The Greatest Books of All Time on Death

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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
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
33 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
51 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
57 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
59 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier 1938 British English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
72 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
97 For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway 1940 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
164 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
166 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
208 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
215 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
338 Effi Briest Theodor Fontane 1895 German German
346 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole 1764 British English
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
360 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
365 Eugene Onegin Alexander Pushkin 1833 Russian Russian
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
401 Celestina Or The Tragic-Comedy Of Calisto And Melibea Fernando de Rojas 1499 Spanish Spanish
407 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
439 North and South Elizabeth Gaskell 1855 British English
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
449 Les Enfants Terribles Jean Cocteau 1929 French French
452 A Heart So White Javier Marias 1992 Spanish Spanish
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
466 A Death in the Family James Agee 1957 American English
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
496 Froth on the daydream Boris Vian 1947 French French
499 Platero Juan Ramón Jiménez 1914 Spanish Spanish
535 Red Cavalry Isaac Babel 1926 Russian Russian
560 Sula Toni Morrison 1973 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
584 Poet in New York Federico García Lorca 1940 Spanish Spanish
600 Nine Stories J. D. Salinger 1953 American English
601 The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne 1851 American English
603 Barabbas Par Lagerkvist 1950 Swedish Swedish
604 The Blind Owl Ṣādiq Hidāyat 1937 Iranian Persian
615 Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary M. R. James 1904 British English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
622 Elective Affinities Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1809 German German
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
650 The Flanders Road Claude Simon 1960 French French
661 Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 1976 American English
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
671 The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe 1839 American English
699 The Nibelungenlied Unknown 1200 German Middle high german
715 The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving 1819 American English
719 Thousand Cranes Yasunari Kawabata 1952 Japanese Japanese
731 The Mysteries of Udolpho Ann Radcliffe 1794 British English
754 If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem William Faulkner 1939 American English
759 Thérèse Raquin Émile Zola 1867 French French
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
773 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Edgar Allan Poe 1838 American English
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
785 The Stechlin Theodor Fontane 1898 German German
798 The Life Of Arseniev Ivan Bunin 1930 Russian Russian
799 Kaputt Curzio Malaparte 1944 Italian Italian
800 The Loved One Evelyn Waugh 1948 British English
809 Poems by Machado Antonio Machado 1907 Spanish Spanish
813 Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell 1851 British English
824 Rhymes And Legends Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer 1871 Spanish Spanish
825 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway 1925 American English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
841 Crash J. G. Ballard 1973 British English
859 The Palm-Wine Drinkard Amos Tutola 1952 Nigerian English
869 Woodcutters Thomas Bernhard 1984 Austrian German
882 The Hour of the Star Clarice Lispector 1977 Brazilian Portuguese
884 Homo Faber Max Frisch 1957 Swiss German
898 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
899 Stoner John Williams 1965 American English
915 Malina Ingeborg Bachmann 1971 Austrian German
927 Cat and Mouse Günter Grass 1961 German German
929 Our Lady of the Flowers Jean Genet 1943 French French
931 The House by the Medlar Tree Giovanni Verga 1881 Italian Italian
933 Lives of Girls and Women Alice Munro 1971 Canadian English
949 Nada Carmen Laforet 1944 Spanish Spanish
963 Zuleika Dobson Max Beerbohm 1911 British English
968 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English
973 The Burning Plain and Other Stories Juan Rulfo 1953 Mexican Spanish
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
1022 Lincoln in the Bardo George Saunders 2017 American English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1061 The Hothouse Wolfgang Koeppen 1953 German German
1066 Antony And Cleopatra William Shakespeare 1606 British English
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1090 The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy 1889 Russian Russian
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English