The Greatest Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 743 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1321 A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller 1960 American English
1322 A Judgement In Stone Ruth Rendell 1977 British English
1323 A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark 1988 British English
1324 The Compleat Angler Izaak Walton 1653 British English
1325 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke 1689 British English
1326 Parable Of The Sower Octavia E. Butler 1993 American English
1327 The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller 2011 American English
1328 Cathedral Raymond Carver 1983 American English
1329 One, No One and One Hundred Thousand Luigi Pirandello 1926 Italian Italian
1330 Barefoot Zaharia Stancu 1948 Romanian Romanian
1331 The Member Of The Wedding Carson McCullers 1946 American English
1332 Hangover Square Patrick Hamilton 1941 British English
1333 Kiss of the Spider Woman Manuel Puig 1976 Argentinian Spanish
1334 Peter Schlemihl Adalbert von Chamisso 1814 German German
1335 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1336 Something Wicked This Way Comes Ray Bradbury 1962 American English
1337 The Artificial Silk Girl Irmgard Keun 1932 German German
1338 As You Like it William Shakespeare 1600 British English
1339 The Graduate Charles Webb 1963 American English
1340 The Principles of Psychology William James 1890 American English
1341 The Hamlet William Faulkner 1940 American English
1342 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
1343 Matilda Roald Dahl 1988 British English
1344 Story of the Eye Georges Bataille 1928 French French
1345 Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 British English
1346 Gitanjali Rabindranath Tagore 1910 Indian Bengali
1347 Seven Against Thebes Aeschylus -467 Greek Ancient greek
1348 The Suppliants Aeschylus -463 Greek Ancient greek
1349 William Tell Friedrich Schiller 1804 German German
1350 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
1351 Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas 1952 British English
1352 Towards The End Of The Morning Michael Frayn 1967 British English
1353 I and Thou Martin Buber 1923 Austrian German
1354 The Principle Of Hope Ernst Bloch 1954 German German
1355 Illuminations Arthur Rimbaud 1886 French French
1357 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
1356 Exodus Leon Uris 1958 American English
1358 The King In Yellow Robert W. Chambers 1895 American English
1359 The Heart Of Midlothian Sir Walter Scott 1818 Scottish English
1360 The Liberal Imagination Lionel Trilling 1950 American English
1361 Fragments Heraclitus -500 Greek Ancient greek
1362 Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya 1954 Indian English
1363 The Adversary Emmanuel Carrère 2000 French French
1364 The Naked Ape Desmond Morris 1967 British English
1365 The Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton 1969 American English
1366 Like Water For Chocolate Laura Esquivel 1989 Mexican Spanish
1367 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
1368 Veronica Mary Gaitskill 2005 American English
1369 The House Of Souls Arthur Machen 1906 British English
1370 The Devil's Elixir E. T. A. Hoffmann 1815 German German
1371 The Horror Horn And Other Stories E. F. Benson 1931 British English
1372 Winter's Tale Mark Helprin 1983 American English
1373 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess 1980 British English
1374 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
1375 Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener 1947 American English
1376 Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl 1964 British English
1377 The Towers Of Trebizond Rose Macauley 1956 British English
1378 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
1379 The Sword in the Stone T. H. White 1938 British English
1380 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
1381 The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde 1895 Irish English
1382 The Birds Aristophanes -414 Greek Ancient greek
1383 Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond 1997 American English
1384 The Bell Iris Murdoch 1958 British English
1385 Six Characters in Search of an Author Luigi Pirandello 1921 Italian Italian
1386 Gödel, Escher, Bach Douglas Hofstadter 1979 American English
1387 The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 American English
1388 On The Orator Marcus Tullius Cicero -55 Roman Latin
1389 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James 2014 Jamaican English
1390 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
1391 A Separate Peace John Knowles 1959 American English
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1393 The Business of Living Cesare Pavese 1952 Italian Italian
1394 Soldiers of Salamis Javier Cercas 2001 Spanish Spanish
1395 The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley 1983 American English
1396 Pierre et Jean Guy de Maupassant 1888 French French
1397 The BFG Roald Dahl 1982 British English
1398 Star Maker Olaf Stapledon 1937 British English
1399 The Great Railway Bazaar Paul Theroux 1975 American English
1400 Silence of the Sea Vercors 1942 French French
1401 The Seagull Anton Chekhov 1896 Russian Russian
1402 The Outsider Colin Wilson 1956 British English
1403 The Last Bouquet Marjorie Bowen 1933 British English
1404 The Twits Roald Dahl 1980 British English
1405 The Life of Charlotte Brontë Elizabeth Gaskell 1857 British English
1406 The Golovlyov Family Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin 1880 Russian Russian
1407 The Exorcist William Peter Blatty 1971 American English
1408 Amongst Women John McGahern 1990 Irish English
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
1410 Poem of the Cid Unknown 1207 Spanish Old spanish
1411 Concrete Thomas Bernhard 1982 Austrian German
1412 The Constitution of Liberty Friedrich von Hayek 1960 Austrian English
1413 Something About Eve James Branch Cabell 1927 American English
1414 Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain 1883 American English
1415 Rights of Man Thomas Paine 1791 British English
1416 Karlson On The Roof Astrid Lindgren 1955 Swedish Swedish
1418 The Viceroys Federico De Roberto 1894 Italian Italian
1417 The Path to the Nest of Spiders Italo Calvino 1947 Italian Italian
1419 The October Country Ray Bradbury 1955 American English
1420 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English
1421 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth 1960 American English
1422 Out Of Space And Time Clark Ashton Smith 1942 American English
1423 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino 1952 Italian Italian
1424 And The Darkness Falls Boris Karloff 1943 British English
1425 Mars Fritz Zorn 1977 Swiss German
1426 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
1427 The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett 1896 American English
1428 Aphorisms Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1902 German German
1429 The Wandering Jew Eugène Sue 1844 French French
1430 Cakes And Ale Or, The Skeleton In The Cupboard W. Somerset Maugham 1930 British English
1431 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
1432 A Woman's Life Guy de Maupassant 1883 French French
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
1436 Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke 1929 Austrian German
1437 Bébo's Girl Carlo Cassola 1960 Italian Italian
1438 Masnavi Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi 1258 Persian Persian
1439 Édes Anna Dezső Kosztolányi 1926 Hungarian Hungarian
1440 The Virginian Owen Wister 1902 American English