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20th & 21st Century Literature

The secularization of culture happened as soon as Adam was thrown from the Garden for eating forbidden fruit. He had sinned, and cut off from direct union with God human civilization became a largely irreligious affair—Christians have been trying ever since to increase their influence in the arts, politics, academics and the popular sphere.

To hear a lot of modern apologists, however, you'd think the shift away from historical Christianity to worldly attitudes was recent. Some look back as far as the Enlightenment, some as little as thirty or forty years ago, showing how political and moral trends evidence the departure. For them, the real bad guys are Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, sometimes even Soren Kierkegaard (one of the really great Christian writers of the last 200 years).

While those outside the Christian tradition could perhaps be forgiven such shortsightedness (intent on tracing Modern Progress as they are), for Christians to share these views is unforgivable. Western civilization can be traced to ancient Greece, and before that to Egypt, two of the most pagan and corrupt cultures of all time. The ideas popular now have their roots in the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Democritus and Thales.

Every modern philosophy has a Classical era corollary, if not its direct match at least the primitive form of the current idea. Anaximander suggested men evolved from animals 2500 years before Charlie Darwin was born; Heraclitus posited rudimentary postmodern philosophy two millennia before the advent of modernism; Diogenes was a nihilist before the nation of Russia existed, and about 300 years before Christ.

The best way to understand 20th century literature is not as a brand-new canon promoting recent anti-Christian thought, but as a body of work manifesting the newest iterations of secular philosophy and Christian responses. Great writers of the past, from Shelley and Robert Louis Stevenson to Rabelais and George Eliot, were fully as secular (even atheistic) as any Hemingway, Camus or Douglas Adams of the last 100 years.

Just as secular—and in many instances, just as brilliant. While there's more bad writing available than ever before as a result of the democratization of publishing, for every Stephanie Meyer there's at least one Faulkner or Annie Dillard. The novel came into its own in the 20th century as writers understood its limitations. Good writers have something universal to say about humanity, avoiding merely regional or too-specific interests.

Not all of it is "fun" reading—some of the best writers like Kafka, Thomas Mann and Solzhenitsyn can be hard to get through, though they can also write riveting passages of elegant prose. Others are a joy to read, like Steinbeck, G.K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, combining a talent for poetic narrative and humor reminiscent of Dickens and Twain.

Like the ideas it embraces, the purpose of 20th century literature remains the same as the literature of any other era: to examine life, to celebrate it, to understand it better, and to connect readers with each other and with new ideas. Of course you'll want to be aware when you're reading secular authors and examine their work closely, but the same is true of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography or Virgil's Aeneid.

