Best Modern Titles

All genres including non-fiction, 294 books. Read your heart out! (Again, different format is not significant.)

A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell
A Death in the Family James Agee
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
A Passage to India E.M. Forster
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
A TOWN LIKE ALICE by Nevil Shute
ABSALOM, ABSALOM! by William Faulkner
All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
American Pastoral, Philip Roth
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusasabagina*
And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt*
ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
Another Country – James Baldwin
Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
ARROWSMITH by Sinclair Lewis
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
At Swim-Two-Birds Flann O'Brien
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand*
Atonement by Ian McEwan*
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Backlash, Susan Faludi
Bel Canto, Anne Patchett
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates
Blindness, José Saramago
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Borrowed Time, Paul Monette
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
Call It Sleep Henry Roth
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – Tennessee Williams
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut*
CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
Cathedral, Raymond Carver
CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY by Robert Heinlein
Clockers, Richard Price
Close Range, Annie Proulx
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier*
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins*
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Deliverance James Dickey
Diamonds Are Forever – Ian Fleming
Dog Soldiers Robert Stone
Drop City, TC Boyle
Dune by Frank Herbert
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert*
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Falconer John Cheever
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner*
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
From Russia with Love – Ian Fleming
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell*
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
GUILTY PLEASURES by Laurell K. Hamilton
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby*
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie*
I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius – Robert Graves
ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
IRONWEED by William Kennedy
IT by Stephen King
Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware
KIM by Rudyard Kipling
Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat
LaBrava, Elmore Leonard
Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick
Life of Pi by Yann Martel *
LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Lord of the Flies by William Golding*
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Loving Henry Green
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden*
MEMORY AND DREAM by Charles de Lint
MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
Money, Martin Amis
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf*
MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather
Mystic River, Dennis Lehane
MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock
Naked Lunch William Burroughs
Naked, David Sedaris
Native Son by Richard Wright
Neuromancer William Gibson
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
Night by Elie Wiesel*
NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
ON THE BEACH by Nevil Shute
On Writing, Stephen King
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
ONE LONELY NIGHT by Mickey Spillane
Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion by David Barton
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
OUT OF AFRICA by ISAK DINESEN
PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch
Pastoralia, George Saunders
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger*
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth
Possession, A.S. Byatt
Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow*
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Ragtime E.L. Doctorow
Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett
Remembering Wholeness by Carol Tuttle*
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul*
Revolutionary Road Richard Yates
Sandman, Neil Gaiman
Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
Secret History, Donna Tartt
SHANE by Jack Schaefer
SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut*
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See*
SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING by Charles de Lint
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison*
SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
Spy In House Of Love: V4 In Nin’S Continuous Novel – Anais Nin
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert Heinlein
Subterraneans – Jack Kerouac
SUTTREE by Cormac McCarthy
TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey*
The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori*
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain*
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho*
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Berlin Stories Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger*
The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre*
The Color Purple by Alice Walker*
The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
THE CUNNING MAN by Robertson Davies
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown*
The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
THE DOOR INTO SUMMER by Robert Heinlein
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand*
The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles
The Ghost Road, Pat Barker
THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
The Giver, Lois Lowry*
The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald*
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson
THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER by Tom Clancy
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan*
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini*
The Liars' Club, Mary Karr
THE LITTLE COUNTRY by Charles de Lint
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
THE MAGUS by John Fowles
THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
The Painted Bird Jerzy Kosinski
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver*
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
The Power and the Glory Graham Greene
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay*
The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck
THE PUPPET MASTERS by Robert Heinlein
The Recognitions William Gaddis
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Road , Cormac McCarthy
The Ruins, Scott Smith
THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie
THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold John le Carre
The Stand by Stephen King
The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell*
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion*
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston*
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller*
U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
ULYSSES by James Joyce
Under the Net Iris Murdoch
Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin*
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow
ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert Pirsig

* books I've read (14%)