The Greatest Experimental 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
1492 Bright Lights, Big City Jay McInerney 1984 American English
1500 Aspects of the Novel E. M. Forster 1927 British English
1502 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1504 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
1505 Star Maker Olaf Stapledon 1937 British English
1524 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
1530 Pilgrimage Dorothy Richardson 1915 British English
1531 One, No One and One Hundred Thousand Luigi Pirandello 1926 Italian Italian
1552 The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt 2000 American English
1557 Demian Hermann Hesse 1919 German German
1561 Poems, New And Collected, 1957 1997 Wislawa Szymborska 1998 Polish Polish
1592 Tender Buttons Gertrude Stein 1914 American English
1604 The Bald Soprano Eugène Ionesco 1950 French French
1607 Titus Alone Mervyn Peake 1959 British English
1630 The Fruits of the Earth André Gide 1897 French French
1631 On the Heights of Despair Emil Cioran 1934 Romanian Romanian
1636 The 120 Days of Sodom Marquis de Sade 1904 French French
1645 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Vladimir Nabokov 1941 Russian English
1649 King Ubu Alfred Jarry 1896 French French
1662 Collected Poems Stéphane Mallarmé 1887 French French
1667 The Americans Robert Frank 1959 American English
1671 Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin 1977 French English
1674 The ABC of Reading Ezra Pound 1934 American English
1718 The Medium Is The Massage Marshall McLuhan 1967 Canadian English
1742 Erasure Percival Everett 2001 American English
1760 Oreo Fran Ross 1974 American English
1775 Scenes From The Life Of A Faun Arno Schmidt 1953 German German
1777 Lenz Georg Buchner 1836 German German
1777 Lyrical Ballads William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798 British English
1777 Ariel Sylvia Plath 1965 American English
1789 Blood and Guts in High School Kathy Acker 1978 American English
1790 The Ravishing of Lol Stein Marguerite Duras 1964 French French
1792 The Erasers Alain Robbe-Grillet 1953 French French
1797 G. John Berger 1972 British English
1801 The Egghead Republic Arno Schmidt 1957 German German
1814 The Street of Crocodiles Bruno Schulz 1934 Polish Polish
1833 Sleepless Nights Elizabeth Hardwick 1979 American English
1837 Wry-Blue Loves Tristan Corbière 1873 French French
1850 Surrealist Manifesto André Breton 1924 French French
1859 A Void Georges Perec 1969 French French
1861 Krapp's Last Tape Samuel Beckett 1958 Irish English
1862 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
1871 Two Serious Ladies Jane Bowles 1943 American English
1883 How Late It Was, How Late James Kelman 1994 Scottish English
1901 JR William Gaddis 1975 American English
1906 Mythistorema George Seferis 1935 Greek Greek
1908 A Tale Of A Tub Jonathan Swift 1704 British English
1926 The Vegetarian Han Kang 2007 Korean Korean
1944 The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis Lydia Davis 2009 American English
1945 The Left-Handed Woman Peter Handke 1976 Austrian German
1969 In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan 1968 American English
1972 The Luzhin Defense Vladimir Nabokov 1930 Russian Russian
1987 The Invention of Solitude Paul Auster 1982 American English
1996 The Female Man Joanna Russ 1975 American English
2026 On Beauty Zadie Smith 2005 British English
2027 Concrete Thomas Bernhard 1982 Austrian German
2081 The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore Marianne Moore 1967 American English
2095 The Palm At The End Of The Mind Wallace Stevens 1971 American English
2104 The Theater and Its Double Antonin Artaud 1938 French French
2105 The Clay Machine-gun Victor Pelevin 1996 Russian Russian
2138 Giles Goat-Boy John Barth 1966 American English
2160 Dangerous Visions Harlan Ellison 1967 American English
2161 The Golden Gate Vikram Seth 1986 Indian English
2166 Los lanzallamas Roberto Arlt 1931 Argentinian Spanish
2169 The Book Of Questions Edmond Jabès 1963 French French
2170 Novel on Yellow Paper Stevie Smith 1936 British English
2198 Sexing the Cherry Jeanette Winterson 1989 British English
2262 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
2263 Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus Scriblerus Club 1741 British English
2263 Hell Henri Barbusse 1908 French French
2263 Impressions of Africa Raymond Roussel 1910 French French
2263 Tarr Wyndham Lewis 1918 British English
2263 The Apes of God Wyndham Lewis 1930 British English
2263 Monica Saunders Lewis 1930 British Welsh
2263 Insatiability Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1930 Polish Polish
2263 Conversations in Sicily Elio Vittorini 1941 Italian Italian
2263 Dangling Man Saul Bellow 1944 American English
2263 Arcanum 17 André Breton 1944 French French
2263 Exercises in Style Raymond Queneau 1947 French French
2263 Death Sentence Maurice Blanchot 1948 French French
2263 L'Abbé C Georges Bataille 1950 French French
2263 Asphodel Hilda Doolittle 1921 American English
2263 Near To The Wild Heart Clarice Lispector 1943 Brazilian Portuguese
2363 Trilce César Vallejo 1922 Peruvian Spanish
2363 Juan De Mairena Antonio Machado 1936 Spanish Spanish
2366 Poems of Góngora Luis de Góngora 1601 Spanish Spanish
2366 Spain, Take This Chalice from Me César Vallejo 1939 Peruvian Spanish
2377 Our Sister Killjoy Ama Ata Aidoo 1977 Ghanaian English
2378 The Manila Rope Veijo Meri 1957 Finnish Finnish
2386 For a New Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet 1963 French French
2388 Second Thoughts Michel Butor 1957 French French
2389 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
2399 The Quest For Corvo A. J. A. Symons 1934 British English
2431 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
2446 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino 1952 Italian Italian
2464 Looking Back Norman Douglas 1933 British English
2486 The Poems of Jaime Gil de Biedma
 Jaime Gil de Biedma
 1960 Spanish Spanish
2502 Gogol's Wife Tommaso Landolfi 1953 Italian Italian
2507 Mannen utan väg Erik Lindegren 1942 Swedish Swedish
2515 The Poems Of Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerald Manley Hopkins 1918 British English
2541 Lunch Poems Frank O'Hara 1964 American English
2563 Faces In The Water Janet Frame 1961 New Zealander English
2622 The Unfortunates B. S. Johnson 1969 British English
2626 Betrayed by Rita Hayworth Manuel Puig 1968 Argentinian Spanish
2632 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai 1989 Hungarian Hungarian
2651 Leviathan Arno Schmidt 1949 German German
2663 How to be both Ali Smith 2014 British English
2671 Language, Truth, And Logic A. J. Ayer 1936 British English
2683 Collected Poems Arthur Rimbaud 1898 French French
2718 Our Lord Don Quixote Miguel de Unamuno 1935 Spanish Spanish
2726 Under Milk Wood Dylan Thomas 1954 British English
2762 To The End Of The World Blaise Cendrars 1957 French French
2762 L'instant Fatal Raymond Queneau 1948 French French
2762 Le Roman Inachevé Louis Aragon 1956 French French
2762 The Wound Malick Fall 1967 Senegalese French
2794 The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo César Vallejo 1968 Peruvian Spanish
2841 The Infernal Desire Machines Of Doctor Hoffman Angela Carter 1972 British English
2857 The 42nd Parallel John Dos Passos 1930 American English
2867 The Blazing World Margaret Cavendish 1666 British English
2880 Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial Sir Thomas Browne 1658 British English