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Akron-Summit County Public Library's

Recommended Reads of the 20th Century

This list was complied by staff and patrons of the Akron-Summit County Public Library. Books included on the list are novels for adults first published in English during the 20th century.

Chinua Achebe
THINGS FALL APART

Kingsley Amis
LUCKY JIM

Sherwood Anderson
WINESBURG, OHIO

Isaac Asimov
THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY

Margaret Atwood
THE HANDMAID’S TALE

James Baldwin
GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN

Saul Bellow
HERZOG

Paul Bowles
THE SHELTERING SKY

Ray Bradbury
FAHRENHEIT 451

Pearl Buck
THE GOOD EARTH

Anthony Burgess
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

William S. Burroughs
NAKED LUNCH

Willa Cather
MY ANTONIA

Joseph Conrad
HEART OF DARKNESS
LORD JIM

Don DeLillo
UNDERWORLD

E.L. Doctorow
RAGTIME

J.P. Donleavy
THE GINGER MAN

Theodore Dreiser
SISTER CARRIE

Daphne Du Maurier
REBECCA

Ralph Ellison
INVISIBLE MAN

Louise Erdrich
LOVE MEDICINE

William Faulkner
THE SOUND AND THE FURY

F. Scott Fitzgerald
THE GREAT GATSBY

E.M. Forster
HOWARDS END

William Golding
LORD OF THE FLIES

Nadine Gordimer
BURGER’S DAUGHTER

Graham Greene
POWER AND THE GLORY

Dashiell Hammett
THE MALTESE FALCON

Joseph Heller
CATCH-22

Ernest Hemingway
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
THE SUN ALSO RISES

Frank Herbert
DUNE

Keri Hulme
THE BONE PEOPLE

Zora Neale Hurston
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

Aldous Huxley
BRAVE NEW WORLD

John Irving
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

Kazuo Ishiguro
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

Shirley Jackson
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

Henry James
PORTRAIT OF A LADY

James Joyce
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN
ULYSSES

William Kennedy
IRONWEED

Jack Kerouac
ON THE ROAD

Ken Kesey
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

W.P. Kinsella
SHOELESS JOE

John Le Carre
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY

Harper Lee
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Doris Lessing
THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK

Sinclair Lewis
ELMER GANTRY

Jack London
THE CALL OF THE WILD

Malcolm Lowry
UNDER THE VOLCANO
Cormac McCarthy
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

Carson McCullers
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER

Norman Mailer
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD

Bernard Malamud
THE NATURAL

W. Somerset Maugham
OF HUMAN BONDAGE
RAZOR’S EDGE

Henry Miller
TROPIC OF CANCER

Margaret Mitchell
GONE WITH THE WIND

Toni Morrison
BELOVED
SONG OF SOLOMON

Iris Murdoch
THE BELL

Vladimir Nabokov
LOLITA
PALE FIRE

Gloria Naylor
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE

Flannery O’Connor
WISE BLOOD

George Orwell
1984

Alan Paton
CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Walker Percy
THE MOVIEGOER

Sylvia Plath
THE BELL JAR

Chaim Potok
THE CHOSEN

E. Annie Proulx
SHIPPING NEWS

Thomas Pynchon
GRAVITY’S RAINBOW

Ayn Rand
ATLAS SHRUGGED

Philip Roth
PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT

Salman Rushdie
MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN

J.D. Salinger
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

Dorothy L. Sayers
THE NINE TAILORS

Jane Smiley
A THOUSAND ACRES

Wallace Stegner
ANGLE OF REPOSE

John Steinbeck
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
OF MICE AND MEN

William Styron
CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER

Amy Tan
THE JOY LUCK CLUB

J.R.R. Tolkien
LORD OF THE RINGS

John Kennedy Toole
A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

Anne Tyler
BREATHING LESSONS

John Updike
RABBIT IS RICH

Kurt Vonnegut
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE

Alice Walker
THE COLOR PURPLE

Robert Penn Warren
ALL THE KING’S MEN

Evelyn Waugh
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
A HANDFUL OF DUST

Nathanael West
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST

Edith Wharton
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

Tom Wolfe
THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES

Virginia Woolf
MRS. DALLOWAY
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

Richard Wright
NATIVE SON

 

 


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