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In Russia, literature has its own direction, which is 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 extraordinary, amaze with sincerity and vitality.

The main character is the 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 features 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 flat, but multifaceted. They wrote about life not of random destinies, but of those expressing being in its most unique manifestations.

Russian classics are so different, with different fates, 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 it depends on his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects the 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.

Three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were absolutely different people, had different fates, 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 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 have seen how comical and tragic the characters are at the same time. Such books always grab the soul.

Here you can find the best works of classical literature. You can download free books of Russian classics 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 of the collection of the best works of the 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 were striving for, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure the soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the formation of his personality.

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

Of course, the list is far from complete, it can be continued endlessly. 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 enjoy our list of classic Russian literature books. Perhaps you have already read something from it, but some have not. A great reason to make your personal list of books, your top, which you would like to read.

In "NG - ExLibris" in the issue of 01/31/2008 under the heading "From the Divine Bottle of Master Francois Rabelais to the scandalous" Blue bacon "Vladimir Sorokin" a very curious and controversial 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 summarize. Including literary ones. The year is also at the very beginning, we bring to your attention a list of 100 best, in the opinion of the editorial board of NG-EL, novels of all times and peoples.
In the end, why are we worse? English / Americans make their lists of great novels, including either boring modern English fiction, or even more boring but long forgotten English fiction. Adding "for objectivity" a few Russian novels, a few things from world literature. We are also biased, we also include only what we know, what we are sure of, because this is precisely our choice. We really want to be objective, but absolute objectivity is impossible in such lists. Although, of course, we have much more English-language novels than the English-Russian. We are not touchy. And if we like something, we say - like it.
Of course, the novels of currently living (or recently deceased) authors are closer to us, more understandable, therefore, there are more of them than it should be. We would have written our list 100 years ago, probably would have included Artsybashev, Veltman, Chernyshevsky, Pisemsky, Krestovsky, Leskov and Merezhkovsky (they should be included even now, but their stories and stories, like many others not included, perhaps all -so better), etc. Of course, many were not included. 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 work - "Hunger" - a story! A similar story, by the way, is with Yuz Aleshkovsky. He has novels, but his "calling cards" - "Disguise" and "Nikolai Nikolaevich" - are stories, if they were 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 it's a novel. On the other hand, both "Dead Souls" by Gogol and "Moscow-Petushki" by Erofeev, according to the authors, are poems. Yes, poems. But if these are not novels, then what are novels? What are Sergey Minaev and Oksana Robski writing? So our position is not a contradiction, it is dialectics, our editorial arbitrariness.
Despite the exceptional prevalence of the genre of the novel, its boundaries are still not clearly defined. Most literary scholars believe that the genre of large narrative works called the novel originated in Western European literature of the 12th – 13th centuries, when the literary work of the third estate began to take shape, with the trading bourgeoisie at its head. As a result of this, the genre of the novel came to replace the heroic epic and legend-legend that prevailed in ancient and feudal-knightly literature. It is not for nothing that Hegel called the novel a "bourgeois epic." Therefore, you will not find on our list either Apuleius' Golden Ass or Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsifal. An exception was made only for the creations of Rabelais and Cervantes, which can be considered embryonic novels, or proto-romances.
We repeat: this is exclusively 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 is not mistaken.
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, which, 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).
Extravaganza of mental health, rude and kind jokes, a parody of parodies, a catalog of everything. How many centuries have passed and nothing has changed.

2. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. "The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha" (1605-1615).
A parody that has survived parodied works for many centuries. A comic character who has become a tragic and 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 an uninhabited island off the coast of America near the mouth of the Orinoco River, where he was thrown by a shipwreck, during which the entire crew of the ship died except him; describing his unexpected release by the pirates, written by himself ”(1719).
Extremely accurate embodiment in the artistic form of the ideas of humanism of the Renaissance. Fictionalized proof that an individual is of independent value.

