Libraries for the Blind and Print Disabled

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Newsweek's Top 100 Books (2009)

This list is a work in process. Feel free to update (it's been a while since I last reviewed this list).

--- //[[dan.malosh@state.mn.us|Dan Malosh @ MN1A Regional]] 2013/05/15 16:09//

#1 - War and Peace (1869) by Leo Tolstoy

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB026275 Read by Gordon Gould. Reading time: 60 hours, 52 minutes.
DB067136 Read by Conrad Feininger. Reading time: 63 hours, 28 minutes. 2007 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

ANNOTATION: Epic historical novel portrays five aristocratic families against the background of Russian social life during the Napoleonic Wars (1805-1814). Depicts campaign battles, the burning of Moscow, and the French army's winter retreat.

#2 - 1984 (1949) by George Orwell

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB034268 Read by Alexander Scourby. Reading time: 11 hours, 15 minutes.

ANNOTATION: A satirical, frightening novel about a future time under a totalitarian regime, where the people believe ignorance is strength and war is peace. For high school and older readers.

#3 - Ulysses (1922) by James Joyce

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB019994 Read by Alexander Scourby. Reading time: 30 hours, 43 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Deals with a single day–June 16, 1904–in the life of Leopold Bloom, a Dublin advertising salesman. The stream-of-consciousness style and the use of interior monologues expose the personalities of the characters.

#4 - Lolita (1955) by Vladmir Nabokov

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB067388 Read by David Hartley-Margolin. Reading time: 14 hours, 34 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Incarcerated and awaiting trial, widowed middle-aged professor Humbert Humbert tells of his erotic obsession with preadolescent girls–particularly twelve-year-old Dolly Haze, whom he calls Lolita. Humbert details his fascination with Lolita and describes their bizarre road trip.

#5 - The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB049885

ANNOTATION: .

#6 - Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB056346

ANNOTATION: .

#7 - To the Lighthouse (1927) by Virginia Woolf

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB067708

ANNOTATION: .

#8 - The Iliad (8th century B.C.) by Homer

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB066356

ANNOTATION: .

#8 - The Odyssey (8th century B.C.) by Homer

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB072052

ANNOTATION: .

#9 - Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB050549

ANNOTATION: .

#10 - Divine Comedy (1321) by Dante Alighieri

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB030589

ANNOTATION: .

#11 - Canterbury Tales (14th century) by Geoffrey Chaucer

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB020461

ANNOTATION: .

#12 - Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023150

ANNOTATION: .

#13 - Middlemarch (1874) by George Eliot

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB020078 - “IN PROCESS”

ANNOTATION: .

#14 - Things Fall Apart (1958) by Chinua Achebe

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 47510

ANNOTATION: .

#15 - The Catcher in the Rye (1951) by J.D. Salinger

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB047480

ANNOTATION: .

#16 - Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB033082

ANNOTATION: .

#17 - One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB059490

ANNOTATION: .

#18 - The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB016147

ANNOTATION: .

#19 - Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB048063

ANNOTATION: .

#20 - Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB026026

ANNOTATION: .

#21 - The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB068308

ANNOTATION: .

#22 - Midnight's Children (1981) by Salman Rushdie

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB016993

ANNOTATION: .

#23 - Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB059911

ANNOTATION: .

#24 - Mrs. Dalloway Reader (1925) by Virginia Woolf

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB058332

ANNOTATION: .

#25 - Native Son (1940) by Richard Wright

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB041552

ANNOTATION: .

#26 - Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville

Volume 1 (1835)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB061828

ANNOTATION: .

Volume 2 (1840)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB014245

ANNOTATION: .

#27 - Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 15937

ANNOTATION: .

#28 - The Histories (440 B.C.) by Herodotus

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB058293

ANNOTATION: .

#29 - The Social Contract (1762) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 23561

ANNOTATION: .

#30 - Das Kapital, or Capital by Karl Marx

Volume 1 (1867)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 39627

ANNOTATION: .

Volume 2 (1885)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 39628

ANNOTATION: .

Volume 3 (1894)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 39629

ANNOTATION: .

#31 - The Prince (1532) by Niccolo Machiavelli

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB067703

ANNOTATION: .

#32 - Confessions (397-398) by Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB039444

ANNOTATION: .

#33 - Leviathan (1651) by Thomas Hobbes

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 48622

ANNOTATION: .

#34 - The History of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.) by Thucydides

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB042452

ANNOTATION: .