Most of all, enjoy these books. The best of them explore deep and important ideas, but the best of them are also great artistic achievements, not mere dissertations but independent organisms alive and dangerous and beautiful. For all the technology and machines of our modern age, good literature is still organic, and the ability to enjoy it comes from an unmapped region of the soul where every Kerouac, Cather and Marquez had to go for their masterpieces.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Active Filters: Novels, 10th grade (Ages 15-16), Hardcover
21
Aubrey/Maturin #21
by Patrick O'Brian
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Nautical Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Adventures of Robin Hood
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Paul Creswick, illustrated by N. C. Wyeth
1991 Edition from Reader's Digest
for 6th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
African Queen
by C. S. Forester
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Alice Adams
by Booth Tarkington
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 9th-Adult
1922 Pulitzer Prize winner
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
All Quiet on the Western Front
by Erich Maria Remarque
Book Club (BCE/BOMC) from Ballantine Books
War/Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
At Bertram's Hotel
A Miss Marple Mystery #10
by Agatha Christie
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Beejum Book
by Alice O. Howell
Revised
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Blue Danube
by Ludwig Bemelmans
from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Book of the Dun Cow
by Walter Wangerin Jr.
from HarperCollins
for 8th grade-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Bounty Trilogy (School Edition)
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Globe Book Company
Nautical Fiction for 7th-10th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Bounty Trilogy (Wyeth Edition)
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall, illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Caine Mutiny
International Collectors Library
by Herman Wouk
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk, illustrated by John Thompson
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Call of the Wild
by Jack London
from Heritage Press
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Caravan to Xanadu
by Edison Marshall
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Children of Dune
Dune Chronicles Book 3
by Frank Herbert
from ACE Publishing
Science Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$50.00
Circus
by Alistair MacLean
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in CLEARANCE BOOKS (Location: ZCLE)
Clouds of Witness
A Lord Peter Mystery, Book 2
by Dorothy Sayers
from ImPress Mystery
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Cluny Brown
by Margery, Sharp
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Dandelion Wine
by Ray Bradbury
Reprint from Avon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$25.00
Dragonriders of Pern Omnibus
by Anne McCaffrey
from Del Rey
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Dune
Dune Chronicles Book 1
by Frank Herbert, introduction by Brian Herbert
Second Ace hardcover, 2019 from ACE Publishing
Science Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$50.00
Dune Messiah
Dune Chronicles Book 2
by Frank Herbert
from ACE Publishing
Science Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$50.00
ECL: Call of the Wild
Educator Classic Library #11
by Jack London, illustrated by Ron King
Complete and Unabridged Edition from Classic Press
Action/Adventure for 7th-10th grade
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
Endless Knot
Song of Albion #3
by Stephen R. Lawhead
Reprint from Thomas Nelson Publishers
Celtic Fantasy for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Endless Knot
by Stephen Lawhead
1st edition from Chariot Victor Publishing
for 9th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Ethan Frome
by Edith Wharton
from Popular Publishing
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Exploits of Sherlock Holmes
by Adrian Conan Doyle
from Random House
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Far Lands
by James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Fighting Littles
by Booth Tarkington
1st edition from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Five Red Herrings
A Lord Peter Mystery, Book 6
by Dorothy Sayers
from Harper & Brothers
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Franny and Zooey
by J.D. Salinger
from Little, Brown & Company
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Full Cupboard of Life
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5
by Alexander McCall Smith
1st edition from Pantheon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Gentleman From Indianapolis
by Booth Tarkington
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Go Tell it on the Mountain
by James Baldwin
1st edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck
from Reader's Digest
Historical Fiction for 8th-12th grade
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Good Earth
International Collectors Library
by Pearl S. Buck
from International Collectors Library
Historical Fiction for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Good-bye, Mr. Chips
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by James Hilton
1st edition from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck, illustrated by James Hays
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck
3rd printing from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Great Captain
by Honore Morrow
from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Great Lion of God
by Taylor Caldwell
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Green Mansions
by W. H. Hudson
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
from Dial Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Have His Carcase
A Lord Peter Mystery, Book 7
by Dorothy L. Sayers
from Harper & Brothers
Murder Mystery for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
I, Claudius
by Robert Graves
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Imperial Woman
by Pearl S. Buck
Book Club Edition from The John Day Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #6
by Alexander McCall Smith
First American Edition from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader
by Jan Karon, edited by Martha McIntosh
from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in Literary Cookbooks (Location: COOK-LIT)
Jungle, The
by Upton Sinclair
from Heritage Press
for 10th grade-adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Kalahari Typing School for Men
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #4
by Alexander McCall Smith
from Pantheon Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, translated by Richard Howard
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Fantasy for 3rd-Adult
$18.00
Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
from Harcourt
Fantasy for 3rd-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.50 (2 in stock)
Little Prince - Russian language edition
by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
from Eksmodetstvo
Fantasy for 3rd-Adult
in Russian (Location: FL-GEN)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Long Rifle
International Collectors Library
by Stewart E. White
from International Collectors Library
for 8th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lost Horizon
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by James Hilton
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lost in a Good Book
Thursday Next Book 2
by Jasper Fforde
First American Edition from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Lost Island
by James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Lost Laysen
by Margaret Mitchell
from Macmillan
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Maggie-Now
by Betty Smith
from Harper & Brothers
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Man of Property
by John Galsworthy
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Miracle at Speedy Motors
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #9
by Alexander Mccall Smith
from Pantheon Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Moon and Sixpence
Modern Library
by W. Somerset Maugham
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
Murder Must Advertise
A Lord Peter Mystery, Book 8
by Dorothy Sayers
from Harper & Brothers
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Murder of Roger Ackroyd
A Hercule Poirot Mystery #4
by Agatha Christie
from Dodd, Mead & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
My Cousin Rachel
by Daphne du Maurier
from Doubleday & Company
Mystery/Suspense for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Narcissus and Goldmund
by Herman Hesse
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$22.00
Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell, foreword by Thomas Pynchon
from Harcourt, Brace & World
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Nostromo
by Joseph Conrad
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
by Ludwig Bemelmans
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Of Human Bondage
by W. Somerset Maugham
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Old Wives' Tale
by Arnold Bennett
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Once and Future King
by T. H. White
from ACE Publishing
for 7th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$25.00
Paradise War
by Stephen Lawhead
1st edition from Chariot Victor Publishing
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Penrod
by Booth Tarkington, illustrated by Gordon Grant
from Grosset & Dunlap
Realistic Fiction for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Peter Abelard
by Helen Waddell, illustrated by Lazlo Matulay
from Henry Holt and Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Plague and I
by Betty MacDonald
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Biography for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Power and the Glory
by Gilbert Parker
First Edition from Harper & Brothers
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Quiet American
by Graham Greene
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Rabble in Arms
by Kenneth Roberts
from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Rumpole and the Primrose Path
by John Mortimer
from Viking Press
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.50 (1 in stock)
Sapphira and the Slave Girl
by Willa Cather
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Scarlet
by Stephen R. Lawhead
from Thomas Nelson Publishers
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Screwtape Letters
by C. S. Lewis
Annotated from HarperOne
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$28.99
Sea Wolf
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Jack London
from Reader's Digest
Naturalism for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Silmarillion
by J. R. R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien
Fantasy for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$75.00
Silver Hand
Song of Albion #2
by Stephen R. Lawhead
1st edition from Lion Publishing
Celtic Fantasy for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Hitchhiker's Trilogy #4
by Douglas Adams
from Crown Publishers
Humorous Science Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar
by Edgar Rice Burroughs
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
That Hideous Strength
Space Trilogy Book 3
by C. S. Lewis
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Allegorical Fantasy for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$30.00
The Hurricane
by Charles Nordhoff & James Norman Hall
from Little, Brown & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
The Robe
by Lloyd C. Douglas
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
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