Modern Library

The Modern Library, a division of Random House, was founded in 1917 by Albert Boni[?] and Horace Liveright[?]. It was bought in 1925 by Bennett Cerf[?]. Random House began in 1927 as a subsidary of the Modern Library, but eventually became the parent company. The Modern Library identified itself as "The Modern Library of the World's Best Books". In keeping with that identity, they identified the 100 best novels and non-fiction books of the 20th century and conducted a Web poll to gather public opinion on the same. The top ten books from both lists in each category are shown below.

Table of contents 1 Best 20th Century Novel 1.1 Board Selections 1.2 Reader Selections 2 Best 20th Century Non-fiction 2.1 Board Selections 2.2 Reader Selections

Best 20th Century Novel

Board Selections

1. Ulysses by James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man[?] by James Joyce
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
6. The Sound and the Fury by Willian Faulkner[?]
7. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
8. Darkness at Noon[?] by Arthur Koestler
9. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Reader Selections

1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
3. Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. Anthem by Ayn Rand
8. We the Living[?] by Ayn Rand
9. Mission Earth[?] by L. Ron Hubbard
10. Fear by L. Ron Hubbard

Best 20th Century Non-fiction

Board Selections

1. The Education of Henry Adams[?] by Henry Adams
2. The Varieties of Religious Experience[?] by William James
3. Up From Slavery[?] by Booker T. Washington
4. A Room of One's Own[?] by Virginia Wolff[?]
5. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
6. Selected Essays, 1917-1932[?] by T.S. Eliot
7. The Double Helix[?] by James Watson
8. Speak, Memory[?] by Vladimir Nabokov
9. The American Language[?] by H.L. Menchken[?]
10. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money[?] by John Maynard Keynes

Reader Selections

1. The Virtue of Selfishness[?] by Ayn Rand
2. Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health[?] by L. Ron Hubbard
3. Objectivism, the Philosophy of Ayn Rand[?] by Leonard Peikoff[?]
4. 101 Things to do 'Til the Revolution[?] by Claire Wolfe[?]
5. The God of the Machine[?] by Isabel Paterson[?]
6. Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life[?] by Michael Paxton[?]
7. The Ultimate Resource[?] by Julian Simon
8. Economics in One Lesson[?] by Henry Hazlitt
9. Send in the Waco Killers[?] by Vyn Suprynowicz[?]
10. More Guns, Less Crime by John R. Lott[?]