12 best books of the twentieth century according to the version of the New York Public Library, which are worth reading for cultural people

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The New York Public Library is one of the largest in the world with an extensive network and access to the best books. During the preparation of the exhibition "The Best Books of the 20th Century", a list of the most significant printed publications was compiled, while the creators divided the books into thematic sections. In total, 175 books were shown at the exhibition, and in our today's review 12 of them are presented.

"Three Sisters", Anton Chekhov

The section "Monuments of Contemporary Literature" featured works by Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov and twenty other authors. Among them - the play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov "Three Sisters" published in 1901. The play was once written by order of the Moscow Art Theater, but for the second century it has not left the best theater stages in Russia and the world.

The Ring of King Solomon, Konrad Z. Lorenz

In the "Kingdom of Nature" section, the New York Public Library has presented 10 books, including "A Treatise on Radioactivity" by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and "The Significance of Relativity" by Albert Einstein. Among the works of various authors was the publication of the Austrian naturalist and biologist Konrad Lorenz "The Ring of King Solomon: A New World on the Path of Animals." The book was written in 1949, but until 1952 it was published exclusively in the author's homeland. The book appeared in Russian only in 1970.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The thematic section "Protest and Progress" included books by 15 authors, including works by Jacob Riis, Lillian Wold and Alex Kotlovitz. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Jode family of farmers. They were forced to look for a better life and try to survive during the Great Depression.

"Kim", Rudyard Kipling

Among the books presented in the section "Colonialism and its Consequences", 17 works by various authors were highlighted, including Albert Camus and Alan Paton, Marguerite Duras and Franz Fanon. The novel "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling, which tells about the fate of an Indian orphan boy, attracts attention with a fascinating plot and unusually poetic narrative language.

The Child and His Care by Benjamin Spock

The section "Mind and Spirit" includes books by 15 authors, while among them one could find "The Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud and "The Use of Enchantments" by Bruno Bettelheim. The book of the American pediatrician Benjamin Spock "The Child and His Care" at one time became a real bestseller and made many parents look at their own children with completely different eyes.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

The thematic section "Popular culture and mass entertainment" included 18 books, while it was in this selection that Bram Stoker's work "Dracula", although it was written back in 1897, and "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, published in 1898 year. But Arthur Conan Doyle's detective story "The Dog of the Baskervilles", which tells about the next investigation of Sherlock Holmes, takes pride of place on this list.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Separately, the creators of the exhibition highlighted the works of women writers about the struggle for their rights, designating this section with the capacious title "Women rise". It featured works on electoral rights and the women's liberation movement, highlighting the issue of harassment."The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton stands out in this series for its atmosphere and full immersion in history. No wonder in 1993 the director Martin Scorsese filmed the novel.

Raising Henry Adams by Henry Brooks Adams

The section "Economics and Technology" included the scientific works of famous economists and even Ed Krol's publication "The Entire Internet: User's Guide and Catalog." Among them was the autobiographical book "The Education of Henry Adams" by the American writer and historian Henry Brooks Adams. It included two chapters written by the author after visiting Russia in 1901, and the writer's reflections on the fate of the two great powers, the United States and Russia.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The thematic section "Utopias and Dystopias" includes the world famous works of HG Wells and Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Anthony Burgess. Also included in this list was the novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, which was released in 1985. The heavy dystopia of the Canadian writer made the author a laureate of several literary awards and caused a lot of controversy at the time. The problems touched upon still excite the minds, and based on the novel, a film and a TV series were shot, and an opera was staged.

Requiem, Anna Akhmatova

One of the sections of the exhibition was entitled "War, Holocaust, Totalitarianism", and it featured works covering the most difficult periods of world history. Here were exhibited "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway and "Hiroshima" by John Hersey, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Remarque, "Anne Frank's Diary" and "The Gulag Archipelago" by Solzhenitsyn. Included in this section and the poem of Anna Akhmatova "Requiem". The work of the Russian poetess was hard for her herself. The idea of creating a cycle coincided with the time when her third husband Nikolai Punin and son Lev Gumilyov were arrested. Therefore, the idea of the lyric cycle grew into work on a complex poem, which Akhmatova wrote, including in the checkpoints of the remand prison, where she stood in queues in the hope of delivering the program.

Etiquette in Society, Business, Politics and Home, Emily Post

The staff of the New York Public Library singled out light works as a separate topic, designating the topic of the section as “Optimism, Joy, Nobility”. These included Alan Milne's Winnie the Pooh and Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking, JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. And next to these works is Emily Post's book "Etiquette in Society, Business, Politics and Home". The publication was revised several times by other authors, and the original version was published in 1922.

The Catcher in the Rye by Jerome Salinger

Among the significant books of children's literature "Favorites of childhood and adolescence" were selected works by Betty Smith and Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter, Maurice Sendak and four other authors. Among them, the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye (Catcher in the Rye in one version) by Jerome Salinger stands out. The book was banned in schools and libraries, accused of being a bad example for the younger generation, and at the same time the story has been translated into almost all major languages of the world and is still popular.

Among the many books of popular science, those that are written in an unusual way stand out especially. The research carried out by the authors can relate not only to science, but also to help a person solve pressing problems and provide answers to complex questions about the world order. The Guardian magazine has presented its own ranking of the best popular science books over the past half century.