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
18 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
40 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
41 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
52 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
58 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
66 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
71 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
84 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
90 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
92 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
93 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
94 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
100 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
112 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
113 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
118 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
126 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
130 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
139 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
145 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
147 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
174 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
175 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
176 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
190 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
196 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
199 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
202 Gargantua and Pantagruel Francois Rabelais 1532 French French
219 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
235 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
250 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
253 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
257 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
261 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
268 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
272 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
273 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
277 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
284 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
287 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
297 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
300 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
301 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
308 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
312 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
318 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
319 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
348 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
349 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
357 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
367 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
382 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
383 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
394 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
396 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
397 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
406 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
408 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
415 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
421 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
427 Crash J. G. Ballard 1973 British English
431 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
433 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
438 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
440 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
441 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
445 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
450 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
454 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
456 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
462 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
469 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
475 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
480 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
487 Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963 American English
488 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
491 The Hour of the Star Clarice Lispector 1977 Brazilian Portuguese
495 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
501 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut 1973 American English
505 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
515 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
520 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome 1889 British English
521 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
527 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
533 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
535 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake 1946 British English
545 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
551 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
554 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
564 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
604 Murphy Samuel Beckett 1938 Irish English
616 Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre 1943 French French
621 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
622 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
627 Jacques the Fatalist and His Master Denis Diderot 1796 French French
636 Bouvard et Pécuchet Gustave Flaubert 1881 French French
643 Against Interpretation Susan Sontag 1966 American English
646 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
659 The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut 1959 American English
662 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
687 The New York Trilogy Paul Auster 1985 American English
694 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
700 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
702 Against Nature J. K. Huysmans 1884 French French
712 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English
715 Manhattan Transfer John Dos Passos 1925 American English
720 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
726 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
734 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992 American English
735 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
750 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
753 Jakob Von Gunten Robert Walser 1909 Swiss German
755 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 1972 American English
782 Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany 1975 American English
792 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
793 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
798 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English