Collider presents a subjective selection of ten major books published over the past century, arguing that literature’s enduring power lies in its ability to explore universal concerns such as war, family, identity, love and loneliness across national and cultural boundaries.

– ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez: a magical-realist saga of the Buendía family in Macondo, using repeated history, conflict and the supernatural to examine loneliness and tragedy.
– ‘Babel, or the Necessity of Violence’ (2022) by R. F. Kuang: an alternate-1830s Oxford story in which translation magic supports empire, questioning language, colonial extraction and academia’s role in oppression.
– ‘On the Road’ (1957) by Jack Kerouac: included as a defining work associated with the Beat generation and countercultural travel.