"To Kill a Mockingbird". Harper Lee

It must have been extremely easy to write a novel about a white woman-black man rape trial that takes place in the deeply racist South of the United States of America, from the point of view of a little girl, full of too simple solutions and cinematic sentiment. But, fortunately, this is not about Harper Lee's novel " To Kill a Mockingbird". The little girl is an inquisitive and insightful Scout, and her father, who defends the accused, is the immortal Atticus Finch, who became the stronghold of justice in a tired and exhausted town. All this is followed, not simple and not sentimental, but the classic complexity of moral principles, and an endlessly renewable source of wisdom in the realm of nature of human decency.

"1984". George Orwell, 1949

"Nineteen Eighty-Four", George Orwell

The time is 13:00, the date does not matter, the year is not mentioned. Winston Smith, an official at the Ministry of Truth, toils day and night in the service of Big Brother, the remote, falsely benign ruler of this darkly familiar dystopia. Orwell's novel is the essay of all possible ways the humiliation of the nation by the government: spiritually, physically, intellectually, through encirclement, torture, surveillance and censorship, to the extent that the state can manipulate reality at will. When a beautiful resistance member sways Smith into rebellion, 1984 becomes something more—weird, tragic, and deeply sad story love. That the novel is as prophetic as it is pessimistic was Orwell's triumph and the misfortune of the century.

"Lord of the Rings". John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, 1954

"The Lord of the Rings", John Ronald Reuel Tolkien Tolkien

When a house Catholic, a pipe-smoking Oxford professor named John Ronald Reuel Tolkien sat down to write a novel, no one could have imagined that his wild fantasy would create a whole continent inhabited by elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards and walking trees. Tolkien called on his deep knowledge of ancient languages ​​and mythology, as well as his harrowing memories of the Battle of the Somme, to create a 20th-century tale of magic and heroism, misty mountains and mystical forests, virtue and temptation, where a tiny dwarf-like hobbit, Frodo, goes in search of adventure to destroy the Ring of Omnipotence - an evil artifact that can cause the death of all of Middle-earth. As a founding text modern style fantasy, The Lord of the Rings also carries an extremely dark longing for a pre-industrial England lost forever in the filthy trenches of World War I.

Catcher in the rye". Jerome David Salinger, 1951

"The Catcher in the Rye", J. D. Salinger

No matter how many school teachers of foreign literature try to "domesticate" the novel Jerome Selinger « Catcher in the rye” in the classroom, he will never lose his satirical poignancy in his life. When Holden Caulfield finds out he's been expelled from another private school, he runs away in the middle of the night and goes to New York for a few days, meeting girls, remembering his dead brother, wondering where the ducks fly in winter, before breaking the sad news to his parents. Time passes in the throes of complete indifference to the joys of life, changing the boy who has just matured. It is a constant reminder of the sweetness of childhood, the hypocrisy of the adult world, and the strange gap between them.

"The Great Gatsby". Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

There's no better party than Jazz Age multimillionaire Jay Gatsby. No one has a bigger house, or a bigger pool, and no one drives a longer, shinier, more luxurious car. His silk shirts alone make women cry. But who is he? Where is he from? How did he make his fortune? And why does he stand every night on his dock, holding out his hand towards the green lantern that glows on the other side of the bay, opposite his magnificent mansion? "The Great Gatsby" reveals the empty, tragic heart of a man who has achieved everything with his own on their own. This is not just an exciting read about a great loss. This is one of the most typical American novels ever written.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. JK Rowling, 1997

"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", J. K. Rowling

The adventures of a young wizard and his friends and their relationship with the forces of adulthood and evil have managed to sell over 350 million books in 65 languages. The Harry Potter phenomenon has its detractors, but the success of books with special "adult" covers that allow you to read the novel without embarrassment on the subway and trains speaks for itself ...

"The little Prince". Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943

"Le Petit Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

50 years before Harry Potter, and even 10 years before writing " Catcher in the rye”, was The Little Prince, a pamphlet Antoine de Saint-Exupery directed against adults and their rational thinking. The work is saturated with extreme tenderness, poetry and some simple but deep human wisdom. Naivety, which is noticeable at first glance, actually hides the amazing, subtle humor, as well as sadness and touching.

"The Grapes of Wrath". John Steinbeck, 1938

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Before the Dust Bowl hurricanes had calmed down, Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, a novel about a family of impoverished Okies, the Joads, who head west in pursuit of the mirage of the good life from their devastated Midwestern farm to California. The Joads find only the bitterness, poverty and oppression of the migrating farm workers living in Hoover's Villages, but their unstoppable strength in the face of the adversity of an entire continent makes Steinbeck's epic so much more than a story of unfortunate events. The book is a written record of that time, as well as an invariable monument to human perseverance.

"451 degrees Fahrenheit". Ray Bradbury, 1953

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

A classic of world science fiction is Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 (the flash point of paper), about firemen who start fires instead of extinguishing them, about books forbidden to read, and about people who almost forgot what it means being human…

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967

"Cien años de soledad", Gabriel García Márquez

Novel Gabriel Garcia Marquez « One hundred years of solitude"- this is the greatest work, the most characteristic of the direction of magical realism. This passionate humorous story Macondo and his clan, the Buendia family, have a certain magnetic power of myth.

"Brave new world." Aldous Huxley, 1932

"Brave New World", Aldous Huxley

A classic example of science fiction, which is placed alongside George Orwell's 1984. Back in 1932, Aldous Huxley managed to predict such modern phenomena as cloning, the cultivation of embryos in test tubes, totalitarianism, neo-fascism and its artificial obligatory happiness, materialistic globalization and soft-ideology.

"Gone With the Wind". Margaret Mitchell, 1936

"Gone with the Wind", Margaret Mitchell

It's one of the best-selling books of all time, but that doesn't make for an impressive sugar book cocktail. Margaret Mitchell so great. A powerful, original and compelling historical novel about the macho Scarlett O'Hara, the roguish Rhett Butler, and the romantic, boundlessly beautiful Ashley Oulx, in a world ravaged by a cataclysm civil war. Like the quintessence English novel is "The Lord of the Rings" by Tolkien, so the quintessential American novel is " gone With the Wind". The book is extremely readable because love stories have never been more triangular. But it is also a distinctive interpretation of one of the main American mythologies - the disappearance, in blood and dust, of the great old South.

"Lord of the Flies". William Golding, 1954

"Lord of the Flies", William Golding

If the novel had been written in the 19th century, it would have been about a joyful, whimsical and fantastic Neverland created by boys. But in Golding's version, ostentatious childlike purity quickly disappears in the absence of adults, turning the boys into two warring tribes, one led by the righteous Ralph and his asthmatic bosom friend Piggy, the second under the leadership of the former leader of the choir, Jack. Golding traces the fall of this new Eden with relentless, meticulous care and total psychological clarity. And in the process, he mercilessly debunks myths and clichés about childish innocence.

"Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade". Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

"Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut may still be a cult writer, but he deserves full canon awards for his kaleidoscopic jigsaw puzzle about Billy Pilgrim, the man who "fell out of time." The Pilgrim jumps helplessly from decade to decade, living through the episodes of his life without any sequence, not excluding his own death, his capture by aliens from the planet Tralfamador, and his traumatic service during World War II, where he survived the bombing of Dresden. " Massacre number five is a cynical novel, but beneath the bitterness of black humor lies a desperate, painfully honest attempt to come face to face with the heinous crimes of the 20th century.

"Lolita". Vladimir Nabokov, 1955

"Lolita", Vladimir Nabokov

The novel was born in agony. Nabokov almost burned the manuscript halfway through completion, and his first publisher was a French publisher specializing in pornographic literature. But "Lolita" has become the greatest bestseller, the most unlike American classics. Main character named Humbert Humbert is a pedophile. He is a highly cultured and endearingly ironic man who hates himself as much as a human being is capable of hating, but he loves, and can only love, pretty little girls, whom he calls "nymphets." Lolita is the story of Humbert's affair with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze. Their story is as disgusting and inadmissible as one can imagine, but Humbert's voice, an endlessly resourceful stream of evil, understandable curses, raises it to the level of a tragic, intricate epic.

"Above the Cuckoo's Nest" Ken Kesey, 1962

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Ken Kesey

When Kesey decided to tackle the hypocrisy, cruelty, and forced obedience of modern life, he unearthed his personal experience object of research in a hospital for the mentally ill. In The Cuckoo's Nest, rogue patient Randle Patrick McMurphy fights the cold and unfriendly, power-crazed sister Mildred Ratched in an attempt to free, or at least breathe some life into, the crushed and terrified patients she puts on airs for. watching the silent, stony-looking narrator, Chief Bromden. Containing these two allegories of individualism and heartbreaking psychological drama, the novel " Above the cuckoo's nest» manages to cheer up without giving a single the slightest chance excessive sentiment.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Douglas Adams, 1979

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams

Originally broadcast on Radio 4, this quote-worthy comedy about the ill-fated adventures of a simple Englishman and his alien friend is a prime example that Science fiction can be smart and funny at the same time.

