Most popular books published in 1930

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

Monthly data available for the current year, the year prior and the next year.

#1

As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.

#2

Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple, #1)

Agatha Christie

442k shelvings

‘Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,’ declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a favour!’ It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later – when the colonel was found shot dead in the clergyman’s study. But as Miss Marple soon discovers, the whole village seems to have had a motive to kill Colonel Protheroe.

#3

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett

223k shelvings

Sam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treacherous Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and when Spade's partner Miles Archer is shot while on Thursby's trail, Spade finds himself both hunter and hunted: can he track down the jewel-encrusted bird, a treasure worth killing for, before the Fat Man finds him?

#4

The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, #1)

Carolyn Keene

161k shelvings

Welcome to the first Nancy Drew mystery story. She was introduced in 1930 and is still going strong almost 100 years later!

Nancy is in her late teens and often helps her father, attorney Carson Drew of River Heights, with his practice. She had been delivering legal papers for him when she almost hit a young girl who suddenly ran into the road. Inquisitive, she learns that Judy is an orphan and her aunts are not well off. That were hoping for a bequest from a recently deceased friend, Josiah Crowley. But his latest will is missing.

Nancy Drew's keen mind is tested when she searches for that will.

Librarian's note: this is a facsimile reprint of the first ever Nancy Drew book, published 1930.

#5

The Little Engine That Could

Watty Piper

161k shelvings

The story of a train filled with toys and gifts for little boys and girls that breaks down before reaching the children. After asking several passing trains for help over the hill, a little blue train agrees to help the stranded toys. Even though she is small, the blue train tries her best to bring the toys to the children on the other side of the hill.

#6

Narcissus and Goldmund

Hermann Hesse

159k shelvings

Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth hungry for knowledge and worldly experience. First published in 1930, Hesse's novel remains a moving and pointed exploration of the conflict between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh. It is a theme that transcends all time.

#7

Civilization and Its Discontents

Sigmund Freud

131k shelvings

l malestar en la cultura”, trabajo en el que Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) sentó que nuestra especie ha pagado por el progreso el elevado precio de sacrificar la vida instintiva y reprimir la espontaneidad, es uno de los ensayos con más amplias repercusiones en el pensamiento del siglo XX por su rara clarividencia. Completan este volumen imprescindible otros textos freudianos fundamentales, como «Sobre la conquista del fuego», «Consideraciones de actualidad sobre la guerra y la muerte» y los ensayos destinados a ser publicados bajo el rótulo genérico de «Metapsicología».

#8

The Hidden Staircase (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, #2)

Carolyn Keene

83.8k shelvings

After receiving a call from her friend Helen Corning, Nancy agrees to help solve a baffling mystery. Helen's Aunt Rosemary has been living with her mother at the old family mansion, and they have noticed many strange things. They have heard music, thumps, and creaking noises at night, and seen eerie shadows on the walls. Could the house be haunted?

#9

La casa de Bernarda Alba

Federico García Lorca

77.5k shelvings

La casa de Bernarda Alba constituye un exponente más de la capacidad de Federico García Lorca para aunar la tradición y la vanguardia por medio de un teatro simbólico de índole muy personal que le sitúa entre los valores más destacados del canon internacional.
El autor granadino continúa en el camino de la experimentación con temas, personajes y géneros de la tradición teatral, a los que presenta desde inusitadas perspectivas y filtra por el tamiz de unas modernas técnicas expresivas deudoras de las más renovadoras vanguardias del momento, junto con una profundización en las posibilidades connotativas de los símbolos.

#10

The Man Without Qualities

Robert Musil

75.1k shelvings

Set in Vienna on the eve of World War I, this great novel of ideas tells the story of Ulrich, ex-soldier and scientist, seducer and skeptic, who finds himself drafted into the grandiose plans for the 70th jubilee of the Emperor Franz Josef. This new translation—published in two elegant volumes—is the first to present Musil's complete text, including material that remained unpublished during his lifetime.

#11

Vile Bodies

Evelyn Waugh

63.6k shelvings

The Bright Young Things of 1920s Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade, whether it is promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh’s acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.

#12

Swallows and Amazons (Swallows and Amazons, #1)

Arthur Ransome

63.4k shelvings

The first title in Arthur Ransome's classic series, originally published in 1930: for children, for grownups, for anyone captivated by the world of adventure and imagination. Swallows and Amazons introduces the lovable Walker family, the camp on Wild Cat island, the able-bodied catboat Swallow, and the two intrepid Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett.

#13

The Conquest of Happiness

Bertrand Russell

55k shelvings

The Conquest of Happiness is Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living. First published in 1930, it pre-dates the current obsession with self-help by decades. Leading the reader step by step through the causes of unhappiness and the personal choices, compromises and sacrifices that (may) lead to the final, affirmative conclusion of ‘The Happy Man’, this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.

#14

The Bungalow Mystery (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, #3)

Carolyn Keene

50.3k shelvings

While trying to help a friend out of a difficulty, Nancy has a perilous experience in and around a deserted bungalow, from which only her bravery and quick thinking save her.