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Most popular books published in 1921

Books most frequently added to Goodreads members' shelves, updated weekly

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Rilla, ma Rilla Book Cover

#1

Rilla, ma Rilla (Anne #8)

L.M. Montgomery

122k shelvings
Pour Rilla, dernière-née d’Anne Shirley et Gilbert Blythe, pas question d’études comme ses frères et sœurs, la vie ne devrait être qu’un ­délicieux tourbillon de robes et de premiers baisers. ­Malheureusement pour ses aspirations, la Grande Guerre va jeter un voile sombre sur Glen St. Mary : départ des fils et des frères, nouvelles angoissantes, amours empêchées… Rilla devra faire face à des responsabilités aussi ­désagréables que nécessaires. Avec Rilla, ma Rilla, Lucy Maud ­Montgomery clôt de la plus belle des façons une série merveilleuse : en tissant un roman comme un sortilège pour conjurer la noirceur du monde.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Book Cover

#2

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Ludwig Wittgenstein

77.5k shelvings
Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein published during his life. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme brilliance, it captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. For Wittgenstein, logic was something we use to conquer a reality which is in itself both elusive and unobtainable. He famously summarized the book in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said clearly; and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' David Pears and Brian McGuinness received the highest praise for their meticulous translation. The work is prefaced by Bertrand Russell's original introduction to the first English edition.
The Forsyte Saga Book Cover

#3

The Forsyte Saga (The Forsyte Chronicles, #1-3)

John Galsworthy

59.7k shelvings
John Galsworthy, a Nobel Prize-winning author, chronicles the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle-class Forsyte family through three generations, beginning in Victorian London during the 1880s and ending in the early 1920s.
The Good Soldier Švejk Book Cover

#4

The Good Soldier Švejk

Jaroslav Hašek

58.1k shelvings
In The Good Soldier Švejk, celebrated Czech writer and anarchist Jaroslav Hašek combined dazzling wordplay and piercing satire in a hilariously subversive depiction of the futility of war.

Good-natured and garrulous, Švejk becomes the Austrian army's most loyal Czech soldier when he is called up on the outbreak of World War I -- although his bumbling attempts to get to the front serve only to prevent him from reaching it. Playing cards and getting drunk, he uses all his cunning and genial subterfuge to deal with the police, clergy, and officers who chivy him toward battle.

Cecil Parrott's vibrant translation conveys the brilliant irreverence of this classic about a hapless Everyman caught in a vast bureaucratic machine.
Six Characters in Search of an Author Book Cover

#5

Six Characters in Search of an Author

Luigi Pirandello

45.5k shelvings
One of the major figures of modern theater, Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) wrote dramas and satires that sparked controversy with their radical departures from conventional theatrical techniques. His most celebrated work, Six Characters in Search of an Author, embodies the Nobel Prize-winning playwright's innovations by presenting an open-ended drama on a stage without sets.
First performed in 1923, this intellectual comedy introduces six individuals to a stage where a company of actors has assembled for a rehearsal. Claiming to be the incomplete, unused creations of an author's imagination, they demand lines for a story that will explain the details of their lives. In ensuing scenes, these "real-life characters," all professing to be part of an extended family, produce a drama of sorts — punctuated by disagreements, interruptions, and arguments. In the end they are dismissed by the irate manager, their dilemma unsolved and the "truth" a matter of individual viewpoints.
A tour de force exploring the many faces of reality, this classic is now available in an inexpensive edition that will be welcomed by amateur theatrical groups as well as by students of drama.
Scaramouche Book Cover

#6

Scaramouche (Scaramouche, #1)

Rafael Sabatini

28.9k shelvings
“Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving an audience of Rennes to anger; on this Wednesday he was to move an audience of Guichen to mirth...”

Once he was André-Louis Moreau, a lawyer raised by nobility, unconcerned with the growing discontent among France’s lower class—until his friend was mercilessly struck down by a member of the aristocracy.

Now he is Scaramouche. Speaking out against the unjust French government, he takes refuge with a nomadic band of actors and assumes the role of the clown Scaramouche—a comic figure with a very serious message...

Set during the French Revolution, this novel of swashbuckling romance is also a thought-provoking commentary on class, inequality, and the individual’s role in society—a story that has become Rafael Sabatini’s enduring legacy.

With an Introduction by Gary Hoppenstand
Psychological Types Book Cover

#7

Psychological Types

C.G. Jung

24.9k shelvings
One of the most important of Jung's longer works, and probably the most famous of his books, Psychological Types appeared in German in 1921 after a "fallow period" of eight years during which Jung had published little.

He called it "the fruit of nearly twenty years' work in the domain of practical psychology," and in his autobiography he wrote: "This work sprang originally from my need to define the ways in which my outlook differed from Freud's and Adler's. In attempting to answer this question, I came across the problem of types; for it is one's psychological type which from the outset determines and limits a person's judgment. My book, therefore, was an effort to deal with the relationship of the individual to the world, to people and things. It discussed the various aspects of consciousness, the various attitudes the conscious mind might take toward the world, and thus constitutes a psychology of consciousness regarded from what might be called a clinical angle."

In expounding his system of personality types Jung relied not so much on formal case data as on the countless impressions and experiences derived from the treatment of nervous illnesses, from intercourse with people of all social levels, "friend and foe alike," and from an analysis of his own psychological nature. The book is rich in material drawn from literature, aesthetics, religion, and philosophy. The extended chapters that give general descriptions of the types and definitions of Jung's principal psychological concepts are key documents in analytical psychology.
Crome Yellow Book Cover

#8

Crome Yellow

Aldous Huxley

22.1k shelvings
Denis Stone, a naive young poet, is invited to stay at Crome, a country house renowned for its gatherings of 'bright young things'. His hosts, Henry Wimbush and his exotic wife Priscilla, are joined by a party of outlandish guests whose intrigues and opinions ensure Denis's attemps to woo the young Anne Wimbush are met with every possible obstacle.