4. Jonathan Swift. "Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then the captain of several ships" (1726).
The biography of a person who faced incredible forms of 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. Abbot Prevost. "History of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut" (1731).
In fact, "Manon ..." is a story, an inserted chapter in the multivolume novel "Notes of a Noble Man Who Retired from the World." But it was this plug-in chapter that became the masterpiece of the love story, which struck not so much contemporaries as the descendants, 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, a fun and easy fight between the witty and the risky. The whole text is on the verge, from here, from the opinions of gentleman Shandy, not only Sasha Sokolov, not only Bitov, but even Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky, alas, a storyteller, not a novelist, arose.

8. Choderlos de Laclos. "Dangerous Liaisons" (1782).
A moralistic novel in letters from the life of the courtly 18th century. Vice weaves cunning intrigues, forcing one to exclaim: “O times! About morals! " However, virtue still triumphs.

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

10. Jan Pototsky. "The manuscript found in Zaragoza" (1804).
Labyrinth-like novel-box in short stories. The reader gets from one story to another, not having time to catch his breath, and there are only 66 of them. Amazing adventures, dramatic events and mysticism of the highest standard.

11. Mary Shelley. "Frankenstein, or Modern Prometheus" (1818).
A gothic story that released a whole "brood" of themes and characters, later picked up by many and exploited to this day. Among them are an artificial man, a creator responsible for his work, and a tragically lonely monster.

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

13. Honore de Balzac. "Shagreen leather" (1831).
The worst novel by Balzac, the first and best TV series author to date. "Shagreen Skin" is also a part of his big series, just a piece less and less, I really don't want to finish reading, but it is already irresistibly drawn into the abyss.

14. Victor Hugo. Notre Dame Cathedral (1831).
An apology for romance and social justice based on the material of 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 the 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 life of a "superfluous person" and an encyclopedia of Russian life, which we know from school thanks to the criticism of Belinsky.

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

18. Charles Dickens. "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1837).
Surprisingly funny and positive work of the English classic. All 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 a "superfluous person" who nevertheless became, or rather, precisely for this 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-scale picture of Russian life at its deepest, mystical level. Moreover, it was written with such a combination of humor and tragedy. Her heroes are seen both as accurate portraits, painted from life, and images of evil spirits weighing down the nation.

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

22. William Thackeray. Vanity Fair (1846).
Satire, only satire, no humor. Everyone is against everyone, 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 do not know that time has changed, not people.

23. Herman Melville. Moby Dick (1851).
A parable novel about American whalers and the consequences of being obsessed with one unrealizable desire that completely enslaves a person.

24. Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary (1856).
The novel, which ended up in the dock in the form of a magazine publication, for insulting morality. The heroine, who sacrificed love for family ties and reputation, is drawn to be called 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 destructive than Oblomovism.

26. Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Sons (1862).
Anti-nihilistic satire, which became a revolutionary guide to action, then satire again, will soon be a guide again. And so on endlessly. Because Enyusha Bazarov is eternal.

27. Mine Reed. The Headless Horseman (1865).
The most gentle, the most American, the most romantic of all American novels. Because, probably, it was written by a Briton who was 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. Rodi Raskolnikov's Napoleonic plans lead him to the most vulgar crime. No scope, no grandeur - only abomination, dirt and an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Even stolen goods he cannot use.

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. The Idiot (1868-1869).
An attempt to create an image of a positively beautiful person, which can be considered the only success. And that Prince Myshkin is an idiot, it is just normal. As well as the fact that everything ends in failure.

31. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Venus in Furs (1870).
The work on eroticizing 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 evokes 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, were not heeded. And besides, murder, suicide, quirks of love and passion.

33. Mark Twain. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) / The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
A novel from two books. The 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, her struggle and defeat. Under the wheels of the train. Even militant feminists cry.

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 invented the Oedipus complex. For Russians, the main thing is: is there God and the immortality of the soul? If there is, then not everything is allowed, and if not, then I'm sorry.

36. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Gentlemen Golovlevs" (1880-1883).
The pinnacle of the literary activity of the toughest Russian satirist of the 19th century, the final sentence to the serf 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).
A magical, fabulous, wonderful, touching and airy story of the rapid transformation of a young scoundrel into an old bastard.

