The Greatest Books Since 2000

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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
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
409 My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante 2012 American Italian
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
420 The Human Stain Philip Roth 2000 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
443 Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2013 Nigerian English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
607 House of Leaves Mark Z. Danielewski 2000 American English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
701 The Feast of the Goat Mario Vargas Llosa 2000 Peruvian Spanish
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
741 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
747 Blonde Joyce Carol Oates 2000 American English
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
804 The Vegetarian Han Kang 2007 Korean Korean
837 The Sellout Paul Beatty 2015 American English
874 The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt 2000 American English
885 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
898 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
909 The Warmth Of Other Suns Isabel Wilkerson 2010 American English
918 The Plot Against America Philip Roth 2004 American English
922 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
947 Bel Canto Ann Patchett 2001 American English
1010 Fingersmith Sarah Waters 2002 British English
1022 Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders 2017 American English
1027 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian 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
1194 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk 2009 Polish Polish
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
1211 Normal People Sally Rooney 2018 Irish English
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
1272 Erasure Percival Everett 2001 American English
1330 The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller 2011 American English
1354 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
1366 The Adversary Emmanuel Carrère 2000 French French
1368 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
1369 Veronica Mary Gaitskill 2005 American English
1381 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian 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
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
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1456 Flights Olga Tokarczuk 2007 Polish Polish
1472 The Beauty Of The Husband Anne Carson 2001 Canadian English
1495 Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo 2012 American English
1510 The Duke and I Julia Quinn 2000 American English
1538 Snow Orhan Pamuk 2002 Turkish Turkish
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1563 Runaway Alice Munro 2004 Canadian English
1585 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Susanna Clarke 2004 British English
1638 Postwar Tony Judt 2005 British English
1648 Wizard of the Crow Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 2006 Kenyan English
1650 Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward 2017 American English
1672 Pulphead John Jeremiah Sullivan 2011 American English
1675 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 2003 American English
1684 Train Dreams Denis Johnson 2002 American English
1693 The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold 2002 American English
1698 Stories of Your Life and Others Ted Chiang 2002 American English
1700 The Hunger Angel Herta Müller 2009 German German
1701 The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander 2010 American English
1703 The Argonauts Maggie Nelson 2015 American English
1704 Celestial Harmonies Peter Esterhazy 2000 Hungarian Hungarian
1723 1Q84 Haruki Murakami 2009 Japanese Japanese
1751 NW Zadie Smith 2012 British English
1752 Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward 2013 American English
1755 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince J. K. Rowling 2005 British English
1765 A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara 2015 American English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
1790 The Master Colm Toibin 2004 Irish English
1809 The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon 2001 Spanish Spanish
1812 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon 2003 British English
1817 The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot 2010 American English
1818 Barbarian Days William Finnegan 2015 American English
1827 Experience Martin Amis 2000 British English
1842 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J. K. Rowling 2000 British English
1844 The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Kolbert 2014 American English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1876 Home Marilynne Robinson 2008 American English
1884 The Looming Tower Lawrence Wright 2006 American English
1895 Me Talk Pretty One Day David Sedaris 2000 American English
1898 Tenth of December George Saunders 2013 American English
1907 Consider The Lobster David Foster Wallace 2005 American English
1909 The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis Lydia Davis 2009 American English
1910 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowling 2003 British English
1958 Let the Great World Spin Colum McCann 2009 Irish English
1974 The Emperor of All Maladies Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010 American English
1983 The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai 2018 American English