The Ultimate Book Bucket List: The 75 Best Books Of All Time

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

About this list

Refinery29, 75 Books

What is the best book of all time? This question is impossible to answer — to some, the best book of all time might be Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. To others, it could be A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. If we’re looking at plain numbers, it appears that The Bible is the best-selling book of all time — but does that really make it the best book of all time?
Because there are just so many books well worth a read, we’ve collated some of the very best stories ever told for you in the list below. They’re even sorted by genre, so you can pick your favourite and get started — do you like fiction, non-fiction, romance, or even fantasy? We’ve got you covered.

who voted?
Eilish Gilligan, Alexandra Koster, Nina Miyashita

This list was originally published in 2023 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
28 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
84 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
88 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
508 Black Beauty Anna Sewell 1877 British English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
72 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
2383 The Wheel of Time Series Robert Jordan 1990 American English
277 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
9898 The Eyes Of The Dragon Stephen King 1987 American English
3392 The Name Of The Wind Patrick Rothfuss 2007 American English
3431 The Broken Earth Trilogy N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
5437 The Way of Kings Brandon Sanderson 2010 American English
4072 Children Of Blood And Bone Tomi Adeyemi 2018 Nigerian English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
2213 My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh 2018 American English
4157 No One Is Talking About This Patricia Lockwood 2021 American English
1691 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 2002 American English
9496 After You’d Gone Maggie O'Farrell 2000 British English
278 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
790 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
3869 We Need To Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver 2003 American English
1209 Normal People Sally Rooney 2018 Irish English
85 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
13518 Betty Tiffany McDaniel 2020 American English
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
11180 Based On A True Story Norm Macdonald 2016 Canadian English
3529 Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo 2019 British English
1081 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1789 A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara 2015 American English
10259 They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us Hanif Abdurraqib 2017 American English
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
407 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
769 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
2593 Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Jeanette Winterson 2011 British English
11540 Trick Mirror Jia Tolentino 2019 American English
12283 Yes Please Amy Poehler 2014 American English
1265 On Writing Stephen King 2000 American English
10163 I’m Glad My Mom Died Jennette McCurdy 2022 American English
9833 Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim David Sedaris 2004 American English
2109 Just Kids Patti Smith 2010 American English
6184 Know My Name Chanel Miller 2019 American English
369 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
6652 Crying In H Mart Michelle Zauner 2021 American English
4360 Kitchen Confidential Anthony Bourdain 2000 American English
2071 Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman 2011 Israeli English
12471 Come As You Are Emily Nagoski 2015 American English
13325 Burnout Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski 2019 American English
13325 Period Power Maisie Hill 2019 British English
12283 The Obstacle Is The Way Ryan Holiday 2014 American English
2418 Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 1997 American English
2652 Ariel Sylvia Plath 1965 American English
4622 De Profundis Oscar Wilde 1905 British English
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
11292 Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race Reni Eddo-Lodge, Ana Camallonga 2017 British English
7630 All About Love bell hooks 2000 American English
5628 Book Lovers Emily Henry 2021 American English
3046 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston 2019 American English
4091 Boyfriend Material Alexis Hall 2020 British English
13685 The Spanish Love Deception Elena Armas 2021 Spanish English
1509 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
7121 To All The Boys I've Loved Before Jenny Han 2014 American English
3576 Call Me By Your Name André Aciman 2007 Italian English
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
1380 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
4968 Klara And The Sun Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 British English
291 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English