222 Best Books of All Time That Deserve a Spot on Your Bookshelf, With Picks from Bestselling Authors and Indie Booksellers

This is one of the 743 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Parade, 222 Books

This list is a collection of 222 notable fiction books curated to provide a diverse and inclusive representation of the best books across various genres, including picture books, romances, fantasies, westerns, young adult novels, mysteries, and classics. The selection criteria emphasized diversity in types, ensuring representation of works that are both timeless and contemporary. The list was curated by soliciting recommendations from thirty-three acclaimed and best-selling authors, as well as input from indie bookstore staff members across the country. Additionally, insights from popular reader sites like Goodreads were considered to gauge public interest and preferences. The methodology highlights a collaborative approach, valuing both expert opinions and community preferences, striving to create a rich and enjoyable resource for readers.

This list was originally published in 2024 and was added to this site over 3 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
1431 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
292 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
354 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
721 Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison 1992 American English
708 Captain Hornblower R.N. C. S. Forester 1937 British English
3558 Charming Billy Alice McDermott 1998 American English
3135 Great Heart James West Davidson, John Rugge 1988 American English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
552 The Code of the Woosters P. G. Wodehouse 1938 British English
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
1512 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
6788 We Others Steven Millhauser 2011 American English
3174 Flight Behavior Barbara Kingsolver 2012 American English
1065 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1108 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
361 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
986 Harriet the Spy Louise Fitzhugh 1964 American English
2079 Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk 1996 American English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
159 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
167 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
208 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
1648 Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward 2017 American English
2116 True Grit Charles Portis 1968 American English
408 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
349 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
5471 The Ministry For the Future Kim Stanley Robinson 2020 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
946 Bel Canto Ann Patchett 2001 American English
1606 The Hours Michael Cunningham 1998 American English
699 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 American English
417 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
1829 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler 1982 American English
432 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
891 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
4724 The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation M. T. Anderson 2006 American English
657 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
101 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
1876 Cold Mountain Charles Frazier 1997 American English
1301 The Road Less Traveled M. Scott Peck 1978 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
557 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
2695 Cod Mark Kurlansky 1997 American English
298 The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Machado de Assis 1881 Brazilian Portuguese
1593 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992 American English
999 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
2583 Empire Falls Richard Russo 2001 American English
4195 Edisto Padgett Powell 1984 American English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
1547 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
653 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
117 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
1153 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
8420 The Death of Vivek Oji Akwaeke Emezi 2020 Nigerian English
42 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
2299 The Old Forest Peter Taylor 1985 American English
696 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
2266 A Gentleman in Moscow Amor Towles 2016 American English
785 The Far Pavilions Mary Margaret Kaye 1978 British English
921 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
704 Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958 American English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
778 The Outsiders S. E. Hinton 1967 American English
214 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
153 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
127 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
378 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
2530 A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman 2012 Swedish Swedish
6321 Devotions Mary Oliver 2017 American English
3493 The Thin Red Line James Jones 1962 American English
1496 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez 1991 Dominican English
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
5399 Last Days of Summer Steve Kluger 1998 American English
2359 Brooklyn Colm Toibin 2009 Irish English
85 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
30 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
2645 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie 2007 American English
1509 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
889 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
415 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
578 The Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris 1988 American English
4110 Why Did I Ever? Mary Robison 2001 American English
259 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
634 Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown 1947 American English