The Timesteam has compiled its favourites to celebrate the Cheltenham Literary Festival anniversary. Do you agree?
1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell
1950
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis
1951
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
1952
Pigs Have Wings
P. G. Wodehouse
1953
Casino Royale
Ian Fleming
1954
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
1955
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
1956
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
Dodie Smith
1957
Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
1958
Our Man in Havana
Graham Greene
1959
The Leopard
Giuseppe di Lampedusa
1960
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
1961
Catch 22
Joseph Heller
1962
The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing
1963
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath
1964
Funeral in Berlin
Len Deighton
1965
Dune
Frank Herbert
1966
Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys
1967
Towards the End of the Morning
Michael Frayn
1968
2001
Arthur C. Clarke
1969
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
John Fowles
1970
Play it as it Lays
Joan Didion
1971
Americana
Don DeLillo
1972
Watership Down
Richard Adams
1973
Crash
J. G. Ballard
1974
Fear of Flying
Erica Jong
1975
Salem’s Lot
Stephen King
1976
Even Cowgirls get the Blues
Tom Robbins
1977
A Scanner Darkly
Philip K. Dick
1978
The World According to Garp
John Irving
1979
Smiley’s People
John le Carré
1980
Earthly Powers
Anthony Burgess
1981
Lanark
Alasdair Gray
1982
The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende
1983
Waterland
Graham Swift
1984
Money
Martin Amis
1985
Love in The Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1986
Tourist Season
Carl Hiaasen
1987
More Die of Heartbreak
Saul Bellow
1988
Mother London
Michael Moorcock
1989
Sexing the Cherry
Jeannette Winterson
1990
Get Shorty
Elmore Leonard
1991
The Famished Road
Ben Okri
1992
The Secret History
Donna Tartt
1993
Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh
1994
How Late it Was, How Late
James Kelman
1995
Northern Lights
Philip Pullman
1996
Angela`s Ashes
Frank McCourt
1997
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
J. K. Rowling
1998
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami
1999
Disgrace
J. M. Coetzee
2000
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood
2001
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
2002
Atonement
Ian McEwan
2003
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
2004
The Line of Beauty
Alan Hollinghurst
2005
Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
2006
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
2007
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini
2008
Netherland
Joseph O’Neill
2009
The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters
