Bokklubben World Library

Bokklubben World Library (Norwegian: Verdensbiblioteket) is a series of classical books, mostly novels, published by the Norwegian Book Club since 2002. It is based on a list of the 100 best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four different countries, compiled and organized in 2002 by the Book Club. This list endeavors to reflect world literature, with books from all countries, cultures, and time periods.

Each writer had to select his or her own list of ten books. The books selected by this process and listed here are not ranked or categorized in any way; the organizers have stated that "they are all on an equal footing," with the exception of Don Quixote which was given the distinction "best literary work ever written." The following list organizes the works alphabetically by author.^[1]

Fyodor Dostoevsky is the author with the most books on the list, with four. William Shakespeare, Franz Kafka, and Leo Tolstoy each have three.

Breakdown by language, gender

Eleven of the books included on the list are written by women, eighty-five are written by men and four have unknown authors. This breakdown is similar to other lists, such as Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, which was voted for by 17,000 people from the general public and contains twelve books by women.

Twenty-six of the one hundred voting writers had English as their first language,^[2] which may be a factor in the list having so many (29) books written in English. Again, this phenomenon was visible in Le Monde's list, with 49 French books.

List of books

List of authors surveyed

See also

• Classic book
• Larry McCaffery's list of the 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
• Lists of 100 best books
• List of books banned by governments
• Marcel Reich-Ranicki's anthology of exemplary German literature Der Kanon
• Modern Library 100 Best Novels
• Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction
• Världsbiblioteket, a Swedish "100 best books" list from 1991
• Western canon
• World literature

References

External links

• Norwegian Book Club's World Library, Official site (Norwegian)
• The Guardian The top 100 books of all time
• Le Figaro Les 100 meilleurs livres de tous les temps (French)
• The list's page at Greater Books, with bibliographic information for each work