38. Herbert Wells. The Time Machine (1895).
One of the pillars of modern social fiction. He was the first to demonstrate that it is possible to move back and forth in time, and also that the light genre is capable of raising very serious problems.

39. Bram Stoker. Dracula (1897).
A bridge between the measured Victorian literature and the energetic adventure prose of the twentieth 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).
Sea romance is just the backdrop for the portrait of Captain Larson, an amazing personality who combines brute strength and philosophical thought. Later, such people became heroes of the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky.

41. Fedor Sologub. The Little Devil (1905).
The most realistic thing in all decadent literature. The story of what envy, anger and ultimate selfishness lead to.

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

43. Gustav Meyrink. Golem (1914).
A mesmerizing occult novel, the action of which takes place on the verge of reality and dream, the dark 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 tested with algebra.

45. James Joyce. Ulysses (1922).
A novel labyrinth, from which no one has yet 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 depicted as the protagonist of Julio Jurenito. A book, some of the pages of which turned out to be prophetic.

47. Yaroslav Hasek. "Adventures of the gallant 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. The funniest book about the war.

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

49. Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain (1924).
There was a war tomorrow. Only the First World War. And indeed - the Magic Mountain. There, at the top, 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 doesn't work, they are already waiting downstairs, and they have very good arguments.

50. Franz Kafka. The Process (1925).
One of the most complex and multifaceted novels of the 20th century, giving rise to hundreds of mutually exclusive interpretations in the entire range from an entertainingly narrated 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: either the author buried the great American dream in it, or simply regrets the eternal delay of the present day, 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 puberty and gain faith in Goodness and Light and in their own higher destiny.

53. Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov. "Twelve Chairs" (1928).
A rogue novel of the era of building socialism with the protagonist-adventurer Ostap Bender. Satire on Soviet society in the 1920s was 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 early post-revolutionary years.

55. William Faulkner. "Noise and Fury" (1929).
The humble charm of the magical American South. Legends, fairy tales, myths. They won't let go, they still haunt the Americans, because they have to be afraid of the past. Faulkner invents the American Zurbagan, only there one 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 slowly because the dead don't get drunk.

57. Louis Ferdinand Celine. Journey to the End of the Night (1932).
Stylish and sophisticated chernukha. Without hope. Slums, poverty, war, filth, and no skylight, 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. Brave New World (1932).
Interpreters argue: is it a utopia or a dystopia? Be that as it may, Huxley succeeded in anticipating 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, have nothing to do with it either. This is the power, it is the readers in civilian clothes who came and knock on the door. It starts out 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. The Tropic of Cancer (1934).
The groan and howl of a male, longing for cities and years. The most physiologically crude poem in prose.

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

62. Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind (1936).
Harmonious combination of female 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 about 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).
A piercing theme of exile: a Russian emigrant lives in Berlin, writes poetry and loves Zina, and Zina loves him. The famous IV chapter is the biography of Chernyshevsky, the best of all. The author himself said: "The Gift" is not about Zina, but about Russian literature.

65. Mikhail Bulgakov. The 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 it will certainly be rewarded - even after death.

66. Mikhail Sholokhov. Quiet Don (1927-1940).
Cossack "War and Peace". The war during the Civil War and the peace that we will destroy to the ground, so that later nothing and never again will be built. The novel dies near the end of the novel, a surprising case in literature.

67. Robert Musil. "A Man Without Properties" (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 worst war of the 20th century. Anticipated all the main features and theoretical constructions of the postmodern era.

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

70. Boris Vian. "Foam of Days" (1946).
The graceful French Harms, ironist and postmodernist, dumped all contemporary culture in feathers and diamonds. The culture cannot be washed up to this day.

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. Its fate reflects the fate of the German nation, which succumbed to the temptation of Nazism.

72. Albert Camus. The Plague (1947).
The novel is a metaphor 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 the latent fear of Western society before the Soviet state and pessimism regarding the human ability to resist social evil.

