The most popular works that. Book publishing houses of Russia: list, rating, addresses. Electronic or paper media

We read really good books. The collection features classics, the best books of all time. 20 books every adult should read.

Can you answer what was the last book you read? Someone will answer that they don’t remember, someone will say with a smile: “Primer”, and only a few will specifically name the author and the title of the work. The second question arises - why do modern people not want to read? Because of the rapid development of technological progress, the banal lack of time, or simply because of reluctance and laziness? After all, reading is an exciting activity that can become an ideal hobby for every person.

Reading books is not only useful and informative. Some works can radically change your outlook on life and even change your personality. It is desirable to instill a love of reading from childhood. Moreover, this must be done carefully and gently so as not to permanently discourage the child from picking up a book.

In this article, we have prepared a list of the best books of all time that everyone should read. If you are of the opinion that reading is not fashionable in the modern world, then you are mistaken. The book is not subject to fashion and time. Being well-read and educated are valuable human qualities, independent of surrounding circumstances.

Each of the works presented below made a huge contribution to world culture and affected the worldview of entire generations. So, let's start our TOP of the best books.

Top best books everyone should read

Leo Tolstoy "War and Peace" begins our rating for a reason. A classic and a real masterpiece from the world famous Russian author. This is an epic novel about the life and culture of the Russian people during the Napoleonic Wars. You need to be mentally prepared to read. It is foolish to start a novel for a very young reader.
George Orwell "1984". This is a well-known dystopia, relevant in our time more than ever. The author touches upon the problem of totalitarianism. A strange feeling grips while reading that all this has a similarity with what is happening in the world now.
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451. This is not just a science fiction work, but also a dystopia, recognizable in our time. The book is definitely a must read.
Jerome Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye" The most famous novel, which rightfully takes its place among the best books of all time. The book, which made its powerful impact on the formation of world culture in its time, continues to be relevant today.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez One Hundred Years of Solitude. Incredibly atmospheric classic. Written in a very interesting style - magical realism. After reading this work, there remains a strange aftertaste and the realization that not only people, but also entire civilizations can be lonely.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby. A story about unearthly love or endless selfishness? Everyone has their own vision. The atmosphere of the jazz era captures from the first second.
Erich Maria Remarque "Three Comrades". What do you know about the lost generation if you are not familiar with the works of the Great Remarque? Carefully! The writing style is addictive.
Ernest Hemingway "Goodbye Arms" A true classic, a must read. Enters the ranks best books about lost generation. Fully reveals this topic against the backdrop of a story of beautiful and tragic love.
Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita" A novel known throughout the world. This is exactly the kind of work that can be read many times and each time understood in a new way.
Vladimir Nabokov "Lolita" One of the author's most popular novels. It is also included in the lists of the most loved and read works all over the world.
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind. This piece hardly needs any introduction. A popular novel about the events in the southern United States of America during the Civil War, as well as after it.
Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Great work, one of the best books of all time, about not chasing illusions. You have to live with your soul. The novel is very relevant in our time, in a world where they only do what they "meet by clothes."
William Faulkner "The Sound and the Fury" In some places a difficult book, but still contributed to the formation of world culture. Makes you think about many things.
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath. A true American classic novel that won a Pulitzer Prize. Describes the hard life of a farming family during the Great Depression.
Lee Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" The story is told from the point of view of the child, which makes it immediate and easy to understand. It touches upon the problem of injustice in the world. While reading, it captures an indescribable feeling of atmosphere and comfort.
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice. Classics of English Literature. A love story, a very difficult love.
James Joyce "Ulysses". A complex novel written in completely different styles. Contains many references to various events. Rightfully recognized as the pinnacle of modernism.
Daniel Keyes "The Mysterious Case of Billy Milligan". This novel is based on real events and tells us about a man who suffered from a very serious mental illness - 24 completely different personalities lived in his body.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery "The Little Prince" A short work that easily accommodates a whole ocean of problems, revealing them to the reader. A striking difference from other popular books are the author's illustrations, which carry a lot of meaning.
Mikhail Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog". A small, but no less interesting and light work by Bulgakov. A story about a risky experiment by a genius doctor.

Our TOP of the best books has come to an end, but believe me, this list can be continued almost forever. Therefore, sit back and dive into the world of literature that has become a real classic. These are truly the best books of all time, on which more than one generation has grown up. They are all very different, but equally good. After reading this list, you will form your personal literary taste, that is, you will understand which genre you like best. Even if you have very little time, remember that only one chapter a day, page by page, and the result is a read book.

In "NG - ExLibris" in the issue dated 31.01.2008 under the heading "From the Divine Bottle of Master Francois Rabelais to the scandalous "Blue Fat" by Vladimir Sorokin" a very curious and indisputable list of "100 novels, which, according to the editorial staff of" NG-Ex libris" shocked the literary world and influenced the entire culture."

