Rushdie's tenth novel, full of historical metaphors, touches important question What came first - East or West. After reading the novel, you look at any historical book as if it were a child’s fantasy - condescendingly and without due respect - realizing that there are no unambiguous historical truths, there are conjectures and unknown quotes, from which facts are subsequently formed that are bursting at the seams. George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)
Compulsory reading for all revolutionaries and revolutionary-minded comrades. In his famous dystopia, Orwell clearly demonstrates where “freedom, equality, fraternity” can lead a group of determined people, and that for any slogans there is one big “but” - the desire of some to subjugate and the readiness of others to obey. Like it or not, you draw parallels with the revolution of 1917 and everything that followed it. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871)
The triumph of the absurd, the start of the fantasy genre - and best fairy tale in the world. An amazingly powerful story about the adventures of the girl Alice, first in the rabbit hole, and then on the other side of the mirror. After two fairy tales about Alice, Carroll was called both a philosopher and a prophet, the books were disassembled into quotes, and several cartoons and films were made based on the books. Ken Kesey, Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
The main novel of the beat generation about the confrontation between a freedom-loving patient and an oppressive head nurse in a psychiatric hospital. The book is slightly different from the famous film adaptation with Jack Nicholson in leading role- the book is narrated from the perspective of one of the patients, who is relegated to the background in the film, and attention is concentrated on Nicholson’s character. The novel was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language works from 1923 to 2005. Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
A wonderful story about typical American wealth of the early twentieth century - the First World War is behind us, the economy is progressing, those who profited from Prohibition are doing especially well, society is drowning in money and entertainment. Fitzgerald's hero ends up on Long Island, where he meets the cream of society and resists the abyss of parties, beautiful women and good drinks - at the head of the party movement is Gatsby, a strong and controversial personality. The best book is about how money ruins everything, and taverns and women lead you to what you know. Patrick Suskind, Perfumer. The Story of a Killer (1985)
Only the works of Remarque are more popular than this German novel. Criminal in its essence and incredibly beautiful in its form, the story is about a man who from birth was endowed with a phenomenal sense of smell - as a result, all his life he is a slave to his gift: in an effort to compose and preserve the ideal aroma, he commits murder, one after another, and in ultimately ends tragically. Süskind perfectly conveys aromas in letters, better than, say, the creators of the film adaptation of the novel did it in 2006. Stanley Kubrick himself once thought about a film adaptation, but in the end he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to transfer Süskind’s creation to the screen - it would ruin it . J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954)
The film adaptation by Peter Jackson, a famous Tolkienist, is so detailed and scrupulous that, it would seem, there is no need to re-read the source. Error. Being a philologist, an expert on medieval epics Northern Europe, Tolkien created his own separate world, based on the Finnish epic Kalevala and the legends of the Arthurian cycle ( Celtic history British Isles). Yes, so convincingly that thousands of Tolkienists still gather somewhere in the forests and organize role-playing games. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1797)
His first and, as it became clear later, great novel Austen began writing at the age of 21 - she did not impress publishers in any way, and for more than 15 years she lay, as they say, under the carpet. Austen always wrote sincerely and realistically - her novels always touch the quick, there is no grace or show off in them, ordinary feelings of ordinary people, that is, whatever one may say, classics. Roald Dahl, Stories with Surprise Endings (1979)
A Welshman with Norwegian roots, a master of paradoxes and something of a genius, Dahl gave us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as Matilda, but he was best at shocking us with his Chekhov-like stories, with the only difference that in the end the reader, as a rule, , eyebrows sharply creep up, and his mouth breaks into an ironic smile. “I only write about what takes your breath away or makes you laugh. The children know that I’m on their side,” Dahl used to say. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (1869)
It is absolutely impossible to choose one thing from all of Dostoevsky, so we settled on our favorite. A great work of a brilliant man. Dostoevsky - he is always about cleanliness vs. vice. All attempts of the infantile epileptic Prince Myshkin to become an ordinary sinful person lead to nowhere - more precisely, only to a complication of the disease. Women, money, rivalry with other men, power and other temptations have no power over Myshkin - he gradually fades towards the end of the novel, but against the backdrop of total discord in the souls of all the other characters, Myshkin is like the risen Jesus. Iain Banks, Wasp Factory (1984)
Banks' debut in literature, a gothic novel about a strange boy, Frank, who, as he grows up, learns both the world and himself better, and is not always happy with what he has learned. Some details in the book cause outright nausea and contribute to some kind of pubertal reflections, but in general this is the ideal postmodern in literature: a philosophical presentation, multiplied by some kind of commercial absurdity. Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (1966)
If you believe Bulgakov’s widow, his last words about the novel Master and Margarita before his death were “so that they know... so that they know...”. So that WHAT they know remains a mystery. That talent is not given with impunity? That a person is a little insect with no control over the next second of his life? Be that as it may, the mystical melodrama etched itself into the consciousness of millions - we personally knew people who, after the first few chapters, walked the streets, looking around. If Bulgakov had lived in the USA, the novel would have been filmed in Hollywood during his lifetime. In the USSR, M&M became an underground outlet for the intelligentsia - however, it remains that way to this day. Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift (1938)
You can, of course, read Lolita for your next bedtime. You can grow up a little and swallow a Camera Obscura in a couple of evenings, you can even take a swing at Luzhin’s Defense. But in order to go through the entire Gift, from beginning to end, not to get lost in these endless, two-page sentences, to distinguish autobiographical notes from fiction, to master the last, fourth chapter - a book within a book - only a person who needs the WORD in literature can not a matter. Jaroslav Hasek, The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik (1921)
The good soldier Schweik is somewhat similar to the Hollywood Forrest Gump - a kind of idiot who has a bad life, and he goes to war, and manages not to die there. Intelligent satire in best performance- many jokes, however, are less understandable to us than to Hasek’s contemporaries, but the mockery of laziness, narrow-mindedness, drunkenness and the absence of any moral principles is obvious and timeless, because these are eternal “values.” I. Ilf, E. Petrov, 12 chairs, Golden Calf (1928)
Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov worked as literary blacks for the famous Soviet writer Valentina Kataeva: it was he who suggested that they write for him a novel about diamonds sewn into a chair, while he himself went on vacation to Batumi. Arriving some time later and reading the first six pages of the work, he first laughed like crazy, and then told Ilf and Petrov that he had no right to even stand next to these pages, that they were independent creative units - he blessed them, so to speak. What, we must say, HAPPINESS! Albert Camus, The Stranger (1948)
In the list of 100 books of the century by the French newspaper Le Monde, The Outsider comes first. Camus's laconic style (in the novel all the sentences are short, and, as a rule, in the past tense) was subsequently borrowed by many European writers of the 20th century. The Outsider is about loneliness and hopelessness, about searching for oneself and the meaning of one’s existence. Existentialism clean water, headache and depression. Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (1938)
The protagonist of the novel is sick of everything that surrounds him, and of himself - he analyzes the meaning of certain actions, discusses with himself the purpose of certain objects - the reader, observing this painstaking thankless work, begins to feel sick by the middle of the book. Nevertheless, Nausea, like any fruit of existentialism, forces us to face the truth: there is no meaning in most of our actions, what we create does not make us better, there is no peace in religion, there is no happiness in love, life is loneliness. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)
It is difficult to attribute this work to any genre. Fantastic? Dystopia? No, rather, it’s an alternative history. The children study in a closed school. They grow up, prepare homework together, draw, and participate in plays. They grow up knowing that they are different from those others living outside the perimeter. Over time, they learn that their fate is to be a kind of farm for growing donor organs. And now the terrible thing begins adulthood. When Katie or her friend goes through a notch, then another, and for some, a fourth, after which the end comes. And even if they manage to prove that they are also living people, with the same feelings and even capable of love, it will still not give anything. This book is scary because it easily describes terrible things. Only one thing is unclear - why no one is fighting for their future. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago (1955)
Reading this book, you understand that Nobel Prize It was not in vain that I received Pasternak, no matter what they say. Fascinating not artistic level works - Pasternak is more of a poet. And the plot, which describes all the vicissitudes of a huge, ruthless and completely incomprehensible war, in the very thick of which one finds himself a common person with his habits and principles. And one feels sorry for this person and feels bad for him. That he could not adapt to this new life, did not find his place. He became confused and lost all those who were close to him. Aldous Huxley, O Marvelous One, new world (1932)
This story is about a genetically programmed consumer society. Here one is born into an idyllic world and is guaranteed a life of luxury. And the other comes off the assembly line to another level and must be content with what he has. Everything here is orderly and on schedule. There is no evil or crime, there are no obligations, and marriage before 30 is considered defective. And with all this, everyone is happy with what they have and everyone is happy. With your miserable beggarly happiness. Taking into account the 30s, when Huxley created his world, the thought involuntarily creeps in: he knew something!
