MY TOP 100 FICTION BOOKS

MY TOP 100 FICTION BOOKS

In alphabetical order. I have listed only one book per author, making an exception for Homer. All are books I have not only read but actually enjoyed, or which have otherwise made a lasting impresssion, rather than ones that have been merely edifying. In the interests of objectivity, I have also excluded books I have translated.

I will admit to having consulted other lists to jog my memory, but have left out books which people often seem to vote for but I honestly cannot believe so many have read, like Ulysses.  Likewise, books I have given up on do not make it.

Titles are quoted first in the language in which I read them, with translations into English where available.

1.     A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

2.     A Hero for Our Time, Mikhail Lermontov

3.     A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

4.     Agosto (August), Rubem Fonseca

5.     Arch of Triumph, Erich María Remarque

6.     Arrival and Departure, Arthur Koestler

7.     Arthur and George, Julian Barnes

8.     As Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas), Machado de Assis

9.     Bella y Oscura (Beautiful and Dark), Rosa Montero

10.  Beltenebros, Antonio Muñoz Molina

11.  Candide, Voltaire

12.  Casa de Campo (A House in the Country), José Donoso

13.  Catch 22, Joseph Heller

14.  Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

15.  Cién Años de Soledad (A Hunded Years of Solitude), Gabriel García Márquez

16.  Closely Observed Trains, Bohumil Hrabal

17.  Contos Completos, Florbela Espanca

18.  Contos da Montanha (Tales From The Mountain), Miguel Torga

19.  Conversación en la Catedral (Conversation in the Cathedral), Mario Vargas Llosa

20.  Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevski

21.  Death in Venice, Thomas Mann

22.  East of Eden, John Steinbeck

23.  El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Don Quixote), Miguel de Cervantes

24.  El Siglo de las Luces (Explosion in a Cathedral), Alejo Carpentier

25.  El Tedio (Boredom), Alberto Moravia

26.  El Túnel (The Tunnel), Ernesto Sábato

27.  Empresas y tribulaciones de Maqroll el Gaviero (The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll), Álvaro Mutis

28.  Filomeno a mi Pesar, Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

29.  Flashman, George MacDonald Fraser

30.  Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

31.  Germinal, Émile Zola

32.  Henry IV Part I, William Shakespeare

33.  Iron in the Soul, Jean-Paul Sartre

34.  Journey to the End of the Night, Louis Ferdinand Céline

35.  Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy

36.  Kes, Barry Hines

37.  L’Étranger (The Stranger), Camus

38.  La Ciudad de los Prodigios (The City of Marvels), Eduardo Mendoza

39.  La Forja de Un Rebelde (The Forging of a Rebel), Arturo Barea

40.  La Región Más Transparente (Where the Air is Clear), Carlos Fuentes

41.  La Tregua (The Truce), Mario Benedetti

42.  La Vorágine, José Eustacio Rivera

43.  Las Puertas Abiertas (Open Doors), Leonardo Sciascia

44.  Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

45.  Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman

46.  Los Mares del Sur (Southern Seas), Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

47.  Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe

48.  Nada, Carmen Laforet

49.  Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell

50.  North and South, Elizabeth Gaskill

51.  O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis), José Saramago

52.  O Crime do Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Amaro), Eça de Queirós

53.  O Delfim, José Cardoso Pires

54.  O Livro do Desassossego (The Book of Disquiet), Bernardo Soares-Fernando Pessoa

55.  Pedro Páramo, Juan Rulfo

56.  Poemas de Amor: Antologia de poesía portuguesa, ed. Inês Pedrosa

57.  Red Harvest, Dashiel Hammett

58.  Regreso a la Misma Ciudad y Bajo la Lluvia (Return to the Same City), Paco Ignacio Taibo II

59.  Riotous Assembly, Tom Sharpe

60.  Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut

61.  Snow, Orhan Pamuk

62.  Soñé que la Nieve Ardía (I Dreamt the Snow Was Burning), Antonio Skármeta

63.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

64.  The Arabian Nights

65.  The Bridge on the Drina, Ivo Andrić

66.  The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

67.  The Case of Comrade Tulayev, Victor Serge

68.  The Charterhouse of Parma, Stendhal

69.  The First Polka, Horst Bienek

70.  The Good Soldier Švejk, Jaroslav Hašek

71.  The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

72.  The Illiad, Homer

73.  The Long Good-bye, Raymond Chandler

74.  The Man in The High Castle, Philip K. Dick

75.  The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

76.  The Odyssey, Homer

77.  The Quiet American, Graham Greene

78.  The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell

79.  The Rattle Bag, ed. Heaney, Hughes

80.  The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad

81.  The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

82.  The Threepenny Opera, Berthold Brecht

83.  The Tin Drum, Günther Grass

84.  The Train Was On Time, Heinrich Böll

85.  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, B. Traven

86.  The Trial, Franz Kafka

87.  The Truce, Primo Levi

88.  The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells

89.  The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

90.  To Kill a Mocking Bird, Harper Lee

91.  To the Ends of the Earth, William Golding

92.  Tom Jones, Henry Fielding

93.  Um Deus Passeando pela Brisa da Tarde (A God Strolling in the Cool of the Evening), Mário de Carvalho

94.  Under The Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

95.  Un Día Perfecto, Melania Mazzucco

96.  Un Día Volveré, Juan Marsé

97.  Una Vida es Una Vida, Dimas Lidio Pitty

98.  Vanity Fair, William M. Thackaray

99.  Vidas Secas (Barren Lives), Gracíliano Ramos

100.    War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy