Celebrating Wilton Library’s Centennial in 1995
“In literature, as in love,” observed Andre Maurois, “we are astonished at what is chosen by others.”

What astonished us even more, though, was the response.

For this year’s holiday gift to the community, we asked 30 citizens and library friends to help us create a list of the 100 best books published since 1895, when the Wilton Library began. We were unspecific as to parameters and categories. We let them define “best”.

Almost everyone responded. We were astonished – and very grateful. We have been stirred by these readers and their revelations. They offered over 600 different titles for us to consider. They conveyed both passion (“here is my list; all I can say in its defense is that I have read and loved them all”), and precision (“Books That Meant Much To Me As A Young Man”). What a delightful task for us, to discuss, evaluate, and carefully select 100 books from this rich harvest!

While no one may be entirely satisfied with the end result, we think the list reflects something of who we are and what has engaged us, here in Wilton, Connecticut, on the threshold of the library’s second century. It certainly says, at the end of this splendid year of celebration, that books and reading continue to matter mightily to us.

We hope this list will interest and provoke you.

Maybe it will even astonish you.

And, yes, you’ll find the books are all here at the library, waiting to be read — and re-read.

THE LANGUAGE OF LITERATURE
The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame, 1908
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton, 1911
Dubliners James Joyce, 1914
The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway, 1926
To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf, 1927
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck, 1939
The Stranger Albert Camus, 1942
A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams, 1947
Charlotte’s Web E.B. White, 1952
Collected Poems William Butler Yeats, 1956
The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz, 1957-
The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss, 1957
Complete Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost, 1958
T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems T.S. Eliot, 1958
The Elements of Style William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, 1959
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard, 1974 THE HISTORICAL RECORD
Abraham Lincoln Carl Sandberg, 1926
The Story of Civilization Will and Ariel Durant, 1935-
All the King’s Men Robert Penn Warren, 1946
Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler, 1947
Cry the Beloved Country Alan Paton, 1948
A History of the English Speaking Peoples Winston Churchill, 1956
Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak, 1957
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe, 1958
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William Shirer, 1960
The European Discovery of America Samuel Eliot Morison, 1971
A Distant Mirror Barbara Tuchman, 1978
Wild Swans Jung Chang, 1991
Truman David McCullough, 1992
No Ordinary Time Doris Kearns Goodwin, 1994 PERSONAL ODYSSEYS
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad, 1902
The Call of the Wild Jack London, 1903
Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe, 1929
Out of Africa Isak Dinesen, 1937
Long Day’s Journey Into Night Eugene O’Neill, 1940
Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton, 1948
Rabbit, Run John Updike, 1960
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 1962
A Wrinkle in Time Madeline L’Engle, 1962
The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx, 1993 PORTRAITS OF AN ERA
Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann, 1900
Eminent Victorians Lytton Strachey, 1918
My Antonia Willa Cather, 1918
Main Street Sinclair Lewis, 1920
A Passage to India E.M. Forster, 1924
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
Goodbye to All That Robert Graves, 1929
The Good Earth Pearl Buck, 1935
Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell, 1936
From Here to Eternity James Jones, 1951
On the Road Jack Kerouac, 1957
And the Band Played On Randy Shilts, 1987 GROUNDBREAKERS
The Jungle Upton Sinclair, 1906
Native Son Richard Wright, 1940
The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger, 1945
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care Benjamin Spock, 1946
The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer, 1948
1984 George Orwell, 1949
Catch-22 Joseph Heller, 1955
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
Silent Spring Rachel Carson, 1962
The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan, 1963
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967
The Double Helix James Watson, 1968
On Death and Dying Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, 1969
Are You There, God, It’s Me Margaret Judy Blume, 1970
Mastering the Art of French Cooking Julia Child, 1973 BEING HUMAN
Remembrance of Things Past Marcel Proust, 1922-31
An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser, 1925
Winnie-the-Pooh A.A. Milne, 1926
All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque, 1929
Man’s Fate Andre Malraux, 1933
The Trial Franz Kafka, 1937
The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1943
Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller, 1949
The Hero With a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell, 1949
The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank, 1952
Letters and Papers from Prison Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1953
Lord of the Flies William Golding, 1954
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand, 1957
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee, 1960
Beloved Toni Morrison, 1960
Collected Stories William Trevor, 1992 DELIGHTS AND DIVERSIONS
Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett, 1896
The Turn of the Screw Henry James, 1898
The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde, 1899
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum, 1900
The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902
The Tale of Peter Rabbit Beatrix Potter, 1902
Peter Pan J.M. Barrie,1904
The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy, 1906
Renascence and Other Poems Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1917
The Inimitable Jeeves P.G. Wodehouse, 1924
Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery, 1935
The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937
Goodnight, Moon Margaret Wise Brown, 1947
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis, 1950
Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas, 1953
Growing Up Russell Baker, 1982 Selection Committee

Library Staff Committee

Beth Mason, Project Manager