If you decide to engage in self-education and fill in your gaps in literature, then you should turn to reading the masterpieces of the world classical literature. What is considered a masterpiece and what is not? Everyone will answer this question for themselves. Many people get lost in a huge number of books and don’t know how to choose something really worthwhile. They come to the library or book Shop with a question: what interesting things to read from the classics? We will make your choice easier and in the article we will present a list of recognized works that have stood the test of time and won the love of readers around the world. In the list you will see names of both domestic and foreign writers. Read these books and you will see Magic world literature.
You can start reading at chronological order, that is, starting from ancient literature, mythology, works of ancient authors. But keep in mind that this literature is quite difficult to understand, and without some preparation it is quite difficult to read and understand it. Therefore, you can start with more recent works that are closer to our time and easier to understand modern reader. The list includes both poetry and prose. Works of various genres: tragedies, comedies, historical, philosophical, romance novels etc. In short, there are works to suit the most demanding tastes.
- Mythological poems and epics: The Elder and Younger Edda, Beowulf, The Tale of Igor's Campaign, Kalevala, the Song of the Nibelungs, The Epic of Gilgamesh
- Ancient Literature: Homer Odyssey and Illiad, Esphilus Agamemnon, Sophocles Myth of Epis, Euripides Medea, Aristophanes Birds, Aristotle Poetics, Herodotus Histories
- Bible
- Tales of the peoples of the world: , Russian folk tales, Tales of a thousand and one nights, etc.
- Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy
- Giovanni Boccaccio: Decameron
- William Shakespeare: Sonnets, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Richard III
- Thomas More: Utopia
- Nicolo Machiavelli: The Prince
- Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist
- Jean Baptiste Moliere: The Reluctant Doctor, Misanthrope, Tartuffe, Don Juan
- Victor Hugo: Notre Dame Cathedral
- Gustav Flaubert: Madame Bovary
- Johann Goethe: Faust
- Miguel Cervantes: Don Quixote
- Honoré de Balzac: Shagreen, The Human Comedy
- Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
- Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov
- Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin: Evgeny Onegin, Fairy Tales, Poems
- Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev: Fathers and Sons
- Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov: Hero of our time, Mtsyri, poems
- Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Margaret Mitchell: Gone with the Wind
- Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy: Anna Karenina, War and Peace
- Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol: Dead Souls, Inspector
- Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
- Antoine De Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince
- Erich M. Remarque: Three Comrades
- Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Alexander Green: Scarlet Sails
- Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
- Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
Here sample list what to read from the classics. Of course, many more wonderful works and talented authors were not included in this short list, but nevertheless, you can start your enlightenment today by choosing the work you like from the list. We wish you pleasant reading!
(estimates: 31
, average: 4,26
out of 5)
In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, which is why the best classical Russian works are extraordinary, striking in their soulfulness and vitality.
Main actor- soul. For a person, his 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 the truth and peace of mind.
The books of Russian literature are united by the features of a writer who has the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. The best classics saw life not flatly, but multifacetedly. They wrote about life not of random destinies, but of those expressing existence in its most unique manifestations.
Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but what unites them is that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.
Russian classical literature was created the best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects 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.
The three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were completely different people from each other, had different destinies, complex characters and great talents. They did huge contribution in the development of literature, writing his 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 that they ridicule 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 saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Such books always touch the soul.
Here you can find the best works of classical literature. You can download books of Russian classics for free or read them online, which is very convenient. 
We present to your attention 100 best books Russian classics. IN full list The books included the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature is known to everyone and is recognized by critics from all over the world.
Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part that brings together best works great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.
A 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 development of his personality.
The top 100 list includes the best and most famous works Russian classics. The plot of many of them is known from school. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age, this requires wisdom, which 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 doesn’t just teach something, she radically changes lives, helps us understand simple things that we sometimes don’t even notice.
We hope you liked our list of classic books of Russian literature. You may have already read some of it, and some not. A great reason to make your own personal list books, your top that you would like to read.
Ancient Greece
Homer "Odyssey" and "Iliad"
Did Homer really write these poems? Was he blind? And did it exist in principle? These and other questions still remain unanswered, but they fade in the face of the eternity and value of the texts themselves. The epic Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War, for a long time was better known than the Odyssey, and in to a greater extent influenced European literature. But the wanderings of Odysseus, written in simple language, are almost a novel, perhaps the first one that has come down to us.
Great Britain
Charles Dickens "The Adventures of Oliver Twist"
A groundbreaking novel featuring real life without embellishment, Dickens composed it at the age of 26. He didn’t have to strain his imagination much: main character, who lived in poverty, is the author himself, whose family went bankrupt when the future writer was just a child. And Dickens even took the surname of the main villain Feigin from life, borrowing, however, from his best friend.
The release of Oliver Twist had the effect of a bomb exploding in England: society, in particular, vied with each other to discuss - and condemn - child labor. Thanks to the novel, readers learned that literature can serve as a mirror.
Jane Austen "Pride and Prejudice"
Cornerstone for British literature a text as classic as “Eugene Onegin” in Russia. A quiet, homely young lady, Austen wrote Pride when she was very young, but published it only 15 years later, after the success of Sense and Sensibility. The Austen phenomenon, among other things, is that almost all of her novels are classics, but Pride and Prejudice stands out from the general background by the presence of one of the most amazing couples in world literature - Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Darcy is a common noun; without him, Britain is not Britain. In general, “Pride and Prejudice” is the very case when the sign “ women's novel"causes not a grin, but admiration.
Germany
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "Faust"
The 82-year-old Goethe finished the last, second part of Faust six months before his death. He began working on the text when he was twenty-five. Goethe invested all the meticulousness, efficiency and attention to detail inherited from his pedantic father into this ambitious work. Life, death, world order, good, evil - “Faust,” like “War and Peace,” in its own way is a comprehensive book in which everyone will find answers to any answers.
Erich Maria Remarque "Arc de Triomphe"
“One of the two always leaves the other. The whole question is who will get ahead of whom,” “Love does not tolerate explanations. She needs actions” - Remarque’s novel is one of those books that are divided into quotes. The love story in Paris besieged by the Germans turned the heads of more than one generation of readers, and the author’s romance with Marlene Dietrich, and persistent rumors that it was Dietrich who became the prototype of Joan Madou, only add to the charm of this beautiful book.
Russia
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky “Crime and Punishment”
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this novel forcedly, due to the need for money: gambling debts, the death of his brother Mikhail, which left his family without funds. The plot of Crime and Punishment was "inspired" by the case of Pierre François Lacière, a French intellectual murderer who believed that society was to blame for his actions. Dostoevsky composed in parts, each of which was published in the magazine “Russian Messenger”. Later, the novel was published as a separate volume, in a new edition, abridged by the author, and began independent life. Today “Crime and Punishment” is part of the world classics, one of the symbols of Russian literature and culture in general, translated into many languages and filmed many times (up to the manga comic of the same name).
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy “War and Peace”
The epic four-volume masterpiece, written over several sessions, ultimately took Tolstoy almost six years to complete. “War and Peace” is inhabited by 559 characters, the names of the main ones - Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, Bolkonsky - have become household names. This novel is a large-scale (many believe that it is completely exhaustive) statement about everything in the world - war, love, state, etc. The author himself quickly lost interest in War and Peace, calling the book “wordy” a few years later, and at the end of his life simply “nonsense.”
Colombia
Gabriel Garcia Marquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
The saga of the Buendía family is the second most popular text in Spanish throughout the world (the first is Cervantes' Don Quixote). An example of the “magical realism” genre, which has become a kind of brand that unites completely different authors, such as Borges, Coelho and Carlos Ruiz Zafon. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was written by 38-year-old Marquez in a year and a half; To write this book, the father of two children quit his job and sold his car. The novel was published in 1967, at first it sold poorly, but eventually gained world fame. Total circulation“One Hundred Years” today - 30 million, Marquez is a classic, a laureate of everything in the world, including the Nobel Prize, a symbolic writer who has done more for his native Colombia than anyone. It is thanks to Marquez that the world knows that in Colombia there are not only drug lords, but also
The best classic books of autumn 2018
Our new rating The top 100 best classics books have undergone significant changes. It's all because of the new beginning educational school, and a school curriculum that clearly sets the tone in this category. Nevertheless, only the truly best classic books, not only Russian, but also foreign, were included in it. After all, this list of the best classics was compiled based on your queries on the Internet and perfectly reflects the interest of readers in our country.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
Story " Sunstroke» Author: Bunin I. A. Year of publication of the story: 1925 Many people refer to Bunin’s story “Sunstroke” as the best works writer. It is included in school curriculum, and has also been filmed more than once. The last film adaptation was released in 2014 and was very successful. This aroused even more interest in reading the story “Sunstroke”, and also allowed Ivan Bunin to take […]