74. Jerome D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye (1951).
A touching teenager Holden Caulfield who does not want (and cannot) be like everyone else. It was for this that everyone immediately fell in love with him. Both in America and in Russia.

75. Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
A dystopia that has come true long ago. Books are not burned now, they are simply not read. We switched to other media. Bradbury, who always wrote about the village (well, let it be Martian or some other, but still - a village), is especially furious here. And 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 gnomes, elves and fur-legged 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 a grown man's criminal passion for a youngster. However, lust here in a strange way turns into love and tenderness. A lot of touching and funny.

78. Boris Pasternak. Doctor Zhivago (1945-1955).
A novel by a genius poet, a novel that won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a novel that killed a poet - physically killed.

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 crude charm. A hipster chase that ends in nothing. But it's interesting to chase.

80. William Burroughs. Naked Lunch (1959).
Another cult piece of the beatnik culture. Homosexuality, perversion, glitches and other horrors. Interzone, inhabited by secret agents, mad doctors and all kinds of mutants. But in general - a hysterical rhapsode, repulsive and bewitching.

81. Vitold Gombrowicz. "Pornography" (1960).
Despite the fact that the provocative title does not correspond to the content, none of those who mastered this sensually-metaphysical novel were disappointed.

82. Kobo Abe. The Woman in the Sands (1962).
Russian melancholy without Russian open spaces. Escape vertically. From skyscrapers to a sand pit. Escape without the right to return, without the right to stop, without the right to rest, without any rights whatsoever. A woman can only cover with sand, only fall asleep. Which she does. The escape is considered successful: the escapee was not found.

83. Julio Cortazar. The Classics Game (1963).
A novel woven from novels. Interactive games, call, mister reader, live, I will do as you say. Latin Americans love to gamble, they are very reckless. This novel is a gambling game of literary stakes. Some are winning.

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

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

86. Gabriel García Márquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967).
The story of the fictional city of Macondo is full of drama, founded by a passionate tyrant leader who is interested in the mystical secrets of the universe. A mirror that reflects the real history of Colombia.

87. Philip K. Dick. "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" (1968).
A work that asked the question "Are we who we think we are, and is reality as our eyes see it?" It made serious philosophers and culturologists turn to science fiction, and at the same time infected several generations of writers and filmmakers with specific paranoia.

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

89. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. "In the first circle" (1968).
A novel about a "good" camp, a novel about something that, it would seem, is not so scary, which is probably why it acts so strongly. 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 makes it even stronger. Let's not forget that the circle may be the first one, but this is not a lifeline, but one of the circles of the Kolyma hell.

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

91. Venedikt Erofeev. "Moscow-Petushki" (1970).
An underground encyclopedia of Russian spiritual life in the second half of the twentieth century. A funny and tragic Bible of a dervish, an alcoholic and a passion-bearer - who is closer to who.

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

93. Andrey Bitov. "Pushkin House" (1971).
About the charming conformist, philologist Leva Odoevtsev, who leaves the vile "soviet" 1960s in the golden XIX 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 confession novel, which became one of the most shocking books of its time due to the author's utmost frankness.

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

96. Milan Kundera. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984).
Intimate life amid political cataclysms. And the conclusion is that any choice is unimportant, "what happened once might not have happened at all."

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

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

99. Victor Pelevin. Chapaev and Emptiness (1996).
Buddhist thriller, mystical thriller about two eras (1918 and 1990s). Which of the epochs is real is unknown, and it does not matter. A keen sense of life in different dimensions, flavored with trademark irony. Sometimes it is even breathtaking. Scary and fun.

100. Vladimir Sorokin. Blue Lard (1999).
The most scandalous novel by this author. Stormy plot, whirlpool of events. A mesmerizing play with the 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 down to tears.

The article presents the world's largest book publishers.

World book publishers:

3. Macmillan- one of the oldest publishing houses in Great Britain, founded in 1843 by two Scottish brothers - Daniel and Alexander Macmillan. The publishing house publishes literature for English language learners, as well as fiction, popular science and educational literature. Macmillan has published works by authors such as Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), Rudyard Kipling (Mowgli), William Yates, Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind). Since 1999, the publishing house has been owned by the German media concern Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.