First published in 1921, Crome Yellow was Aldous Huxley's much-acclaimed debut novel.
The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods Book Cover

#9

The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods

Antonin Sertillanges

19.5k shelvings
"Fr. Sertillanges's teachings are as timeless as any truths which describe the genuine nature of things. . . . This book is highly recommended not only for intellectuals, but also for students and those discerning their vocation in life."― New Oxford Review "[This] is above all a practical book. It discusses with a wealth of illustration and insight such subjects as the organization of the intellectual worker's time, materials, and his life; the integration of knowledge and the relation of one's specialty to general knowledge; the choice and use of reading; the discipline of memory; the taking of notes, their classification and use; and the preparation and organization of the final production."― The Sign
The Black Moth Book Cover

#10

The Black Moth

Georgette Heyer

17.4k shelvings
When the dashing Jack Carstares is unfairly accused of cheating at cards, he leaves the country in disgrace. Returning some years later disguised as a highwayman, his reappearance heralds a dramatic chain of events that includes a Duke, a damsel, a duel, and not one, but two kidnappings. Written when she was just seventeen, The Black Moth was Heyer's first novel, but it bears many of the hallmarks of her later romances, being vivid, witty, and peppered with historical insight.
The Royal Book of Oz Book Cover

#11

The Royal Book of Oz (Oz, #15)

Ruth Plumly Thompson

14.2k shelvings
The Scarecrow decides to search for his family tree and winds up discovering that he is the long-lost Emperor of the Silver Island. Along the way, he meets such colorful characters as the A-B-Sea Serpent, the lumpy mud men, Sir Hokus of Pokes, and others. Includes whimsical illustrations by John R. Neill.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories Book Cover

#12

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories

F. Scott Fitzgerald

13.7k shelvings
In this imaginative fable of ageing and the other stories collected here, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unmatched gift as a writer of short stories.

This collection includes 7 stories:
* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Full grown with a long, smoke-coloured beard, requiring the services of a cane and fonder of cigars than warm milk, Benjamin Button is a very curious baby indeed. And, as Benjamin becomes increasingly youthful with the passing years, his family wonders why he persists in the embarrassing folly of living in reverse.
* Head and Shoulders
* The Cut-Glass Bowl: An ill-meant gift haunts a family's misfortunes.
* The Four Fists: A man's life shaped by a series of punches to his face.
* May Day
* 'O Russet Witch'
* Crazy Sunday
Monday or Tuesday Book Cover

#13

Monday or Tuesday

Virginia Woolf

12.3k shelvings
One of the most distinguished critics and innovative authors of the twentieth century, Virginia Woolf published two novels before this collection appeared in 1921. However, it was these early stories that first earned her a reputation as a writer with "the liveliest imagination and most delicate style of her time." Influenced by Joyce, Proust, and the theories of William James, Bergson, and Freud, she strove to write a new fiction that emphasized the continuous flow of consciousness, time's passage as both a series of sequential moments and a longer flow of years and centuries, and the essential indefinability of character.
Readers can discover these and other aspects of her influential style in the eight stories collected here, among them a delightful, feminist put-down of the male intellect in "A Society" and a brilliant and sensitive portrayal of nature in "Kew Gardens." Also included are "An Unwritten Novel," "The String Quartet," "A Haunted House," "Blue & Green," "The Mark on the Wall," and the title story.
In recent years, Woolf's fiction, feminism, and high-minded sensibilities have earned her an ever-growing audience of readers. This splendid collection offers those readers not only the inestimable pleasures of the stories themselves, but an excellent entrée into the larger body of Woolf's work.
The Wife Book Cover

#14

The Wife (Kristin Lavransdatter, #2)

Sigrid Undset

12.1k shelvings
In Kristin Lavransdatter (1920-1922), Sigrid Undset interweaves political, social, and religious history with the daily aspects of family life to create a colorful, richly detailed tapestry of Norway during the fourteenth-century. The trilogy, however, is more than a journey into the past. Undset's own life—her familiarity with Norse sagas and folklore and with a wide range of medieval literature, her experiences as a daughter, wife, and mother, and her deep religious faith—profoundly influenced her writing. Her grasp of the connections between past and present and of human nature itself, combined with the extraordinary quality of her writing, sets her works far above the genre of "historical novels." This new translation by Tina Nunnally—the first English version since Charles Archer's translation in the 1920s—captures Undset's strengths as a stylist. Nunnally, an award-winning translator, retains the natural dialog and lyrical flow of the original Norwegian, with its echoes of Old Norse legends, while deftly avoiding the stilted language and false archaisms of Archer's translation. In addition, she restores key passages left out of that edition.

Undset's ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset's contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world.

Alice Adams Book Cover

#15

Alice Adams

Booth Tarkington

11.5k shelvings
Alice Adams, the daughter of middle-class parents, wants desperately to belong with the people of "high society" who live in her town. Ultimately, her ambitions are tempered by the realities of her situation, which she learns to accept with grace and style. Alice's resiliency of spirit makes her one of Booth Tarkington's most compelling characters. A fascinating story that won the Pulitzer Prize. This publication from Boomer Books is specially designed and typeset for comfortable reading.
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