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
481 The Lusiad Luís Vaz Camões 1572 Portuguese Portuguese
482 Jakob Von Gunten Robert Walser 1909 Swiss German
483 The Civil War Shelby Foote 1958 American English
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
485 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
486 Adam Bede George Eliot 1859 British English
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
489 Manon Lescaut Abbe Prevost 1731 French French
490 Ethan Frome Edith Wharton 1911 American English
491 Bouvard et Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert 1881 French French
492 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell, Peter Miles 1914 British English
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
495 Casino Royale Ian Fleming 1953 British English
496 Froth on the daydream Boris Vian 1947 French French
497 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers 1933 British English
498 The Immoralist André Gide 1902 French French
499 Platero Juan Ramón Jiménez 1914 Spanish Spanish
500 Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O'Connor 1965 American English
501 W, or the Memory of Childhood Georges Perec 1975 French French
502 Another Country James Baldwin 1962 American English
503 Pamela Samuel Richardson 1740 British English
504 Her Lover Albert Cohen 1968 Swiss French
505 The Quran Unknown 610 Arabic Arabic
506 The Affluent Society John Kenneth Galbraith 1958 American English
507 The Last of the Mohicans James Fenimore Cooper 1826 American English
508 Black Beauty Anna Sewell 1877 British English
509 Sanctuary William Faulkner 1931 American English
510 Eugenie Grandet Honoré de Balzac 1833 French French
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
514 Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov 1951 American English
515 Lives of the Artists Giorgio Vasari 1550 Italian Italian
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
517 Being and Time Martin Heidegger 1927 German German
518 The Odes Horace 23 Roman Latin
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
520 Mansfield Park Jane Austen 1814 British English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
522 The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster 1961 American English
523 Fortunata and Jacinta Benito Pérez Galdós 1887 Spanish Spanish
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
525 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
526 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
527 The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1762 French French
528 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick 1968 American English
529 Life Is a Dream Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1635 Spanish Spanish
530 The Red Room August Strindberg 1879 Swedish Swedish
531 The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith 1776 Scottish English
532 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector 1964 Brazilian Portuguese
533 Cousin Bette Honoré de Balzac 1846 French French
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
535 Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 1926 Russian Russian
536 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett 1929 American English
537 The Waning of the Middle Ages Johan Huizinga 1919 Dutch Dutch
538 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
540 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe 1968 American English
541 The Seven Pillars of Wisdom T. E. Lawrence 1926 British English
542 Uncle Silas Sheridan Le Fanu 1864 Irish English
543 Discourse on Method Rene Descartes 1637 French French
544 The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes Unknown 1554 Spanish Spanish
545 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
546 Jealousy Alain Robbe-Grillet 1957 French French
547 Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 British English
548 Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory 1485 British Middle english
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
550 Max Havelaar Multatuli 1860 Dutch Dutch
551 Pilgrim's Progress John Bunyan 1678 British English
552 The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane 1895 American English
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
554 Satyricon Petronius 65 Roman Latin
555 The Lady with the Dog Anton Chekhov 1899 Russian Russian
556 The Code of the Woosters P. G. Wodehouse 1938 British English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
558 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
559 Christ Stopped at Eboli Carlo Levi 1945 Italian Italian
560 Sula Toni Morrison 1973 American English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
562 Aesop's Fables Aesop -560 Greek Ancient greek
563 Panchatantra Unknown -300 Multiple Sanskrit
564 Main Street Sinclair Lewis 1920 American English
565 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
566 I Served The King Of England Bohumil Hrabal 1983 Czech Czech
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
570 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
571 And Quiet Flows The Don Mikhail Sholokhov 1928 Russian Russian
572 Three Sisters Anton Chekhov 1901 Russian Russian
573 Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Judy Blume 1970 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
576 Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop 1969 American English
577 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
578 The Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris 1988 American English
579 The Outsider And Others H. P. Lovecraft 1939 American English
580 Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West 1941 British English
581 The Innocence of Father Brown G. K. Chesterton 1911 British English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
583 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
584 Poet in New York Federico García Lorca 1940 Spanish Spanish
585 Tao Te Ching Lao Tsu -300 Chinese Classical chinese
586 The Third Man Graham Greene 1949 British English
587 The Man with the Golden Arm Nelson Algren 1949 American English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
589 Bel Ami Guy de Maupassant 1885 French French
590 Northanger Abbey Jane Austen 1817 British English
591 Stories of Guy de Maupassant Guy de Maupassant 1880 French French
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
593 Complete Poems of Giacomo Leopardi Giacomo Leopardi 1831 Italian Italian
594 Growth of the Soil Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
595 Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler 1940 American English
596 The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides -410 Greek Ancient greek
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
598 Night Elie Wiesel 1958 French French
599 A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams 1947 American English
600 Nine Stories J. D. Salinger 1953 American English