“The millennium has just begun, we can sum up the results. including literary ones. The year is also at the very beginning, we bring to your attention a list of the 100 best, in the opinion of the editors of NG-EL, novels of all times and peoples.
After all, why are we worse? The English/Americans make their lists of great novels, including either boring modern English-language fiction, or even more boring but long-forgotten English-language fiction. Adding "for objectivity" a few Russian novels, a few things from world literature. We are also tendentious, we also include only what we know, what we are sure of - after all, this is our choice. We really want to be objective, but absolute objectivity in such lists is impossible. Although we, of course, have much more English-language novels than the English-Russians. We are not touchy. And if we like something, we say so - we like it.
Of course, the novels of living (or recently deceased) authors are closer to us, more understandable, therefore there are more of them than we should. If we had written our list 100 years ago, we would certainly have included Artsybashov, Veltman, Chernyshevsky, Pisemsky, Krestovsky, Leskov and Merezhkovsky (they should still be included now, but their stories and stories, like those of many others not included, perhaps all is better), etc. Of course, many did not enter. Those without which literature is unthinkable. Ivan Bunin, for example. Or Edgar Poe. Or Anton Chekhov. Or Knut Hamsun, the author of many great novels. But his best thing is “Hunger” - a story! A similar story, by the way, with Yuz Aleshkovsky. He has novels, but his "calling cards" - "Disguise" and "Nikolai Nikolaevich" - stories, if they are three times wrong!
Others, on the contrary, entered "by pull". For example, Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" is a poem, but the author called his work "a novel in verse." So romance. On the other hand, and Dead Souls Gogol, and Erofeev's Moscow-Petushki, according to the authors, are poems. Yes, poems. But if these are not novels, then what are novels? What do Sergei Minaev and Oksana Robski write? So our position is not a contradiction, it is a dialectic, our editorial arbitrariness.
Despite the exceptional prevalence of the novel genre, its boundaries are still not clearly defined. Most literary scholars believe that the genre of large narrative works, called the novel, arose in Western European literature of the 12th-13th centuries, when the literary work of the third estate began to take shape, headed by the merchant bourgeoisie. As a result, the heroic epic and the legend that dominated ancient and feudal-knight literature were replaced by the genre of the novel. Hegel called the novel a "bourgeois epic" for a reason. Therefore, you will not find in our list either Apuleius' Golden Ass or Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsifal. An exception is made only for the works of Rabelais and Cervantes, which can be considered embryonic novels, or proto-novels.
We repeat: this is solely our choice, subjective and biased. We, as is customary, included some in vain, while others, on the contrary, were unfairly ignored. Make up your own version. The one who does nothing makes no mistakes.
You can see the list itself in today's issue of NG-EL. With brief comments. We have arranged the novels in chronological order (either by the time of writing or by the date of the first publication).

"100 novels that, according to the editorial staff of NG - Ex libris, shocked the literary world and influenced the entire culture"

1. Francois Rabelais. "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1532-1553).
An extravaganza of mental health, rough and good jokes, a parody of parodies, a catalog of everything. How many centuries have passed, but nothing has changed.

2. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. "The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha" (1605-1615).
A parody that survived for many centuries parodied works. A comic character that has become tragic and a household name.

3. Daniel Defoe. “The life and amazing adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a sailor from York, who lived for twenty-eight years all alone on a desert island off the coast of America near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown out by a shipwreck, during which the entire crew of the ship except him died; with an account of his unexpected release by pirates, written by himself ”(1719).
An extremely accurate embodiment in the artistic form of the ideas of humanism of the Renaissance. A fictionalized proof that a single person has an independent value.

4. Jonathan Swift. Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships (1726).
Biography of a Man Faced with Incredible Forms intelligent life- midgets, giants, intelligent horses - and who found not only a common language with them, but also many common features with his fellow tribesmen.

5. Abbe Prevost. "The Story of the Chevalier de Grieux and Manon Lescaut" (1731).
In fact, "Manon ..." is a story, an insert chapter in the multi-volume novel "Notes of a noble man who retired from the world." But it was this inserted chapter that became a masterpiece. love story, which struck not so much contemporaries as descendants, with a masterpiece that overshadowed everything else written by Prevost.

6. Johann Wolfgang Goethe. "The Suffering of Young Werther" (1774).
They say that in the 18th century, young people committed suicide after reading this novel. And today the story of a vulnerable person, unable to defend his "I" in the face of hostile reality, leaves no one indifferent.

7. Lawrence Stern. "The Life and Beliefs of Tristram Shandy" (1759-1767).
A charming game of nothing and never. Subtle postmodernism, cheerful and light struggle of witty and risky. The whole text is on the brink, hence, from the opinions of the gentleman Shandy, not only Sasha Sokolov, not only Bitov, but even Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky arose, alas, a storyteller, not a novelist.

8. Choderlos de Laclos. "Dangerous Liaisons" (1782).
A moralizing novel in letters from the life of a courtly 18th century. Vice weaves cunning intrigues, forcing to exclaim: “O times! Oh manners! However, virtue still prevails.

9. Marquis de Sade. "120 days of Sodom" (1785).
The first in the history of world literature computer game with cut off parts of the bodies and souls of puppet characters, a multi-level cutter-choker-burner. Plus black-black humor in a black-black room on a black-black night. Scary, creepy.

10. Jan Potocki. "Manuscript found in Zaragoza" (1804).
Labyrinth-like novel-box in short stories. The reader gets from one story to another without having time to take a breath, and there are only 66 of them. Amazing adventures, dramatic events and mysticism of the highest standard.

11 Mary Shelley "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" (1818).
A gothic story that unleashed a "brood" of themes and characters, subsequently picked up by many and still exploited. Among them are an artificial person, and a creator who is responsible for his work, and a tragically lonely monster.

12. Charles Maturin. "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820).
True gothic romance full of secrets and horror. Paraphrase on the theme of the Eternal Jew Ahasuerus and the Seville Seducer Don Juan. And also a novel of temptations, varied and irresistible.

13. Honore de Balzac. "Shagreen leather" (1831).
The most terrible novel by Balzac, the first and best author of serials to date. “Shagreen Skin” is also part of his big series, just a piece is getting smaller and smaller, I really don’t want to finish reading it, but it already irresistibly leads me into the abyss.

14. Victor Hugo. "Notre Dame Cathedral" (1831).
An apology for romance and social justice based on the French Middle Ages, which still has a lot of fans - at least in the form of a musical of the same name.

15. Stendhal. "Red and Black" (1830–1831).
Dostoevsky made from this - from a newspaper criminal chronicle - a tendentious accusatory pamphlet with philosophy. Stendhal has a love story where everyone is to blame, everyone is sorry, and most importantly - passion!

16. Alexander Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin" (1823-1833).
A novel in verse. The story of love and the life of an "extra person" and an encyclopedia of Russian life, which, thanks to the critic Belinsky, we know from school.

17. Alfred de Musset. "Confessions of a Son of the Century" (1836).
"A Hero of Our Time", written by Eduard Limonov, only without obscenities and loving African Americans. Lovingness, however, is enough here too, full of melancholy, despair and self-pity, but there is also a sober calculation. I'm the last bastard, he says lyrical hero. And he is certainly right.

