1. A Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”With these words begins a legendary novel, one of the most fascinating literary adventures of the 20th century. The Buendía family-equal, with its miracles, fantasies, obsessions, tragedies, incest, adulteries, rebellions, discoveries and condemnations, represents at the same time the myth and history, tragedy and love of the entire world. “The Quixote of our time.” Pablo Neruda
2. The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy), by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Lord Of The Rings is a work set in the Middle Ages of Middle Earth, a world invented by J.R.R. Tolkien. It narrates a great adventure: the journey undertaken by 9 companions to destroy a ring full of evil power. His argument is complex and is narrated with the participation of several protagonists who move in various narrative threads. It is a choral work in which a few protagonists (Frodo, Sam, Gandalf and Aragon) stand out.
3. 1984, by George Orwell
In the year 1984, London is a city lugubrious in that the Police Thought control of how stifling the life of the citizens. Winston Smith is a pawn in this perverse gear, his task is to rewrite history to adapt it to what the party considers the official version of the facts… until you decide and rethink the truth of the system that governs and subdues them. Since Kafka’s process no other work has reached the logical horror of 1984.
4. A Happy World, by Aldous Huxley
A happy world is a classic of this century’s literature. With biting irony, the brilliant English author portrays a grim metaphor for the future, many of whose forecasts have materialized, accelerated and disturbingly, in recent years. The novel describes a world in which the worst fears are finally fulfilled: the gods of consumption and comfort triumph, and the orb is organized into ten seemingly safe and stable areas. However, this world has sacrificed essential human values, and its inhabitants are procreated in vitro in the image and likeness of an assembly line.
5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
“It is a universally accepted truth that every single man in possession of a great fortune needs a wife.” New illustrated translation of Jane Austen’s novel. This beginning, which, together with that of Anna Karenina, is perhaps one of the most famous in the history of literature, wisely introduces us to the world of Jane Austen and his most emblematic novel. Pride and prejudice, published in 1813 after the success of judgment and feeling, brings together in exemplary fashion her recurring themes and her inimitable vision in the story of Mrs. Bennett’s five daughters, who have no other goal in her life than to get a good wedding for all of them.
6. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevski
Crime and punishment (1866), considered by critics to be Dostoyevsky’s first masterpiece, is a profound psychological analysis of his protagonist, the young student Raskolnikov, whose firm belief that humanitarian ends justify evil leads to the murder of a Petersburgian loan shark. But, since committing the crime, guilt will be a constant nightmare with which the student will be unable to live together. Dostoyevsky’s feeble and compassionate style follows with unique mastery the recesses of the student’s contradictory emotions and reflects the extreme struggle he is waging with his conscience as he roams the streets of St. Petersburg. Already in prison, Raskolnikov realizes that happiness cannot be achieved by following a plan established a priory by reason: it must be won with suffering.
7. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
The story of the obsession of Humbert Humbert, a professor in his forties by the Lolita, is an extraordinary novel of love that involved two explosive components: the attraction; by the nymphets and the incest. An itinerary through madness and death, which leads to a stylized, often violent, at the same time narrated by Humbert Humbert himself with self-irony and unbridled lyricism. Lolita is also an acidic and visionary portrait of the United States, suburban horrors and the culture of plastic and motel. In short, a dazzling display of talent and humor by a writer who confessed that he would have loved to film Lewis Carrol’s picnics.