World fiction is formed from the heritage of tens of thousands of books of all time. To get acquainted with the contents of each of them is an impossible task even for geeks. Experts have found that in a lifetime a person is able to read no more than a thousand books, including non-fiction. Do not waste your time on empty ventures and tabloid novels, and then you will enjoy reading real masterpieces. Make a list of the 100 best books of all time and discover great authors and their timeless ideas.
The relevance of ancient literature
American magazines often rank top films, games, and books. Experts take into account the taste of each person and derive results that impress romance, skepticism and realism.
Two great poems written by Homer in the 8th century BC are of interest to readers even now. The Odyssey is a tale of the adventures of King Ithaca, who had been held captive by the nymph Calypso for ten years, and then returned home by cunning. He made nine trips: he visited the lotophages and cyclops, on the island of Eola, the cannibalistic giants, the sorceress Kirka, in the kingdom of the dead, at the sirens, between Scylla and Charybdis, on the island of Helios.
In the list of "100 best books of all time" in eighth place with the Odyssey is the Iliad. This is a heroic epic about the war between Troy and Sparta. The culprit of the conflict was Queen Elena, who Paris stole with the help of Aphrodite. Odysseus himself appears in the poem: he invents the construction of a wooden Trojan horse in which warriors hide and attack the city at night.
Why does everyone love Tolstoy?
The great Russian writer of the 19th century Lev Nikolaevich is known as the author of the epic "War and Peace." It is this work that opens a list of the 100 best books of all time according to Newsweek. The novel consists of four volumes, in which there are more than one and a half thousand pages, but this figure does not scare connoisseurs of literature. Tolstoy introduced over 500 heroes into the story, the main of which are the Rostov and Bolkonsky family. In the novel, everyone will find interesting moments for themselves: a description of the battle scenes of the battle, social balls, love stories and betrayal.
"Anna Karenina" is Tolstoy's second most famous book, which has earned a place on the list of Newsweek and BBC magazines. Based on the novel, about thirty films were shot all over the world. What is the secret to such success? Tolstoy portrays an unhappy woman typical of the nineteenth century, married out of love and forced to seek happiness on the side.
Shakespearean Heritage
The name of the great English poet and playwright of the Renaissance appears in the ranking of "100 best books of all time" four times. The list includes the tragedies Hamlet, King Lear, Othello and a collection of sonnets. Interestingly, the poetic masterpieces of other authors were not listed.
The main conflict in the tragedies of Shakespeare is the eternal opposition of good and evil. The author masterfully creates positive and negative images of heroes. In tragedies, Shakespeare does not instruct the reader, but seeks to show the real properties of human nature.
People are not divided into races, these races are divided into people and nonhumans ...
Recently, censorship of books has begun to be introduced in American schools. Works on the fight against racism are included in the list of 100 best books of all time, however, representatives of the social movement believe that children do not have to cover this problem.
Until recently, Harper Lee’s novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was read with pleasure by teenagers in many US schools, but today its study is being questioned. The book tells about the activities of atticus Atticus Finch, who defended a black man. The poor man became a victim of deception: he was seduced by a white-skinned girl. Her father found her doing this and brutally beat her, and attributed the negro to guilt. Atticus made his enemies, but did not stop retreating from the truth and fought for it to the end, proving the innocence of the black guy.
Ralph Ellison’s novel "Invisibility" tells about the difficult fate of a black man living in America. The young man is forced to constantly be in wanderings, so as not to become a victim of racism.
Lolita Confession of the writer
The outstanding ideas of Vladimir Nabokov were rejected in the Soviet Union, so the writer carried out his activities abroad. The famous novel "Lolita" was written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, and after half a century entered the list of "100 best books of all time." Nabokov was afraid that they would not understand the novel, so he tried to burn the first version, but his wife saved the manuscript.
In many countries of Europe, the book is still banned. Experts assure that pedophilia is propagated in it, since the main characters of the book - the forty-year-old Humbert-Humbert and the twelve-year-old girl - have a carnal attraction to each other. To get closer to Lolita, a man marries her mother, who is subsequently hit by a car.
Scar-boy conquers the world
The English writer Joan Rowling gained fame after writing novels about Harry Potter. The boy lost his parents in infancy, and tyrant relatives take up his upbringing. One day, Harry receives a letter in the mail inviting him to study at Hogwarts, the school of magic. Later, the boy finds out that his parents were magicians, and he received a scar on his forehead from Voldemort. Potter soon meets the black magician in person and defeats him twice.
To date, 8 films have been shot in all books about the boy with a scar. The first four novels were included in the list of "100 best books of all time" (BBC). By 2004, Joan Rowling for the first time in the history of mankind earned a billion dollars by writing books, and 10 years later she took 13th place in the ranking of the most influential women in the country.
What other authors are in the list of "100 best books of all time"?
According to the BBC, in the ranking of masterpieces of world literature worthy are 200 works of mostly foreign writers. The list was compiled more than ten years ago by spectator voting. The first place was won by the Lord of the Rings novel, the next two were Pride and Prejudice and Dark Beginnings. Closing the top five books "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". The top ten includes the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “1984”, “Winnie the Pooh and All-All-All”, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, as well as “Trick-22”.
The writer Terry Pratchett was on the list 15 times, Jacqueline Wilson - 14, Roald Dahl - 9, Charles Dickens - 7. Joan Rowling entered four times, like Thomas Hardy; Stephen King - three times, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - twice.
Among Russian writers, American citizens singled out Leo Tolstoy with the novels "War and Peace" (20th place) and "Anna Karenina" (54th place); Fedor Dostoevsky and his “Crime and Punishment” (60th place), Mikhail Bulgakov with “Master and Margarita” (130th) and Vladimir Nabokov with “Lolita” (178th place).
Non-fiction
The inhabitants of America have long thought about what masterpieces deserve to be in the ranking of the 100 best books of all time. The list consists mainly of fiction, however, it distinguishes two books of a different genre, the contents of which should be known to every self-respecting person. The Bible is ranked 41st in the Newsweek magazine ranking. Holy Scripture is revered not only by Christians and Jews, but also by representatives of other religious faiths. The authorship of the book is attributed to several authors who lived in the period from the 15th century BC to the first century of the new millennium.
"Capital" of Karl Marx takes 30th place. The book is useful not only to economists, but also to other people who want to learn the basics of economic theory. The author develops the idea that capital is the basis of modern society, and without it development is unthinkable.