How many have you read? The Radcliffe Publishing Course list of the century’s top 100 novels

On July 21, 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled and released its own list of the century’s top 100 novels, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board.

1. The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Ryeby J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrathby John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbirdby Harper Lee
5. The Color Purpleby Alice Walker
6. Ulyssesby James Joyce
7. Belovedby Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Fliesby William Golding
9. 1984by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Furyby William Faulkner
11. Lolitaby Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Menby John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte’s Webby E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manby James Joyce
15. Catch-22by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New Worldby Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farmby George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Risesby Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dyingby William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Armsby Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darknessby Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Poohby A.A. Milne
23. Their Eyes Were Watching Godby Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Manby Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomonby Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Windby Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Sonby Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nestby Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Fiveby Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tollsby Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Roadby Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Seaby Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wildby Jack London
34. To the Lighthouseby Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Ladyby Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountainby James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garpby John Irving
38. All the King’s Menby Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a Viewby E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Ringsby J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler’s Listby Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocenceby Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainheadby Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wakeby James Joyce
45. The Jungleby Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dallowayby Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Ozby L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley’s Loverby D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orangeby Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakeningby Kate Chopin
51. My Antoniaby Willa Cather
52. Howards Endby E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Bloodby Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooeyby J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Versesby Salman Rushdie
56. Jazzby Toni Morrison
57. Sophie’s Choiceby William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom!by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to Indiaby E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Fromeby Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Findby Flannery O’Connor
62. Tender Is the Nightby F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlandoby Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Loversby D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanitiesby Tom Wolfe
66. Cat’s Cradleby Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peaceby John Knowles
68. Light in Augustby William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Doveby Henry James
70. Things Fall Apartby Chinua Achebe
71. Rebeccaby Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxyby Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunchby William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisitedby Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Loveby D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angelby Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Timeby Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokiasby Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falconby Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Deadby Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Seaby Jean Rhys
82. White Noiseby Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers!by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancerby Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worldsby H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jimby Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostoniansby Henry James
88. An American Tragedyby Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishopby Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willowsby Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradiseby F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shruggedby Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant’s Womanby John Fowles
94. Babbittby Sinclair Lewis
95. Kimby Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damnedby F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Runby John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Treadby E.M. Forster
99. Main Streetby Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight’s Childrenby Salman Rushdie

How many have you read? MODERN LIBRARY'S 100 BEST NOVELS

MODERN LIBRARY'S 100 BEST NOVELS

01. Ulysses - James Joyce

• 02. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 03. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
• 04. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
• 05. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
• 06. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
• 07. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
• 08. Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
• 09. Sons and Lovers - D. H. Lawrence
• 10. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
• 11. Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
• 12. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
• 13. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
• 14. I, Claudius - Robert Graves
• 15. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
• 16. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
• 17. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
• 18. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
• 19. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
• 20. Native Son - Richard Wright
• 21. Henderson the Rain King - Saul Bellow
• 22. Appointment in Samarra - John O'Hara
• 23. U.S.A. - John Dos Passos
• 24. Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
• 25. A Passage to India - E. M. Forster
• 26. The Wings of the Dove - Henry James
• 27. The Ambassadors - Henry James
• 28. Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• 29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell
• 30. The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
• 31. Animal Farm - George Orwell
• 32. The Golden Bowl - Henry James
• 33. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
• 34. A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh
• 35. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
• 36. All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
• 37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder
• 38. Howards End - E. M. Forster
• 39. Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin
• 40. The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
• 41. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
• 42. Deliverance - James Dickey
• 43. A Dance to the Music of the Time - Anthony Powell
• 44. Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley
• 45. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
• 46. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
• 47. Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
• 48. The Rainbow - D. H. Lawrence
• 49. Women in Love - D. H. Lawrence
• 50. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
• 51. The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer
• 52. Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth
• 53. Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
• 54. Light in August - William Faulkner
• 55. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
• 56. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
• 57. Parade's End - Ford Madox Ford
• 58. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
• 59. Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm
• 60. The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
• 61. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather
• 62. From Here to Eternity - James Jones
• 63. The Wapshot Chronicle - John Cheever
• 64. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
• 65. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
• 66. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham
• 67. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
• 68. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
• 69. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
• 70. The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell
• 71. A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes
• 72. A House for Mr. Biswas - V. S. Naipaul
• 73. The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
• 74. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
• 75. Scoop - Evelyn Waugh
• 76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
• 77. Finnegans Wake - James Joyce
• 78. Kim - Rudyard Kipling
• 79. A Room with a View - E. M. Forster
• 80. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
• 81. The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
• 82. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
• 83. A Bend in the River - V. S. Naipaul
• 84. The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen
• 85. Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
• 86. Ragtime - E. L. Doctorow
• 87. The Old Wives' Tale - Arnold Bennett
• 88. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
• 89. Loving - Henry Green
• 90. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
• 91. Tobacco Road - Erskine Caldwell
• 92. Ironweed - William Kennedy
• 93. The Magus - John Fowles
• 94. Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
• 95. Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
• 96. Sophie's Choice - William Styron
• 97. The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
• 98. The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M. Cain
• 99. The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy
• 100. The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington

Second hand English Books in the White Silicon City

Over Pesach before we flew to Egypt for 3 days , my girlfriend, Lisa Gamele  ( she loves her full name) and I visited every bookshop on Tel Aviv's Allenby Street the small, local version of London's Charing Cross Road. One of my constant gripes about Tel Aviv is that it's very difficult to find decent English books at a decent price, and this little tour served as a great example of this problem.

Steimatzky, lower level

There are 12 bookstores on this stretch of less than one Kilometer (a little more than half a mile), including three Russian bookstores (two new, one used), one Spanish bookstore, one store that specializes in music and chord books. There's also one independent store, Lotus Books (Allenby 101), that has a well-curated collection of new and used Hebrew books, and one chain store - Steimatzky (Allenby 107) which has a relatively large selection of English books . Steimatzky's run into the ground by the gruff Uri Steimatzky is in serious financial difficulty  so it is a good bet that everything is highly discounted. Four more used book kiosks have mostly Hebrew books, with a few English paperbacks, usually in miserable condition.

Halper's Books

The main store on this street that caters to readers of English is Halper's Books (Allenby 87), which probably has the biggest selection of used English books in the city. Lisa  used to come here quite often when she  was an post graduate student  at Tel Aviv University, but making endless trips to London for almost 30 years  years, I guess my constant trips to the Strand while in London,have made me a bit spoiled. I try to avoid mass market paperbacks, especially used ones, and hardly ever purchase a book with markings inside. Halper's, unfortunately, has plenty of both. Granted, the really miserable looking books are usually very cheap, but I think every used bookstore should have some minimal standard for the books it sells, and heavily marked, crumbling, or torn books do not only make for a miserable shopping experience, but also reflect badly on the books around them.

Lev Hasefer (Heart of the Book), Allenby 97

The selection offered by Halper's, though broader than most other bookstores in Tel Aviv, is still fairly limited. I don't know whether they imported books at any point in the past, but it's certain that they have not done so in several years. You may find bestsellers from recent years, but don't expect to find any recent literary gems. This is also true of Israel's two bookstore chains - Steimatzky and Tzomet Sfarim (The Books Junction) - both have one or two flagship stores that contain a larger selection of English books (Steimatzky, aside from the Allenby branch, has another store at Dizengoff 109; Tzomet Sfarim has the "Library" branch at the Dizengoff shopping Center and the "Prose" bookstore at Dizengoff 163) but their selection is fairly hit or miss. You can find the "big" books of recent years - the best sellers, the prize winners, and so on - plus a selection of classics, some big name authors, some sci-fi / fantasy, lots of Grisham, Coban, etc. But don't come looking for anything too obscure or specific because you're bound to be disappointed, especially if you're looking for anything translated into English (other than books by Israeli authors).

I've been dreaming of opening an independent English bookstore for years, but I realize this would be a significant investment in something that's probably not going to make a lot of money, and as a starving artist of sorts I can't really afford to do that. I envision this store as a sort of public service to fellow anglophile - bibliophiles, a place where they could also attend readings and other cultural events, so if there are any generous book-loving millionaires out there willing to invest, I'm open to all offers 

The Most Popular Books of all Time