News

Added 2 new high quality lists

By Shane Sherman on Apr 25, 2024

We added 2 new high quality lists and refreshed the rankings

Added 8 new lists

By Shane Sherman on Apr 20, 2024

Mostly Science and Philosophy

Added 5 new lists

By Shane Sherman on Apr 19, 2024

I added 5 new lists, and refreshed the rankings

Added Infinite Scrolling

By Shane Sherman on Apr 18, 2024

I added infinite scrolling to the front page. It's an often requested feature. There might be bugs, so please e-mail me and let me know if you have any issues. Once It's tested a bit more, I'll implement it site-wide

Major Rankings Changes

By Shane Sherman on Apr 13, 2024

Lately I've noticed that more and more 21st Century books have been showing up in the top 500, so I've made some adjustments to reduce the chances of this happening. I think the greatest books need to stand the test of time, and I think this change makes for a more accurate list. Please e-mail me if you have any feedback. 

New Rankings and Features

By Shane Sherman on Mar 31, 2024

I have improved the algorithm in various ways to hopefully create a more accurate list. I have also added the ability to see older rankings from the rankings page, you can click from the main menu. I also added 3 new lists. I'll be adding a lot more lists in the future. Whenever I add new lists from now on, I will archive the existing ranked list, and generate a new one, so you can always go back and look at the old rankings from a specific point in time. 

Added back some requested features

By Shane Sherman on Dec 31, 2023

I've gotten some great feedback so far on the changes. I've made a few upgrade today.

  • added back the numbers in front of the books on most of the lists
  • added back stats that are available on the "My Lists" page
  • fixed various bugs that probably were not obvious to most visitors

Welcome to the new site

By Shane Sherman on Dec 30, 2023

Hello! Welcome to the new The Greatest Books site. Lots of things have changed. Here's a list of the new features:

  • Filter by Genre
  • Filter by Country
  • Custom user lists and review
  • Ability to add Comments about a book
  • Smarter algorithm for determining "The Greatest" Books
  • Cleaner and improved design on both desktop and mobile versions

I also added a bunch of new lists and I am going to be adding a lot more over the next couple weeks. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or issues. There is a new login system, that should be seamless but if you have any problems logging in please let me know.

Future Feature List

By Shane Sherman on Dec 29, 2023

Here are some of the features I am currently working on:

  • Recommended books
  • Shared book lists(1 or more people can all edit a user list)
  • Improved date filters (by century instead of specific years)
  • Ability to filter by book length
  • Ability for users to create their own ranking configuration (adjust the weights, and other algorithm modifiers)

If you have any other suggestions for features please join the discord or email me at [email protected]
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In 2009, I embarked on a quest to discover the greatest books ever written, only to realize that a definitive, comprehensive list didn't exist. This realization sparked the creation of The Greatest Books.

The journey of developing The Greatest Books has been a true labor of love. This is a one man show currently. I would love for this to be my full time job but right now it's just a side project I work on in my free time. If you would like to support the site, please click the link below. I appreciate it!

Latest Lists

These are the newest 10 lists added.

  1. The 100 Greatest Non-Fiction Books - 2 days
  2. 200 Books That Shaped 200 Years of Literature - 2 days
  3. 10 Most Influential Books by the ISA - 6 days
  4. The Cundill History Prize - 6 days
  5. The 13 Best Science Books for the General Reader - 6 days
  6. A Science Canon (Ian McEwan) - 6 days
  7. Best Philosophy Books of All Time - 6 days
  8. Mary Warnock's top 10 philosophy books - 6 days
  9. 72 Philosophy Books Everyone Should Read - 7 days
  10. 100 All-Time Greatest Popular Science Books - 8 days
  11. Landmarks of World Literature - 8 days
  12. Inteliquest's World's 100 Greatest Books of All-Time - 8 days
  13. The Drama 100 - A Ranking of the Greatest Plays of All Time - 8 days
  14. The Well-Educated Mind - 9 days
  15. Bill Gate's Book Recommendations - 13 days
  16. The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books (Book from 2006) - 13 days
  17. One Hundred Best Books (1916) - 14 days
  18. William H. F. Lamont’s 100 Best Novels (1947) - 14 days
  19. The Complete 500: OCLC - 18 days
  20. The New Canon: What’s the Most Influential Book of the Past 20 Years? - 18 days