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
457 The Hollow Man John Dickson Carr 1935 British English
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
466 A Death in the Family James Agee 1957 American English
467 A Handful of Dust Evelyn Waugh 1934 British English
469 The Postman Always Rings Twice James M. Cain 1934 American English
471 Waiting for the Barbarians J. M. Coetzee 1980 South African English
472 The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead 1940 Australian English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
477 Fateless or Fatelessness Imre Kertész 1975 Hungarian Hungarian
479 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
483 The Civil War Shelby Foote 1958 American English
485 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
495 Casino Royale Ian Fleming 1953 British English
496 Froth on the daydream Boris Vian 1947 French French
497 Murder Must Advertise Dorothy L. Sayers 1933 British English
500 Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O'Connor 1965 American English
501 W, or the Memory of Childhood Georges Perec 1975 French French
502 Another Country James Baldwin 1962 American English
504 Her Lover Albert Cohen 1968 Swiss French
506 The Affluent Society John Kenneth Galbraith 1958 American English
509 Sanctuary William Faulkner 1931 American English
511 Perfume Patrick Suskind 1985 German German
513 Kindred Octavia E. Butler 1979 American English
514 Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov 1951 American English
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
517 Being and Time Martin Heidegger 1927 German German
519 Call It Sleep Henry Roth 1934 American English
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
522 The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster 1961 American English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
526 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
525 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
528 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick 1968 American English
532 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector 1964 Brazilian Portuguese
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
536 Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett 1929 American English
538 Zazie in the Metro Raymond Queneau 1959 French French
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
540 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe 1968 American English
545 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
546 Jealousy Alain Robbe-Grillet 1957 French French
549 A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry 1995 Indian English
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
556 The Code of the Woosters P. G. Wodehouse 1938 British English
558 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
559 Christ Stopped at Eboli Carlo Levi 1945 Italian Italian
560 Sula Toni Morrison 1973 American English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
565 Amerika Franz Kafka 1927 Czech German
566 I Served The King Of England Bohumil Hrabal 1983 Czech Czech
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
569 The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen 1938 British, Irish English
570 American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis 1991 American English
571 And Quiet Flows The Don Mikhail Sholokhov 1928 Russian Russian
573 Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Judy Blume 1970 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
575 I Capture the Castle Dodie Smith 1948 British English
576 Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop 1969 American English
577 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
578 The Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris 1988 American English
579 The Outsider And Others H. P. Lovecraft 1939 American English
580 Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West 1941 British English
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
584 Poet in New York Federico García Lorca 1940 Spanish Spanish
586 The Third Man Graham Greene 1949 British English
587 The Man with the Golden Arm Nelson Algren 1949 American English
588 The Pillars Of The Earth Ken Follett 1989 British English
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
595 Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler 1940 American English
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
598 Night Elie Wiesel 1958 French French
599 A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams 1947 American English
600 Nine Stories J. D. Salinger 1953 American English
602 The Go-Between L. P. Hartley 1953 British English
603 Barabbas Par Lagerkvist 1950 Swedish Swedish
604 The Blind Owl Ṣādiq Hidāyat 1937 Iranian Persian
607 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
608 Canto General Pablo Neruda 1950 Chilean Spanish
609 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
610 Requiem Anna Akhmatova 1963 Russian Russian
611 Revolutionary Road Richard Yates 1961 American English
616 The Rebel Albert Camus 1951 French French
617 Pnin Vladimir Nabokov 1957 Russian English
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
623 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry 1985 American English
625 The Nine Tailors Dorothy L. Sayers 1934 British English
626 Promise at Dawn Romain Gary 1960 French French
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
629 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake 1946 British English
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
633 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy John le Carré 1974 British English
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
635 Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo 1939 American English
636 Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown 1947 American English
637 The Quiet American Graham Greene 1955 British English
638 Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre 1943 French French
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
642 Testament Of Youth Vera Brittain 1933 British English
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
645 A Study of History Arnold J. Toynbee 1934 British English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
650 The Flanders Road Claude Simon 1960 French French
652 Dispatches Michael Herr 1977 American English
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
656 The Time Of The Doves Merce Rodoreda 1962 Spanish Catalan
657 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
658 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
660 The Thin Man Dashiell Hammett 1934 American English
661 Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 1976 American English