Goodreads lists top 100 books released every year in the last century

Goodreads has shared its list of the best books from each year of the past century, and you’ll find a mix of genres and authors on the list which is ideal for all readers

For all the bibliophiles out there feeling overwhelmed by their ever-growing TBR, Goodreads has come to your rescue with a list of top books from the past 100 years. The idea is simple: if you’re going to read one book from each year, it should be this one.

The folks at Goodreads wanted to encompass a “wide range of genres, topics, authors, and ideas,” rather than just picking the most ‘popular’ book of each year. They even joked that some years were “very Agatha Christie” heavy. Sharon from Goodreads chimed in saying: “You’ll see several stone-cold classics, along with a few books you probably read in your high school English class”.

So, what are the best books from each year? Take at the full list below – and let us know which ones you’ve read in the comments section.

Let’s dive in….

1925 – Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.

1926 – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

1927 – Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

1928 – All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

1929 – Passing by Nella Larsen.

1930 – As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

1931 – The Waves by Virginia Woolf.

1932 – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

1933 – Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

1934 – Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

1935 – Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers.

1936 – Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot.

1937 – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.

1938 – Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

1939 – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

1940 – Native Son by Richard Wright.

1941 – The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges.

1942 – The Stranger by Albert Camus.

1943 – The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry.

1944 – No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre.

1945 – The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

1946 – The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.

1947 – The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

1948 – I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

1949 – 1984 by George Orwell.

1950 – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.

1951 – The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

1952 – Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

1953 – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

1954 – The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.

1955 – Lolita by Vladimr Nabokov.

1956 – Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.

1957 – On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

1958 – Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

1959 – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

1960 – To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

1961 – Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

1962 – A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle.

1963 – The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

1964 – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

1965 – Dune by Frank Herbert.

1966 – Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

1967 – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

1968 – A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.

1969 – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

1970 – The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison.

1971 – The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.

1972 – The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin.

1973 – The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

1974 – If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin.

1975 – Shogun by James Clavell.

1976 – Roots by Alex Haley.

1977 – The Shining by Stephen King.

1978 – The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.

1979 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

1980 – The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

1981 – Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

1982 – The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

1983 – The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

1984 – The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.

1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

1986 – Maus by Art Spiegelman.

1987 – Beloved by Tony Morrison.

1988 – The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushtie.

1989 – The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

1990 – V for Vendetta by Alan Moore.

1991 – Possession by A. S. Byatt.

1992 – The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

1993 – Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler.

1994 – The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa.

1995 – Wicked by Gregory Maguire.

1996 – A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

1997 – Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer.

1998 – A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.

1999 – all about love by bell hooks.

2000 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon.

2001 – Atonement by Ian McEwan.

2002 – Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides.

2003 – The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

2004 – Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

2005 – Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

2006 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

2007 – In The Woods by Tana French.

2008 – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

2009 – Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.

2010 – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

2011 – The Martian by Andy Weir.

2012 – Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

2013 – Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan.

2014 – Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

2015 – The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin.

2016 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

2017 – Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

2018 – Circe by Madeline Miller.

2019 – On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong.

2020 – The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

2021 – Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner.

2022 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsoliver.

2023 – Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

2024 – James by Percival Everett.

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