Top 10 novels facts

In Search of Lost Time (Proust). André Gide was famously given the manuscript to read to advise on publication and rejected it. In early 1914, he wrote to Proust to apologize "The rejection of this book will remain one of the most stinging and remorseful regrets of my life".

A torture chamber. Room 101, introduced in the climax of the novel, is the basement torture chamber in the Ministry of Love, in which the Party attempts to subject a prisoner to his or her own worst nightmare, fear or phobia, with the object of breaking down their resistance. Orwell named Room 101 after a conference room at Broadcasting House where he used to sit through tedious meetings.

Ulysses chronicles the passage of Leopold Bloom through Dublin during an ordinary day, 16 June 1904, making a lot of parallels between it and events the mythical story of Odysseus (Latin Ulysses). Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.

Mark Twain. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".

Moby Dick. "Call me Ishmael," perhaps the most famous opening line in literary history. Moby-Dick is a novel by American writer Hermann Melville from 1851. W. Faulkner confessed that he regrets that he did not write this book himself, and DH Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world" and "the biggest book of the sea ever written.

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes Cervantes was jailed two or three times, and he claims in his prologue to Don Quixote that his great mock-romance was "begotten in a prison". Confined to a cell, the author's imagination wanders with his crack-brained knight over the dusty roads of Spain.

Charles Dickens. The Posthumous Papers was Charles Dickens's first novel. With the introduction of Sam Weller in chapter 10, the book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise.

1984. This quote is the famous opening line of George Orwell's "1984". The novel is set in the year 1984 when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and propaganda. The book also shows mass media as a catalyst for the intensification of destructive emotions and violence.

Max Frisch. Max Rudolf Frisch (1911- 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The protagonist, Walter Faber, is a successful engineer traveling throughout Europe and the Americas on behalf of UNESCO.The novel was made into a 1991 film, Voyager, directed by Volker Schlöndorff.

Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games is a trilogy of young adult dystopian novels written by American novelist Suzanne Collins. The series is set in The Hunger Games universe, and follows young characters Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. The novels have all been well received, and developed into films starring Jennifer Lawrence.