4. HarperCollins Is one of the largest publishing companies in the world, established in 1989. The publishing house is owned by the News Corp media holding, which is owned by Australian and American media mogul Rupert Murdoch. In 2015, HarperCollins published Go Set a Watchman by author Harper Lee, best known for her book To Kill a Mockingbird, which passed away in 2016.

Harper was founded in New York in 1817 by brothers James and John Harper. The publishing house has published books such as Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, as well as magazines: Harper’s Magazine, Harper’s Weekly and Harper’s Bazaar. In 1895, a contract was signed with Mark Twain for the exclusive right to publish his books. In 1962, Harper merged with Row, Peterson & Company and the new publishing house became Harper & Row Publishers. In 1987, Harper & Row Publishers was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for $ 300 million.

Collins was founded by William Collins in 1819 in Glasgow and originally published dictionaries and Christian religious literature. In the future, the publishing house began to publish children's, fiction and classical literature. Collins authors included Clive Staples Lewis, Agatha Christie, John Tolkien. In 1989, Rupert Murdoch bought the publishing house.

5. Simon & Schuster was founded in New York in 1924 by Richard Simon and Lincoln "Max" Schuster. Among the authors of the publishing house: Hillary Clinton "Difficult Decisions", Stephen King, Tony Robbins. Simon & Schuster is now a division of the CBS Corporation.

6. Elsevier- one of the largest publishing houses in the world, founded in 1880 in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and producing scientific, technical and medical literature. It owes its name to the old publishing house Elsevier, which closed in the 1710s. Elsevier, with revenues of € 4,405 million in 2014, is now part of the Reed Elsevier holding.

Reading time: 26 minutes

Bolshoi Rating magazine brings to your attention the best books of all time in the TOP-20 rating. The list includes world bestsellers of domestic and foreign authors. Something in them clings, not allowing to come off, and each of these works is worth it to be read at least once in a lifetime.

The great American writer Francis Fitzgerald touched upon the most relevant topics of the dashing 1920s in his novel. Despite the chronological remoteness of the events described in the book, today many 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 "age of jazz" 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 example of the protagonist, Fitzgerald demonstrates the life path of those rich people who rose from the bottom thanks to bootlegging. The author shows his admiration for these individuals, 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 true darling of fate, amassed a fortune and achieved power. But can money and power make a person truly happy? Do not forget about love either ...

We are all accustomed to pirates as terrible and bloodthirsty creatures who commit robberies, rape women and kill everyone who comes their way. Such is the opinion about the representatives of this "profession". In most cases, this is the case. But when there is an exception to the general rule, it is quite interesting. It is precisely this atypical pirate that is the protagonist of the work of Raphael Sabatini - Peter Blood. Far from piracy, the young Irishman worked in the medical field and was, by the will of fate, drawn into the Monmouth uprising, which flared up at the end of the 17th century in England. Absolutely not involved 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 to 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 find freedom again.

Sooner or later, any person wants to take a break from the daily routine, collect things and go on at least a short trip. It is not necessary to undertake an epoch-making ascent of Elbrus or go to the wilds of the Amazon. Sometimes a short boat trip along the river, such as the Thames, is sufficient. 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 strictly male company. This is exactly what the three English bosom friends Harris, Jay and George, who decided to take a break from the bustle of the city, reasoned while drinking tea. But deciding to implement the idea, the gentlemen realized that not everything is so simple as it might seem at first glance. Every little thing, from packing to trying 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 including a Dog" contains a lot of funny misunderstandings, funny collisions and comical situations from which our heroes emerge, retaining a truly British self-esteem.

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

The starting point of the narrative was the strong romantic affection of the Trojan prince Paris, who was kindled with an ardent love for the most beautiful woman of that time - Elena. Here are just the beauty, who reciprocated the young man, at that moment was already tied by the knot with the Spartan king Menelaus. When, inflamed with passion, Paris dared to kidnap his lady of the heart, the enraged husband of Helen declared war on the Three, gathering loyal kings and soldiers under his banner. The scale of the 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 an abundant harvest of deaths. Wives remained widows, children - orphans. There is no justifiable justification for any of the wars of mankind, just as there is no justification for the Trojan War. But the epoch-making of Homer's Iliad has been preserved for many centuries.

