100 best books of the 20th Century--worldwide.
 

Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cannot say that I have actually read more than about 35 of these. And that's mainly the American and English novels as well as some of the important books in psychology and philosophy.

Where is The Bible ? ? ?

The Bible does not date from the 20th Century. This are books that were written during the period from 1900 through 1999 or thereabouts.

... and I have read only 16. Darn, I thought I was getting on with it.

Guess I'm a bit surprised not to see Steinbeck's East of Eden or Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

The list was very weighted to French authors as it was conducted in France by a French newspaper and book store with 17,000 French respondents. There are many really great books that are not on the list and some fairly poor ones that made it. So although probably accurate from the perspective on which it was created, not really representative of a "global" list of the top 100 books of the century.

:agree:

It does have a lot of French authors in it.

Here is a list of the Top 100 books of all time which does have a small part of The Bible in it. The Book of Job is one of the entries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100...ks_of_All_Time

At least with the other list I have read about 60 of these.

Really? I counted 39 of the 100 as French or from France. That is 39% of the total. Sorry, I could not even believe 10% of the top 100 books of the twentieth century were from France. So 39% from almost any single country by any measure is a somewhat biased view. No wrong, a very biased view. I am not faulting the list, just trying to show why it is what it is.

I would have thought that "Le Monde" was from Jersey (joy`zee). Go figure! France? Forgetaboutit.

Xavier

That was a survey of French readers who picked which books stuck in their memory. So, there would be a bias towards French writers.