "The Master and Margarita" (130th) and Vladimir Nabokov with "Lolita" (178th place).

Non-fiction

Americans have been thinking for a long time about what masterpieces deserve to be in the ranking of the 100 best books of all time. The list consists mainly of fiction, but it highlights two books of a different genre, the contents of which should be known to every self-respecting person. The Bible is ranked 41st by Newsweek magazine. Holy Scripture is revered not only by Christians and Jews, but also by representatives of other religious denominations. The authorship of the book is attributed to several authors who lived from the 15th century BC to the first century of the new millennium.

"Capital" by Karl Marx takes 30th place. The book is useful not only to economists, but also to other people who want to learn the basics of economic theory. The author develops the idea that capital is the basis of modern society, and development is unthinkable without it.