Modern Library 100 Best Novels

Modern Library 100 Best Novels names 100 books, every one listed here in its order. Ulysses by James Joyce is number one. The most approachable of its top ten is Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence (difficulty 50/100, about 11 hours); the hardest is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (94/100). 32 of its books are on four or more of the eight great rankings.

1. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922) — difficulty 89/100, about 47 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925) — difficulty 52/100, about 3.4 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (1916) — difficulty 78/100, about 11 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955) — difficulty 69/100, about 12 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) — difficulty 52/100, about 4.4 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
6. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929) — difficulty 80/100, about 15 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) — difficulty 62/100, about 15 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
8. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (1940) — difficulty 75/100, about 9.2 hours
9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence (1913) — difficulty 50/100, about 11 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939) — difficulty 55/100, about 13 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
11. Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry (1947) — difficulty 72/100, about 16 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
12. The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (1903) — difficulty 64/100, about 15 hours
13. 1984 by George Orwell (1949) — difficulty 46/100, about 6.5 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings
14. I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934) — difficulty 49/100, about 7.1 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
15. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927) — difficulty 70/100, about 7.4 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
16. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (1925) — difficulty 42/100, about 22 hours
17. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940) — difficulty 54/100, about 8.6 hours
18. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969) — difficulty 63/100, about 4.4 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
19. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1953) — difficulty 75/100, about 22 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
20. Native Son by Richard Wright (1940) — difficulty 58/100, about 12 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
21. Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow (1959) — difficulty 61/100, about 11 hours
22. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara (1934) — difficulty 45/100, about 4 hours
23. U.S.A. by John Dos Passos (1938) — difficulty 76/100, about 57 hours
24. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (1919) — difficulty 69/100, about 7.5 hours
25. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (1924) — difficulty 54/100, about 7.2 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
26. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James (1902) — difficulty 72/100, about 22 hours
27. The Ambassadors by Henry James (1903) — difficulty 67/100, about 16 hours
28. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1934) — difficulty 66/100, about 10 hours
29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy by James T. Farrell (1935) — difficulty 42/100, about 22 hours
30. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915) — difficulty 65/100, about 7 hours
31. Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945) — difficulty 56/100, about 2.3 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
32. The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904) — difficulty 74/100, about 25 hours
33. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (1900) — difficulty 39/100, about 9.4 hours
34. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (1934) — difficulty 48/100, about 4.6 hours
35. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930) — difficulty 67/100, about 6 hours
36. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946) — difficulty 54/100, about 15 hours
37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1927) — difficulty 54/100, about 2.3 hours
38. Howards End by E.M. Forster (1910) — difficulty 54/100, about 7.6 hours
39. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953) — difficulty 76/100, about 10 hours
40. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (1948) — difficulty 54/100, about 6.8 hours
41. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) — difficulty 65/100, about 5.8 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
42. Deliverance by James Dickey (1970) — difficulty 69/100, about 8.6 hours
43. A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell (1951) — difficulty 70/100, about 7.6 hours
44. Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley (1928) — difficulty 59/100, about 13 hours
45. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926) — difficulty 56/100, about 5 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
46. The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (1907) — difficulty 75/100, about 11 hours
47. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad (1904) — difficulty 70/100, about 18 hours
48. The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence (1915) — difficulty 62/100, about 16 hours
49. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence (1920) — difficulty 63/100, about 16 hours
50. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934) — difficulty 63/100, about 9.4 hours
51. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer (1948) — difficulty 74/100, about 32 hours
52. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (1969) — difficulty 57/100, about 5.4 hours
53. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (1962) — difficulty 76/100, about 9 hours
54. Light in August by William Faulkner (1932) — difficulty 65/100, about 14 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
55. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957) — difficulty 54/100, about 8.1 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
56. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930) — difficulty 60/100, about 5.4 hours
57. Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford (1928) — difficulty 71/100, about 40 hours
58. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1921) — difficulty 54/100, about 7.1 hours
59. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (1911) — difficulty 64/100, about 7.3 hours
60. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1962) — difficulty 57/100, about 5.1 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
61. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather (1927) — difficulty 45/100, about 4.5 hours
62. From Here to Eternity by James Jones (1952) — difficulty 48/100, about 24 hours
63. The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever (1958) — difficulty 59/100, about 8.5 hours
64. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951) — difficulty 58/100, about 5.7 hours, on 6 of 8 rankings
65. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962) — difficulty 54/100, about 4.1 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
66. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (1915) — difficulty 46/100, about 17 hours
67. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) — difficulty 69/100, about 4 hours
68. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (1920) — difficulty 52/100, about 11 hours
69. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905) — difficulty 53/100, about 8.9 hours
70. The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (1960) — difficulty 70/100, about 37 hours
71. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes (1929) — difficulty 55/100, about 5 hours
72. A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (1961) — difficulty 46/100, about 13 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
73. The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West (1939) — difficulty 56/100, about 3.1 hours
74. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929) — difficulty 49/100, about 6 hours
75. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938) — difficulty 42/100, about 3.9 hours
76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961) — difficulty 63/100, about 3.5 hours
77. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939) — difficulty 94/100, about 44 hours
78. Kim by Rudyard Kipling (1901) — difficulty 52/100, about 7.3 hours
79. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (1908) — difficulty 46/100, about 4.3 hours
80. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (1945) — difficulty 55/100, about 8.1 hours, on 5 of 8 rankings
81. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1954) — difficulty 58/100, about 19 hours
82. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1972) — difficulty 52/100, about 14 hours
83. A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (1979) — difficulty 49/100, about 7.2 hours
84. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen (1938) — difficulty 71/100, about 13 hours
85. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (1900) — difficulty 63/100, about 11 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
86. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (1975) — difficulty 71/100, about 8.9 hours
87. The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett (1908) — difficulty 42/100, about 14 hours
88. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903) — difficulty 43/100, about 2 hours
89. Loving by Henry Green (1945) — difficulty 54/100, about 5.1 hours
90. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) — difficulty 67/100, about 21 hours, on 7 of 8 rankings
91. Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell (1932) — difficulty 37/100, about 3.2 hours
92. Ironweed by William Kennedy (1984) — difficulty 57/100, about 5.1 hours
93. The Magus by John Fowles (1965) — difficulty 63/100, about 15 hours
94. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966) — difficulty 64/100, about 4.3 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
95. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch (1954) — difficulty 59/100, about 7.8 hours
96. Sophie's Choice by William Styron (1980) — difficulty 59/100, about 12 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
97. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles (1949) — difficulty 68/100, about 9.9 hours, on 4 of 8 rankings
98. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1934) — difficulty 39/100, about 2.1 hours
99. The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy (1955) — difficulty 51/100, about 6 hours
100. The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919) — difficulty 48/100, about 6.6 hours

Questions

How many books are on Modern Library 100 Best Novels?

100, all of them listed here with how hard each is to read and how long it takes.

What is number one on Modern Library 100 Best Novels?

Ulysses by James Joyce, difficulty 89/100, about 47 hours.

Which book on Modern Library 100 Best Novels is the easiest to read?

Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell, difficulty 37/100, about 3.2 hours. The hardest is Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, at 94/100.

How long would it take to read every book on Modern Library 100 Best Novels?

About 1,172 hours for the 100 books ReadingRate measures, at 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty: 586 days at two hours a day.

Other lists: TIME All-TIME 100 Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, BBC Big Read Top 100, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Open Syllabus Top 500 - Literature, Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World. All lists.