Världsbiblioteket (The World Library)

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Tidningen Boken, 100 Books

Världsbiblioteket (The World Library) was a Swedish list of the 100 best books in the world, made in 1991 by the Swedish literary magazine Tidningen Boken. The list was compiled through votes from members of the Svenska Akademien, Swedish Crime Writers' Academy, librarian, authors and others. Approximately 30 of the books were Swedish.

There's not an exact count of the number of contributors or voters, research has shown that there were at least 250 voters.

This list was originally published in 1991 and was added to this site almost 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
224 Watership Down Richard Adams 1972 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
3637 The Queen's Tiara Carl Jonas Love Almqvist 1834 Swedish Swedish
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
1753 The Long Ships Frans G. Bengtsson 1941 Swedish Swedish
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
1802 Kallocain Karin Boye 1940 Swedish Swedish
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
429 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
833 The Lost Steps Alejo Carpentier 1953 Cuban Spanish
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
555 The Lady with the Dog Anton Chekhov 1899 Russian Russian
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
30 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
4465 Samuels bok Sven Delblanc 1981 Swedish Swedish
277 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
6427 The Dog Kerstin Ekman 1986 Swedish Swedish
3098 Second-class Citizen Buchi Emecheta 1974 Nigerian English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
4152 Collected Poems Nils Ferlin 1947 Swedish Swedish
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
2305 Stockholm series Per Anders Fogelström 1960 Swedish Swedish
2221 Simon and the Oaks Marianne Fredriksson 1985 Swedish Swedish
2659 The Women's Room Marilyn French 1977 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
1733 My Childhood Maxim Gorky 1913 Russian Russian
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
159 The Good Soldier Švejk Jaroslav Hašek 1921 Czech Czech
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
5499 After the Flood P. C. Jersild 1982 Swedish Swedish
1298 The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson 1960 Swedish Swedish
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
6090 They Burn the Thistles Yaşar Kemal 1969 Turkish Turkish
2681 The Czar's Madman Jaan Kross 1978 Estonian Estonian
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
603 Barabbas Par Lagerkvist 1950 Swedish Swedish
1770 The Emperor of Portugallia Selma Lagerlöf 1914 Swedish Swedish
3833 Mannen utan väg Erik Lindegren 1942 Swedish Swedish
267 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 1945 Swedish Swedish
2097 Mio, My Son Astrid Lindgren 1954 Swedish Swedish
8142 Bathsheba Torgny Lindgren 1984 Swedish Swedish
3907 The Wind on the Moon Eric Linklater 1944 British English
1269 The Unknown Soldier Väinö Linna 1954 Finnish Finnish
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
1777 Flowering Nettle Harry Martinson 1935 Swedish Swedish
1905 The Road to Klockrike Harry Martinson 1948 Swedish Swedish
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
165 Winnie the Pooh A. A. Milne 1926 British English
1670 The Emigrants Vilhelm Moberg 1949 Swedish Swedish
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
2584 Bokhandlaren som slutade bada Fritiof Nilsson Piraten 1937 Swedish Swedish
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
1516 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
5019 The Werewolf Aksel Sandemose 1958 Norwegian Norwegian
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
5447 The bells of Bicêtre Georges Simenon 1963 Belgian French
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
1333 Barefoot Zaharia Stancu 1948 Romanian Romanian
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
530 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
1516 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
1773 Doctor Glas Hjalmar Soderberg 1905 Swedish Swedish
1761 The Serious Game Hjalmar Soderberg 1912 Swedish Swedish
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
1977 House with the Blind Glass Windows Herbjørg Wassmo 1981 Norwegian Norwegian
759 Thérèse Raquin Émile Zola 1867 French French
2147 Aniara Harry Martinson 1956 Swedish Swedish
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
565 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German