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  About the List
» Managing Editor James Kelly talks about the list and shares his John Le Carre favorite (which didn't make
the cut).

» Richard Lacayo lays bare the process (and the pain) behind stacking up
100 novels.
  Reader's Choice
1:  
2:  Lolita
3:  A Passage to India
4:  A Death in the Family
5:  Ubik

    See the full list
  Best Graphic Novels
TIME's Andrew Arnold picks Watchmen and nine other comix masterpieces

  Archive Trivia
Who was the first author to appear on a TIME cover? Get the answer and much more on our trivia page
  Talk Back
Why isn't the Harry Potter series on there!!?? It definitely should be on there!!
—Robin; Seattle, Wash.

Where is Ayn Rand and John Irving? I checked your list twice, I can't believe you did not list either author.
—Susan Sayfan; Longwood, Fla.

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  From the TIME Archive
Ernest Hemingway
"Make no mistake, Ernest Hemingway is somebody; a new, honest, un-'literary' transcriber of life...."
Writer 1/18/26

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Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut is still more cult favorite than literary lion (and he probably prefers it that way), but he deserves full canonical marks for this kaleidoscopic koan of a novel about Billy Pilgrim, a man who has "become unstuck in time." Pilgrim ricochets helplessly from decade to decade, living the episodes of his life in no particular sequence, not excluding his own death, his capture by aliens called Tralfamadorians, and his traumatic service in World War II, when he lives through the firebombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five is a cynical novel, but beneath the bitter, grim-jawed humor is a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the 20th century.—L.G.

From the TIME Archive:
For Vonnegut, man's worst folly is a persistent attempt to adjust, smoothly, rationally, to the unthinkable
—TIME Magazine, Apr. 11, 1969 (Read This Review)





Next: Snow Crash »


More From the Archive:
Great Books for Grown-Ups (6/10/46)
Dirty Book of the Month (4/22/66)
How and What to Read (10/2/72)
Dame Agatha: Queen of the Maze (1/26/76)
Rediscovering the Joy of Text (4/21/97)
Harry Potter Archive Collection
Writers in TIME Archive Collection





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