#35 - The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Book 1: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB047486

ANNOTATION: .

Book 2: The Two Towers (1954)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB047487

ANNOTATION: .

Book 3: The Return of the King (1955)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB047488

ANNOTATION: .

#36 - Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A.A. Milne

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB048132

ANNOTATION: .

#37 - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C.S. Lewis

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB050083

ANNOTATION: .

#38 - A Passage to India (1924) by E.M. Forster

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB021242

ANNOTATION: .

#39 - On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB031675

ANNOTATION: .

#40 - To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB036414

ANNOTATION: .

#41 - The Holy Bible (King James Version: 1611)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB068777 Read by Alexander Scourby. Reading time: 79 hours, 2 minutes.

ANNOTATION: The King James Version of the Old and New Testaments as read by Alexander Scourby in the early 1950s.

#42 - A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB015213

ANNOTATION: .

#43 - Light in August (1932) by William Faulkner

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB020001

ANNOTATION: .

#44 - The Souls of Black Folk (1903) by W.E.B. Du Bois

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB063648

ANNOTATION: .

#45 - Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 23148

ANNOTATION: .

#46 - Madame Bovary (1857) by Gustave Flaubert

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB049192

ANNOTATION: ..

#47 - Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB031889

ANNOTATION: .

#48 - Anna Karenina (1877) by Leo Tolstoy

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB049499

ANNOTATION: .

#49 - Hamlet (1603) by William Shakespeare

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB024285

ANNOTATION: .

#50 - King Lear (1608) by William Shakespeare

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB029214

ANNOTATION: .

#51 - Othello (1622) by William Shakespeare

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB035241

ANNOTATION: .

#52 - The Sonnets (1609) by William Shakespeare

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB050129

ANNOTATION: .

#53 - Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 32177

ANNOTATION: .

#54 - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) by Mark Twain

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB043591 Read by John Polk. Reading time: 13 hours, 1 minute.

ANNOTATION: A comprehensive edition of Twain's 1885 tale about a boy who runs away from home and floats down the Mississippi on a raft with an escaping slave. Includes four episodes originally deleted from the first edition, an introduction by Twain biographer Justin Kaplan, and an addendum of explanatory and interpretive notes.

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB057349 Read by Nick Sullivan. Reading time: 11 hours, 22 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Tom Sawyer's friend young Huck Finn explains the reasons he is running away from home and recounts his exploits floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with Jim, an escaped slave.

#55 - Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB035722

ANNOTATION: Argentinean-born author chronicles his rereading of twelve personal literary favorites in one year, in a diary that consists, he says, “of notes, reflections, impressions of travel, sketches of friends, of events public and private.” Selections include Atwood's Surfacing, Cervantes's Don Quixote, and Kipling's Kim.

#56 - Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB025835

ANNOTATION: .

#57 - Song of Solomon (1977) by Toni Morrison

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB038330

ANNOTATION: .

#58 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB056351

ANNOTATION: .

#59 - For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) by Ernest Hemingway

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB049108

ANNOTATION: .

#60 - Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB064540

ANNOTATION: .

#61 - Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 38959

ANNOTATION: .

#62 - Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB048388

ANNOTATION: .

#63 - In Cold Blood (1965) by Truman Capote

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB022726

ANNOTATION: .

#64 - The Golden Notebook (1962) by Doris Lessing

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

RC 23376

ANNOTATION: .

#65 - Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust

Book 1: Swann's Way (1913) / Book 2: Within a Budding Grove (1919)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023759 Read by Noah Siegel. Reading time: 41 hours, 28 minutes.

ANNOTATION: A complex semi-autobiographical work by the French author begins with part one, Swann's Way, which covers Marcel's youth and the love story of M. Swann. In part two, Within a Budding Grove, Marcel's boyish affair with Gilberte ends, and he goes off to the seaside for his health. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin.

Book 3: The Guermantes Way (1921) / Book 4: Cities of the Plain (1922)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023760 Read by Noah Siegel. Reading time: 48 hours, 2 minutes.

ANNOTATION: In part three, The Germantes Way, Marcel, now a young man of fashion, moves in the exclusive social circle of the Duchess de Guermantes. Part four, Cities of the Plain, concerns the homosexual Baron de Charlus and Marcel's growing attraction to Albertine. The Dreyfus Affair is included in the background. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin.