18. Charles Dickens. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837).
Surprisingly funny and positive work of the English classic. All of old England, all the best that was in it, was embodied in the image of a noble, good-natured and optimistic old man - Mr. Pickwick.

19. Mikhail Lermontov. "A Hero of Our Time" (1840).
The story of the "superfluous man", who nevertheless became, or rather, for this very reason, an example to follow for many generations of pale young men.

20. Nikolai Gogol. "Dead Souls" (1842).
It is difficult to find a larger picture of Russian life at its deepest, mystical level. Moreover, written with such a combination of humor and tragedy. In her heroes they see both accurate portraits painted from life and images of evil spirits that burden the nation.

21. Alexandre Dumas. "Three Musketeers" (1844).
One of the most famous historical adventure novels is an encyclopedia of French life in the era of Louis XIII. Musketeer heroes - romantics, revelers and duelists - still remain the idols of young men of primary school age.

22. William Thackeray. "Vanity Fair" (1846).
Satire, only satire, no humor. All against all, snobs sit on snobs and accuse each other of snobbery. Some contemporaries laughed because they did not know that they were laughing at themselves. Now they also laugh, and also because they don’t know that time has changed, not people.

23. Herman Melville. "Moby Dick" (1851).
A novel-parable about American whalers and the consequences of obsession with a single unfulfilled desire that completely enslaves a person.

24. Gustave Flaubert "Madame Bovary" (1856).
A novel that ended up in the dock in the form of a magazine publication - for insulting morality. The heroine, who sacrificed family ties and reputation for love, is tempted to call the French Karenina, but "Madame" was ahead of "Anna" by more than twenty years.

25. Ivan Goncharov. "Oblomov" (1859).
The most Russian hero of the most Russian novel about Russian life. There is nothing more beautiful and more destructive than Oblomovism.

26. Ivan Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons" (1862).
The anti-nihilistic satire, which became a revolutionary guide to action, then satire again, will soon be a guide again. And so without end. Because Enyusha Bazarov is eternal.

27. Mine Reid. "Headless Horseman" (1865).
The most tender, the most American, the most romantic of all American novels. Because, probably, that the Briton wrote, really in love with Texas. He scares us, but we are not afraid, for this we love him even more.

28. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Crime and Punishment" (1866).
A novel of contrasts. The Napoleonic plans of Rody Raskolnikov lead him to the most vulgar crime. No scope, no grandeur - only abomination, dirt and an unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth. He can't even use stolen goods..

29. Leo Tolstoy. "War and Peace" (1867–1869).
War, peace and the inhabited universe of the human spirit. An epic about any war, about any love, about any society, about any time, about any people.

30. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Idiot" (1868–1869).
An attempt to create an image of a positively beautiful person, which can be considered the only successful one. And that Prince Myshkin is an idiot, that's just normal. As well as the fact that everything ends in failure.

31. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. "Venus in furs" (1870).
The work on the eroticization of suffering, begun by Turgenev, was continued by his Austrian admirer. In Russia, where suffering is one of the “most important, most fundamental spiritual needs” (according to Fyodor Dostoevsky), the novel is of unflagging interest.

32. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Demons" (1871–1872).
About Russian revolutionaries - atheists and nihilists - of the second half of the 19th century. Prophecy and warning, which, alas, was not heeded. And besides, murders, suicides, vagaries of love and passion.

33. Mark Twain. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) / "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884).
A novel in two books. Forerunner of postmodernism: the same events are shown through the eyes of two boys - younger (Tom) and older (Huck).

34. Leo Tolstoy. "Anna Karenina" (1878).
A violent love story, a married woman's rebellion, struggle and defeat. Under the wheels of the train. Even militant feminists are crying.

35. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-1880).
Parricide, in which - one way or another - all the sons of Fyodor Karamazov are involved. Freud read and came up with the Oedipus complex. For Russians, the main thing is: is there a God and the immortality of the soul? If there is, then not everything is permitted, and if not, then I'm sorry.

36. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Gentlemen Golovlevs" (1880-1883).
Vertex literary activity the toughest Russian satirist of the 19th century, the final verdict on the feudal system. An unusually relief image of an ugly family - people, distorted by a combination of physiological and social conditions.

37. Oscar Wilde. "Portrait of Dorian Gray" (1891).
Magical, fabulous, wonderful, touching and air history the rapid transformation of a young scoundrel into an old bastard.

38. HG Wells. "Time Machine" (1895).
One of the pillars of modern social fiction. He was the first to demonstrate that you can move back and forth in time, and also that the light genre can raise very serious problems.

39. Bram Stoker. "Dracula" (1897).
A bridge between measured Victorian literature and energetic adventure prose of the 20th century. A work that first turned a petty Orthodox prince, balancing between Islamic Turkey and Catholic Germany, into the embodiment of absolute Evil, and then made him a movie star.

40. Jack London. "Sea Wolf" (1904).
Maritime romance is just the backdrop for the portrait of Captain Larson, an amazing personality that combines brute force and philosophical thought. Later, such people became the heroes of the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky.

41. Fedor Sologub. "Small demon" (1905).
The most realistic thing in all decadent literature. A story about what envy, anger and extreme selfishness lead to.

42. Andrey Bely. "Petersburg" (1913-1914).
A novel in verse written in prose. In addition, about terrorists and Russian statehood.

43. Gustav Meyrink. "Golem" (1914).
A bewitching occult novel, the action of which takes place on the verge of reality and sleep, the gloomy streets of the Prague ghetto and the intricate labyrinths of the author's consciousness.

44. Evgeny Zamyatin. "We" (1921).
An ideal totalitarian state seen through the eyes of a mathematician. Literary proof that social harmony cannot be verified by algebra.

45. James Joyce. "Ulysses" (1922).
A novel is a labyrinth from which, to date, no one has managed to get out alive. Not a single literary Theseus, not a single literary Minotaur, not a single literary Daedalus.