"Outsider". Albert Camus, 1942

"L" Étranger, Albert Camus

Everyone remembers how at school they were diligently forced to read and understand the works of Albert Camus. Then it was almost impossible to do, and coercion could cause rejection French writer for life. But the story "The Outsider" is really worth re-reading now. The scorched despair of Camus's intelligent humanism and his clear manner of presentation are simply inimitable.

"American tragedy". Theodor Dreiser, 1925

"An American Tragedy", Theodore Dreiser

Clyde Griffiths is an ambitious young man. He is in love with rich girl but got pregnant by him a poor girl, Roberta Alden, who works with him in his uncle's factory. One day, he takes Roberta for a boat ride on the lake with the intention of killing her. From now on, his fate is sealed. But by this point, Dreiser had already made it clear that Clyde's fate had been predetermined even before that by the cruelty and cynicism of society. Dreiser's usual criticism, line by line, makes him the weakest American novelist. He uses a plumbing style of writing, artfully connecting each sentence. But by the end of the work, he will build them into a powerful plumbing, sending some very significant meaning through it.

"The Old Man and the Sea". Ernest Hemingway, 1952

"The Old Man and the Sea", Ernest Hemingway

For a long time no one should explain that the story "The Old Man and the Sea" is a modern classic that brought Ernest Hemingway Nobel Prize. And the main idea in the story of a simple fisherman Santiago, embodying difficult story a person forced to fight for life every day and at the same time trying to coexist in harmony with the world, has long become a winged one, acting as the motto of many admirers of literature, and not only: “Man is not created to suffer defeat. Man can be destroyed, but he cannot be defeated."

The Ministry of Education and Science is completing work on creating a list of books required for extracurricular reading Russian schoolchildren. The idea of ​​such a list was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the article “Russia: national question”, which was published in January current year. St. Petersburg State University, commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science, compiled a recommended list, which included more than two hundred works. As a result of Internet voting, one hundred books on the history, culture and literature of peoples were selected from them. Russian Federation acquaintance with which, according to the plan of the project coordinators, should contribute to the national self-identification of the younger generation and the preservation of the national cultural canon.

“In some of the leading American universities in the 1920s, there was a movement to study the Western cultural canon. Every self-respecting student had to read one hundred books according to a specially formed list. In some US universities, this tradition has been preserved to this day. Our nation has always been a reader. Let's poll our cultural influencers and come up with a list of 100 books every graduate should read. Russian school. Do not memorize at school, but read on your own. And let's make the final exam essay on the topics read. Or, at least, we will give young people the opportunity to show their knowledge and their worldview at olympiads and competitions.

V.V. Putin, "Russia: the national question"

Authoritative opinion

The idea of ​​creating a list of books recommended for self-reading was instantly picked up not only by cultural officials - the possible composition of the list was widely discussed by writers, film directors, film and theater actors. Most cultural figures turned their eyes towards the classics - most often the names of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Goncharov, Gogol, Chekhov, Bulgakov, poets of the Silver Age sounded. Of the two thousandth writers, they remembered Dmitry Bykov, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Zakhar Prilepin, Alexei Ivanov.

The contemporaries themselves also actively joined the discussion. Permian writer and screenwriter Aleksey Ivanov recommended adding books by Vladislav Krapivin, Denis Dragunsky, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, adventure novels by Dumas, and fiction by Orkhan Pamuk to the list. Dmitry Bykov would certainly include Emile Zola in his list. “It needs to be read - especially to us, especially now, because the picture of the life of the second empire is extremely similar to post-Soviet Russia", - the writer emphasized.

List and anti-list

Despite the fact that the majority of representatives of the writing community reacted positively to the idea of ​​creating a single mandatory list of literature, there were those who did not find this idea successful. Supernatsbest laureate Zakhar Prilepin noted that it would be more interesting for him to talk about the literature that modern schoolchildren should not read: “With all due respect to Solzhenitsyn, I believe that the Gulag Archipelago should be excluded from the list of the school curriculum and the list of recommended literature, like any other literature, unequivocally negatively covering the mythology of the country and unambiguously interpreting the history of the 20th century, as well as any other century. Books positively elucidating the activities of the party and the government of our time should not be on the list either. But these, thank God, have not yet been written.

