BBC top 100 books (81 - 100)
Explore the BBC's top 100 books (81-100) with this curated list of must-read literary masterpieces. Discover classic and contemporary titles that inspire readers worldwide.
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Holes
by Louis Sachar
A New York Times BestsellerAdapted into the movie HolesInterest Level: Middle/High School Reading Grade Level: 3rd & 4th Lexile Level: 660L Theme: Belonging/Sense of SelfAn Accelerated Reader(r) title
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The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An affluent Indian family is forever changed by one fateful day in 1969, from the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness “[The God of Small Things] offers such magic, mystery, and sadness that, literally, this reader turned the last page and decided to reread it. Immediately. It’s that haunting.”—USA Today Compared favorably to the works of Faulkner and Dickens, Arundhati Roy’s modern classic is equal parts powerful family saga, forbidden love story, and piercing political drama. The seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel see their world shaken irrevocably by the arrival of their beautiful young cousin, Sophie. It is an event that will lead to an illicit liaison and tragedies accidental and intentional, exposing “big things [that] lurk unsaid” in a country drifting dangerously toward unrest. Lush, lyrical, and unnerving, The God of Small Things is an award-winning landmark that started for its author an esteemed career of fiction and political commentary that continues unabated.
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Magician: Master
by Raymond E. Feist
He held the fate of two worlds in his hands... Once he was an orphan called Pug, apprenticed to a sorcerer of the enchanted land of Midkemia.. Then he was captured and enslaved by the Tsurani, a strange, warlike race of invaders from another world. There, in the exotic Empire of Kelewan, he earned a new name--Milamber. He learned to tame the unnimagined powers that lay withing him. And he took his place in an ancient struggle against an evil Enemy older than time itself.
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On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
Chronicles the way of life of the beat generation as Dean Moriarty speeds across America.
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The Godfather
by Mario Puzo
50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION—WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA Mario Puzo’s classic saga of an American crime family that became a global phenomenon—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. With its brilliant and brutal portrayal of the Corleone family, The Godfather burned its way into our national consciousness. This unforgettable saga of crime and corruption, passion and loyalty continues to stand the test of time, as the definitive novel of the Mafia underworld. A #1 New York Times bestseller in 1969, Mario Puzo’s epic was turned into the incomparable film of the same name, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is the original classic that has been often imitated, but never matched. A tale of family and society, law and order, obedience and rebellion, it reveals the dark passions of human nature played out against a backdrop of the American dream. With a Note from Anthony Puzo and an Afterword by Robert J. Thompson
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The Clan of the Cave Bear
by Jean M. Auel
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Through Jean M. Auel’s magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly—she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.
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The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho
"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams." Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho's charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come. The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist. The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.
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Katherine
by Anya Seton
A biographical novel concerning the love affair between Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, in fourteenth-century England.
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Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel GarcĂa Márquez
Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years.
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Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
The story of Saleem Sinal, born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, the moment India became independent. Saleem's life parallels the history of his nation.