[Note: Since I've recently moved (and my Internet access is spotty at best) I'm still on a brief blogging hiatus. Regular blogging will resume on July 28. Until then I'll be posting material for you to argue about.]
The following is a list of favorite works compiled by a literary snob. Unlike similar lists, though, you won't find anything as unreadable as Joyce's Ulysses or as faddish as the latest Salman Rushdie novel. In fact, on first glance the inclusion of children's books and graphic novels might give the impression that it is rather lowbrow, if not philistine. But each of the entries was carefully selected because they have what most modern fiction lacks: a compelling story.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that it is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. This is an an especially useful axiom for 20th century literature, which tends to pale in comparison to time-tested works. I find it difficult, for example, to justify reading a doorstopper by by Jonathan Franzen when Tolstoy would provide more enlightenment per page.
But a preference for works that have proved themselves over the centuries does not mean that modern literature should be completely avoided. While the works on this list are not the best books of the last century -- or even the best books that I have read -- they all tell interesting stories that are worthy of attention.
One last note about my particular prejudices. I not only prefer the old to the new but I prefer non-fiction to fiction. Fiction lovers will therefore rightly take issue with my narrow choices. I also prefer short stories to long novels, magical realism to realistic narrative, and the fantastical to the mundane. Such taste make for an admittedly odd mix.
Here then are my favorite works of 20th century imaginative literature:
1. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing --Judy Blume
2. A Man for All Seasons -- Robert Bolt
3. The Mad Scientists Club -- Bertrand R. Brinley (The ubertext for pre-Atari Gen-X nerds.)
4. On The Road With the Archangel - Frederick Buechner
5. Astro City: Life in the Big City -- Kurt Busiek (After Alan Moore's highly overrated graphic novel "Watchmen" deconstructed the superhero genre, Busiek's Astro City series restored it to its glory.)
6. Ender's Game -- Orson Scott Card 
(A brilliant book on young geniuses, military tactics, and much more.)
7. Invisible Cities -- Italo Calvino
8. The Uncanny X-Men (Annual #4 -- 1980) -- Chris Claremont (This 1980 edition of the X-Men introduced me to Dante's Inferno and sparked a love for classic literature.)
9. The Name of the Rose -- Umberto Eco
11. Foucault's Pendulum -- Umberto Eco
12. The Lord of the Flies -- William Golding
13. The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure -- William Goldman (Suprisingly, Goldman wrote this novelization after writing the screenplay. The highest praise I can give it is to say that the book is as charming as the movie.)
14. Mariette in Ecstasy -- Ron Hansen 
15. Starship Troopers -- Robert Heinlein (Not being a fan of sci-fi, I was reluctant to read this novel when I found it on the Marine Corps' professional reading list. But Heinlein presents some intriguing ideas in this short work. Not to be confused with the horrible film adaptation by Paul Verhoeven.)
16. Out Of The Dust -- Karen Hesse (Written in stanza form, this Newberry Award Winner tells the story of a young girl in the Depression-era Oklahoma dust bowl. A beautiful story for teens that deserves to find an adult readership.)
17. Expecting Someone Taller -- Tom Holt (A lighthearted gem that mixes comedy and fantasy.)
18. The Pugilist at Rest -- Thom Jones (If Raymond Chandler had joined the Marines and read too much Schopenhauer, he would have written short stories like Jone's tales of hardboiled existential angst.)
19. Cold Snap -- Thom Jones
20. Flowers for Algernon -- Daniel Keyes
21. The Bear Went Over the Mountain -- William Kotzwinkle
22. A Wrinkle in Time -- Madeline L'Engle
23. The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye -- Jonathan Lethem
24. Till We Have Faces -- C.S. Lewis
25. The Chronicles of Narnia -- C.S. Lewis
26. Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog -- Mark Leyner (Sublimely weird, hysterically funny tales.)
27. Einstein's Dreams -- Alan Lightman (Lightman, a physics professor and gifted writer, presents a fascinating exploration into places where time behaves quite differently.)
28. The Giver -- Lois Lowry
29. All the Pretty Horses -- Cormac McCarthy
30. A River Runs Through It - Norman MacLean
31. Leaving Cheyenne -- Larry McMurtry (McMurtry's first novel isn't his best work. But the unusual love triangle at the heart of the book shows why he is one of the best -- though most erratic -- of American novelists.)
32. Lonesome Dove -- Larry McMurtry (McMurtry's masterpiece gives us one of the century's best fictional characters -- Augustus McRae.)
33. The Borderlands anthologies Thomas F. Monteleone (Editor) (These hard-to-find anthologies reinvented the horror genre and made it accessible to people who would normally flee at from anything associated with the words "horror genre.")
34. The Bluest Eye -- Toni Morrison
35. A Good Man Is Hard to Find -- Flannery O'Connor (O'Connor in all her brilliance.)
36. Fight Club -- Chuck Palahniuk (I stumbled across this odd book long before the Brad Pitt movie made if famous. Nihilistic, but compelling.)
37. The Fountainhead -- Ayn Rand
38. Where the Red Fern Grows -- Wilson Rawls (The only book that ever made me cry.)
39. The Complete Adventures of Curious George -- H. A. Rey (My first introduction to God's greatest comedic creatures: monkeys.)
40. The Sparrow -- Mary Doria Russell (These two books by Russell make one of the finest stories about a Catholic priest/linguist traveling to another planet that you'll ever find. Science fiction that transcends the genre.)
41. Children of God -- Mary Doria Russell
42. Holes -- Louis Sachar (Magical realism for tweens. A magnificient book.)
43. Civilwarland in Bad Decline -- George Saunders (Saunders is simply the best short story writer alive today.)
44. The Catcher in the Rye -- J.D. Salinger (A book that everyone should embrace as a teenager and denounce after reaching adulthood.)
45. Where the Wild Things Are -- Maurice Sendak
46. The Encyclopedia Brown series -- Donald J. Sobol (The
desire to know as much as Encylopedia Brown is the reason I now have an
interest in just about everything.) 
47. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch -- Alexander Solzenitzhen
48. The Secret History -- Donna Tartt
49. A Handful of Dust -- Evelyn Waugh
50. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes -- Bill Watterson (Unarguably the greatestest comic strip of all time. Calvin is the premier philosopher of the 20th century.)
(HT: Jared whose own list of 50 Great literary works gave me the idea.)
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