The 500 best books of all time from Culture Café users

This is one of the 759 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
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
4948 Les Regrets Joachim Du Bellay 1558 French French
7794 The Gay Science Friedrich Nietzsche 1882 German German
13010 L'enchanteur René Barjavel 1984 French French
1031 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
1293 Salem's Lot Stephen King 1975 American English
975 The Reader Bernhard Schlink 1995 German German
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
1347 Story of the Eye Georges Bataille 1928 French French
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
1359 Illuminations Arthur Rimbaud 1886 French French
11060 Coin Locker Babies Ryū Murakami 1980 Japanese Japanese
343 Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
3107 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams 1987 British English
2695 Pet Sematary Stephen King 1983 American English
14130 Passagère Du Silence Fabienne Verdier 2001 French French
1247 The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling 1894 British English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
8331 Wizard's First Rule Terry Goodkind 1994 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
13939 A History Of Reading Alberto Manguel 1996 Canadian English
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
1870 The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Gustave Flaubert 1921 French French
2536 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
11200 Silence Of The Sea Jean Bruller 1942 French French
13594 The Book Of Joe Jonathan Tropper 2004 American English
3242 Death Is My Trade Robert Merle 1952 French French
2917 Legend David Gemmell 1984 British English
4956 Lorenzaccio Alfred de Musset 1834 French French
1486 Locus Solus Raymond Roussel 1914 French French
1393 The Business of Living Cesare Pavese 1952 Italian Italian
3211 Betty Blue Philippe Djian 1985 French French
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
2680 Generation X Douglas Coupland 1991 Canadian English
11205 Five Go Adventuring Again Enid Blyton 1943 British English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
11206 Ninety Three Victor Hugo 1874 French French
431 Memoirs From Beyond the Grave François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1849 French French
3120 The Possibility Of An Island Michel Houellebecq 2005 French French
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
2026 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden 1997 American English
3149 Malevil Robert Merle 1972 French French
238 A Season in Hell Arthur Rimbaud 1873 French French
937 The Sea Wall Marguerite Duras 1950 French French
4720 The Old Man Who Read Love Stories Luis Sepúlveda 1989 Chilean Spanish
2085 Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk 1996 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
11214 The Lily Of The Valley Honoré de Balzac 1835 French French
2069 The Black Dahlia James Ellroy 1987 American English
4369 The Moor's Last Sigh Salman Rushdie 1995 British English
11218 Book Of My Mother Albert Cohen 1954 French French
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
14100 The Royal Family William T. Vollmann 2000 American English
2007 King Ubu Alfred Jarry 1896 French French
1799 The Giver Lois Lowry 1993 American English
10736 Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness Charles Bukowski 1972 American English
283 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
11222 La Dernière Harde Maurice Genevoix 1938 French French
14491 Sarah's Key Tatiana de Rosnay 2006 French French
2106 Chronicle of a Death Foretold Gabriel García Márquez 1981 Colombian Spanish
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
12016 Hygiene And The Assassin Amélie Nothomb 1992 Belgian French
11309 The Immortals René Barjavel 1960 French French
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
12048 Species Of Spaces And Other Pieces Georges Perec 1974 French French
11650 Dead Poets Society N. H. Kleinbaum 1989 American English
112 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
3606 A Throw Of The Dice Will Never Abolish Chance Stéphane Mallarmé 1897 French French
11225 Malpertuis Jean Ray 1943 Belgian French
10934 Wilt Tom Sharpe 1976 British English
2327 What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe 1994 British English
889 The 120 Days of Sodom Marquis de Sade 1904 French French
9858 The War Of The Buttons Louis Pergaud 1912 French French
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
3514 Rhinoceros and Other Plays Eugène Ionesco 1959 Romanian French
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
5411 The Prince of Tides Pat Conroy 1986 American English
108 Walden Henry David Thoreau 1854 American English
890 High Fidelity Nick Hornby 1995 British English
13814 The Bad Girl Mario Vargas Llosa 2006 Peruvian Spanish
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
11277 A Monkey In Winter Antoine Blondin 1959 French French
950 Richard III William Shakespeare 1592 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
13244 Poussières D'étoiles Hubert Reeves 1984 French French
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
2479 L'acacia Claude Simon 1989 French French
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
590 Northanger Abbey Jane Austen 1817 British English
12794 Echine Philippe Djian 1982 French French
13581 Out Of The Dark Patrick Modiano 1990 French French
842 Outlander Diana Gabaldon 1991 American English
964 Paroles Jacques Prévert 1946 French French
1722 The Joke Milan Kundera 1967 Czech Czech
803 Sophie's Choice William Styron 1979 American English
9887 The Wall Jean Paul Sartre 1939 French French
4570 The Rules Of Attraction Bret Easton Ellis 1987 American English
14050 This Side Of Brightness Colum McCann 1998 Irish English
6184 The Accursed Kings Series Maurice Druon 1955 French French
8668 Twenty Years After Alexandre Dumas 1845 French French
1990 Le Mariage De Figaro Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais 1784 French French
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
2176 Paris Spleen Charles Baudelaire 1869 French French
13991 Eureka Street Robert McLiam Wilson 1996 Irish English
3375 Le Cid Pierre Corneille 1637 French French
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
145 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French