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
360 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
278 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
324 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
231 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
73 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
300 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
7142 La Horde Du Contrevent Alain Damasio 2004 French French
2606 The Gambler Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
12281 When I Was Five I Killed Myself Howard Buten 1981 American English
1084 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
364 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
1039 Franny and Zooey J. D. Salinger 1961 American English
1745 Twenty Four Hours In The Life Of A Woman Stefan Zweig 1927 Austrian German
1455 Antigone Jean Anouilh 1944 French French
125 If This Is a Man Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italian
168 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
62 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
29 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
2465 Hyperion Dan Simmons 1989 American English
2144 Don Juan Molière 1665 French French
2955 Au Bonheur Des Dames Émile Zola 1883 French French
14362 Fault Lines Nancy Huston 2006 French French
656 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
10169 City of Glass Paul Auster 1985 American English
2880 Everything Is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer 2002 American English
14027 La Part De L'autre Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt 2001 French French
2644 The House of Scorta Laurent Gaudé 2004 French French
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
1214 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
13192 My Stupid Dog John Fante 1986 American English
2148 The Clan of the Cave Bear Jean M. Auel 1980 American English
217 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
409 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
116 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
491 Bouvard et Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert 1881 French French
13702 The Dead Heart Douglas Kennedy 1994 American English
1436 Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke 1929 Austrian German
11030 The Red Grass Boris Vian 1949 French French
80 Candide Voltaire 1759 French French
2503 The Abyss Marguerite Yourcenar 1968 French French
1159 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
4382 Novecento Alessandro Baricco 1994 Italian Italian
1469 Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1939 French French
318 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
8671 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Jonathan Safran Foer 2005 American English
1199 Kafka On The Shore Haruki Murakami 2002 Japanese Japanese
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
437 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
14255 Grey Souls Philippe Claudel 2003 French French
74 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
9685 Address Unknown Kathrine Kressmann Taylor 1938 American English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
711 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 1959 American English
793 The Royal Game Stefan Zweig 1941 Austrian German
118 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
12002 Night Train To Lisbon Pascal Mercier 2004 Swiss German
12040 Les Thanatonautes Bernard Werber 1994 French French
1308 Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand 1897 French French
276 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
530 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
1470 Aurélien Louis Aragon 1944 French French
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
538 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
11410 Il Colombre Dino Buzzati 1966 Italian Italian
13752 Les Racines Du Mal Maurice G. Dantec 1995 French French
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
1121 The Symposium Plato -385 Greek Ancient greek
3317 Confusion Stefan Zweig 1927 Austrian German
3580 The Would-Be Gentleman Molière 1670 French French
6264 American Tabloid James Ellroy 1995 American English
983 Tartuffe Molière 1664 French French
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
280 The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1774 German German
11107 Ravage René Barjavel 1943 French French
461 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
12388 Desert J. M. G. Le Clezio 1980 French French
1465 Don Juan Lord Byron 1819 British English
13998 City Alessandro Baricco 1999 Italian Italian
1251 A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis Sigmund Freud 1920 Austrian German
1916 The Lady Of The Camellias Alexandre Dumas 1848 French French
2898 What I Loved Siri Hustvedt 2003 American English
502 W, or the Memory of Childhood Georges Perec 1975 French French
2378 Viper’s Tangle François Mauriac 1932 French French
244 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
6160 I Spit On Your Graves Boris Vian 1946 French French
1141 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
103 Dead Souls Nikolai Gogol 1842 Russian Russian
11145 Philosophy In The Boudoir Marquis de Sade 1795 French French
4169 Replay Ken Grimwood 1986 American English
9762 Autumn In Peking Boris Vian 1947 French French
169 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
554 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
835 The Art of War Sun Tzu -500 Chinese Classical chinese
7766 The Gunslinger Stephen King 1982 American English
3299 The Silmarillion J. R. R. Tolkien 1977 British English
8243 Christine Stephen King 1983 American English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
1624 The Colour of Magic Terry Pratchett 1983 British English
566 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
2059 The Egghead Republic Arno Schmidt 1957 German German
1590 The Imaginary Invalid Molière 1673 French French
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
583 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
14316 Simple Marie-Aude Murail 2004 French French
440 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
2212 Good Omens Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman 1990 British English
750 All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy 1992 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English