The Greatest Books Since 1927

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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
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
263 The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 1940 Italian Italian
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
267 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 1945 Swedish Swedish
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
269 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
274 The Stand Stephen King 1978 American English
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
278 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
293 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
308 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
318 If on a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino 1979 Italian Italian
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
320 Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak 1963 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
353 Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin 1953 American English
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
355 The Savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño 1998 Chilean Spanish
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
360 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
379 The Second World War Winston Churchill 1948 British English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
381 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
384 Ferdydurke Witold Gombrowicz 1937 Polish Polish
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
392 Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis 1954 British English
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
400 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
408 The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1942 French French
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
413 The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer 1948 American English
415 The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth 1971 British English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
417 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
419 The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey 1951 British English
420 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
423 Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie 1934 British English
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
428 Death Of A Salesman Arthur Miller 1949 American English
429 The Baron in the Trees Italo Calvino 1957 Italian Italian
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
433 Play It As It Lays Joan Didion 1970 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
436 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
437 Passing Nella Larsen 1929 American English
438 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
440 The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt 1951 German English
441 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
448 Homage to Catalonia George Orwell 1938 British English
449 Les Enfants Terribles Jean Cocteau 1929 French French
451 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
453 I, Claudius Robert Graves 1934 British English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
456 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee 1941 American English