The widow of the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who heads his foundation, called the idea of ​​creating a list of recommended literature common to all as absurd. From her point of view, the volume of compulsory literature must be provided by the school curriculum, and everything beyond this must be provided by the family. And the musician Andrey Makarevich cited as an example his school teacher literature, who believed that any person of average intellectual development must know by heart a hundred verses, and it doesn’t matter which - from “A Christmas tree was born in the forest ...” to the works of Mayakovsky or Brodsky. “The important thing is that a person knows these hundred verses, which means that he already has a fairly developed head and some kind of aesthetic consciousness,” Makarevich argues. “And if a person reads a hundred books, then not everything will be a garbage dump there - something will turn out to be important.”

New concept

After the list was formed, many questions arose. How can an epic and a story be treated equally? Is it possible to list multiple works by the same author, or should each writer be represented by just one text? List only works of art or allocate space for historical and popular science publications? And, perhaps, the main question: how will these hundred books for additional reading compare with the list of literature that is mandatory included in the school curriculum?

Representatives of the authorities, the scientific and library community had to look for answers to these and many other questions: each of the regions of the country proposed its own version of the list, and the formation of a single list was entrusted to experts from St. Petersburg State University. They excluded works that are included in the list of compulsory literature, weeded out foreign and regional authors. The rest will be decided by online voting. At the same time, in the final list, it is necessary to maintain a balance between modern literature and classical, domestic and foreign, to provide a variety of aesthetic and life experiences that readers will draw from these books, as well as a variety of genre and stylistic, which is necessary for the development of language flair.

During the implementation of the project, the very concept of the list underwent changes: the Ministry of Education decided not to limit itself to 100 books - in each region they will be supplemented by 30 regional titles, and for high school students they will include another 20 additional books chosen by schoolchildren on their own. As a result, the final list can be expanded to 150 works.

"Golden Shelf"

In itself, the idea of ​​creating a mandatory book list is not new: even Leo Tolstoy compiled the "Circle of Reading" - books that should be read by every person who lives in Russia. And Joseph Brodsky, during his teaching career at Mount Holyoke American College, prepared for his students a “List of books that everyone should read.”

Today, compiling lists of required literature can be considered a tradition: they regularly appear on various sites dedicated to books and reading. Many media, both domestic and foreign, also consider it necessary to present their version of the "golden hundred" to the attention of the public. There are dozens of versions of such lists for every genre and age category. And each of them inevitably bears the imprint of the personal assessment of the compilers, who have not only the literary taste necessary for this, but also their own predilections. In this sense, creation is absolutely universal list, even for a limited category of readers, seems to be a matter as exciting as it is utopian.

Find out what exactly the compilers selected from the millionth literary heritage, created by mankind over many centuries, we will be able to find out very soon: the project should be implemented before the end of 2012.

1. Francois Rabelais. "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1532-1553).

2. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. "The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha" (1605-1615).

3. Daniel Defoe. "Life and amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe" (1719).

4. Jonathan Swift. Travels of Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, and then a captain of several ships (1726).

5. Abbe Prevost. "The Story of the Chevalier de Grieux and Manon Lescaut" (1731).

6. Johann Wolfgang Goethe. "The Suffering of Young Werther" (1774).

7. Lawrence Stern. "The Life and Beliefs of Tristram Shandy" (1759-1767).

8. Choderlos de Laclos. "Dangerous Liaisons" (1782).

9. Marquis de Sade. "120 days of Sodom" (1785).

10. Jan Potocki. "Manuscript found in Zaragoza" (1804).

11 Mary Shelley "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" (1818).

12. Charles Maturin. "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820).

13. Honore de Balzac. "Shagreen leather" (1831).

14. Victor Hugo. "Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris"(1831).

15. Stendhal. "Red and black" (1830-1831).

16. Alexander Pushkin. "Eugene Onegin" (1823-1833).

17. Alfred de Musset. "Confessions of a Son of the Century" (1836).

18. Charles Dickens. "Death notes Pickwick Club» (1837).

19. Mikhail Lermontov. "A Hero of Our Time" (1840).

20. Nikolai Gogol. "Dead Souls" (1842).

21. Alexandre Dumas. "Three Musketeers" (1844).

22. William Thackeray. "Vanity Fair" (1846).

23. Herman Melville. "Moby Dick" (1851).

24. Gustave Flaubert "Madame Bovary" (1856).

25. Ivan Goncharov. "Oblomov" (1859).

26. Ivan Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons" (1862).

28. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Crime and Punishment" (1866).

29. Leo Tolstoy. "War and Peace" (1867-1869).

30. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Idiot" (1868-1869).

31. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. "Venus in furs" (1870).

32. Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Demons" (1871-1872).

33. Mark Twain. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) / "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884).

34. Leo Tolstoy. "Anna Karenina" (1878).

35. Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880)

36. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Lord Golovlyovs" (1880-1883).

37. Oscar Wilde. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1891)

38. H. G. Wells. "Time Machine" (1895).

39. Bram Stoker. "Dracula" (1897).

40. Jack London. "Sea Wolf" (1904)

41. Fedor Sologub. " petty imp» (1905).

42. Andrey Bely. "Petersburg" (1913-1914).

43. Gustav Meyrink. "Golem" (1914).

44. Evgeny Zamyatin. "We" (1921).

45. James Joyce. "Ulysses" (1922).

46. ​​Ilya Ehrenburg. " Extraordinary Adventures Julio Jurenito" (1922).

47. Yaroslav Gashek. "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik during the World War" (1921-1923).

48. Mikhail Bulgakov. " white guard» (1924).

49. Thomas Mann. "Magic Mountain" (1924).

50. Franz Kafka. "Process" (1925).

51. Francis Scott Fitzgerald. "The Great Gatsby" (1925).

52. Alexander Green. "Running on the waves" (1928).

53. Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov. "Twelve Chairs" (1928).

54. Andrey Platonov. "Chevengur" (1927-1929).

55. William Faulkner. "The Sound and the Fury" (1929).

56. Ernest Hemingway. "Bye weapons!" (1929).

57. Louis Ferdinand Celine. "Journey to the End of the Night" (1932).

58. Aldous Huxley. "Oh wonderful new world"(1932).

59. Lao She. "Notes on the Cat City" (1933).

60. Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer (1934).

61. Maxim Gorky. "Life of Klim Samgin" (1925-1936).

62. Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" (1936).

63. Erich Maria Remarque. "Three comrades" (1936-1937).

64. Vladimir Nabokov. "Gift" (1938-1939).

65. Mikhail Bulgakov. "Master and Margarita" (1929-1940).

66. Mikhail Sholokhov. " Quiet Don» (1927-1940).

67. Robert Musil "Man without properties" (1930-1943).

68. Hermann Hesse. "The Glass Bead Game" (1943).

69. Veniamin Kaverin. "Two Captains" (1938-1944).

70. Boris Vian. "Foam of days" (1946).

71. Thomas Mann. "Doctor Faustus" (1947).

72. Albert Camus. "Plague" (1947).

73. George Orwell. "1984" (1949).

74. Jerome D. Salinger. "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951).

75. Ray Bradbury. "451 Fahrenheit" (1953).

76. John R. R. Tolkien. "The Lord of the Rings" (1954-1955).

77. Vladimir Nabokov. "Lolita" (1955; 1967, Russian version).

78. Boris Pasternak. "Doctor Zhivago" (1945-1955).

79. Jack Kerouac "On the road" (1957).

80. William Burroughs. "Naked Lunch" (1959).

81. Witold Gombrowicz. "Pornography" (1960).

82. Kobo Abe. "Woman in the Sands" (1962).

83. Julio Cortazar. "Playing Hopscotch" (1963).

84. Nikolay Nosov. "Dunno on the Moon" (1964-1965).

85. John Fowles Magus (1965).

86. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (1967)

87. Philip K. Dick. "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep" (1968).

88. Yuri Mamleev. "Connecting Rods" (1968).

89. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. "In the first circle" (1968).

90. Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse number five, or Crusade children" (1969).

91. Venedikt Erofeev. "Moscow - Petushki" (1970).

92. Sasha Sokolov "School for Fools" (1976).

93. Andrey Bitov. " Pushkin House» (1971).

94. Eduard Limonov. "It's me - Eddie" (1979).

95. Vasily Aksyonov. "Island of Crimea" (1979).

96. Milan Kundera "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1984).

97. Vladimir Voinovich. "Moscow 2042" (1987).

98. Vladimir Sorokin. "Romance" (1994).

99. Victor Pelevin. "Chapaev and Void" (1996).

100. Vladimir Sorokin. "Blue fat" (1999).

(ratings: 31 , average: 4,26 out of 5)

In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, therefore the best classical Russian works are unusual, amaze with sincerity and vitality.

The main thing actor- soul. For a person, the position in society, the amount of money is not important, it is important for him to find himself and his place in this life, to find truth and peace of mind.

The books of Russian literature are united by the traits of a writer who possesses the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. Best Classics saw life not flatly, but multifaceted. They wrote about the life of not random destinies, but expressing being in its most unique manifestations.

Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but they are united by the fact that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.

Russian classical literature was created best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects writing skills. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky were born in Moscow, Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Shchedrin in Tver. Poltava region in Ukraine is the birthplace of Gogol, Podolsk province - Nekrasov, Taganrog - Chekhov.

Three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were absolutely different people, had different fates, complex characters and great gifts. They made a huge contribution to the development of literature by writing their the best works which still excite the hearts and souls of readers. Everyone should read these books.

One more important difference books of Russian classics - ridiculing the shortcomings of a person and his way of life. Satire and humor are the main features of the works. However, many critics said that this was all slander. And only true connoisseurs saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Books like this always touch my soul.

Here you can find the best works classical literature. You can download Russian classic books for free or read online, which is very convenient.

We present to your attention the 100 best books of Russian classics. The complete list of books includes the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature is known to everyone and recognized by critics from all over the world.

Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part that has collected best work great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.

One hundred books that everyone should read in order to understand not only how they used to live, what were the values, traditions, priorities in life, what they aspired to, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure a soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the formation of his personality.

The top 100 list includes the best and most notable works Russian classics. The plot of many of them is known from school bench. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age, and this requires wisdom that is acquired over the years.

Of course, the list is far from complete and can be continued indefinitely. Reading such literature is a pleasure. She not only teaches something, she radically changes lives, helps to realize simple things that we sometimes do not even notice.

We hope you enjoyed our list of classic Russian literature books. Perhaps you have already read something from it, but something not. A great occasion to make your personal list of books, your top books that you would like to read.

One of the greats said that you need to read at least 1 page a day and at least 1 book a year. It is difficult to disagree with this statement, because reading develops imagination, enriches lexicon and develops personality in a person. We bring you a unique top ten books that everyone should read. They will show you the past, touch contemporary issues and help you see the future more clearly.

The novel refers to the greatest works 20th century. It tells the story of the Bujndia family, who suffer from a congenital "vice" called loneliness. The book is the epitome of realism, albeit filled with magic and miracles.

The ancient Greek poem reveals the details of the Trojan War and tells about the return of the king of Ithaca - Odysseus - to his homeland. Interestingly, the real name of the author of this work, written in the 7th century BC, has not yet been established. Also, most historians were skeptical about the authenticity of the events told, but during archaeological research, a culture was found that confirms the story described in the poem. Note that the text is not easy, but the Iliad is an old school story that needs to be mastered.

Bulgakov worked on the novel The Master and Margarita for more than ten years. This book grabs you from the first page and doesn't let go until the very end. The reader is immersed in the life of Margarita, Pontius Pilate, the Master, Volond and his retinue. History is intertwined with fantasy and love line. This multi-faceted novel is a must-read for all ages.

The immortal tragedy of the English playwright tells about love, enmity, selflessness and kindness. Those who did not have time to read the work at school, we recommend that you get acquainted with the stories of the two warring families of the Montagues and the Capulets.

The most famous dystopian novel raises the problems of totalitarianism and the cult of personality, it tells about the life of a person in a system filled with propaganda, lies, violence, fear and faceless people who are being watched even in their own head. There is no place for individuality and civil law, only limitation and submission.

The works of Remarque tell about the people of the lost generation: without documents, without past and future. They live between two world wars, live one day on the run. " Triumphal Arch” is included in the list of the most beautiful and sad novels of the 20th century. You have to learn the story of Ravik, a German surgeon, and actress Joan Madu. Having survived the horrors of the First World War, they are preparing to meet a new shock. In the author's books, descriptions of military operations are omitted, here the focus is on human fates who became hostages of bloody confrontations.

Dostoevsky's novel belongs to the masterpieces of world literature, and although most are familiar with the work from school, Crime and Punishment is worth reading twice. Reading the text, the second time you better understand the psychology of crime, awareness of guilt and repentance.

A novel about the conflict between duty and feeling, about faith and human dignity, about family and love. A book for the ages for all generations is required reading at school and at a more conscious age.

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of the work, became a real inspiration for the young rebels of the 50s. This is a story about the perception of the world of a 16-year-old boy who believes that he can change everything around him and go against the laws. He is the prototype of each of us, because we were all teenagers who believed in our ideals.

The novel in verse tells the story of an entire era. This is a kind of guidebook that tells about the behavior, interests, moral attitudes of people living in the 20s of the 19th century. The work is included in the list of the greatest books of Russian literature.

Below is a personal list of a certain GretchenM., which she posted on the Web, some of this certainly deserves attention.
So, 27 books you need to read by the age of 27

1. Life on loan - Erich Maria Remarque
A man, his car, a frail girl dying of tuberculosis. The heroine spends all her money on Balenciaga dresses, and the hero really wants to believe in the best. The ironic and absurd ending turns this sentimental story on its head. If you believe in the dubious thesis that every girl at the age of 17 should read Remarque, then let it be “Life on loan”.

2. The Portrait of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
The beautiful and capricious young man Dorian does not want to grow old. Talented artist Basil paints his portrait and, without knowing it, literally conveys his soul on canvas. Now Dorian is forever young, and the portrait grows old instead of him. A wonderful mystical novel about the naive selfishness of young people, about the immorality of beauty, and about how scary it really is to never change.

3. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Creepy entertainment book English schoolchildren on a desert island. Little boys live evolution in reverse, turning from civilized children into evil, wild animals, cultivating fear and strength, capable of killing. A story about freedom, which implies responsibility, and about the fact that youth and innocence are not synonymous at all.

4. Tender is the Night - Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Expensive cars, villas on the Cote d'Azur, silk dresses - but there is no happiness. Love triangle featuring a doctor named Dick, his neurotic young wife Nicole, and a young, frivolous actress, Rosemary - main novel about love, strength and weakness.

5 Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
The subtitle of the novel is "The Children's Crusade" - the most correct definition World War II. This is a war that children have gone to - 17-year-old boys with missing brains. The protagonist makes an endless movement in time, remembering his senseless and completely unheroic campaign against the world's evil. In this book about the war - not a single battle scene. Only the stupidity and absurdity of the whole undertaking through the eyes of a living young man.

6. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
One can endlessly argue about what it was - a dirty perversion or a pure feeling, a provocation or a confession. It doesn't matter. Reading this book about the relationship between forty-year-old Humbert and his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter is worth reading if only to understand why we all sometimes behave so strangely when communicating with adult men.

7. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Rebellious, cult, violent and very teenage book. It's worth reading when you're 16, or not at all. The main character is a young man Alex, a bully, a sadist and a terrible monster rapes, kills, speaks strange slang and suddenly transforms into a respectable citizen, an employee of the music archive. There is no logic, there is only a miracle, but quite understandable - Burgess began writing a novel, thinking that he would die, and finished, already knowing that fatal diagnosis was a mistake.

8. Light breathing - Ivan Buni n
An important story about high school student Olya Meshcherskaya, femininity and first sex, an officer in love and a shot at the station. “Easy breathing” is that important quality of girls that makes men go crazy with love, and the young ladies themselves are unforgivably frivolous about their own lives.

9. Transformation - Franz Kafka
Kafka is a complex gloomy writer. It is not easy for a young girl to fall in love with him. But you have to try. The short story "Transformation" is an absurdist pamphlet on the topic human loneliness. The young salesman Gregor wakes up one fine morning with a disgusting centipede, a cockroach, a beetle, a vile muck to which he native family afraid to even look. If we leave aside the modernist pranks of the author, you understand that this is all about life, about the illusory nature of love, about the ugliness and loneliness of everyone.

10. French Lieutenant's Mistress - John Fowles
Every day, a young woman dressed in black stands on the seashore and looks at the horizon. The woman's name is Sarah and there is a rumor that she is waiting for a sailor lover who dishonored her. A young man is going to marry a young charming girl. But one day he sees a woman in black, and everything goes wrong. Will he marry or give vent to feelings? It's your decision. The brilliant Fowles wrote two versions of the ending to show that conscience is an individual choice.

11. Dear friend - Guy De Maupassant
Classical french novel with the "anti-hero" leading role. A young journalist, Georges Duroy, is trying to make his way in Paris. He is mediocre, greedy, cowardly and illiterate. But very handsome. A terrible story about how smart and talented women become victims of their own blindness. This novel is an inoculation from stories with gigolos for life.

12. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
A great fairy tale dedicated to a little girl, a friend of the author. "Lolita" without signs of sex. “Alice” is useful to re-read as an adult in order to develop fantasy, an unexpected look at things and a sense of humor.

13. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
A poor, ugly, iron-willed governess is the most unexpected character in a Victorian-era romance. Jen Eyre is the first to tell a man about her love, but refuses to submit to the whims of her lover, chooses independence and insists on equal rights with a man. Contemporaries were horrified by such depravity, and young girls are still happy to relive the story of strong and uncompromising love.

14. Scarlet sails - Alexander Grin
A beautiful, romantic, familiar fairy tale from childhood about Assol, Gray and an unshakable faith in a dream with a simple and clear moral - any miracle can happen if you do it yourself. For yourself or for someone you love. However, it is important to understand how reality differs from beautiful fairy tale. Realize this fundamental difference and experience it in a book so as not to suffer and get rid of the syndrome " scarlet sails" in life.

