Skip to main content

Best Books of 1926-1935

Description: Asa Don Dickinson, Librarian of Brooklyn College, compiled this list of about 400 books in 1937 from a number of "best books" lists. His book describing these 1000 books is now in the public domain. An image copy is available on HathiTrust.

1 2 3 4 5

Rank Title Author Added

1

by Pearl S. Buck

13,814 members

265 reviews

4

4 Members: pamelad, ahef1963, NinieB, Shonamarie

2

Collected Poems

3,530 members

26 reviews

½ 4.4

4 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, Shonamarie, ManWithAnAgenda

3

A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

22,375 members

243 reviews

½ 3.7

3 Members: pamelad, ahef1963, Shonamarie

4

Murder in the Cathedral

3,090 members

31 reviews

½ 3.7

3 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, Shonamarie

5

Testament of Youth

by Vera Brittain

2,155 members

53 reviews

4.1

3 Members: pamelad, ahef1963, Shonamarie

6

To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

17,559 members

268 reviews

3.9

2 Members: pamelad, ManWithAnAgenda

7

Orlando: A Biography

by Virginia Woolf

10,590 members

174 reviews

3.9

2 Members: pamelad, ManWithAnAgenda

8

Journey to the End of the Night

by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

6,006 members

82 reviews

4.2

2 Members: pamelad, pitjrw

9

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

by Thornton Wilder

4,765 members

119 reviews

3.8

2 Members: pamelad, NinieB

10

In Search of Lost Time

by Marcel Proust

3,883 members

44 reviews

½ 4.5

2 Members: pamelad, ManWithAnAgenda

11

It Can't Happen Here

by Sinclair Lewis

3,354 members

88 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: Shonamarie, ManWithAnAgenda

12

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

by James Hilton

2,296 members

51 reviews

3.8

2 Members: pamelad, NinieB

13

by Sinclair Lewis

1,536 members

44 reviews

4

2 Members: pamelad, Shonamarie

14

Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s

by Frederick Lewis Allen

1,195 members

27 reviews

4.1

2 Members: pamelad, Shonamarie

15

by Oliver La Farge

723 members

21 reviews

3.8

2 Members: NinieB, Shonamarie

16

610 members

11 reviews

3.8

2 Members: pamelad, pitjrw

17

by Sinclair Lewis

604 members

13 reviews

3.8

2 Members: pamelad, Shonamarie

18

Mourning Becomes Electra

by Eugene O'Neill

348 members

2 reviews

3.8

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

19

Strange Interlude

by Eugene O'Neill

164 members

7 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: hipdeep, NinieB

20

Boston: A Documentary Novel of the Sacco-Vanzetti Case

by Upton Sinclair

87 members

1 review

3.8

2 Members: pamelad, Shonamarie

21

The Sun Also Rises

by Ernest Hemingway

22,930 members

336 reviews

3.8

Member: pitjrw

22

All Quiet on the Western Front

by Erich Maria Remarque

19,054 members

403 reviews

4.1

Member: pamelad

23

Death Comes for the Archbishop

by Willa Cather

5,927 members

147 reviews

4

Member: pamelad

24

by Dorothy L. Sayers

5,446 members

149 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: pitjrw

25

by Djuna Barnes

3,120 members

58 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: pitjrw

26

by Nella Larsen

2,697 members

102 reviews

3.8

Member: pitjrw

27

Point Counter Point

by Aldous Huxley

2,596 members

26 reviews

3.8

Member: pamelad

28

Bambi: A Life in the Woods

by Felix Salten

2,442 members

50 reviews

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

29

And Quiet Flows the Don

by Mikhail Sholokhov

1,553 members

20 reviews

4

Member: Shonamarie

30

Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

1,527 members

69 reviews

3.8

Member: pitjrw

31

by John Dos Passos

1,060 members

9 reviews

4

Member: pitjrw

32

Microbe Hunters

by Paul De Kruif

1,018 members

21 reviews

4

Member: Shonamarie

33

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

976 members

36 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: pitjrw

34

Bread and Wine (Signet Classics)

