The Greatest Dark Humor and Existentialist Books of All Time

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 488 '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
318 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
555 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
661 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
739 Moravagine Blaise Cendrars 1926 Swiss French
1071 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1621 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1698 Insatiability Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz 1930 Polish Polish
2332 The Melancholy of Resistance László Krasznahorkai 1989 Hungarian Hungarian
2593 Too Loud A Solitude Bohumil Hrabal 1976 Czech Czech
3121 The Moscoviad Yuri Andrukhovych 1993 Ukrainian Ukrainian
4694 Something Happened Joseph Heller 1974 American English
5311 The Complete Works of Nathanael West Nathanael West 1957 American English
8294 Slaughterhouse Five, Or The Children's Crusade Ryan North 1969 Unknown English
8802 Jerome Jean-Pierre Martinet 1978 French French
8945 Mother Night Kurt Vonnegut 1961 American English
9025 Factotum Charles Bukowski 1975 American English