Greatest Books of All Time

"Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can" ~ William Feather.

The above mentioned quote reminds me of the story, The Bet, written by Anton Chekhov, I read during my formative years of school. The story revolves around a bet between a spoiled banker and a desperate young man. The bet is on the subject, 'is death penalty better or worse than imprisonment for life'. The banker stakes 2 million dollars and the young man, 15 years of imprisonment. On the final verdict, the young man loses and his greed for money takes him behind bars. The story takes a new turn, when the author narrates the experience of the young man in prison. His early years are spent in frustration and desolation but eventually he takes resort in books, which are the only way to enrich himself and rekindle the darkness in his life with knowledge. He reads zealously covering varied topics in, language, geography, history, philosophy and science. He reads and reads until his sentence is over. And then he says, 'through books I have conquered the world. I have perceived nature, touched joys, embraced sorrows, drank the fragrant wine, sung songs... I have attained wisdom'. That was an extract from the young man's speech after being released. Yes, books can take you out, even from the darkness of a dungeon, inspiring you, enriching your life with the power of wisdom.

List of the Best Books of All Time

From the readers, point of view, the greatest books in history are those, that tempt you to read and capture your senses. These masterpieces, take you to a different world, where you can enjoy peace of mind. You can even relate to the events happening in your life and probably find out ways to overcome them. The Holy Bible, translated into 2400 languages tops the list of best selling books, till date.

• The Lord of the Rings ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
• 1984 ~ George Orwell
• The Catcher in the Rye ~ J.D. Salinger
• To Kill a Mockingbird ~ Harper Lee
• Pride and Prejudice ~ Jane Austen
• Ulysses ~ James Joyce
• Gone with the Wind ~ Margaret Mitchell
• Great Expectations ~ Charles Dickens
• Jane Eyre ~ Charlotte Bronte
• The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Lolita ~ Vladimir Nabokov
• Anna Karenina ~ Leo Tolstoy
• One Hundred Years of Solitude ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Kite Runner ~ Khaled Hosseini
• The Hobbit ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Fountainhead ~ Ayn Rand
• The Diary of a Young Girl ~ Anne Frank
• War and Peace ~ Leo Tolstoy
• Hamlet ~ William Shakespeare
• Middlemarch ~ George Ellio
• Naked ~ David Sedaris
• Geek Love ~ Katherine Dunn
• Equal Affections ~ David Leavitt
• Saint Maybe ~ Anne Tyler
• Beloved ~ Toni Morrison
• Atonement ~ Ian McEwan
• Sons and Lovers ~ D.H. Lawrence
• Wuthering Heights ~ Emily Bronte
• Go Tell It on the Mountain ~ James Baldwin
• Catch-22 ~ Joseph Heller
• Sons and Lovers ~ D.H. Lawrence
• Deliverance ~ James Dickey
• Heart of Darkness ~ Joseph Conrad
• A Passage to India ~ E.M. Forster
• Invisible Man ~ Ralph Ellison
• The Grapes of Wrath ~ John Steinbeck
• Clan of the Cave Bear ~ Jean Auel
• The Long Walk ~ Stephen King
• The Tragedy of Macbeth ~ William Shakespeare
• The Civil War ~ Shelby Foote
• A Room Of One's Own ~ Virginia Woolf
• Riding the Bus with My Sister: A True Life Journey ~ Rachel Simon
• The Lives of a cell ~ Lewis Thomas
• The Da Vinci Code ~ Dan Brown
• And Then There Were None ~ Agatha Christie
• The Help ~ Kathryn Stockett
• The Associate ~ John Grisham
• Outliers ~ Malcolm Gladwell
• Heart of Darkness ~ Joseph Conrad
• The Satanic Verses ~ Salman Rushdie
• A Clockwork Orange ~ Anthony Burgess
• The Girl Who Played With Fire ~ Stieg Larsson
• The Lost Symbol ~ Dan Brown

Best Books for Young Adults

The following is the list of best books for young adults. It's the age to enjoy romance, passion, violence, treachery, brutality and of course humor, though the art of reading. Reading absorbs you so much that you forget the world around you. The greatest books ever written especially for young adults are also included in list of the best books of all time. Check out the list below and ensure that your mini-library contains these volumes.

• The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy) ~ J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Animal Farm ~ George Orwell
• The Book Thief ~ Markus Zusak
• The Harry Potter Series ~ JK Rowling
• The Twilight Series ~ Stephenie Meyer
• The Demon's Lexicon ~ Sarah Rees Brennan
• Great Expectations ~ Charles Dickens
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ~ Mark Twain
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~ Mark Twain
• Chronicles of Narnia ~ C.S. Lewis
• A Tale of Two Cities ~ Charles Dickens
• A Thousand Splendid Suns ~ Khaled Hosseini
• Laughable Loves ~ Milan Kundera
• Oliver Twist ~ Charles Dickens
• Tuck Everlasting ~ Natalie Babbitt
• Matilda ~ Roald Dahl
• His Dark Materials' Trilogy ~ Phillip Pullman
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret ~ Judy Blume
• Hatchet ~ Gary Paulsen
• Just Listen ~ Sarah Dessen
• Vampire Academy ~ Richelle Mead
• Dracula ~ Bram Stoker
• The Bad Beginning ~ Lemony Snicket

The list, although not a comprehensive one, has pulled out the best collection for the greatest books of all time. These books have been rated best by critics and people, both. Get started and lose yourself into their pages.