The Image Top 100 Books of the Century

A central part of Image’s mission is to showcase the wealth of contemporary writing that grapples in a serious way with religious faith. But, of course, we are also always mindful of Image’s “patron saints” — T.S. Eliot, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Georges Bernanos, Shusaku Endo, to name but a few — authors and thinkers who have inspired many of the writers who appear in our pages, and who inspire us as we put those pages together.

We hope that the following list offers but a glimpse of that wealth of talent this past century has seen — talent exhibited both by those who laid the groundwork for the great works now being written and by those whose compelling narratives and lyrics are helping to bring us into the twenty-first century with a renewed hope in the marriage of religion and art.

In selecting books for this list, we decided to list an author only once, so that we would end up with 100 different writers. Moreover, only creative writing was considered: fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction. The works selected had to manifest a genuine engagement with the Judeo-Christian heritage of faith, rather than merely use religion as background or subject matter.

While we have made every effort to be diverse and global in our selections, we’ve undoubtedly left things out (including, of course, the masterworks that may yet be written in 2000). We invite you to e-mail us with your suggestions for inclusion on our Readers’ Recommendations Page. Use the on-line form below to send us your recommendation. Click here to see our readers’ recommendations.

In addition to the Image Top 100, we’ve rounded up some individual, favorite books-of-the-century lists by Scott Cairns, Alfred Uhry, Warren Farha, William Coleman, and Gregory Wolfe. Simply click on a name to see their list.

Finally, support some wonderful people and a great bookstore: You can order any book from any of the lists from Eighth Day Books. Just click on their logo beneath each list.

The Image Top 100 Books of the Century (alphabetical order according to author’s last name)

W.H. Auden, Collected Poems Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest Wendell Berry, Sabbaths John Berryman, 77 Dream Songs Doris Betts, Souls Raised from the Dead Leon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor Heinrich Boll, The Stories of Heinrich Boll Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes George Mackay Brown, Selected Poems Frederic Buechner, Godric Scott Cairns, Recovered Body Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday Paul Claudel, The Satin Slipper Elizabeth Dewberry, Many Things Have Happened Since He Died Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Andre Dubus, Selected Stories T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets Alice Thomas Ellis, The Sin Eater Shusaku Endo, Silence William Everson, Collected Poems (The Residual Years; The Veritable Years)

Horton Foote, The Trip to Bountiful Christopher Fry, The Lady’s Not for Burning Denise Giardina, Saints and Sinners Jose Maria Gironella, The Cypresses Believe in God Julien Green, Diaries Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory Patricia Hampl, Virgin Time Ron Hansen, Mariette in Ecstasy Mark Helprin, A Soldier of the Great War Oscar Hijuelos, Mr. Ives’ Christmas Geoffrey Hill, The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Peguy Edward Hirsch, Earthly Measures Paul Horgan, Great River Andrew Hudgins, The Neverending John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany Josephine Jacobsen, In the Crevice of Time: New and Selected Poems Mark Jarman, Questions for Ecclesiastes Elizabeth Jennings, Collected Poems David Jones, The Anathemata Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ Thomas Keneally, Three Cheers for the Paraclete William Kennedy, Ironweed Wally Lamb, I Know This Much is True Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time Denise Levertov, The Stream and the Sapphire Philip Levine, The Mercy C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces Torgny Lindgren, Light Robert Lowell, Lord Weary’s Castle Paul Mariani, Salvage Operations Francois Mauriac, Viper’s Tangle Alice McDermott, Charming Billy Thomas Merton, Collected Poems Vassar Miller, If I Had Wheels or Love: Collected Poems Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz Czelaw Milosz, Collected Poems Brian Moore, Black Robe Robert Morgan, The Truest Pleasure Malcolm Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time Edwin Muir, Complete Poems Les Murray, Collected Poems Kathleen Norris, Dakota Patrick O’Brian, The Aubrey/Maturin Novels Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away Virginia Stem Owens, If You Do Love Old Men Katherine Paterson, Jacob Have I Loved Charles Peguy, The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc Walker Percy, The Moviegoer David Plante, The Francoeur Trilogy Chaim Potok, My Name is Asher Lev J.F. Powers, The Presence of Grace Reynolds Price, Three Gospels Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine Louis Simpson, New and Selected Poems Isaac Bashevis Singer, Collected Stories Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Muriel Spark, Memento Mori Tom Stoppard, Hapgood John Heath Stubbs, Collected Poems Allen Tate, Collected Poems J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Anne Tyler, Saint Maybe Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter John Updike, In the Beauty of the Lillies Peter de Vries, The Blood of the Lamb Dan Wakefield, Returning Walter Wangerin, Jr., The Book of the Dun Cow Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited Elie Wiesel, Night Richard Wilbur, New and Collected Poems Charles Williams, All Hallows’ Eve A.N. Wilson, Wise Virgin Tim Winton, Cloudstreet Larry Woiwode, Beyond the Bedroom Wall Tobias Wolff, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs

http://www.imagejournal.org/booklist.html