100 best novels of the 20th century...

[Isa]

... according to the FNAC and Le Monde. I thought it was an interesting list because it focuses less on English novels.

1 - The Stranger, Albert Camus, 1942
2 - À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust, 1913-1927
3 - The Process, Franz Kafka, 1925
4 - The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943
5 - La Condition humaine, André Malraux, 1933
6 - Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, 1932
7 - The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, 1939
8 - For whom the bell tolls, Ernest Hemingway, 1940
9 - Le Grand Meaulnes, Alain-Fournier, 1913
10 - L'Écume des jours, Boris Vian, 1947
11 - The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, 1949
12 - Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett, 1952
13 - Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1943
14 - In the Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco, 1980
15 - The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Soljenitsyne, 1973
16 - Paroles, Jacques Prévert, 1946
17 - Alcools, Guillaume Apollinaire, 1913
18 - Le Lotus bleu, Hergé, 1936
19 - The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, 1947
20 - Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955
21 - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932
22 - 1984, George Orwell, 1949
23 - Astérix le Gaulois, René Goscinny et Albert Uderzo, 1959
24 - The Bald Soprano, Eugène Ionesco, 1952
25 - Three essays on the theory of sexuality, Sigmund Freud, 1905
26 - The Abyss, Marguerite Yourcenar, 1968
27 - Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
28 - Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
29 - The Tartar Steppe, Dino Buzatti, 1940
30 - The Counterfeiters, André Gide, 1925
31 - The Horseman on the Roof, Jean Giono, 1951
32 - Belle du seigneur, Albert Cohen, 1968
33 - 100 years of solitude, Gabriel García Márquez, 1967
34 - The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929
35 - Thérèse Desqueyroux, François Mauriac, 1927
36 - Zazie in the Metro, Raymond Queneau, 1959
37 - Confusion of feelings, Stefan Zweig, 1927
38 - Gone with the wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936
39 - Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1928
40 - The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann, 1924
41 - Hello, Sadness, Françoise Sagan, 1954
42 - Le Silence de la mer, Vercors, 1942
43 - Life: A User's Manual, Georges Perec, 1978
44 - The Hound of the Baskerville, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1901-1902
45 - Under the Sun of Satan, Georges Bernanos, 1926
46 - The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
47 - The Joke, Milan Kundera, 1967
48 - Contempt, Alberto Moravia, 1954
49 - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie, 1926
50 - Nadja, André Breton, 1928
51 - Aurélien, Louis Aragon, 1964
52 - The Satin Slipper, Paul Claudel, 1929
53 - Six characters in search of an author, Luigi Pirandello, 1921
54 - Arturo Ui, Bertolt Brecht, 1959
55 - Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique, Michel Tournier, 1967
56 - The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells, 1898
57 - If this is a man, Primo Levi, 1947
58 - The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954-1955
59 - Les Vrilles de la vigne, Colette, 1908
60 - The Capital of Pain, Paul Éluard, 1926
61 - Martin Eden, Jack London, 1909
62 - Corto Maltese-Ballad of the Salt Sea, Hugo Pratt, 1967
63 - Le Degré zéro de l'écriture, Roland Barthes, 1953
64 - The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Heinrich Böll, 1974
65 - The Opposing Shore, Julien Gracq, 1951
66 - The Order of Things, Michel Foucault, 1966
67 - On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957
68 - The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson, Selma Lagerlöf, 1906-1907
69 - A room of one's own, Virginia Woolf, 1929
70 - Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, 1950
71 - The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein, Marguerite Duras, 1964
72 - The Interrogation, J.M.G. Le Clézio, 1963
73 - Tropisms, Nathalie Sarraute, 1939
74 - Diary, 1887-1910, Jules Renard, 1925
75 - Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad, 1900
76 - Écrits, Jacques Lacan, 1966
77 - The Theatre and its Double, Antonin Artaud, 1938
78 - Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos, 1925
79 - Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges, 1944
80 - Moravagine, Blaise Cendrars, 1926
81 - The General of the Dead Army, Ismail Kadare, 1963
82 - Sophie's Choice, William Styron, 1979
83 - Romancero gitano, Federico García Lorca, 1928
84 - Pietr-le-Letton, Georges Simenon, 1931
85 - Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet, 1944
86 - The Man without Qualities, Robert Musil, 1930-1932
87 - Fureur et mystère, René Char, 1948
88 - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951
89 - No Orchids for Miss Blandish, James Hadley Chase, 1939
90 - Blake and Mortimer, Edgar P. Jacobs, 1950
91 - The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke, 1910
92 - Second Thoughts, Michel Butor, 1957
93 - The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt, 1951
94 - The Master and Margarita, Mikhaïl Boulgakov, 1967
95 - Sexus, Henry Miller, 1949-1960
96 - The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939
97 - Amers, Saint-John Perse, 1957
98 - Gaston, André Franquin, 1957
99 - Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry, 1947
100 - Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, 1981

[Isa]

I've only read 12 books on that list, I guess I need to expand my horizons a bit more

[Hanna]

A lot of those books I own but haven't read yet, or have on my tbr list, but so far I've only read 9.

[Halie]

Only 5 but like Hanna I own many of them.

I like this list. I think I'll come back to it next time I need something French to read.

[Lu]

That's a good list!

I read 17 of them, some of the others are on my tbr list:
3 - The Process, Franz Kafka, 1925
8 - For whom the bell tolls, Ernest Hemingway, 1940
11 - The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir, 1949
13 - Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1943
19 - The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, 1947
21 - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932
22 - 1984, George Orwell, 1949
29 - The Tartar Steppe, Dino Buzzati, 1940
33 - 100 years of solitude, Gabriel García Márquez, 1967
44 - The Hound of the Baskerville, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1901-1902
46 - The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
48 - Contempt, Alberto Moravia, 1954
57 - If this is a man, Primo Levi, 1947
58 - The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954-1955
67 - On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957
69 - A room of one's own, Virginia Woolf, 1929
88 - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951

[killjoykali]

I've only read a couple of them but I want to read more of them.

[jella]

I've only read 5.

4 - The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943
19 - The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, 1947
44 - The Hound of the Baskerville, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1901-1902
46 - The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
88 - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951

[Michelle]

I've only read 8 of them.

8 - For whom the bell tolls, Ernest Hemingway, 1940
12 - Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett, 1952
19 - The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank, 1947
22 - 1984, George Orwell, 1949
34 - The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner, 1929
46 - The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
67 - On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957
88 - The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger, 1951

[Deleted]

I have read 8 and half, I didn't have the strenght to finish Ulyssys.. and next I am going to read The Master and Margarita by Mikhaïl Boulgakov, it has waited too long on my shelf..

[killjoykali]

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who hasn't read too many of these books. I don't feel so pathetic anymore.

[Hanna]

Jun 2, 2009 10:34:03 GMT -5 Hanna said:

A lot of those books I own but haven't read yet, or have on my tbr list, but so far I've only read 9.

Yay, from 9 to 19

[Lu]

Jan 11, 2012 12:07:58 GMT -5 Hanna said:

Jun 2, 2009 10:34:03 GMT -5 Hanna said:

A lot of those books I own but haven't read yet, or have on my tbr list, but so far I've only read 9.

Yay, from 9 to 19

Well done, Hanna!