Listicle: 10 books that are 100 years old but are still full of fire today
Winnie-the-Pooh. Did AA Milne know he was creating a body-positivity icon when he created the chubby bear who lets his belly hang loose in a crop top? A century on, the internet loves him for his simple wisdom and how confidently he loves himself. Pooh stories are the stuff of school summer vacays. We’ve all imagined strolling in The Hundred Acre Wood, guzzling pots of hunny with him. Pooh’s found the North Pole, but not his pants. Silly old bear.
My Mortal Enemy. Most romance books are predictable. The couple struggles to be together, somehow overcomes all the odds, and lives happily ever after. Willa Cather’s brooding novel is more realistic. Myra Henshawe risks it all (even her fortune) to be with the man she loves. But she quickly finds out that love can’t keep a household going, money runs out, and her husband (title alert!) turns into her mortal enemy. It’s a choice she has to live with until the bitter end. Did our Indian parents write this?
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. No one does unreliable narrators better than Agatha Christie, the queen of detective fiction. The fourth in her Hercule Poirot series changed her career almost overnight. Fans say the twist catches them off-guard even on a re-reading. The book (no spoilers) has all of her favourite devices: A country house, a group of mildly-suspicious people, a dead body (or two). Do NOT Google it before reading. It’ll ruin everything.
These Old Shades. Aka, the one that launched Georgette Heyer, Regency novel OG. The setting: 1700s France and England. Justin Alastair, Duke of Avon, rescues Leonie from slavery. He even takes revenge on her sinister father. Of course, she’s hot-headed personality. Of course he’s witty. He’s a hero… Or is he? The tale seems darker a century on. There’s a two-decade age difference between him and Leonie. But the formula still works.
Pather Dabi. A Bengali novel about an underground society working to overthrow the Raj. A tale of Sabyasachi Mallick (aka Doctor) who fights policemen single-handedly, dons and discards disguises in a blink of an eye, and speaks multiple languages. Bollywood knows Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay as the author of Devdas. But this book has more fire. It seemed so anti-revolutionary and seditious, the British banned it a year after its publication.
The Sun Also Rises. Ernest Hemingway’s debut novel is basically ZNMD but with a more cynical bunch of friends. A group of former soldiers and war veterans, still disillusioned, set off from Paris to Spain, intending to enjoy a grand summer together and forget the horrors of The Great War. They flirt, fantasise and feast together, and get into raging fights. Hemingway started the novel in Valencia, Spain, where he “had the best time of his life”. BRB, booking tickets.
The Castle. Franz Kafka’s last, unfinished novel is both surreal and frustrating. K, dispatched to an unfamiliar town as land surveyor, jumps through a series of administrative loops to enter a mysterious castle. The town seems to be conspiring to prevent him from getting in. Every bureaucratic hurdle he clears brings four more. A century on, it still hits hard. Try getting a passport or correcting Aadhar details – it’s Kafkaesque.
The Heart of a Goof. PG Wodehouse’s writing has been, for decades, every Indian kid’s introduction to British humour. In this collection of short stories, everyone’s a golf fanatic. The narrator, the Oldest Member of a British club, has seen people fall in love, break up, and become enemies — all over a game of golf. Don’t read it for the sport. It’s really about life, and how absurd people can get when they overthink, overreact and over-love.
Mary. Before there was Lolita, there was Mary – a tale of falling in love for the first time, with someone who can never be yours. Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov’s novel is not as disturbing as his other works, but it runs dark – especially when it’s about a man struggling to come to terms with the fact that his feelings will never be returned. A hundred years later, we’re reading it to try and get over our flirtationship and situationship.
Show Boat. At first, the premise of Edna Ferber’s novel is exciting: A troupe of actors travelling aboard a showboat, holding performances in the Mississippi towns they float by. But off-stage, there’s racial tension, estranged families, and marriages torn apart by scandal and abandonment. It’s like an earlier version of Gone With The Wind with more TMI. Read it for the atmosphere and the vibes, not the plot.
From HT Brunch, January 03, 2026. Follow us on www.instagram.com/HTBrunch
