According to the results of a national survey announced at the Hay festival today, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four topped the survey to find the book that best defined the 20th century. This public vote was done online at Guardian Unlimited Books. They had to choose from a list of 50 books.
The top 10 books (in order of publication) were:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
Strangely The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, the only book not originally written in English, is on the list. None of the other 'originally not in English' books made the cut. Not even Kafka's The Trial.
So there you have it. According to the survey Bridget Jones more defined the 20th century than Kafka. Or Lady Chatterley's Lover, for that matter. (Oh by the way, From Russia with Love was also in contention. Yeah, JamesBond rocks! Did you see the last movie?) See the full list of 50 titles readers had to chose from here (for a good laugh):http://books.guardian.co.uk/pilsnerurquell/story/0,,2059060,00.html
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