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. Many decades later, 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 the White Rabbit during her vacation. Noticing his pocket watch, and sensibly judging that rabbits don't have watches, Alice rushes after the White Rabbit in order to find out where he is in such a hurry. In pursuit of the nimble beast, our young adventurer safely falls into the rabbit hole. And now Alice is waiting for real miracles and amazing adventures that defy common sense. Or maybe you shouldn't try to understand everything? After all, you can simply plunge into the phantasmagoric world of the White Rabbit, a smoking caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Cards, and visit the Mad Hatter and the March Hare for an unforgettable tea party. We assure you will not be bored.

A 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, and sex is just a pleasant pastime. Huxley describes it so emotionally that it’s 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 by anyone for nothing and are not at all interesting. People strive only to get pleasure in any way available to them, and enthusiastically waste their invaluable time on uninterrupted rest. 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 outstanding French writer Alexandre Dumas was able to breathe life into the boring and confusing story of the 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 hinterland and dreams of getting into the service of His Majesty. d'Artagnan is agile, agile, cheerful and noble. But these traits attract not only friends, but also enemies who want to see the young man on their side. Loyal to the king and queen Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan, a life full of conspiracies, intrigues, exploits and fights awaits. 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, tortuousness and confusion of the life path of any person. Murakami clearly showed a wide circle of readers that for confusion in decision-making and 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 such people is the protagonist of the novel - student Tooru Watanabe. The storyline consists of Tooru's story about his youth, spent at the university, and the events that happened to him at this stage of his life. As the story progresses, the hero recalls his best friends Naoko and Kizuki. Tooru will tell about Kizuki's suicide and the rapid development of relations with Naoko. He will remember how the girl went to the clinic for treatment. Will tell about student riots and the girl Midori, who shed color on his gray life.

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 to a girl from the Capulet family. And the phrase: "There is no story sadder in the world than the story of Romeo and Juliet" can be heard even in the lyrics 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, it was enough for the young people to realize their 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 of the adventures of a teddy bear. This character, who first appeared in England in the 1920s, is famous around the world today. The story begins with a plush toy - a teddy bear - presented by a young father to a boy Christopher Robin. The child names the toy Winnie, after a live bear living at the London Zoo. Further, father and son have fun writing stories together that could take place in real life with a cute bear Winnie. This is how the bear cub has such friends as: piglet Piglet, kangaroo Kanga and her baby Little Ru, Eeyore donkey, owl, rabbit and many others. Over the years, more than one generation of children has managed to grow up on the stories of the adventures of a funny bear cub - about bees, about the elephant 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 little bear as Winnie the Pooh cannot leave anyone indifferent.

The Cleary family chronicles have riveted the close attention of readers at all times. However, different age audiences perceive them far from the same. So young people are more interested in a love storyline, causing sensory 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 passion. Older readers are interested in the complexities 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 the 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, motives and actions of each character. But the main storyline is firmly connected with the main heroine of the novel - Maggie, whose personal life the reader can trace from the age of 4 to the girl's death at the age of 58.

Psychiatric hospitals with their inhabitants have always represented a separate world, living according to their own laws and rules. And since you were brought here by the whim of fate, you will have to adapt to the existing order. This unspoken rule is fully extended to the hospital, about which the novel "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" tells. Everything changed with the arrival of a new patient in the mental hospital - Randall Patrick McMurphy. Randall is a cunning criminal who skillfully portrays a madman in order to escape from prison. Having mastered a new place, McMurphy makes acquaintances and begins to communicate with the local guests. Randall is seized with frank horror at the realization that there are absolutely healthy people in the hospital, no more crazy than himself. All of them are in the hospital of their own free will, just trying to hide within its walls from the hardships of the world around them. Patients are also very intimidated by Mildreth Ratched, the 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 fulfilling life looks like.

