The project was part of the National Year of Reading, announced in the UK in 2026. The Guardian explained the initiative to alarming statistics: interest in reading continues to decline, and books are increasingly losing competition to social networks, streaming services and short video content. According to British research, about half of the country’s adults hardly read at all, and the figures among children and teenagers are at their lowest level in two decades.
The new rankings differs markedly from similar lists in previous years. There are more female authors, contemporary prose and works outside the classic Western canon. The most represented writer was Virginia Woolf – the list includes five of her novels. Among contemporary works in the top 100 were “My Genius Friend” by Helena Ferrante, “The Vegetarian” by Han Gang and “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith.
The rating also included eight works by Russian authors. Among them are “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy, “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov, and “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman.
After publication, the list sparked an active debate on social networks. Readers were surprised by the absence of John Steinbeck, John Ronald Tolkien and J.K. Rowling. The Guardian’s editorial board believes that it is precisely such discussions that help to bring back interest in literature.
