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
1404 The Last Bouquet Marjorie Bowen 1933 British English
1405 The Twits Roald Dahl 1980 British English
1408 Amongst Women John McGahern 1990 Irish English
1409 No Exit Jean Paul Sartre 1944 French French
1411 Concrete Thomas Bernhard 1982 Austrian German
1412 The Constitution of Liberty Friedrich von Hayek 1960 Austrian English
1413 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
1414 Something About Eve James Branch Cabell 1927 American English
1417 Karlson On The Roof Astrid Lindgren 1955 Swedish Swedish
1418 The Path to the Nest of Spiders Italo Calvino 1947 Italian Italian
1420 The October Country Ray Bradbury 1955 American English
1421 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English
1422 The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth 1960 American English
1423 Out Of Space And Time Clark Ashton Smith 1942 American English
1424 Our Ancestors Italo Calvino 1952 Italian Italian
1425 And The Darkness Falls Boris Karloff 1943 British English
1426 Mars Fritz Zorn 1977 Swiss German
1427 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
1431 Cakes And Ale Or, The Skeleton In The Cupboard W. Somerset Maugham 1930 British English
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
1434 R. E. Lee Douglas Southall Freeman 1934 American English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
1436 Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke 1929 Austrian German
1437 Bébo's Girl Carlo Cassola 1960 Italian Italian
1441 The Cantos Ezra Pound 1933 American English
1442 Little House In The Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder 1932 American English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1444 James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl 1961 British English
1445 Faceless Killers Henning Mankell 1991 Swedish Swedish
1446 The Tongue Set Free Elias Canetti 1977 Austrian German
1447 Minima Moralia Theodor Adorno 1951 German German
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
1453 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 1950 American English
1454 Pushkin House Andrey Bitov 1978 Russian Russian
1455 Antigone Jean Anouilh 1944 French French
1456 Flights Olga Tokarczuk 2007 Polish Polish
1457 Deliver Us Luigi Meneghello 1963 Italian Italian
1458 The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Carson McCullers 1951 American English
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
1462 An American Dilemma Gunnar Myrdal 1944 Swedish English
1465 Narcissus And Goldmund Hermann Hesse 1930 German German
1468 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1469 Last Afternoons With Teresa Juan Marsé 1966 Spanish Spanish
1470 Wind, Sand and Stars Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1939 French French
1471 Aurélien Louis Aragon 1944 French French
1472 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
1473 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 1981 American English
1474 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1478 The Shipyard Juan Carlos Onetti 1961 Uruguayan Spanish
1479 The Wall Marlen Haushofer 1963 Austrian German
1480 Divided Heaven Christa Wolf 1963 German German
1481 The Little Golden Calf Ilya Ilf, Evgeniy Petrov 1931 Russian Russian
1484 Independence Day Richard Ford 1995 American English
1485 A Perfect Spy John le Carré 1986 British English
1491 Presumed Innocent Scott Turow 1987 American English
1492 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Vladimir Nabokov 1941 Russian English
1494 Eye Of The Needle Ken Follett 1978 British English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1496 The Sleeping And The Dead August Derleth 1947 American English
1497 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez 1991 Dominican English
1498 A King Alone Jean Giono 1947 French French
1499 Three Comrades Erich Maria Remarque 1936 German German
1500 The Bourne Identity Robert Ludlum 1980 American English
1501 The Magician of Lublin Isaac Bashevis Singer 1960 Polish Yiddish
1502 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
1503 The Friends Of Eddie Coyle George V. Higgins 1970 American English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1506 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
1507 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya 1972 American English
1508 The Tower William Butler Yeats 1928 Irish English
1510 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
1511 The Strange Case of Peter the Lett Georges Simenon 1931 Belgian French
1512 The Beast Must Die Nicholas Blake 1938 British English
1513 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
1516 The Bells of Basel Louis Aragon 1934 French French
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
1522 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
1526 A History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1945 British English
1529 Orientalism Edward W. Said 1978 Palestinian English
1530 Myra Breckinridge Gore Vidal 1968 American English
1531 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 1990 American English
1532 Arturo's Island Elsa Morante 1957 Italian Italian
1533 Dreamtigers Jorge Luis Borges 1960 Argentinian Spanish
1535 The Sound Of His Horn Sarban 1952 British English
1536 Rubyfruit Jungle Rita Mae Brown 1973 American English
1537 The Owl Service Alan Garner 1967 British English
1538 Snow Orhan Pamuk 2002 Turkish Turkish
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1545 Understanding Media Marshall McLuhan 1964 Canadian English
1548 Tom's Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce 1958 British English
1549 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
1551 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
1552 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
1553 Beauty and Sadness Yasunari Kawabata 1964 Japanese Japanese
1554 The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 British English
1557 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard 1974 American English
1559 Character F. Bordewijk 1938 Dutch Dutch
1561 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey 1988 Australian English
1562 Burnt Offerings Robert Marasco 1973 American English
1563 Runaway Alice Munro 2004 Canadian English
1564 G. John Berger 1972 British English
1565 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace 1997 American English
1566 Love In A Fallen City Eileen Chang 1943 Chinese Chinese
1568 The Beautiful Summer Cesare Pavese 1949 Italian Italian
1569 Empire of the Sun J. G. Ballard 1984 British English
1570 The Young Lions Irwin Shaw 1948 American English
1571 Fifth Business Robertson Davies 1970 Canadian English
1572 Nature and Destiny of Man Reinhold Niebuhr 1941 American English
1573 The Story Of My Experiments With Truth Mahatma Gandhi 1927 Indian Gujarati
1575 Borstal Boy Brendan Behan 1958 Irish English
1576 The Hidden Persuaders Vance Packard 1957 American English
1577 Deep Rivers José María Arguedas 1958 Peruvian Spanish
1578 The Cement Garden Ian McEwan 1978 British English
1579 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel Isaac Babel 1934 Russian Russian
1580 The Struggle for Europe Chester Wilmot 1952 British English
1581 The Civilizing Process Norbert Elias 1939 German German