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Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

Le Monde asked its readers in 1999 to name the century's books, and the answers came back French and severe. Titles out of copyright are open; the rest count down.

  • The StrangerAlbert Camus
    public domain 2042
  • In Search of Lost TimeMarcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff · ~81 h read
    Fair warning, the sentences wander for pages and almost nothing happens fast, but if you let it slow you down, that famous madeleine scene really does change how you notice your own memories. Read it in small pieces over months, not weeks.
  • The TrialFranz Kafka
    public domain 2033
  • The Little PrinceAntoine de Saint-Exupéry
    public domain 2039
  • Man’s FateAndré Malraux
    public domain 2030
  • Journey to the End of the NightLouis-Ferdinand Céline
    public domain 2030
  • The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
    public domain 2035
  • For Whom the Bell TollsErnest Hemingway
    public domain 2036
  • Froth on the DaydreamBoris Vian
    public domain 2063
  • The Second SexSimone de Beauvoir
    public domain 2049
  • Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett
    public domain 2049
  • Being and NothingnessJean-Paul Sartre
    public domain 2052
  • The Name of the RoseUmberto Eco
    not yet in the public domain
  • The Gulag ArchipelagoAleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    public domain 2070
  • ParolesJacques Prévert
    public domain 2042
  • The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank
    public domain 2048
  • Tristes TropiquesClaude Lévi-Strauss
    public domain 2057
  • Brave New WorldAldous Huxley
    public domain 2028
  • Nineteen Eighty-FourGeorge Orwell
    public domain 2045
  • The Bald SopranoEugène Ionesco
    public domain 2046
  • The AbyssMarguerite Yourcenar
    not yet in the public domain
  • LolitaVladimir Nabokov
    public domain 2051
  • UlyssesJames Joyce · 32 h audiobook
    You’re glad you read it for the strange intimacy of spending a day inside Leopold Bloom’s mind, where errands, advertisements, hunger, and memory keep turning unexpectedly funny and tender. It’s demanding and occasionally maddening, but the jokes, wordplay, and Molly Bloom’s closing monologue reward patience.
  • The Tartar SteppeDino Buzzati
    public domain 2048
  • The CounterfeitersAndré Gide, translated by Dorothy Bussy · 12 h audiobook
    Fair warning, it's a hall of mirrors: Édouard is a novelist writing a novel called The Counterfeiters while Gide watches him do it. But if you like books that think out loud, the tangle of Bernard, Olivier, and all those slippery adults is quietly gripping stuff.
  • The Horseman on the RoofJean Giono
    public domain 2050
  • Belle du SeigneurAlbert Cohen
    not yet in the public domain
  • One Hundred Years of SolitudeGabriel Garcia Márquez
    public domain 2066
  • The Sound and the FuryWilliam Faulkner · ~6 h read
    Fair warning, the first section drops you into Benjy's mind with no timeline and no hand-holding, and it feels like drowning until it suddenly doesn't. Push through and the Compsons' slow collapse, especially Quentin's day in Cambridge, will sit in your chest for years.
  • Zazie in the MetroRaymond Queneau
    public domain 2055
  • Gone with the WindMargaret Mitchell
    public domain 2032
  • Lady Chatterley’s LoverD. H. Lawrence · 13 h audiobook
    Forget the scandal, it's really about Connie coming back to life in that gamekeeper's hut while Clifford talks coal profits up at the house. Lawrence preaches a bit, he can't help it, but the tenderness is real and it lands if you let it.
  • The Magic MountainThomas Mann, translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter · ~22 h read
    Hans Castorp goes up to a Davos sanatorium for three weeks and stays seven years, and somehow you feel time warp right along with him. It's slow and talky (Settembrini's arguments go on for pages), but if you like ideas as drama, it rewards patience.
  • Bonjour TristesseFrançoise Sagan
    public domain 2051
  • Silence of the SeaVercors
    public domain 2040
  • Life: A User’s ManualGeorges Perec
    not yet in the public domain
  • The Hound of the BaskervillesArthur Conan Doyle · 6 h audiobook
    Doyle sends Watson off alone to a fog-soaked moor with a family curse and something howling in the dark, and it's genuinely eerie, not cozy. Holmes vanishes for long stretches, which somehow makes it better.
  • Under the Sun of SatanGeorges Bernanos
    public domain 2036
  • The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald · 6 h audiobook
    You watch Gatsby stare at that green light across the bay and slowly realize the whole glittering party is built on wanting one thing he can't have. It's short, sad, and gorgeous sentence by sentence, best read in a couple of quiet sittings.
