The Greatest Postmodern 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
3 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
6 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
7 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
19 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
32 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
42 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
53 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
58 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
62 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
66 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
74 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
82 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
87 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
88 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
95 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
100 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
101 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
105 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
110 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
118 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
131 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
135 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
140 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
144 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
154 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
157 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
159 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
166 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
170 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
184 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
185 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
194 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
195 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
199 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
200 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
206 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
221 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
229 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
240 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
244 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
247 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
248 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
254 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
256 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
257 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
260 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
269 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
273 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
278 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
279 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
289 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
310 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
326 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
327 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
329 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
333 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
343 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
344 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
349 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
351 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
358 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
371 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
372 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
384 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
412 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
413 Crash J. G. Ballard 1973 British English
418 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
425 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
429 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
452 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
457 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
460 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
461 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
462 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
464 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
467 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
475 Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963 American English
489 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
496 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
498 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
500 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
507 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
509 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
515 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
521 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome 1889 British English
524 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
526 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut 1973 American English
527 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992 American English
531 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
543 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
547 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
550 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
551 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake 1946 British English
553 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
559 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood 2000 Canadian English
566 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
570 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
573 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
577 American Gods Neil Gaiman 2001 British English
608 The Hour of the Star Clarice Lispector 1977 Brazilian Portuguese
634 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
636 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
639 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
658 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
660 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
665 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
666 The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut 1959 American English
667 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
668 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English
670 Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder 1991 Norwegian Norwegian
672 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
674 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
676 The New York Trilogy Paul Auster 1985 American English
681 Bouvard et Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert 1881 French French
683 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
707 The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes 2011 British English
717 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
730 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
734 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
748 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English