The Greatest Books Since 1900

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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
1031 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
1032 In The Heart Of The Seas Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1938 Israeli Hebrew
1032 The Epistle To The Romans Karl Barth 1919 Swiss German
1036 The Fortunes Of Richard Mahony Henry Handel Richardson 1917 Australian English
1037 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 1976 American English
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
1040 The German Lesson Siegfried Lenz 1968 German German
1042 Franny and Zooey J. D. Salinger 1961 American English
1043 Danny The Champion Of The World Roald Dahl 1975 British English
1044 A Ghost at Noon Alberto Moravia 1954 Italian Italian
1045 Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1932 British English
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1051 The Phenomenon Of Man Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1955 French French
1052 Treatise on Radioactivity Marie Curie 1910 French French
1055 Story of Ferdinand Munro Leaf 1936 American English
1056 Maurice E. M. Forster 1971 British English
1058 Memories, Dreams, Reflections Carl Jung 1963 Swiss German
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1061 Fantômas Marcel Allain, Pierre Souvestre 1911 French French
1061 The Case of Sergeant Grischa Arnold Zweig 1927 German German
1061 The Hothouse Wolfgang Koeppen 1953 German German
1067 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1068 The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton 1948 American English
1069 The True Story Of Ah Q Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1071 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham 1957 British English
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1075 The Kon-Tiki Expedition Thor Heyerdahl 1948 Norwegian Norwegian
1076 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Henry Adams 1904 American English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
1078 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1080 Mount Analogue René Daumal 1952 French French
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1082 The Abolition of Man C. S. Lewis 1943 British English
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1092 Snow Country Yasunari Kawabata 1937 Japanese Japanese
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1094 Gorky Park Martin Cruz Smith 1981 American English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
1097 My Name Is Aram William Saroyan 1940 American English
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
1105 The Chill Ross Macdonald 1964 American English
1106 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
1107 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1111 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard 1990 American English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1116 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe 1904 British English
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1120 The Sorrow of Belgium Hugo Claus 1983 Belgian Dutch
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
1127 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet 1923 French French
1128 The Price Of Salt Patricia Highsmith 1952 American English
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1130 Too Loud A Solitude Bohumil Hrabal 1976 Czech Czech
1131 Ashes and Diamonds Jerzy Andrzejewski 1948 Polish Polish
1134 The Neverending Story Michael Ende 1979 German German
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
1135 The Tunnel Ernesto Sábato 1948 Argentinian Spanish
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1138 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
1139 The Unquiet Grave Cyril Connolly 1944 British English
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
1144 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
1145 The Bone People Keri Hulme 1984 New Zealand English
1147 Dialectic Of Enlightenment Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer 1944 German German
1148 The Werewolf Of Paris Guy Endore 1933 American English
1150 Witness Whittaker Chambers 1952 American English
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
1153 Beast In View Margaret Millar 1955 Canadian English
1154 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
1155 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
1160 Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt 1963 German English
1161 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
1162 The Twelve Chairs Ilya Ilf, Evgeniy Petrov 1928 Russian Russian
1163 The Road to Oxiana Robert Byron 1937 British English
1165 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
1167 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Anita Loos 1925 American English
1168 The Diaries Franz Kafka 1948 Czech German
1169 The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells 1910 British English
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1171 Residence on Earth Pablo Neruda 1933 Chilean Spanish
1172 My Family And Other Animals Gerald Durrell 1956 British English
1173 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
1175 The Demons Heimito von Doderer 1956 Austrian German
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
1181 The Painted Bird Jerzy Kosinski 1965 Polish English
1182 Poems of Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca 1921 Spanish Spanish
1184 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
1183 In A Lonely Place Dorothy B. Hughes 1947 American English
1185 The Inimitable Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1923 British English
1187 Jean Christophe Romain Rolland 1904 French French
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1189 A Writer's Diary Virginia Woolf 1953 British English
1191 Blow Up And Other Stories Julio Cortazar 1968 Argentinian Spanish
1193 Double Indemnity James M. Cain 1943 American English
1194 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk 2009 Polish Polish
1195 Song Of Lawino Okot P'Bitek 1966 Ugandan Acholi
1196 Conjure Wife Fritz Leiber 1943 American English