The Great Books Podcast from John J. Miller

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

About this list

The National Review , 327 Books

A wide variety of literary experts join John J. Miller to discuss some of the greatest books ever written (Miller's guests include scholars, literary critics, translators, and more!).

Since this is a podcast and there are 327 books mentioned and each episode has different guests, I am going to go with 327 total voters

This list was originally published in 2025 and was added to this site over 1 year ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
4899 The Jew Of Malta Christopher Marlowe 1590 English English
820 The Captive Mind Czesław Miłosz 1953 Polish Polish
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
146 The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien 1937 British English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
7011 The Free Sea Hugo Grotius 2004 Dutch Latin
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
1156 Apology Plato -389 Greek Ancient greek
1900 Collected Stories Of O. Henry O. Henry 1908 American English
1034 The Bostonians Henry James 1886 American English
554 Satyricon Petronius 65 Roman Latin
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
1864 The Jewish War Flavius Josephus 75 Jewish Greek
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
615 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary M. R. James 1904 British English
4899 Cruising Speed William F. Buckley, Jr 1971 American English
2431 The Call Of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft 1928 American English
497 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers 1933 British English
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
4899 The River War Winston Churchill 1899 British English
2719 The Sagas Of Icelanders Örnólfur Thorsson 1000 Icelandic Old norse
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
4899 The Poems Of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1850 British English
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
2715 Coriolanus William Shakespeare 1608 British English
921 Master and Commander Patrick O'Brian 1969 British English
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
1843 Euclid's Elements Euclid -300 Greek Ancient greek
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
914 The Yearling Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 1938 American English
402 The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle -334 Greek Ancient greek
4899 Once An Eagle Anton Myrer 1968 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
774 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
1340 As You Like it William Shakespeare 1600 British English
520 Mansfield Park Jane Austen 1814 British English
500 Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O'Connor 1965 American English
251 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
3296 Cyropaedia Xenophon -370 Greek Ancient greek
510 Eugenie Grandet Honoré de Balzac 1833 French French
6687 Ravelstein Saul Bellow 2000 American English
2722 Revelations Of Divine Love Julian of Norwich 1395 English Middle english
4899 The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge 1929 American English
919 The Poems Of Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerald Manley Hopkins 1918 British English
906 Up from Slavery Booker T. Washington 1901 American English
2720 Richard Ii William Shakespeare 1595 British English
17 The Lord Of The Rings J. R. R. Tolkien 1959 English English
1018 Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton 1687 British Latin
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
1654 O Pioneers! Willa Cather 1913 American English
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
4899 Notes Of Debates In The Federal Convention Of 1787 James Madison 1840 American English
1049 Works and Days Hesiod -700 Greek Ancient greek
1338 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury 1962 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
4899 The Memorandum Vaclav Havel 1965 Czech Czech
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
2718 Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Unknown 1400 British Middle english
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
229 Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville 1835 French French
1267 Billy Budd Herman Melville 1924 American English
1933 On Self Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson 1841 American English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
1611 The Song of Hiawatha Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1855 American English
3301 The Red Record Ida B. Wells 1895 American English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
613 The Persians Aeschylus -471 Greek Ancient greek
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
122 Decameron Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 Italian Italian
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
342 Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
4899 The Rough Riders Theodore Roosevelt 1899 American English
303 Peter And Wendy J. M. Barrie 1911 Scottish English
994 Blindness José Saramago 1995 Portuguese Portuguese
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
264 The Epic Of Gilgamesh Unknown -2100 Multiple Akkadian
52 Lord of the Flies William Golding 1954 British English
805 Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers 1935 British English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
1615 Giants in the Earth Ole Edvart Rolvaag 1927 Norwegian Norwegian
1066 Antony And Cleopatra William Shakespeare 1606 British English
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
2721 The Life Of Saint Teresa Of Avila By Herself Teresa of Avila 1588 Spanish Spanish
1323 A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller 1960 American English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
1082 The Abolition of Man C. S. Lewis 1943 British English
2704 Natural History Pliny the Elder 77 Roman Latin
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
2612 The Winter's Tale William Shakespeare 1623 British English
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
656 The Time Of The Doves Merce Rodoreda 1962 Spanish Catalan
152 The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli 1532 Italian Italian
15 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
1440 The Virginian Owen Wister 1902 American English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
835 The Art of War Sun Tzu -500 Chinese Classical chinese
952 Two Treatises of Government John Locke 1689 British English
212 Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler 1940 British German
1284 The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser 1590 British English
4899 The Unmaking Of A Mayor William F. Buckley, Jr 1966 American English
20 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
715 The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving 1819 American English
4899 Epigrammata Thomas More 1518 English Latin