46. Ilya Ehrenburg. "The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito" (1922).
A satire in which the 20th century is displayed as the protagonist Julio Jurenito. A book, some pages of which turned out to be prophetic.

47. Yaroslav Gashek. "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik during the World War" (1921-1923).
Common sense during the plague. A hero who is declared an idiot for being the only normal one. Funniest war book ever.

48. Mikhail Bulgakov. "White Guard" (1924).
The sinking ship of the past is nothing and no one can save. The more tempting is the toy house, where real soldiers who lost the war against their people will be truly killed.

49. Thomas Mann. "Magic Mountain" (1924).
Tomorrow was the war. Only World War I. And indeed - the Magic Mountain. Up there, where the mountains are, you want to sit out, to escape from the plague (any, it is approximately the same at all times and in all countries), but you just can’t. The magic does not work, they are already waiting downstairs, and they have very good arguments.

50. Franz Kafka. "Process" (1925).
One of the most complex and multifaceted novels of the 20th century, which gave rise to hundreds of mutually exclusive interpretations ranging from an entertainingly told dream to an allegory of a metaphysical search for God.

51. Francis Scott Fitzgerald. "The Great Gatsby" (1925).
A novel from the era of the American Jazz Age. Literary critics are still arguing: whether the author buried the great American dream in him, or simply regrets the eternal delay of today, sandwiched between the memory of the past and the romantic promise of the future.

52. Alexander Green. "Running on the waves" (1928).
A beautiful-hearted romantic extravaganza that has already helped a generation of young people and girls to survive the puberty period and gain faith in the Good and the Light and in their own higher destiny.

53. Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov. "Twelve Chairs" (1928).
A picaresque novel of the era of building socialism with the main character-adventurer Ostap Bender. A satire on Soviet society in the 1920s is on the verge of anti-Sovietism, fortunately almost unnoticed by the censors of those years.

54. Andrey Platonov. "Chevengur" (1927-1929).
The history of building communism in a single village. Perhaps the most disturbing novel about the explosion of messianic and eschatological sentiments in the first post-revolutionary years.

55. William Faulkner. "The Sound and the Fury" (1929).
The discreet charm of the magical American South. Legends, fairy tales, myths. They don't let go, they still call back to the Americans, because you have to be afraid of the past. Faulkner comes up with the American Zurbagan, only there you can be saved.

56. Ernest Hemingway. "Bye weapons!" (1929).
Military prose, overseas military prose. War without war, world without peace, people without faces and eyes, but with glasses. The glasses are full, but they drink from them slowly, because the dead don't get drunk.

57. Louis Ferdinand Celine. "Journey to the End of the Night" (1932).
Stylish and sophisticated black. Without hope. Slums, poverty, war, dirt, and no light, no ray, one dark kingdom. Even the corpses are not visible. But they are, the journey must continue while Charon is having fun. Especially for tolerant optimists.

58. Aldous Huxley. "Oh Brave New World" (1932).
Interpreters argue: is it a utopia or a dystopia? Be that as it may, Huxley was able to anticipate the blessings and plagues of the modern "consumer society".

59. Lao She. "Notes on the Cat City" (1933).
Cats have nothing to do with it. Even foxes, traditional for the Chinese, also have nothing to do with it. This is power, this is plainclothes readers who come and knock on the door. It begins cheerfully and allegorically, and ends with a Chinese torture chamber. Very beautiful, very exotic, you just want to howl and growl, not meow.

60. Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer (1934).
The groan and howl of the male, longing for cities and years. The most physiologically crude prose poem.

61. Maxim Gorky. "The Life of Klim Samgin" (1925–1936).
Almost an epic, a political leaflet written almost in verse, the agony of the intelligentsia at the beginning of the century - relevant both at the end of it and in the middle.

62. Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" (1936).
A harmonious combination of women's prose with an epic picture of American life during the Civil War of the North and South; deservedly became a bestseller.

63. Erich Maria Remarque. "Three comrades" (1936–1937).
One of the most famous novels on the theme of the "lost generation". People who have gone through the crucible of war cannot escape the ghosts of the past, but it was the military brotherhood that rallied the three comrades.

64. Vladimir Nabokov. "The Gift" (1938–1939).
The piercing theme of exile: a Russian emigrant lives in Berlin, writes poetry and loves Zina, and Zina loves him. The famous chapter IV is the biography of Chernyshevsky, the best of all existing ones. The author himself said: “The Gift” is not about Zina, but about Russian literature.

65. Mikhail Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita" (1929-1940).
A unique synthesis of satire, mystery and love story, created from a dualistic perspective. A hymn to free creativity, for which you will definitely be rewarded - even after death.

66. Mikhail Sholokhov. "Quiet Don" (1927-1940).
Cossack "War and Peace". The war during the Civil War and the world, which we will destroy to the ground, so that later we will never build anything again. The novel dies towards the end of the novel, a surprising occurrence in literature.

67. Robert Musil "A Man Without Qualities" (1930–1943).
For many years, Musil adjusted one to the other polished lines to the limit. It is not surprising that the filigree novel remained unfinished.

68. Hermann Hesse. "The Glass Bead Game" (1943).
A philosophical utopia written in the midst of the terrible war XX century. Anticipated all the main features and theoretical constructions of the era of postmodernism.

69. Veniamin Kaverin. "Two Captains" (1938–1944).
A book that called on the Soviet youth to "fight and seek, find and not give up." However, the romance of distant wanderings and scientific research captivates and attracts so far.

70. Boris Vian. "Foam of days" (1946).
The elegant French Kharms, an ironist and postmodernist, dumped all the culture of his time in feathers and diamonds. Culture cannot be washed off until now.

71. Thomas Mann. "Doctor Faustus" (1947).
Composer Adrian Leverkühn sold his soul to the devil. And he began to compose magnificent, but terrifying music, where hellish laughter and a pure children's choir sound. His fate reflects the fate of the German nation, which succumbed to the temptation of Nazism.

72. Albert Camus. "Plague" (1947).
A metaphorical novel about the "plague of the 20th century" and the role that the invasion of evil plays in the existential awakening of man.

