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
1441 The Cantos Ezra Pound 1933 American English
1442 Little House In The Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder 1932 American English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1444 James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl 1961 British English
1445 Faceless Killers Henning Mankell 1991 Swedish Swedish
1446 The Tongue Set Free Elias Canetti 1977 Austrian German
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1449 Corpus Aristotelicum Aristotle -322 Greek Greek
1450 Mary Barton Elizabeth Gaskell 1848 British English
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
1452 History And Class Consciousness Georg Lukacs 1923 German German
1453 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 1950 American English
1454 Pushkin House Andrey Bitov 1978 Russian Russian
1455 Antigone Jean Anouilh 1944 French French
1456 Flights Olga Tokarczuk 2007 Polish Polish
1457 Deliver Us Luigi Meneghello 1963 Italian Italian
1458 The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Carson McCullers 1951 American English
1459 The City of God Augustine 413 Roman Latin
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
1462 An American Dilemma Gunnar Myrdal 1944 Swedish English
1463 Camera Obscura Nicolaas Beets 1839 Dutch Dutch
1464 Narcissus And Goldmund Hermann Hesse 1930 German German
1465 Don Juan Lord Byron 1819 British English
1466 Everyman Unknown 1501 Unknown Middle english
1467 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1468 Last Afternoons With Teresa Juan Marsé 1966 Spanish Spanish
1469 Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1939 French French
1470 Aurélien Louis Aragon 1944 French French
1471 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
1472 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 1981 American English
1473 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1474 Lettres de madame de Sévigné Marie de Rabutin-Chantal marquise de Sévigné 1671 French French
1475 Flatland Edwin A. Abbott 1884 British English
1476 An Essay on the Principle of Population Thomas Robert Malthus 1798 British English
1477 The Shipyard Juan Carlos Onetti 1961 Uruguayan Spanish
1478 The Wall Marlen Haushofer 1963 Austrian German
1479 Divided Heaven Christa Wolf 1963 German German
1480 The Little Golden Calf Ilya Ilf, Evgeniy Petrov 1931 Russian Russian
1481 Eline Vere Louis Couperus 1889 Dutch Dutch
1482 Tono Bungay H. G. Wells 1909 British English
1483 Independence Day Richard Ford 1995 American English
1484 A Perfect Spy John le Carré 1986 British English
1485 Locus Solus Raymond Roussel 1914 French French
1486 Kokoro Natsume Sōseki 1914 Japanese Japanese
1487 Beatrijs Unknown 1374 Dutch Middle dutch
1488 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1489 The Garden Party And Other Stories Katherine Mansfield 1922 New Zealand English
1490 Presumed Innocent Scott Turow 1987 American English
1491 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Vladimir Nabokov 1941 Russian English
1492 Charles And Elegast Unknown 1250 Dutch Middle dutch
1493 Eye Of The Needle Ken Follett 1978 British English
1494 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1495 The Sleeping And The Dead August Derleth 1947 American English
1496 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez 1991 Dominican English
1497 A King Alone Jean Giono 1947 French French
1498 Three Comrades Erich Maria Remarque 1936 German German
1499 The Bourne Identity Robert Ludlum 1980 American English
1500 The Magician of Lublin Isaac Bashevis Singer 1960 Polish Yiddish
1501 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
1502 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1503 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1504 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
1505 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya 1972 American English
1506 The Friends Of Eddie Coyle George V. Higgins 1970 American English
1507 Surrealist Manifesto André Breton 1924 French French
1507 The Tower William Butler Yeats 1928 Irish English
1509 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
1510 The Strange Case of Peter the Lett Georges Simenon 1931 Belgian French
1511 The Beast Must Die Nicholas Blake 1938 British English
1512 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
1513 Pelle The Conqueror Martin Andersen Nexø 1906 Danish Danish
1514 The World as Will and Idea Arthur Schopenhauer 1818 German German
1515 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
1515 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
1515 Heinrich of Ofterdingen Novalis 1802 German German
1515 The Bells of Basel Louis Aragon 1934 French French
1519 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
1520 The Robbers Friedrich Schiller 1781 German German
1521 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
1522 Guzmán de Alfarache Mateo Alemán 1599 Spanish Spanish
1523 Greenmantle John Buchan 1916 British English
1524 The Late Mattia Pascal Luigi Pirandello 1904 Italian Italian
1525 A History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1945 British English
1526 The Confidence Man Herman Melville 1857 American English
1527 The Consolation of Philosophy Boethius 524 Roman Latin
1528 Myra Breckinridge Gore Vidal 1968 American English
1529 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 1990 American English
1530 Arturo's Island Elsa Morante 1957 Italian Italian
1531 Dreamtigers Jorge Luis Borges 1960 Argentinian Spanish
1532 The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr E. T. A. Hoffmann 1819 German German
1533 The Sound Of His Horn Sarban 1952 British English
1534 Rubyfruit Jungle Rita Mae Brown 1973 American English
1535 The Owl Service Alan Garner 1967 British English
1536 Snow Orhan Pamuk 2002 Turkish Turkish
1537 On the Genealogy of Morality Friedrich Nietzsche 1887 German German
1538 Decline of the West Oswald Spengler 1918 German German
1539 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1540 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1541 Eclogues Virgil -37 Latin Latin
1542 The Poetic Edda Unknown 1270 Multiple Old norse
1543 Understanding Media Marshall McLuhan 1964 Canadian English
1544 Poems Of Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson 1847 American English
1545 What Maisie Knew Henry James 1897 American English
1546 Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce 1958 British English
1547 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
1548 Njal's Saga Iceland 1280 Icelandic Old norse
1549 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
1550 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
1551 Beauty and Sadness Yasunari Kawabata 1964 Japanese Japanese
1552 The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 British English
1553 Troilus And Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer 1385 British Middle english
1554 The Poems of Francois Villon François Villon 1489 French Middle french
1555 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard 1974 American English
1556 Marius the Epicurean Walter Pater 1885 British English
1557 Character F. Bordewijk 1938 Dutch Dutch
1558 Forest of the Hanged Liviu Rebreanu 1922 Romanian Romanian
1559 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey 1988 Australian English
1560 Burnt Offerings Robert Marasco 1973 American English