  • The JokeMilan Kundera
    not yet in the public domain
  • ContemptAlberto Moravia
    public domain 2051
  • The Murder of Roger AckroydAgatha Christie · ~5 h read
    Poirot has retired to a village to grow vegetable marrows, and it goes about as well as you'd expect once a neighbor turns up dead. Half the fun is the doctor narrating and his gossipy sister Caroline; the other half you'll want to discuss immediately after.
  • NadjaAndré Breton
    public domain 2056
  • AurelíenLouis Aragon
    public domain 2043
  • The Satin SlipperPaul Claudel
    public domain 2041
  • Six Characters in Search of an AuthorLuigi Pirandello, translated by Edward Storer · ~1 h read
    You get a wonderfully unsettling theatre rehearsal where six unfinished characters interrupt the actors and insist their suffering is more real than performance. It’s funny, argumentative, and deliberately slippery, especially if you enjoy questions about identity and art more than tidy emotional resolution.
  • The Resistable Rise of Arturo UiBerthold Brecht
    not yet in the public domain
  • FridayMichel Tournier
    public domain 2063
  • The War of the WorldsH. G. Wells · 7 h audiobook
    Wells writes the invasion like a newspaper report gone wrong, all named Surrey towns and refugee crowds, which makes it eerier than any spectacle. You'll spend chapters hiding in a wrecked house with a panicking curate, and honestly that dread stays with you longer than the Martians do.
  • If This Is a ManPrimo Levi
    public domain 2055
  • The Return of the KingJ. R. R. Tolkien
    public domain 2051
  • The Two TowersJ. R. R. Tolkien
    public domain 2050
  • The Fellowship of the RingJ. R. R. Tolkien
    public domain 2050
  • Martin EdenJack London · 15 h audiobook
    You watch Martin teach himself grammar, literature, and the manners of the people he wants to join, while his love for Ruth keeps tangling ambition with humiliation. It’s rough-edged and sometimes argumentative, but its account of writing against poverty and respectability feels startlingly honest.
  • Writing Degree ZeroRoland Barthes
    public domain 2063
  • The Lost Honour of Katharina BlumHeinrich Böll
    public domain 2071
  • The Opposing ShoreJulien Gracq
    not yet in the public domain
  • The Order of ThingsMichel Foucault
    public domain 2066
  • On the RoadJack Kerouac
    public domain 2053
  • The Wonderful Adventures of NilsSelma Lagerlöf, translated by Velma Swanston Howard · 18 h audiobook
    Nils starts out mean, honestly, a boy who torments the farm animals, and watching him earn the trust of Akka and the wild geese as they fly the length of Sweden is quietly moving. It's episodic and folkloric, better savored a chapter a night than rushed.
  • The Martian ChroniclesRay Bradbury
    public domain 2046
  • The Ravishing of Lol SteinMarguerite Duras
    public domain 2062
  • The InterrogationJ. M. G. Le Clézio
    public domain 2060
  • TropismsNathalie Sarraute
    public domain 2035
  • The Journal of Jules RenardJules Renard
    public domain 2060
  • Lord JimJoseph Conrad · 14 h audiobook
    If you've ever done one cowardly thing and never quite forgiven yourself, Jim's leap off the Patna will sit in your chest for weeks. Marlow tells it slantwise and slow, so give it patience; the reward is watching a man try to outrun his own shame.
  • ÉcritsJacques Lalan
    public domain 2073
  • Manhattan TransferJohn Dos Passos · 14 h audiobook
    You have to be okay with drift here, since it jumps between dozens of lives (Ellen the actress, Jimmy the restless reporter, poor Bud fresh off the ferry) and never settles. But if you like cities more than plots, the noise of 1920s New York gets into you.
  • MoravagineBlaise Cendrars
    public domain 2064
  • The General of the Dead ArmyIsmail Kadare
    public domain 2067
  • Sophie’s ChoiceWilliam Styron
    not yet in the public domain
  • The Strange Case of Peter the LettGeorges Simenon
    public domain 2029
  • Our Lady of the FlowersJean Genet
    public domain 2045
  • The Man Without QualitiesRobert Musil
    public domain 2057
  • The Catcher in the RyeJ. D. Salinger
    public domain 2047
  • No Orchids for Miss BlandishJames Hadley Chase
    public domain 2035
  • Second ThoughtsMichel Butor
    public domain 2054
  • The Origins of TotalitarianismHannah Arendt
    public domain 2047
  • The Master and MargaritaMikhail Bulgakov
    public domain 2063
  • The Rosy CrucifixionHenry Miller
    public domain 2055
  • The Big SleepRaymond Chandler
    public domain 2035
  • Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry
    public domain 2043
  • Midnight’s ChildrenSalman Rushdie
    not yet in the public domain