Best Novels Ever Written #1

The 10 Best Novels Ever Written
according to Goodreads (Part 1)

Hello fellow readers! As I was feeling guilty about being inactive on this blog lately, I decided to write this list. Hope you enjoy it!~

Please note that, on the following list, I don’t state my own opinion, and I haven’t necessarily read all of the books. This list is provided by the Goodreads Serious Literature Group and is based on the vote of all Goodreads members through Listopia.

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Goodreads Synopsis

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

1984 by George Orwell

Goodreads Synopsis

Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.

I was surprised when I found out that this particular book is banned in many countries owing to its social and political themes, as well as its sexual content.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Synopsis

The main character of the story, Nick Carraway, is a young man who moves to New York in 1922. The mysterious figure of his neighbour, who throws extravagant parties every friday night, becomes clearer to Nick when he receives an invitation to one of Gatsby’s famous parties and gets to know him better. This invitation, though, proves not to be incited by his neighbour’s politeness, as it later exposes his greatest secret lust. The main point of the Great Gatsby is the Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Goodreads Synopsis

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard.

But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Goodreads Synopsis

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.

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Part 2 of this list will be posted soon!

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