by Ignazio Silone

968 members

11 reviews

3.8

Member: pitjrw

35

Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man

by Siegfried Sassoon

721 members

13 reviews

3.8

Member: pamelad

36

Life with Father

by Clarence Day

721 members

12 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: hipdeep

37

Axel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930

by Edmund Wilson

662 members

7 reviews

3.9

Member: Shonamarie

38

Not Without Laughter

by Langston Hughes

641 members

15 reviews

3.8

Member: pamelad

39

by Willa Cather

563 members

17 reviews

3.9

Member: pamelad

40

Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History

by Lytton Strachey

545 members

7 reviews

3.8

Member: pamelad

41

A Modern Comedy

by John Galsworthy

479 members

2 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

42

The Fortnight in September

by R. C. Sherriff

477 members

22 reviews

4

Member: pitjrw

43

460 members

6 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: pamelad

44

A Backward Glance: An Autobiography

by Edith Wharton

405 members

8 reviews

4

Member: Shonamarie

45

338 members

15 reviews

4.1

Member: pamelad

46

End of the Chapter

by John Galsworthy

316 members

2 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

47

Henry the Eighth

by Francis Hackett

275 members

4 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: NinieB

48

by Dorothy Parker

209 members

6 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

49

The Deepening Stream

by Dorothy Canfield

83 members

1 review

½ 4.5

Member: Shonamarie

50

The Grandmothers: A Family Portrait

by Glenway Wescott

76 members

1 review

½ 3.5

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

51

They Stooped to Folly

by Ellen Glasgow

52 members

4

Member: Shonamarie

52

Collected Poems of Robert Frost

by Robert Frost

52 members

1 review

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

53

I Change Worlds: The Remaking of an American

by Anna Louise Strong

40 members

4

Member: Shonamarie

54

Preface to a life

4 members

1 review

3

Member: Shonamarie

55

Seven Pillars of Wisdom

by T. E. Lawrence

4,780 members

55 reviews

4

56

The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

4,228 members

30 reviews

3.9

57

by William Faulkner

3,731 members

40 reviews

½ 3.6

58

Kristin Lavransdatter

by Sigrid Undset

3,024 members

75 reviews

4.2

59

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

by Gertrude Stein

2,681 members

43 reviews

½ 3.6

60

Gardner's Art through the Ages

by Helen Gardner

2,309 members

8 reviews

4.2

61

by Edith Hamilton

2,132 members

20 reviews

3.8

62

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

by Rachel Field

1,794 members

37 reviews

3.8

63

Men Without Women

by Ernest Hemingway

1,583 members

23 reviews

½ 3.6

64

Flush: A Biography

by Virginia Woolf

1,407 members

38 reviews

3.8

65

Giants in the Earth

by O. E. Rølvaag

1,396 members

22 reviews

4

66

by Upton Sinclair

1,358 members

24 reviews

½ 3.6

67

All Passion Spent

by Vita Sackville-West

1,184 members

56 reviews

4

68

A Lantern in Her Hand

by Bess Streeter Aldrich

1,054 members

19 reviews

4

69

Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman

by Stefan Zweig

1,020 members

31 reviews

4

70

The Story of San Michele

939 members

13 reviews

4.2

71

History of the Russian Revolution

by Leon Trotsky

895 members

10 reviews

4.2

72

John Brown's Body

by Stephen Vincent Benét

887 members

14 reviews

3.8

73

Shadows on the Rock

by Willa Cather

869 members

21 reviews

4

74

Revolt in the Desert

by T. E. Lawrence

812 members

6 reviews

4

75

Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880

by W. E. B. Du Bois

808 members

4 reviews

½ 4.5

76

by Vita Sackville-West

771 members

26 reviews

½ 3.7

77

by Pearl S. Buck

692 members

23 reviews

3.8

78

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

by Franz Werfel

681 members

14 reviews

½ 4.3

79

Disraeli: A Picture of the Victorian Age

by André Maurois

680 members

14 reviews

½ 3.6

80

Of Time and the River

by Thomas Wolfe

640 members

10 reviews

4

81

Rats, Lice and History

by Hans Zinsser

629 members

11 reviews

4.1

82

The Decline of the West

by Oswald Spengler

598 members

11 reviews

½ 3.7

83

597 members

12 reviews

½ 3.6

84

The Common Reader: Second Series

by Virginia Woolf

596 members

6 reviews

4.2

85

A House Divided

by Pearl S. Buck

567 members

13 reviews

½ 3.7

86

by Kenneth Roberts

551 members

6 reviews

½ 4.3

87

by Erich Maria Remarque

544 members

19 reviews

4.2

88

527 members

6 reviews

3.8

89

Genghis Khan: Emperor of All Men

517 members

7 reviews

½ 3.3

90

by Edith Wharton

489 members

11 reviews

½ 3.7

91

by Pearl S. Buck

486 members

11 reviews

4.1

92

The Good Companions

by J. B. Priestley

423 members

6 reviews

3.9

93

The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists, 1861-1901

by Matthew Josephson

415 members

4 reviews

3.8

94

by Lion Feuchtwanger

388 members

12 reviews

4.2

95

A Preface to Morals

by Walter Lippmann

372 members

1 review

3.9

96

The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism

by Bernard Shaw

367 members

5 reviews

½ 3.7

97

Twenty Years A-Growing

by Maurice O'Sullivan

364 members

7 reviews

½ 4.3

98

by Lion Feuchtwanger

360 members

8 reviews

4

99

North to the Orient

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

355 members

9 reviews

3.9

100

Memoirs of a British Agent

by Sir Robert Bruce Lockart

326 members

7 reviews

3.9

1 2 3 4 5

About This List

Started: NinieB
July 2017
Type: Unnumbered

Current Discussions

None

Related Tags

20th century (3,399) American (1,347) American literature (2,682) autobiography (1,080) biography (2,867) British (948) China (1,217) classic (3,539) classics (3,774) fiction (23,232) historical fiction (2,680) history (4,438) literature (4,810) memoir (973) modernism (1,015) mystery (1,253) non-fiction (2,339) novel (4,946) philosophy (1,527) poetry (1,801) read (2,036) to-read (10,272) unread (1,079) war (1,720) WWI (4,090)

Verdana Standard Verdana Small The Lorax System Standard System Large Georgia Large Text Atkinson

This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.