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July 29, 2010

100 Best Novels on Audio Book

At the close of the 20th century the publishing company Modern Library (which is now owned by Random House) published a list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century. This list was compiled by a prestigious board of authors and literary enthusiasts including Daniel J. Boorstin, A. S. Byatt, Christopher Cerf, Shelby Foote, Vartan Gregorian, Edmund Morris, John Richardson, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., William Styron, and Gore Vidal. We've taken their list and sought out all the novels that are currently available on audio book and generated a list of our own. Ones that aren't available on audio are noted. Also a number of novels that are in the public domain now are available as a free audio download and we have noted those as well. Most of them we feature on LearnOutLoud.com, but for a few of them we link to Amazon.com. We'll continue updating the list as more of these novels make their way to audio book.

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 William Faulkner

7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller

8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler (Not on Audio)

9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence

10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry

12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler

13. 1984 by George Orwell

14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves

15.TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf

16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser

17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers

18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison

20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright

21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow

22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara (Not on Audio)

23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos (Not on Audio)

24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson

25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster

26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James

27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James

28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald

29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell (Not on Audio)

30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford (Free Download)

31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell

32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James (Free Download)

33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser

34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh (Not on Audio)

35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner

36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren

37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder

38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster

39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin (Not on Audio)

40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene

41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding

42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey (Not on Audio)

43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell (Not on Audio)

44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley (Not on Audio)

45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway

46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad (Free Download)

47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad

48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence (Free Download)

49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence

50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller

51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer (Not on Audio)

52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth

53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov (Not on Audio)

54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner (Not on Audio)

55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett

57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford (Not on Audio)

58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton (Free Download)

59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm (Free Download)

60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy

61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather (Not on Audio)

62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones (Not on Audio)

63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever

64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger (Not on Audio)

65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess

66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham

67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad (Free Download)

68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis

69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton

70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell

71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes (Not on Audio)

72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul (Not on Audio)

73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West

74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway

75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh (Not on Audio)

76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark

77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce

78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling

79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster

80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh

81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow

82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner

83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul

84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen (Not on Audio)

85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad

86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow

87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett

88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London

89. LOVING by Henry Green (Not on Audio)

90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie

91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell

92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy

93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles (Not on Audio)

94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys (Not on Audio)

95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch (Not on Audio)

96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron

97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles (Not on Audio)

98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy (Not on Audio)

100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington