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Lots and lots of books
Novel
Ford Madox Ford
The Good Soldier
1915
A masterpiece of the unreliable narrator, this novel recounts the crumbling lives of two couples through a series of non-linear flashbacks. Its focus on the gap between appearance and reality in polite society makes it a key work of early English modernism and technical brilliance.
Popularity Score: 8.9
Science
Albert Einstein
Relativity: The Special and General Theory
1916
Einstein’s work rewrote the laws of physics introducing a new understanding of time space and gravity. It replaced Newton's absolute space-time with a four-dimensional continuum leading to the development of modern cosmology nuclear energy and GPS technology.
Popularity Score: 10
Novel
James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
1916
A foundational modernist bildungsroman tracing Stephen Dedalus’s intellectual and spiritual awakening. Joyce’s use of a developing linguistic style that matures with the protagonist revolutionized the coming-of-age story and paved the way for the radical experiments of his later works.
Popularity Score: 9.4
Biography
Lytton Strachey
Eminent Victorians
1918
A revolutionary work that punctured the stifling reverence of the Victorian era. Strachey’s witty, irreverent, and psychologically probing portraits of four icons—including Florence Nightingale—paved the way for the modern biography that values human flaws over saintly perfection.
Popularity Score: 9.3
Novel
James Joyce
Ulysses
1922
Arguably the most influential novel of the 20th century, Ulysses maps a single day in Dublin onto Homer’s Odyssey. Its radical use of stream-of-consciousness, linguistic parody, and encyclopedic detail redefined the boundaries of literature and the English language forever.
Popularity Score: 9.9
Novel
Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway
1925
A landmark of modernist fiction that captures a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway through a complex weave of internal monologues. Woolf’s tunnelling technique explores the profound depths of the human psyche and the interconnectedness of time and memory in post-WWI London society.
Popularity Score: 9.5
Literary Fiction
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
1925
A lyrical critique of the American Dream set in the Jazz Age. Through the tragic figure of Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald explores themes of class, wealth, and the illusory nature of reinventing one’s past.Jay Gatsby’s doomed dream exposes the glamour and corruption of the American Jazz Age.
Popularity Score: 9.7
Novel
Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
1926
The definitive novel of the Lost Generation, featuring Hemingway’s signature sparse, understated prose style. It depicts a group of expatriates traveling to Spain, capturing the disillusionment, masculinity, and spiritual aimlessness that followed the trauma of the Great War.
Popularity Score: 9.2
Novel
Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse
1927
An extraordinary exploration of the passage of time and the subjective nature of experience. Woolf’s poetic narrative focuses on the Ramsay family’s visits to the Scottish coast, using a shifting stream-of-consciousness to examine the fragility of human relationships and the permanence of art.
Popularity Score: 9.6
Novel
Evelyn Waugh
Decline and Fall
1928
Waugh’s debut follows Paul Pennyfeather, an innocent theology student expelled from Oxford and thrust into a surreal world of corrupt schools, eccentric aristocrats, and social absurdity. The novel’s deadpan humour and sharp satire expose the fragility of respectability and the chaos beneath Britain’s upper‑class veneer.
Popularity Score: 4.3
Novel
William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury
1929
A radical Southern Gothic masterpiece that uses four distinct narrators to depict the decline of the Compson family. Faulkner’s demanding use of non-linear time and stream-of-consciousness created a profound meditation on memory, race, and the weight of the past in English literature.
Popularity Score: 9.5
Novel
Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies
1930
A frenetic portrait of London’s Bright Young Things, the novel tracks Adam Fenwick‑Symes through parties, scandals, and romantic misadventures. Beneath the glittering chaos lies a darker commentary on modernity, disillusionment, and the emptiness of celebrity culture. Waugh blends farce with melancholy in one of his most iconic satires.
Popularity Score: 4.2
Novel
Aldous Huxley
Brave New World
1932
A prophetic dystopian novel that envisions a future society controlled by consumerism, genetic engineering, and the suppression of emotion. It remains a haunting critique of the potential for technology and biological manipulation to erode human individuality and the depth of experience.
Popularity Score: 9.3
Novel
Evelyn Waugh
Black Mischief
1932
Set in the fictional African nation of Azania, the novel follows Emperor Seth and his misguided modernisation schemes, aided by the hapless Basil Seal. Waugh’s satire targets imperial pretensions, political incompetence, and cultural arrogance. Its dark humour and biting tone make it one of his most controversial works.
Popularity Score: 4
Mystery
Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express
1934
A masterpiece of the closed-room mystery. Christie’s ingenious plot and her famous detective Hercule Poirot provided one of the most surprising and satisfying twists in the history of the genre.Detective Hercule Poirot investigates a murder aboard a luxury train, uncovering a web of secrets and moral ambiguity.
Popularity Score: 9.4
Novel
Evelyn Waugh
A Handful of Dust
1934
A bleakly comic story of Tony Last, whose idyllic country‑house life collapses through marital betrayal and social cruelty. The novel shifts from satire to tragedy, ending in one of literature’s most chilling finales. Waugh exposes the fragility of tradition and the emotional devastation beneath polite society.
Popularity Score: 4.5
Economics
John Maynard Keynes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money
1936
This book revolutionized economic thought by arguing that government intervention is necessary to manage economic cycles and prevent depressions. It formed the basis of modern macroeconomics and guided the economic policies of Western nations for decades following WWII.
Popularity Score: 9.3
Novel
Evelyn Waugh
Scoop
1938
A satire of journalism inspired by Waugh’s own reporting, the novel follows William Boot, a timid nature columnist mistakenly sent to cover a war in Africa. Chaos, incompetence, and media absurdity ensue. Scoop remains one of the sharpest critiques of news culture and foreign correspondence.
Popularity Score: 4.4
Mystery
Raymond Chandler
The Big Sleep
1939
The definitive hardboiled detective novel. Chandler’s prose and his cynical protagonist, Philip Marlowe, established the noir atmosphere of Los Angeles and influenced the style of crime fiction for decades.Private detective Philip Marlowe navigates corruption, blackmail, and murder in a labyrinthine Los Angeles noir.
Popularity Score: 9.3
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