73. George Orwell. "1984" (1949).
A dystopia imbued with Western society's hidden fear of the Soviet state and pessimism about the human ability to resist social evil.

74. Jerome D. Salinger. "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951).
Touching teenager Holden Caulfield, who does not want (and cannot) be like everyone else. That is why everyone immediately loved him. Both in America and in Russia.

75. Ray Bradbury. "451 Fahrenheit" (1953).
A dystopia that came true a long time ago. Books are not burned now, they are simply not read. We switched to other media. Bradbury, who always wrote about the village (well, Martian or whatever, but still - the village), is especially furious here. And he is absolutely right in his rage.

76. John R. R. Tolkien. "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-1955).
A three-volume saga-tale about the struggle between Good and Evil in a fictional world, which most accurately reflected the aspirations of the people of the twentieth century. Made millions of readers worry about the fate of the gnomes, elves and furry hobbits, as for their fellow tribesmen. Formed the fantasy genre and spawned many imitators.

77. Vladimir Nabokov. "Lolita" (1955; 1967, Russian version).
A shocking, but literary sophisticated story about the criminal passion of an adult man for a youngster. However, lust here strangely turns into love and tenderness. Lots of touching and funny stuff.

78. Boris Pasternak. "Doctor Zhivago" (1945-1955).
A novel by a brilliant poet, a novel that received Nobel Prize according to literature, the novel that killed the poet is the one that killed physically.

79. Jack Kerouac "On the road" (1957).
One of the cult compositions of the beatnik culture. The poetics of the American freeway in all its raw charm. A hipster chase that ends in nothing. But the chase is interesting.

80. William Burroughs. "Naked Lunch" (1959).
Another cult composition of beatnik culture. Homosexuality, perversions, glitches and other horrors. Interzone populated by secret agents, mad doctors and all sorts of mutants. But in general - a hysterical rhapsod, repulsive and bewitching.

81. Witold Gombrowicz. "Pornography" (1960).
Despite the fact that the provocative title does not match the content, none of those who mastered this sensual-metaphysical novel was left disappointed.

82. Kobo Abe. "Woman in the Sands" (1962).
Russian melancholy without Russian expanses. Vertical escape. From skyscrapers to the sand pit. Escape with no right to return, no right to stop, no right to rest, no rights whatsoever. A woman can only cover with sand, only fall asleep. Which she does. The escape is considered successful: the fugitive is not found.

83. Julio Cortazar. "Playing Hopscotch" (1963).
A novel made up of novels. Interactive games, call, mister reader, live, I'll do as you say. Latin Americans love to play, they are very reckless. This novel is a big game of literary gambling. Some win.

84. Nikolay Nosov. "Dunno on the Moon" (1964-1965).
A novel is a fairy tale. Only there is very little fairy tale, but a lot of funny and scary. The most accurate, most come true dystopia of the twentieth century. And now this book is still coming true and coming true.

85. John Fowles Magus (1965).
The life and terrifying adventures of the soul and meaning of modern Robinson Crusoe on, alas, an inhabited island of sheer nightmares. No one will ever forgive anyone or anything.

86. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
The story of the fictional city of Macondo, full of drama, was founded by a passionate tyrant leader interested in the mystical secrets of the Universe. Mirror in which reflected real story Colombia.

87. Philip K. Dick. "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" (1968).
A work that asks the question “Are we who we take ourselves to be, and is the reality as our eyes see it?”. It forced serious philosophers and culturologists to turn to fantasy and at the same time infected several generations of writers and filmmakers with a specific paranoia.

88. Yuri Mamleev. "Connecting Rods" (1968).
A metaphysical novel about a mysterious esoteric circle, whose members try in various ways to escape from the ordinary world into the beyond.

89. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. "In the first circle" (1968).
A novel about a “good” camp, a novel about what, it would seem, is not so scary, which, apparently, is why it has such a strong effect. In a complete nightmare, you no longer feel anything, but here - when "you can live" - here you understand that there is no life and cannot be. The novel is not even devoid of humorous scenes, and this also acts even more strongly. Let's not forget that the circle may be the first, but this is not a lifeline, but one of the circles of the Kolyma hell.

90. Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade" (1969).
A funny and crazy novel in a schizophrenic-telegraphic style. The bombing of Dresden by the Americans and the British in 1945, aliens dragging Billy Pilgrim to the planet Tralfamador. And "things like that," said every time someone dies.

91. Venedikt Erofeev. "Moscow-Petushki" (1970).
Underground encyclopedia of Russian spiritual life of the second half of the twentieth century. The funny and tragic Bible of a dervish, an alcoholic and a passion-bearer - whoever is closer.

92. Sasha Sokolov "School for Fools" (1976).
One of those rare novels in which it is not what is more important, but how. The protagonist is by no means a schizophrenic boy, and the language is complex, metaphorical, musical.

93. Andrey Bitov. "Pushkin House" (1971).
About the charming conformist, philologist Lev Odoevtsev, who leaves the vile "Soviet" 1960s for the golden 19th century, so as not to get dirty. Truly an encyclopedia of Soviet life, an organic part of which is the great Russian literature.

94. Eduard Limonov. "It's me - Eddie" (1979).
A novel-confession, which became one of the most shocking books of its time thanks to the utmost frankness of the author.

95. Vasily Aksenov. "Island of Crimea" (1979).
The Taiwanese version of Russian history: the Bolsheviks did not get the Crimea in Civil War. The plot is fantastic, but the feelings and actions of the characters are real. And noble. For which they have to pay very dearly.

96. Milan Kundera "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984).
Intimate life against the background of political cataclysms. And the conclusion - any choice is unimportant, "what happened once, could not happen at all."

97. Vladimir Voinovich. "Moscow 2042" (1987).
The most sophisticated work of the writer. Four utopias inserted into each other like nesting dolls. Tricks with the chronotope and other fun. And also - the most eccentric manifestations of the Russian mentality in all its glory.

