The Guardian: 100 best novels written in English
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The Guardian: 100 best novels written in English

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100 items
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The Guardian: 100 best novels written in English

TheBookworm
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100 picks in “The Guardian: 100 best novels written in English”, curated by TheBookworm on TheLysts.

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Showing 61–70 of 100
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The Guardian: 100 best novels written in English — 10 items
NameTitleAuthorYearSynopsis
61Murphy—Samuel Beckett1938Samuel Beckett’s first published novel is an absurdist masterpiece, a showcase for his uniquely comic voice.
62The Big Sleep—Raymond Chandler1939Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled debut brings to life the seedy LA underworld – and Philip Marlowe, the archetypal fictional detective.
63Party Going—Henry Green1939Set on the eve of war, this neglected modernist masterpiece centres on a group of bright young revellers delayed by fog.
64At Swim-Two-Birds—Flann O’Brien1939Labyrinthine and multilayered, Flann O’Brien’s humorous debut is both a reflection on, and an exemplar of, the Irish novel.
65The Grapes of Wrath—John Steinbeck1939One of the greatest of great American novels, this study of a family torn apart by poverty and desperation in the Great Depression shocked US society.
66Joy in the Morning—PG Wodehouse1946PG Wodehouse’s elegiac Jeeves novel, written during his disastrous years in wartime Germany, remains his masterpiece.
67All the King’s Men—Robert Penn Warren1946A compelling story of personal and political corruption, set in the 1930s in the American south.
68Under the Volcano—Malcolm Lowry1947Malcolm Lowry’s masterpiece about the last hours of an alcoholic ex-diplomat in Mexico is set to the drumbeat of coming conflict.
69The Heat of the Day—Elizabeth Bowen1948Elizabeth Bowen’s 1948 novel perfectly captures the atmosphere of London during the blitz while providing brilliant insights into the human heart.
70Nineteen Eighty-Four—George Orwell1949George Orwell’s dystopian classic cost its author dear but is arguably the best-known novel in English of the 20th century.
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