'The perfect library': the 196 books selected by 133 personalities

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

XLSemanal and Zenda, 195 Books

XLSemanal and Zenda asked 133 people who are in one way or another connected to the world of literature what is the "perfect library"

This list was originally published in 2020 and was added to this site almost 2 years ago.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
29 The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
72 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
386 La Regenta Clarín 1884 Spanish Spanish
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
46 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
523 Fortunata and Jacinta Benito Pérez Galdós 1887 Spanish Spanish
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
42 The Red and the Black Stendhal 1830 French French
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
75 Essays Michel de Montaigne 1580 French French
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
3052 National Episodes Benito Pérez Galdós 1873 Spanish Spanish
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
56 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
26 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
949 Nada Carmen Laforet 1944 Spanish Spanish
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
96 Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1808 German German
436 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
111 Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson 1883 British English
88 The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
1410 Poem of the Cid Unknown 1207 Spanish Old spanish
809 Poems by Machado Antonio Machado 1907 Spanish Spanish
400 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
584 Poet in New York Federico García Lorca 1940 Spanish Spanish
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
631 The Swindler Francisco de Quevedo 1626 Spanish Spanish
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
530 Life Is a Dream Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1635 Spanish Spanish
389 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
132 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
547 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
44 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1943 French French
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
3150 The Complete Poems Of San Juan De La Cruz San Juan de la Cruz 1618 Spanish Spanish
201 The Complete Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle 1927 British English
1192 Blow Up And Other Stories Julio Cortazar 1968 Argentinian Spanish
924 The World Of Yesterday Stefan Zweig 1942 Austrian German
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
169 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
204 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
1469 Last Afternoons With Teresa Juan Marsé 1966 Spanish Spanish
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
89 The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde 1890 Irish English
143 The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith 1955 American English
161 The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler 1953 American English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
40 Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1862 French French
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
423 Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie 1934 British English
1215 Explosion In A Cathedral Alejo Carpentier 1962 Cuban Spanish
119 The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas 1844 French French
112 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
2888 Olvidado Rey Gudú Ana María Matute 1996 Spanish Spanish
178 The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire 1857 French French
180 On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin 1859 British English
122 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
186 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
433 Memoirs From Beyond the Grave François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1849 French French
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
465 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
117 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
824 Rhymes And Legends Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer 1871 Spanish Spanish
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
209 Hunger Knut Hamsun 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
3130 The Man Who Loved Dogs Leonardo Padura 2009 Cuban Spanish
861 The Solitudes Luis de Góngora 1613 Spanish Spanish
857 Conversation in the Cathedral Mario Vargas Llosa 1969 Peruvian Spanish
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
479 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
114 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
1887 Poems, New And Collected, 1957 1997 Wislawa Szymborska 1998 Polish Polish
190 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie 1939 British English
617 The Rebel Albert Camus 1951 French French
933 Lives of Girls and Women Alice Munro 1971 Canadian English
611 Requiem Anna Akhmatova 1963 Russian Russian
1472 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
564 Panchatantra Unknown -300 Multiple Sanskrit
669 The Book of Job Unknown -600 Israeli Hebrew
1036 Uncle Vanya Anton Chekhov 1897 Russian Russian
401 The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle -334 Greek Ancient greek
5411 Captain Alatriste Arturo Pérez-Reverte 1996 Spanish Spanish
1710 The Club Dumas Arturo Pérez-Reverte 1993 Spanish Spanish
6526 The Painter Of Battles Arturo Pérez-Reverte 2006 Spanish Spanish
6137 The Queen Of The South Arturo Pérez-Reverte 2002 Spanish Spanish
375 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
1061 The True History of the Conquest of New Spain Bernal Díaz del Castillo 1632 Spanish Spanish