98. Vladimir Sorokin. "Romance" (1994).
This book is primarily for writers. Roman, the hero of "Roman", arrives in a typical Russian village, where he lives a typical village life - everything is like in the realistic novels of the 19th century. But the ending - special, Sorokinsky - symbolizes the end of traditional novel thinking.

99. Victor Pelevin. "Chapaev and Void" (1996).
Buddhist thriller, mystical thriller about two eras (1918 and 1990s). Which of the eras is real is unknown, and it doesn’t matter. A keen sense of life in different dimensions, flavored with signature irony. Sometimes even breathtaking. Scary and fun.

100. Vladimir Sorokin. "Blue fat" (1999).
The most scandalous novel by this author. A stormy plot, a whirlpool of events. A fascinating play with language - like in a symphony. Chinaized Russia of the future, Stalin and Hitler in the past, and much more. But in general, when you finish reading, it breaks to tears.

Reading time: 26 min.

Big Rating magazine brings to your attention the best books of all time in the TOP-20 rating. The list includes world bestsellers by domestic and foreign authors. Something in them catches, not letting go, and each of these works is worth reading at least once in a lifetime.

The great American writer Francis Fitzgerald touched upon the most hot topics dashing 1920s. Despite the chronological remoteness of the events described in the book, today many people find the novel close to their spirit. Fitzgerald was the first of the US prose writers to announce to the world the beginning of a new century - the "jazz age" and spoke on behalf of the "lost generation". Reading the novel "The Great Gatsby" you seem to plunge into the era of jazz music and "dry law". Using the main character as an example, Fitzgerald demonstrates the life path of those rich people who rose from the bottom thanks to bootlegging. The author shows his admiration for these personalities, but at the same time condemns their moral foundations and principles. The protagonist of the novel personifies the "American dream" of that time - he is a real minion of fate, who made his fortune and achieved power. But are money and power capable of making a person truly happy? Don't forget about love too...

We are all accustomed to pirates as terrible and bloodthirsty creatures that commit robberies, rape women and kill everyone who gets in their way. Such is the opinion about the representatives of this "profession". In most cases, this is exactly what happens. But when there is an exception to the general rule, it is very interesting. It is precisely such an atypical pirate that the main character of the work of Rafael Sabatini, Peter Blood, is. Far from piracy, the young Irishman worked in the medical field and was, by the will of fate, drawn into the Monmouth uprising that broke out in England at the end of the 17th century. Absolutely uninvolved in the events of the rebellion, Peter Blood, among others, was accused of treason to the monarch and sentenced to death. But luck smiled at the hero when the death sentence was replaced by exile in the southern colonies, where he went in the status of a slave. It is here that the young Blood has to start his career anew, only not as a bachelor of medicine, but as a pirate. Now the hero of the book has one goal - to regain freedom.

Any person sooner or later wants to take a break from the daily routine, pack up and go on at least a short trip. It is not necessary to undertake an epochal climb to Elbrus or go to the wilds of the Amazon. Sometimes a short river boat trip, such as the Thames, is enough. Traveling in the company of your closest friends is already more fun, and even more so in the company of a small four-legged companion. The only important condition is a strictly male company. This is exactly what the three English bosom friends Harris, Jay and George decided to take a break from the bustle of the city while drinking tea. But having decided to implement the idea, the gentlemen realized that not everything is as simple as it might seem at first glance. Every little thing, starting with the preparations and ending with an attempt to open canned food, turns into a funny and fun adventure for friends. And the presence in the boat of an extremely energetic fox terrier named Montmorency adds additional sparks of humor to the general fireworks of events. Jerome K. Jerome's novel "Three Men in a Boat, Not Counting the Dog" contains a lot of funny misunderstandings, hilarious collisions and comical situations from which our heroes get out of while maintaining a truly British sense of dignity.

One of the largest and undoubtedly the greatest creations of world literature. And although historians and writers have not fully figured out whether Homer really existed or was collectively, one thing is known for certain - the Iliad is a description of truly grandiose events.

The starting point of the story was the strong romantic attachment of the Trojan prince Paris, who burned with an ardent love for the most beautiful woman of that time - Helen. That's just the beauty, who reciprocated the young man, at that moment was already bound by marriage with spartan king Menelaus. When Paris, inflamed with passion, dared to kidnap his lady of the heart, the enraged husband of Elena declared war on Troy, gathering loyal kings and warriors under his banner. The scale of events was so great that even the gods of Olympus did not remain indifferent and took part in the war, predicting the victory of each of the chosen parties. The protracted struggle lasted for many years, reaping a bountiful harvest of death. Wives were widows, children were orphans. There is no worthy justification for any of the wars of mankind, just as there is none for the Trojan War. But for many centuries, the epochal nature of Homer's Iliad was preserved.

A controversial work, perceived by some as the notes of a madman, by others as a philosophical treatise, and by others as a fascinating fairy tale. Alice in Wonderland was written by the English mathematician, poet and writer Charles Dodgson, better known to us as Lewis Carroll. After many decades, critics can only guess what exactly the author was trying to convey to us by writing such an original work. There is only one way out - to read the novel and put forward your own theory.

The book tells us about a far from stupid, but slightly frivolous, girl Alice, who accidentally met during the holidays white rabbit. Noticing his pocket watch, and sensibly judging that rabbits do not have watches, Alice rushes after the White Rabbit in order to find out where he is in such a hurry. In pursuit of a nimble beast, our young adventurer falls safely down the rabbit hole. And now Alice is waiting for real miracles and amazing adventures that defy common sense. Or maybe you should not try to understand everything? After all, you can simply immerse yourself in the phantasmagoric world of the White Rabbit, the smoking caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Cards, attend an unforgettable tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. We assure you it won't be boring.

