The 500 best books of all time from Culture Café users

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

About this list

Culture Café, 498 Books

In October 2008, the Culture Café site asked Internet users to vote for their ten favorite books. After collecting 5,000 votes and listing more than 3,000 titles, here are the results of the 500 best chosen by Internet users of the site

Details on the method and classification

- A list of ten books was requested from Internet users, in order of preference of their favorite works (all genres, nationalities, and dates of publication). The votes were anonymous.
- Only the rankings containing the ten titles were counted. The votes containing fewer were automatically deleted by the software.
- The book arriving first in each ranking was awarded ten points, the second nine points, etc.
- The series of novels (Harry Potter, Dune, etc.) have been counted under the generic name of the complete series"

This list was originally published in 2008 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
87 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
504 Her Lover Albert Cohen 1968 Swiss French
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
496 Froth on the daydream Boris Vian 1947 French French
21 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
42 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
88 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
569 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
291 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
77 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
12 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
8 Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes 1605 Spanish Spanish
1895 The Ice People René Barjavel 1968 French French
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
934 Martin Eden Jack London 1909 American English
189 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
101 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
210 Dangerous Liaison Pierre Choderlos de Laclos 1782 French French
11820 Le Pavillon Des Enfants Fous Valérie Valère 1978 French French
1808 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon 2001 Spanish Spanish
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
704 Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958 American English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
274 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
13 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
20 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
51 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
886 Drunkard Émile Zola 1877 French Unknown
1934 Ask The Dust John Fante 1939 American English
2178 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 2005 Swedish Swedish
408 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
41 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
28 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
316 Pensées Blaise Pascal 1670 French French
2349 The Fruits of the Earth André Gide 1897 French French
10872 Les Amours Pierre Ronsard 1552 French French
357 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
2425 The Call Of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft 1928 American English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
10884 Gaspard De La Nuit Aloysius Bertrand 1842 French French
197 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
115 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
8845 Empire Of The Ants Bernard Werber 1991 French French
194 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
980 It Stephen King 1986 American English
1074 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
3179 Moon Palace Paul Auster 1989 American English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
625 Promise at Dawn Romain Gary 1960 French French
335 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
262 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
359 Germinal Émile Zola 1885 French French
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
282 The Princess of Cleves Madame de La Fayette 1678 French French
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
1587 Wry-Blue Loves Tristan Corbière 1873 French French
2353 On the Heights of Despair Emil Cioran 1934 Romanian Romanian
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
72 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
1239 The Life Before Us Romain Gary 1975 French French
11825 The Demon Hubert Selby 1976 American English
10934 Heartsnatcher Boris Vian 1953 French French
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
247 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
3890 The Planetarium Nathalie Sarraute 1959 French French
3881 Lunar Park Bret Easton Ellis 2005 American English
4084 Silk Alessandro Baricco 1996 Italian Italian
122 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
10946 World Of Sex Henry Miller 1941 American English
52 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
795 The Fall Albert Camus 1956 French French
418 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
348 The Adventures of Oliver Twist Charles Dickens 1837 British English
9526 The Man Who Laughs Victor Hugo 1869 French French
4119 A Very Long Engagement Sebastien Japrisot 1991 French French
2478 The Cider House Rules John Irving 1985 American English
431 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac 1837 French French
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
5690 Fear And Trembling Amélie Nothomb 1999 Belgian French
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
589 Bel Ami Guy de Maupassant 1885 French French
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
6293 Lord Of The Barnyard Tristan Egolf 1998 American English
1420 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English
14014 The Girl Who Played Go Shan Sa 2001 Chinese French
2190 The Kindly Ones Jonathan Littell 2006 French French
299 The Lost Estate Henri Alain-Fournier 1913 French French
4667 The Time of Our Singing Richard Powers 2003 American English
1176 Phèdre Jean Racine 1677 French French
681 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English