The Greatest Books Since 1980

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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
1027 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
1048 The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy 1984 American English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1067 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
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
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
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
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 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
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1138 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
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
1154 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
1158 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006 Nigerian English
1160 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
1173 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
1194 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk 2009 Polish Polish
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1201 Kafka On The Shore Haruki Murakami 2002 Japanese Japanese
1204 Nickel And Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich 2001 American English
1206 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 2017 American English
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English
1210 The Wasp Factory Iain Banks 1984 British English
1211 Normal People Sally Rooney 2018 Irish English
1217 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1246 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
1261 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood 2000 Canadian English
1265 On Writing Stephen King 2000 American English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
1271 Extinction Thomas Bernhard 1986 Austrian German
1272 Erasure Percival Everett 2001 American English
1278 So Long a Letter Mariama Bâ 1980 Senegalese French
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
1289 A Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin 1996 American English
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
1312 The Stories of Raymond Carver Raymond Carver 1981 American English
1315 Voices from Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich 1997 Belarusian Russian
1318 Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 1984 American English
1322 Devil in a Blue Dress Walter Mosley 1990 American English
1325 A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark 1988 British English
1328 Parable Of The Sower Octavia E. Butler 1993 American English
1330 The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller 2011 American English
1331 Cathedral Raymond Carver 1983 American English
1344 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
1346 Matilda Roald Dahl 1988 British English
1348 Sandman Neil Gaiman 1989 British English
1354 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
1366 The Adversary Emmanuel Carrère 2000 French French
1367 Like Water For Chocolate Laura Esquivel 1989 Mexican Spanish
1368 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
1369 Veronica Mary Gaitskill 2005 American English
1373 Winter's Tale Mark Helprin 1983 American English
1374 Earthly Powers Anthony Burgess 1980 British English
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
1381 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
1384 Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond 1997 American English
1388 The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins 2008 American English
1390 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James 2014 Jamaican English
1392 Evicted Matthew Desmond 2016 American English
1394 Soldiers of Salamis Javier Cercas 2001 Spanish Spanish
1395 The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley 1983 American English
1397 The BFG Roald Dahl 1982 British English
1405 The Twits Roald Dahl 1980 British English
1408 Amongst Women John McGahern 1990 Irish English
1411 Concrete Thomas Bernhard 1982 Austrian German
1413 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
1433 Random Family Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 2003 American English
1435 Life After Life Kate Atkinson 2013 British English
1443 Mason & Dixon Thomas Pynchon 1997 American English
1445 Faceless Killers Henning Mankell 1991 Swedish Swedish
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1451 The Children of Men P. D. James 1992 British English
1456 Flights Olga Tokarczuk 2007 Polish Polish
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
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
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
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1497 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez 1991 Dominican English
1500 The Bourne Identity Robert Ludlum 1980 American English
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1506 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
1510 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
1513 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
1531 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton 1990 American English
1538 Snow Orhan Pamuk 2002 Turkish Turkish
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1551 Hawksmoor Peter Ackroyd 1985 British English
1552 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
1554 The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 British English
1561 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey 1988 Australian English
1563 Runaway Alice Munro 2004 Canadian English