In the scary worlds of dystopias, described by such literary geniuses as Ray Bradbury, consumerism reigns as the only value of humanity. True, eternal values like knowledge and age-old wisdom, contained in books, are subject to universal censure and even destruction. For possession of great literary works or just books, people are condemned or sentenced to death. Burning books is becoming commonplace, and most people living in this world are accustomed to this course of things. Those who do not understand the importance of this outlook on life are declared fools by society. The main character of the work, Guy Montag, shared a similar philosophy. 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 was able to show him the other side of the medal.

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

The ingenious 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 main character of the novel - Robert Lokamp - tells about the problems and events that concern him. Robbie explains in detail that the most important 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 with certainty. Three Comrades is a book about a “lost generation” of people trying to live in a difficult and controversial era.

With his epoch-making and thunderous fantasy novel, John Tolkien opened a new round of literary fashion for works about elves, hobbits, wise and powerful 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 have not lost interest in him to this day. Fans not only do not stop re-reading Tolkien's work over and over again, but also revisit the films of Peter Jackson, and also play games that have managed to recreate the unique fairy-tale world of the writer. The novel deals with the Ring of Omnipotence and the irreconcilable thousand-year war waged around it for the right to possession. The young hobbit Frodo must travel through hostile Mordor to the fiery Mountain of Destiny in order to destroy the Ring. On a difficult journey, Frodo is supported by friends (gnomes, people, elves) and is opposed by the evil Sauron, eager to get back his Ring and gain world domination. The plot of "The Lord of the Rings" attracts the reader with its unique atmosphere, allowing him to plunge headlong into the world of elves, gnomes, hobbits, wizards and evil lords.

In this work, Turgenev not only raised the perennial problem of fathers and children, but also, ahead of the widespread dissemination of the ideas of nihilism in Russia, was able to show the readers an example of an adherent of the movement in the image of Yevgeny 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 of Bazarov's convictions on faith. 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 overly radical. But Nikolai Petrovich listens to the reflections of a nihilist calmly and with a smile, while Pavel Nikolayevich goes into open conflict with Bazarov. Evgeny is firm in his convictions, he is confident in what he needs for life, he rejects old principles, not wishing 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 awakened feelings previously unknown to him in the nihilist.

Although this work of the author is less known in comparison with "Lolita", it definitely deserves the close attention of readers. In his novel, Nabokov, in a manner characteristic exclusively for him, 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 art critic Kretschmar leaves his wife and daughter for the sake of sixteen-year-old Magda, a girl with a dubious biography. The man's love is so strong that even the death of his own daughter in no way overshadowed the ardent passion for Magda. But the happy life together was short-lived. The girl meets with the artist Horn, her former lover. Old feelings flare up in them with renewed vigor and the couple begins to meet secretly from Kretschmar, since Magda is still financially dependent on him. For plausibility, Horn appears to Kretschmar as a homosexual. Evil lovers are plotting, mocking Kretschmar, gradually depriving him of his sanity.

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 guy to the reality around him. In his story, Holden tells about the period of his life before he entered the clinic for treatment. The story reveals to the reader the full depth of the hopelessness and feelings of a young man who remained incomprehensible to 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 that are taking place and tries to understand what can give him a feeling of happiness. So he heard the song of a little boy about "how you catch someone in the rye ..." leads Holden to an understanding of the happy moment. But, alas, it is impossible to achieve it, because the reality is completely different.

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

Can you tell me what was the last book you read? Someone will answer that they do not remember, someone will say with a smile: "Primer" and only a few will specifically name the author and title of the work. The second question arises - why do modern people not want to read? Due to the rapid development of technical progress, a banal lack of time, or simply because of unwillingness 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 the outlook on life and even change the personality. It is desirable to instill a love of reading from childhood. Moreover, this must be done carefully and gently, so as not to forever discourage the child from picking up a book.

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

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

The best book editions. World book publishers

World book publishers:

TOP Best Books Everyone Should Read