A few months ago I treated myself to a copy of The Penguin Modern Classics Book (by Henry Eliot), and ever since I have been steadily adding books to my To Read list. It contains every title published in the Modern Classic series between 1961 and 2021, as well as themed reading lists, short author bios, and descriptions of various literary movements influential during the modern age. Eliot: "A classic text is like a knapped flint: it is an artifact from another age, handled and passed down by generations, but its cutting edge remains sharp and it can still spark a fire. A 'modern classic' has the same power, but it is a product of more recent times: it was written in response to a world we are still experiencing, and it can be all the more challenging and exciting because of it."
The book is divided into 5 regions: Europe; Asia; Africa; Australia; the Americas. These 100 modern classics by European authors (limited to 1 title per author) have been added to my TBR.