Delightful dystopia, frightening and beautiful at the same time. The author realistically depicts a society with the ideas of hedonism and consumerism flourishing in it. There is no place for love here, and sex is just a pleasant pastime. Huxley describes it so emotionally that it becomes scary to read, but it’s impossible to tear yourself away from the book. Here, people are created in a test tube, and the "manufacturers" initially choose who will be intellectually developed and who will be mentally retarded. Habitual human values like self-development, culture, religion and knowledge are not needed for nothing and are not at all interesting. People seek only to have fun in any way they can, and enthusiastically waste their precious time on uninterrupted recreation. Reading Brave New World, you understand that everything described here is pure fiction, from cover to cover, but you never cease to be horrified by the similarity of the events described in the book with the vices of modern society. And this is the whole point of the work.

The eminent French writer Alexandre Dumas was able to breathe life into a boring and confusing story of battles, intrigues and political games of the French court. The main characters of Dumas' novel are the three brave musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis, as well as the young Gascon d'Artagnan, who arrived to conquer Paris. An ambitious young man came to the capital from the outback and dreams of getting into the service of His Majesty. d'Artagnan is agile, agile, cheerful and noble. But these features attract not only friends, but also enemies who want to see the young man on their side. Devoted to the king and queen, Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan will have a life full of conspiracies, intrigues, exploits and fights. And the motto "One for all and all for one" confidently leads the heroes to victory.

The title of the novel is a reference to the song of the Beatles, and the work itself is a demonstration of the complexity, sinuosity and intricacies life path any person. Murakami clearly showed a wide range of readers that for confusion in making decisions and a painful choice of one's own path, it is not necessary to be a great person, because difficulties and trials can fall to the lot of each of us. Among these people is the protagonist of the novel, student Tooru Watanabe. The storyline consists of Tooru telling about his youth spent at the university and the events that happen to him at this stage of life. As the story progresses, the hero reminisces about his best friends Naoko and Kizuki. Tooru will talk about Kizuki's suicide and the rapid development of relations with Naoko. He will remember how the girl went to the clinic for treatment. He will tell about student riots and the girl Midori, who shed color on his gray life.

What is unique is the fact that even those of us who have never held this book in our hands are still aware of the plot of this tragic love story of a young man from the Montague family for a girl from the Capulet family. And the phrase: “There is no sadder story in the world than the story of Romeo and Juliet” can be heard even in the texts of modern songs. The main characters of the novel were not originally destined to live happily ever after. Both warring families took up arms against their great and pure love. But the difficulties not only did not stop the lovers, but also pushed the representatives of the houses of Montague and Capulet to each other. Although the first meeting lasted only a few moments, this was enough for young people to realize the desire to be together forever. Their love was so strong that Romeo and Juliet were ready to give their lives for her. And if fate does not allow them to be together in this life, then at least their souls will be reunited in the next world.

A wonderful touching tale about the adventures of a teddy bear. This character, which first appeared in England in the 1920s, is now famous all over the world. The story begins with a teddy bear given to the boy by his young father, Christopher Robin. The child names the toy Winnie, after a live bear living in the London Zoo. Further, father and son have fun writing stories together that could take place in real life with cute bear Winnie. So the teddy bear has such friends as Piglet the pig, Kenga the kangaroo and her baby Little Roo, the Eeyore donkey, the owl, the rabbit and many others. Over the years, more than one generation of children managed to grow up on the stories of the adventures of a funny bear cub - about bees, about a heffalump and about Winnie's friends. An important fact remains that the main character of the book does not lose its popularity among modern children. Apparently such a charming bear cub as Winnie the Pooh cannot leave anyone indifferent.

Cleary's family chronicles have riveted the attention of readers at all times. That's just a different age audience perceives them far from the same. So young people are more interested in a love storyline that evokes sensual experiences about the fate of the main characters with an eternal intrigue - whether they should be together. The younger generation needs bright colors, battles, action and passions. Older readers are interested in the complexity of the characters and relationships of the main characters. This audience is looking for a deep meaning in the work, knowing full well that it is not always hidden precisely in parts containing violent passions and many events.

In the center of the plot of this story is the large Cleary family, who moved to Australia from New Zealand. McCullough displays the entire palette of goals, motivations and actions of each character. But the main storyline is firmly connected with the main character of the novel - Maggie, whose personal life the reader can trace from the age of 4 until her death at 58.

Psychiatric hospitals with their inhabitants have always been a separate world, living by its own laws and rules. And since you have been brought here by a whim of fate, you will have to adapt to the existing order. This unspoken rule is fully extended to the hospital, which is described in the novel Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Everything changed with the appearance of a new patient in the psychiatric hospital - Randall Patrick McMurphy. Randall is a cunning criminal who masterfully portrays a madman in order to escape prison. Having settled into a new place, McMurphy makes acquaintances and begins to communicate with the local guests. Randel is overwhelmed with frank horror at the realization that there are absolutely healthy people in the hospital, no more crazy than himself. All of them stay in the hospital of their own free will, just trying to hide within its walls from the hardships of the outside world. And the patients are also very intimidated by Mildreth Ratched, a local nurse who runs the hospital and does not tolerate disobedience. McMurphy not only declares battle to the local order, but also tries to rescue patients from an unhealthy environment by showing them what a full life looks like.

In the terrible worlds of dystopias described by such literary geniuses as Ray Bradbury, consumerism reigns as the only value of humanity. The true eternal values like knowledge and age-old wisdom, enclosed in books, are subject to universal condemnation and even destruction. For the possession of great literary works or just books, people are condemned or sentenced to death. Burning books is becoming commonplace, and most of the people living in this world are accustomed to such a course of things. Those who do not understand the importance of this view of life are declared fools by society. Shared a similar philosophy and the main character of the work - Guy Montag. He worked as a "fireman" (in the context of this work) and was unshakable in his worldview. But his whole ideology went to hell when Guy met the one who managed to show him the other side of the coin.

Perhaps Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 has not lost its relevance today precisely because of the flourishing era of consumerism in modern society. People have a lot to think about.

The brilliant works of Erich Maria Remarque had a great influence on the literary world of Germany. The novel "Three Comrades" immerses its readers throughout life, the depth of thoughts and feelings of people who went through the meat grinder of the First World War and managed to get out of it alive. And the book is not about the victims, but about the people who unleashed this very war. The protagonist of the novel - Robert Lokamp - tells about the problems and events that concern him. Robbie explains in detail that the most important things in a person's life are the people around him. He openly promotes the importance of friendship in relationships. But Robert also emphasizes that even being among people who understand and accept you unconditionally, you cannot always count on happiness. "Three Comrades" is a book about the "lost generation" of people trying to live in a difficult and ambiguous era.

With his epochal and loud fantasy novel, John Tolkien opened a new round of literary fashion for works about elves, hobbits, wise and strong kings, great wizards, goblins and fire-breathing dragons. And although the first time The Lord of the Rings was published in the distant 1950s, readers still do not lose interest in it. Fans not only do not stop re-reading Tolkien's work over and over again, but also review Peter Jackson's films, and also play games that managed to recreate the writer's unique fairy-tale world. In the novel, we are talking about the Ring of Omnipotence and the irreconcilable millennium war for the right to own. The young hobbit Frodo must travel through the hostile Mordor to the fiery Mount of Doom in order to destroy the Ring. In a difficult journey, Frodo is supported by friends (dwarves, humans, elves) and opposed by the evil Sauron, who is eager to get his Ring back and gain world domination. The plot of The Lord of the Rings attracts the reader with its unique atmosphere, allowing him to immerse himself in the world of elves, dwarves, hobbits, wizards and evil rulers.

In this work, Turgenev not only raised the eternal problem of fathers and children, but also, ahead of the wide spread of the ideas of nihilism in Russia, managed to show readers an example of an adherent of the movement in the form of Evgeny Bazarov. It was with this ardent supporter of nihilism that the young son of the landowner Kirsanov, Arkady, made a strong friendship. Fascinated by the ideas of a new acquaintance, Arkady sincerely accepts all the convictions of Bazarov. The young man even brings a newly-made friend to visit his father and uncle - Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. Representatives of the older generation of the family do not perceive the new youth philosophy, considering it too radical. That's just Nikolai Petrovich listens to the thoughts of the nihilist calmly and with a smile, and Pavel Nikolayevich goes into open conflict with Bazarov. Eugene is firm in his convictions, he is sure that he needs for life, rejects the old principles, not wanting to blindly accept them on faith, as people of the older generation do. The steadfastness of Bazarov's views was shaken after meeting the landowner Anna Odintsova, who aroused previously unknown feelings in the nihilist.

Although this work of the author is less well known compared to Lolita, it definitely deserves the close attention of readers. In his novel, Nabokov, in his unique manner, reveals the hidden nature of the human character and clearly demonstrates the blackness that can hide in the heart of a young and, at first glance, harmless creature. The events of the novel unfold in Germany, where the art critic Krechmar leaves his wife and daughter for sixteen-year-old Magda, a girl with a dubious biography. The love of a man is so strong that even the death of his own daughter did not overshadow his ardent passion for Magda. But a happy life together was short-lived. The girl meets with the artist Gorn - her former lover. Past feelings flare up in them with renewed vigor and the couple begins to meet in secret from Krechmar, since Magda is still financially dependent on him. For credibility, Horn appears to Kretschmar as a homosexual. Evil lovers are plotting, mocking Krechmar, gradually depriving him of his mind.

The events and actions of the book are presented from the point of view of Holden Confield and are a reflection of the perception of a 16-year-old boy to the reality around him. In his narration, Holden talks about the period of his life before entering the clinic for treatment. The story reveals to the reader the whole depth of hopelessness and experiences of a young man who remained misunderstood by the big and cruel world. At the same time, Holden does not fall into philosophical reasoning, does not express value judgments, he simply describes the events taking place and tries to understand what can give him a feeling of happiness. So the little boy's song he heard about "how you catch someone in the rye ..." leads Holden to understand the happy moment. But, alas, it is impossible to achieve it, because the reality is completely different.

(ratings: 50 , average: 4,00 out of 5)

In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, therefore the best classical Russian works are unusual, amaze with sincerity and vitality.

The main thing actor- soul. For a person, the position in society, the amount of money is not important, it is important for him to find himself and his place in this life, to find truth and peace of mind.

The books of Russian literature are united by the traits of a writer who possesses the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. The best classics saw life not flatly, but multifaceted. They wrote about the life of not random destinies, but expressing being in its most unique manifestations.

Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but they are united by the fact that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.

Russian classical literature was created by the best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects writing skills. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky were born in Moscow, Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Shchedrin in Tver. Poltava region in Ukraine is the birthplace of Gogol, Podolsk province - Nekrasov, Taganrog - Chekhov.

The three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were absolutely different people, had different destinies, complex characters and great talents. They made a huge contribution to the development of literature, writing their best works, which still excite the hearts and souls of readers. Everyone should read these books.

Another important difference between the books of Russian classics is the ridicule of the shortcomings of a person and his way of life. Satire and humor are the main features of the works. However, many critics said that this was all slander. And only true connoisseurs saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Books like this always touch my soul.

Here you can find the best works of classical literature. You can download Russian classic books for free or read online, which is very convenient.

We present to your attention the 100 best books of Russian classics. The complete list of books includes the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature is known to everyone and recognized by critics from all over the world.

Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part that has collected best work great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.

One hundred books that everyone should read in order to understand not only how they used to live, what were the values, traditions, priorities in life, what they aspired to, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure a soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the formation of his personality.

The top 100 list includes the best and most famous works of Russian classics. The plot of many of them is known from the school bench. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age, and this requires wisdom that is acquired over the years.

Of course, the list is far from complete and can be continued indefinitely. Reading such literature is a pleasure. She not only teaches something, she radically changes lives, helps to realize simple things that we sometimes do not even notice.

We hope you enjoyed our list of classic Russian literature books. Perhaps you have already read something from it, but something not. A great occasion to make your personal list of books, your top books that you would like to read.

Anna Karenina. Lev Tolstoy

The greatest love story of all time. A story that has not left the stage, filmed countless times - and still has not lost the boundless charm of passion - a destructive, destructive, blind passion - but all the more bewitching with its grandeur.