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 759 '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
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
366 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Victor Hugo 1831 French French
367 Journey to the West Wu Cheng'en 1592 Chinese Chinese
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
369 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
371 History of My Life Giacomo Casanova 1822 Italian French
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
374 Ethics Baruch de Spinoza 1677 Dutch Latin
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
376 The Golden Bowl Henry James 1904 American English
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
378 Melmoth the Wanderer Charles Robert Maturin 1820 British English
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
382 Parade's End Ford Madox Ford 1924 British English
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
385 Quo Vadis Henryk Sienkiewicz 1895 Polish Polish
386 La Regenta Clarín 1884 Spanish Spanish
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
388 The Complete Works of Plato Plato -387 Greek Ancient greek
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
393 The Moonstone Wilkie Collins 1868 British English
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
401 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
402 The Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle -334 Greek Ancient greek
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
404 The Federalist Papers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay 1787 American English
405 De Rerum Natura Lucretius 55 Roman Latin
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
408 The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1942 French French
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
412 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
414 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
415 The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth 1971 British English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
417 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
420 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
422 Ramayana Valmiki -200 Indian Sanskrit
423 Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie 1934 British English
424 A Doll's House Henrik Ibsen 1879 Norwegian Norwegian
425 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen 1811 British English
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
428 Death Of A Salesman Arthur Miller 1949 American English
429 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
431 Memoirs From Beyond the Grave François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1849 French French
432 Lost Illusions Honoré de Balzac 1837 French French
433 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
436 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
437 Passing Nella Larsen 1929 American English
438 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
440 The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt 1951 German English
441 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
444 The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
448 Homage to Catalonia George Orwell 1938 British English
449 Les Enfants Terribles Jean Cocteau 1929 French French
450 Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler 1903 British English
451 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
456 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee 1941 American English
457 The Hollow Man John Dickson Carr 1935 British English
458 Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1781 German German
459 The Island of Doctor Moreau H. G. Wells 1896 British English
460 Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853 American English
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
466 A Death in the Family James Agee 1957 American English
467 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
468 Daniel Deronda George Eliot 1876 British English
469 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain 1934 American English
470 The Secret Agent Joseph Conrad 1907 British English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
476 The Monk Matthew Lewis 1796 British English
477 Fateless or Fatelessness Imre Kertész 1975 Hungarian Hungarian
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
479 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English