Book 5: The Captive (1923) / Book 6: The Fugitive (1925) / Book 7: Time Regained (1927)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023761 Read by Noah Siegel. Reading time: 44 hours, 56 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Part five, The Captive, finds Marcel living with Albertine, but tortured by jealousy of her lesbian friends. In part six, The Fugitive, Albertine leaves Marcel and is killed in an accident. The concluding book seven, Time Regained, shows how World War I affected the lives of all the characters. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin.

#66 - The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB032657

ANNOTATION: .

#67 - As I Lay Dying (1930) by William Faulkner

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB049008 - “IN PROCESS”

ANNOTATION: .

#68 - The Sun Also Rises (1926) by Ernest Hemingway

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB034114

ANNOTATION: .

#69 - I, Claudius (1934) by Robert Graves

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB012463

ANNOTATION: .

#70 - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) by Carson McCullers

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB058532

ANNOTATION: .

71. - Sons and Lovers (1913) by D.H. Lawrence <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.39196”>DB039196</a> 72. - All the King's Men (1946) by Robert Penn Warren <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.53553”>DB053553</a> 73. - Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) by James Baldwin <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.33488”>DB033488</a> 74. - Charlotte's Web (1952) by E.B. White <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.46839”>DB046839</a> 75. - Heart of Darkness (1902) by Joseph Conrad <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.58105”>DB058105</a> 76. - Night (1958) by Elie Wiesel <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.42074”>DB042074</a> IN PROCESS 77. - Rabbit, Run (1960) by John Updike <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.63882”>DB063882</a> 78. - The Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.65343”>DB065343</a> 79. - Portnoy's Complaint (1969) by Philip Roth <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.67856”>DB067856</a> 80. - An American Tragedy (1925) by Theodore Dreiser <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.23138”>DB023138</a> 81. - The Day of the Locust (1939) by Nathanael West <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.12925”>DB012925</a> 82. - Tropic of Cancer (1934) by Henry Miller IN PROCESS 83. - The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.16593”>DB016593</a> 84. - His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman <ul> <li>#1 Golden Compass (1995) <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.44343”>DB044343</a></li> <li>#2 The Subtle Knife (1997) RC 45857</li> <li>#3 Amber Spyglass (2000) <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.50939”>DB050939</a> IN PROCESS</li> </ul> 85. - Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.56535”>DB056535</a> 86. - The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) by Sigmund Freud <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.50005”>DB050005</a> 87. - The Education of Henry Adams (1918) by Henry Adams <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.22293”>DB022293</a> 88. - Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (1964) by Mao Zedong <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.19940”>DB019940</a> 89. - The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902) by William James <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.14445”>DB014445</a> 90. - Brideshead Revisited (1945) by Evelyn Waugh <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.53981”>DB053981</a> 91. - Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson RC 20184 92. - The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936) by John Maynard Keynes <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.16178”>DB016178</a> 93. - Lord Jim (1900) by Joseph Conrad <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.15912”>DB015912</a> 94. - Goodbye to All That (1929) by Robert Graves NOT AVAILABLE 10/21/2011 95. - The Affluent Society (1958) by John Kenneth Galbraith <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.25346”>DB025346</a> 96. - The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.24592”>DB024592</a> 97. - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) by Alex Haley & Malcolm X <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.65510”>DB065510</a> 98. - Eminent Victorians (1918) by Lytton Strachey <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.18557”>DB018557</a> 99. - The Color Purple (1982) by Alice Walker <a href=“http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.58842”>DB058842</a>

#100 - The Second World War by Winston Churchill

Book 1: The Gathering Storm (1948)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023699

ANNOTATION: .

Book 2: Their Finest Hour (1949)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023700

ANNOTATION: .

Book 3: The Grand Alliance (1950)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023701

ANNOTATION: .

Book 4: The Hinge of Fate (1950)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023702

ANNOTATION: .

Book 5: Closing the Ring (1951)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023703 Read by Patrick Horgan. Reading time: 26 hours, 14 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Volume V of “The Second World War” series focuses on the conflict from June 1943 to June 1944. Aided by the command of the ocean, mastery of the U-boats, and growing superiority in the air, the Allies are able to conquer Sicily and invade Italy.

Book 6: Triumph and Tragedy (1953)

AVAILABLE FORMATS:

DB023704 Read by Patrick Horgan. Reading time: 27 hours, 48 minutes.

ANNOTATION: Volume VI, the concluding volume of 'The Second World War' series covers the military campaigns ending in the defeat of Germany and Japan, the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, President Roosevelt's death, and the beginnings of peace negotiations.