15. Kid - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
A piercing story of space Mowgli, left by his parents on a desert planet. As you might guess, it is we who are the very wild kids abandoned by the generation of hippies to the mercy of fate. “They set off on a dangerous free flight, but they never found anything” - many Moscow boys and girls raised on Beatles records and stories about Che Guevara will say the same about their parents.

16. Nastenka - Vladimir Sorokin
First and main story The collection "Feast" about a young girl who was eaten by her parents on her sixteenth birthday should be read immediately after graduation, when the heart is still languishing with Turgenev's bliss and Bunin's sadness. The story “Nastenka” is different from “ dark alleys” just like adulthood from childhood. And if you start adulthood, then from the story “Nastenka”. Then it won't be scary anymore.

17. What to do - Nikolai Chernyshevsky
The first socialist story in Russian is dedicated, oddly enough, not to the struggle against the tsarist regime, but to the relationship between men and women. Young heroes struggle with jealousy and possessiveness, learn to respect each other.

18. Drachma Tramps - Jack Kerouac
The twenty-year-old veterans who returned from the war did not find either truth or dignity in America in the mid-40s - and began to wander. To the sounds of jazz in smoky clubs, to the whistling of the wind through the cracks of freight cars, to the ache of bones after spending the night on bare ground, and, of course, to the endless talk about Christianity, Buddhism, communism, anarchism - conversations in which, bit by bit, they opened for himself the meaning of the universe and the meaning of human life.

19. April Witchcraft - Ray Bradbury
It's very simple and short story about unhappy love. On several pages, one of the most sincere and lyrical writers of the 20th century clearly explains to all young girls that unhappy love is the most magical thing that can happen to a person.

20. Notes of a revolutionary - Peter Kropotkin
Revolutionary and anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin talks about his life in the Corps of Pages, a military educational institution for the children of the Russian elite. This book is about how a person can defend himself in the fight against an alien, incomprehensible environment. And also about true friendship and mutual assistance.

21. Shelter. Diary in letters - Anne Frank
The diary of a 15-year-old girl Anna, who, together with her family, is hiding in Amsterdam from the Nazis, who have already sent other Dutch Jews to concentration camps. Anna writes wittily and aptly about herself, her peers, adults, the world and her first sexual dreams, and this diary is an amazing document illustrating what goes on in a young lady's head when the world is collapsing around her. Anna did not live to see the victory over fascism for two months - they nevertheless found her and sent her to a concentration camp, but her diary lives on in translations into many languages ​​of the world.

22. Carrie - Stephen King
The first novel by the great writer King about the unfortunate girl Carrie White, endowed with the gift of telekinesis. A detailed chronicle of cruel, beautiful and fully justified revenge for the bullying of classmates penetrates to the bone and, most importantly, looks much more adequate, truthful and realistic than, say, the film “Dogville” by Lars Von Trier.

23. Foam of days - Boris Vian
It is thanks to this short novel by the fabulous French hoaxer Vian that we know that girls have lilies in their breasts, and musical instruments know how to mix cocktails. In a world full of cruel, ironic, but always impeccably beautiful metaphors, one wants to live a lifetime. We live.

24. Neuromancer - William Gibson
One of the inventors of the cyberpunk style, a popular American science fiction writer created a gloomy, cruel and magnificent world of the future, entangled in networks of mega-corporations, flooded with neon light and immersed in endless loneliness. The most romantic book of our chromed days about eternal wanderings.

25. Catcher in the Rye - Jerome David Salinger
The story of the growing up of a young egoist, maximalist and idealist Holden Caulfield for many years will remain the most famous and most instructive book about the young. That's exactly how we all are: touchy, unkind, confused, wild and infinitely beautiful, because sincere, naive and vulnerable.

26. While the girlfriend is in a coma - Douglas Copeland
The author of the popular book “Generation X”, as you know, counted us all. However, Copeland is not only and not so much social writer, he is first of all a brilliant lyricist with a touch of pure madness. “When the Girlfriend is in a Coma” is a semi-fantastic drama about love and friendship, full of subtle, brightest observations. It is after “Girlfriend ...” that it seems that Copeland is the only writer in the world who loves us seriously.

27. Trap for Cinderella - Sebastian Japriso
A light wonderful detective story about young French devils who love white outfits and open cars. One of the most magnificent works about the amazing girlish harmfulness, meanness, and filth, written with endless admiration.

(c) Material taken from the site