100 Best Books

"I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books then a king who did not love reading". ~ J.B Macaulay

The best companion you can ever ask for is a book. They provide you with knowledge and entertainment at the same time. You can spend hours devouring book upon book and never be able to satisfy your hunger for more books. There may be millions of books written and published by various authors around the world and among them are the 100 best books. Some become an instant best seller and some find very few takers. However, each book opens up a different world and each page takes you to an interesting journey. Some of the must read books not only enrich you with the wealth of knowledge but also entertain you in the most unusual way. It's like a teacher, forever by your side, guiding you when you need enlightenment the most.

There are many greatest books of all time that are a must read. But of these many, I have compiled a list of 100 best books ever written. This list of 100 best books of all time may seem biased to you. The books mentioned in this list are based on my personal preferences. Just go through it with a pinch of salt. You may find your favorites listed or missed in the following list. But, I am sure you will agree with some of the 100 best books ever written mentioned in the list below.

100 Best Books of All Time

Some of the classic books everyone should read from authors like Jane Austen to Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens to William Makepeace Thackeray have been covered in the following list. Go through the list (in alphabetical order) and find your favorite ones making an entry in the list. Maybe you find a few that you have still not relished and need to go through them soon.

1. 1984 by George Orwell
2. Atonement by Ian McEwan
3. A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul
4. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
5. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
6. A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
7. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
8. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
9. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
11. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
12. Animal Farm by George Orwell
13. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
14. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
15. Battlefeild Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
16. Beloved by Toni Morrison
17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
18. Bone by Jeff Smith
19. Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
20. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
21. Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
22. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
23. Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos De Laclos
24. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
25. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
26. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
27. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. Dracula by Bram Stoker
29. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
30. Emma by Jane Austen
31. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
32. Falconer by John Cheever
33. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
34. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
35. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwinist
36. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
37. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
38. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
39. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
40. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
41. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
42. La Confidential by James Ellroy
43. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
44. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
45. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
46. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
47. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
48. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
49. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
50. Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway
51. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
52. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
53. Money by Martin Amis
54. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
55. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
56. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
57. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
58. Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
59. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen,
60. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
61. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
62. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
63. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
64. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
65. Song of Solomon Toni Morrison
66. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
67. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
68. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
69. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
70. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
71. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
72. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
73. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
74. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
75. The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
76. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
77. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
78. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
79. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
80. The Iliad by Homer
81. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
82. The Odyssey by Homer
83. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
84. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
85. The Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett
86. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
87. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
88. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
89. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
90. The Trial by Franz Kafka
91. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
92. The Wind in the Willowsby Kenneth Grahame
93. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
94. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
95. Tropic of Cancerby Henry Miller
96. USA by John Dos Passos
97. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
98. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
99. White Noise by Don DeLillo
100. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Best Books for Children

When we speak of 100 best books, children's books are not far behind. We have all enjoyed some of the following best books for children at some point or the other in our lives. These classic books for kids are enjoyed not only by kids, but there parents as well. Some of best books for young adults are used as readers for school going kids. Let's have a look at the 100 best books for children (in alphabetical order).

1. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters By Lenore Look
2. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
3. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
4. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
5. Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman
6. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
7. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
8. Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman
9. Arthur series by Marc Tolon Brown
10. Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus
11. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
12. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Bill Martin, Jr.
13. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
14. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
15. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by John Archambault
16. Clifford, the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
17. Corduroy by Don Freeman
18. Curious George by Hans Augusto Rey
19. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
20. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
21. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
22. Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
23. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
24. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
25. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
26. Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss
27. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
28. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
29. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
30. James and the Giant Peach: A Children's Story by Roald Dahl
31. Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
32. Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling
33. Lionboy by Zizou Corde
34. Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder - Laura Ingalls Wilder Webquest
35. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
36. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
37. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
38. Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch
39. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
40. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
41. Matilda by Roald Dahl
42. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
43. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
44. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
45. My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
46. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
47. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
48. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
49. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
50. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
51. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
52. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
53. Spy Dog by Andrew Cope
54. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
55. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
56. Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola
57. Stuart Little by E. B. White
58. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
59. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
60. The Art Lesson by Tomie De Paola
61. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
62. The BFG by Roald Dahl
63. The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
64. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
65. The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
66. The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
67. The Family From One End Street by Eve Garnett The Giver by Lois Lowry
68. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
69. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
70. The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong
71. The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
72. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
73. The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
74. The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton
75. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
76. The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
77. The Mitten by Jan Brett
78. The Napping House by Audrey Wood
79. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Munsch
80. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
81. The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
82. The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise
83. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend
84. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
85. The Sheep-Pig by Dick King-Smith
86. The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
87. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
88. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
89. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
90. The Twits by Roald Dahl
91. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
92. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
93. The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
94. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
95. The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
96. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
97. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
98. Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems and Drawing of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
99. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
100. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox

This was a list of 100 best books for children. Books are a very thoughtful gift for someone you truly care about. They are treasure troves of knowledge, fun, entertainment, emotions, guidance and many more things. Books are our never-failing friends and everyone will find one that is suits ones needs. There are a few good books to read and some not so good ones. The above 100 best books ever written are some of the gems of the rich world of books. You may find some of the best books missing from the list. As I have already mentioned this is my personal view about the 100 best books ever written. You may keep adding some more than you feel need to be mentioned as the best books of all time. I end this list of 100 best books with a quote by Robert Southey:

"My never failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day,
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe."