The Greatest Books of All Time Set in Desperation
Click to learn how this list is calculated.
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.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 209 | Hunger | Knut Hamsun | 1890 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 347 | The Day of the Locust | Nathanael West | 1939 | American | English | |
| 509 | Sanctuary | William Faulkner | 1931 | American | English | |
| 692 | The Hive | Camilo José Cela | 1951 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 695 | Boys Alive | Pier Paolo Pasolini | 1955 | Italian | Italian | |
| 858 | The Woman in the Dunes | Kobo Abé | 1962 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 928 | Tobacco Road | Erskine Caldwell | 1932 | American | English | |
| 968 | Jesus' Son | Denis Johnson | 1992 | American | English | |
| 1114 | Andersonville | MacKinlay Kantor | 1955 | American | English | |
| 1245 | Down and Out in Paris and London | George Orwell | 1933 | British | English | |
| 1334 | Hangover Square | Patrick Hamilton | 1941 | British | English | |
| 1868 | Junky | William S. Burroughs | 1953 | American | English | |
| 1954 | They Shoot Horses, Don't They? | Horace McCoy | 1935 | American | English | |
| 2086 | The Sheep Look Up | John Brunner | 1972 | British | English | |
| 2298 | Out | Natsuo Kirino | 1997 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 2506 | Pastoralia | George Saunders | 2000 | American | English | |
| 2547 | Amok | Stefan Zweig | 1922 | Austrian | German | |
| 2609 | The Gambler | Fyodor Dostoevsky | 1866 | Russian | Russian | |
| 2647 | Hurricane Season | Fernanda Melchor | 2017 | Mexican | Spanish | |
| 2730 | Overcoat | Nikolai Gogol | 1842 | Russian | Russian | |
| 2733 | Seize The Day | Saul Bellow | 1956 | American | English | |
| 3638 | Notes From The Blockade | Lydia Ginzburg | 1960 | Russian | Russian | |
| 3638 | Bicycle Thieves | Luigi Bartolini | 1946 | Italian | Italian | |
| 3638 | Who Once Eats Out Of The Tin Bowl | Hans Fallada | 1934 | German | German | |
| 4071 | Phantom Lady | Cornell Woolrich | 1942 | American | English | |
| 4310 | Of Love & Hunger | Julian Maclaren-Ross | 1947 | British | English | |
| 4830 | Cutter and Bone | Newton Thornburg | 1976 | American | English | |
| 4934 | The Terror | Dan Simmons | 2007 | American | English | |
| 5190 | From Nine To Nine | Leo Perutz | 1918 | Austrian | German | |
| 5512 | The Visit | Friedrich Dürrenmatt | 1956 | Swiss | German | |
| 6005 | Waiting For Nothing And Other Writings | Tom Kromer | 1935 | American | English | |
| 6005 | Pylon | William Faulkner | 1935 | American | English | |
| 6005 | The Flood | Yevgeny Zamyatin | 1929 | Russian | Russian | |
| 6154 | CivilWarLand in Bad Decline | George Saunders | 1996 | American | English | |
| 6442 | The Magic Barrel | Bernard Malamud | 1958 | American | English | |
| 6653 | The Beast | Óscar Martínez | 2013 | Salvadoran | Spanish | |
| 6681 | Blacktop Wasteland | S. A. Cosby | 2020 | American | English | |
| 6821 | The Pat Hobby Stories | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 1962 | American | English | |
| 6887 | The Ginger Man | J. P. Donleavy | 1955 | Irish | English | |
| 6974 | The Good Life Elsewhere | Vladimir Lorchenkov | 2008 | Russian | Russian | |
| 7161 | Saved | Edward Bond | 1965 | British | English | |
| 7216 | Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye | Horace McCoy | 1948 | American | English | |
| 7616 | Dirty Havana Trilogy | Pedro Juan Gutierrez | 1998 | Cuban | Spanish | |
| 7698 | The Ruins | Scott Smith | 2006 | American | English | |
| 7786 | The Wig | Charles Wright | 1966 | American | English | |
| 9088 | Toys In The Attic | Lillian Hellman | 1960 | American | English | |
| 9274 | Naples 44 | Norman Lewis | 1978 | British | English | |
| 9276 | Angels | Denis Johnson | 1983 | American | English | |
| 9859 | Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky | Patrick Hamilton | 1935 | British | English | |
| 10030 | The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse | Ivan Repila | 2013 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 10113 | Tokyo Year Zero | David Peace | 2007 | British | English | |
| 10831 | The Lime Twig | John Hawkes | 1961 | American | English | |
| 10970 | The Hunger | Alma Katsu | 2018 | American | English | |
| 11662 | If The River Was Whiskey | T. Coraghessan Boyle | 1989 | American | English | |
| 12378 | Haunted | Chuck Palahniuk | 2005 | American | English | |
| 12821 | Rage | Steve Gerlach | 2006 | Australian | English | |
| 13340 | Project X | Jim Shepard | 2004 | American | English | |
| 13818 | As God Commands | Niccolò Ammaniti | 2006 | Italian | Italian | |
| 14232 | Glengarry Glen Ross | David Mamet | 1984 | American | English | |
| 14877 | To Have And Have Not | Ernest Hemingway | 1937 | American | English | |
| 14950 | Crimes Of The Heart | Beth Henley | 1978 | American | English | |
| 14982 | Alive | Piers Paul Read | 1974 | British | English | |
| 16517 | The Zoo Story | Edward Albee | 1958 | American | English | |
| 16742 | Shipwreck of the Whaleship Essex | Owen Chase | 1821 | American | English | |
| 16787 | Tales From The Vienna Woods | Ödön von Horváth | 1931 | Austrian | German | |
| 17161 | A Feast of Snakes | Harry Crews | 1976 | American | English | |
| 17161 | The Devil All The Time | Donald Ray Pollock | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17161 | Dawn Of The Dead | George Romero | 1978 | American | Unknown | |
| 16856 | Sweet Bird Of Youth | Tennessee Williams | 1959 | American | English | |
| 17161 | City Of Last Chances | Adrian Tchaikovsky | 2022 | British | English | |
| 17161 | One | Conrad Williams | 2009 | British | English | |
| 17161 | No One Gets Out Alive | Adam Nevill | 2014 | British | English | |
| 17161 | The Running Man | Stephen King | 1982 | American | English | |
| 17161 | Rock Springs | Richard Ford | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17161 | The Rum Diary | Hunter S. Thompson | 1998 | American | English | |
| 17161 | Run | Blake Crouch | 2011 | American | English | |
| 16799 | Yama | Aleksandr Kuprin | 1909 | Russian | Russian | |
| 17161 | Voyage Of The Damned | Frances White | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17161 | The Long Walk | Stephen King | 1979 | American | English |