sir francis bacon once said: “some books must be tasted, others devoured, but only a few must be chewed and fully digested.”
but with so little time to read so many books, how can we avoid reading bad books and find the few great books to read that “must be thoroughly chewed and digested?”
You are reading: Top 10 books of all time
In the early 2000s, john peder zane, an American journalist, set out to answer this question.
over a period of several years, zane asked 125 famous authors to provide “a list, ranked, in order, of what they consider to be the ten greatest works of fiction of all time: novels, collections of short stories, works of drama or poems.” Some also chose some non-fiction works.
The illustrious group of famous authors who cast their votes included Stephen King, David Foster Wallace, Peter Carey, Kate Atkinson, Tom Wolfe, Carl Hiaasen, Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx and more
Each book was then assigned points based on its ranking, and an overall ranked list was created and published in Zane’s Book, Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books.
Whether you’re looking for great books to add to your reading list or share with others, you’ll enjoy this list of the top ten best books of all time, as voted by famous authors.
(note: at the end, you will find the 10 best authors of all time. and number one is not william shakespeare by the way).
the 10 best books of all time
1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
synopsis: “anna karenina tells the doomed love story between sultry, rebellious anna and handsome officer, count vronsky. The tragedy unfolds when Anna rejects her marriage without passion and thus exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society.”
2. Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
synopsis: “when emma rouault marries charles bovary, she imagines that she will go on to the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women’s magazines. But Charles is a boring country doctor, and country life is very different from the romantic thrill she craves.”
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
synopsis: “the novel recounts the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families.”
4. lolita by vladimir nabokov
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synopsis: “wonder and exhilaration, along with angst and acerbic wit, abound in lolita, nabokov’s most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of aging humbert humbert’s obsessive, all-consuming, doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores do. Lolita is also the story of a hyper-civilized European who collides with the joyous barbarism of post-war America. above all, it is a meditation on love-love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.”
5. the adventures of huckleberry finn by mark twain
Synopsis: “A 19th-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and the tom sawyer’s aunt who mistakes him for tom.”
6. william shakespeare’s village
synopsis: “hamlet is shakespeare’s most popular and puzzling play. It follows the form of a “revenge tragedy,” in which the hero, Hamlet, seeks revenge against the murderer of his father, his uncle Claudius, now King of Denmark.”
7. the great gatsby by f. scott fizgerald
synopsis: “the story is primarily about the mysterious young millionaire jay gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante daisy buchanan.”
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
synopsis: “In Search of Lost Time follows the narrator’s memories of childhood and adulthood experiences during the aristocratic France of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as he ponders the loss of time and the meaninglessness to the world.”
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9. the stories of anton chekhov by anton checkhov
synopsis: “short stories by the famous russian author, anton chekhov. Chekhov lived during the last years of the Tsars, and most stories of him are from around that time period. The book offers an excellent insight into Russian life in Tsarist Russia, as well as entertaining plots and styles.”
10. middlemarch by george eliot
synopsis: “the novel is set in the fictional midlands midlands town during 1829-1832, and follows several distinct intersecting stories with a large cast of characters. Topics include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education.”
the 10 best authors of all time
These are the 10 best authors of all time, by points earned.
1. Leo Tolstoy – 327
2. william shakespeare – 293
3. james joyce – 194
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4. vladimir nabokov – 190
5. Fyodor Dostoyevsky – 177
6. william faulkner – 173
7. charles dickens – 168
8. anton checkhov – 165
9. gustave flaubert – 163
10. jane austen – 161
In the top ten book, there are several other top 10 lists based on various categories including number of works, genre, nationality, century, etc.
Clearly, this list of the best books of all time includes only fiction books.
But it’s just as important to read good non-fiction books and avoid the bad ones, to avoid wasting valuable time and retain more from each book you read.
in book, how to read a book: the classic guide to intelligent reading, mortimer j. adler shares a simple litmus test for finding a good nonfiction book to read:
“….a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. you learn more than to read better; you also learn more about life. you become wiser. not just more informed: books that only provide information can produce that result. but wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.”
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footnotes
- this ranking of the best books of all time is based on votes from famous authors, not necessarily “best sellers”.
- credit maria popova at brainpickings for being in the top ten book to my attention.
This article first appeared on mayooshin.com.
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