The Greatest Books of All Time on Existentialism

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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
14819 Restaurant At The End Of The Universe Douglas Adams 1980 British English
14854 Memoirs Of A Dutiful Daughter Simone de Beauvoir 1958 French French
14886 Black Spring Henry Miller 1936 American English
14924 Life, The Universe And Everything Douglas Adams 1982 British English
14936 Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said Philip K. Dick 1974 American English
14947 Double Or Nothing Raymond Federman 1971 American English
14948 The Coming Of Age Simone de Beauvoir 1970 French French
14963 Dying Inside Robert Silverberg 1972 American English
14957 Lucky Per Henrik Pontoppidan 1898 Danish Danish
14975 The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo César Vallejo 1968 Peruvian Spanish
14972 All That Fall Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish English
14985 Wittgenstein Jr. Lars Iyer 2014 British English
14985 Altered Carbon Richard Morgan 2002 British English
14985 English, August Upamanyu Chatterjee 1988 Indian English
14968 End Zone Don DeLillo 1972 American English
14985 Old Masters Thomas Bernhard 1985 Austrian German
14985 The Man Who Killed Himself Julian Symons 1967 British English
14985 The New Confessions William Boyd 1987 British English
14985 Harold Steven Wright 2023 Unknown English
14985 Evening Edged In Gold Arno Schmidt 1975 German German
15686 Literature And Existentialism Jean Paul Sartre French French
15758 The Tree Of Knowledge Pío Baroja 1911 Spanish Spanish
15759 I Live Leila Baalbaki 1958 Lebanese Arabic
15798 Critique Of Religion And Philosophy Walter A. Kaufmann 1958 American English
15828 The Mystery Of Being 1 Gabriel Marcel 1949 French French
15827 Rabbit Angstrom John Updike 1960 American English
15882 Tomb For 500,000 Soldiers Pierre Guyotat 1967 French French
15915 Happy Days Samuel Beckett 1961 French English
15915 The Journal Of A Disappointed Man W. N. P. Barbellion 1919 British English
15915 Zibaldone Giacomo Leopardi 1898 Zibaldone Italian
15915 Ushant Conrad Aiken 1952 Ushant English
15915 Bestiario Juan José Arreola 1938 Mexican Spanish
16503 Sun & Steel Yukio Mishima 1968 Japanese Japanese
15902 At The Mind's Limits Jean Améry 1966 German German
15915 The Colossus Of Maroussi Henry Miller 1941 American English
16518 O Sonho De Um Homem Ridículo Fyodor Dostoevsky 1877 Russian Russian
15915 Amiel's Journal Henri-Frédéric Amiel 1883 Swiss French
16508 An Apprenticeship Or The Book Of Pleasures Clarice Lispector 1969 Brazilian Portuguese
16608 Schopenhauer As Educator Friedrich Nietzsche 1874 German German
16597 The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster Richard Brautigan 1968 American English
16647 Summerfolk Maxim Gorky 1904 Russian Russian
16769 Concluding Unscientific Postscript To Philosophical Fragments, Volume 1 Soren Kierkegaard 1846 Danish Danish
16707 The Ethics Of Ambiguity Simone de Beauvoir 1947 French French
16691 Madonna In A Fur Coat Sabahattin Ali 1943 Turkish Turkish
16682 The Pilgrim's Regress C. S. Lewis 1933 British English
16673 Kleine Weltgeschichte Der Philosophie Hans Joachim Störig 1950 German German
17161 Take It Or Leave It Raymond Federman 1976 American English
17161 An American Dream Norman Mailer 1965 American English
17161 Adam's Breed Radclyffe Hall 1926 British English
17161 You And I Padgett Powell 2011 American English
17161 Towing Jehovah James K. Morrow 1994 American English
17161 Galaxies Barry N. Malzberg 1975 American English
17161 The Aliens Annie Baker 2010 American English
17013 A Delicate Balance Edward Albee 1966 American English
16800 The Suicide Nikolai Erdman 1928 Russian Russian
17161 The Moment Of Eclipse Brian Aldiss 1970 British English
17161 I'm Thinking Of Ending Things Iain Reid 2016 Canadian English
17161 Be Here To Love Me At The End Of The World Sasha Fletcher 2021 American English
17161 The Other Shore Xingjian Gao 1986 Chinese Chinese
17161 The World As I Found It Bruce Duffy 1987 American English
17161 Confessions Of A Philosopher Bryan Magee 1997 British English
17161 What's The Big Idea? Oscar Brenifier 2001 French English
17161 A Short History Of Modern Philosophy Roger Scruton 1982 British English
17161 In Search Of Walid Masoud Jabra Ibrahim Jabra 1978 Palestinian Arabic
17161 The Woman And The Rose Mohamed Zafzaf 1986 Moroccan Arabic
17039 The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir 1967 French French
17161 Permafrost Eva Baltasar 2018 Spanish Catalan
16801 Caligula Albert Camus 1944 French French
17161 Love's Executioner Irvin D. Yalom 1989 American English
17161 The Marriage Question Clare Carlisle 2022 British English
17123 Existentialism From Dostoevsky To Sartre Walter A. Kaufmann 1956 American English
17161 What Is All This? Stephen Dixon 2010 American English
17161 Zero Gine Cornelia Pedersen 2013 Norwegian Norwegian
17161 Border State Tõnu Õnnepalu 1993 Estonian Estonian
17161 Those Whom I Would Like To Meet Again Giedra Radvilavičiūtė 2013 Lithuanian Lithuanian
17161 Tūla Jurgis Kunčinas 1993 Lithuanian Lithuanian
17161 Conversations With David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace 2012 American English
17161 Stranger Than We Can Imagine John Higgs 2015 British English
17161 The Salmon Of Doubt Douglas Adams 2002 British English
17161 The Tremor Of Forgery Patricia Highsmith 1969 American English
17161 Diary Of A Void Emi Yagi 2020 Japanese Japanese
17161 Ripe Sarah Rose Etter 2023 Unknown English
17161 Better Never To Have Been David Benatar 2006 South African English
17161 Aliens & Anorexia Chris Kraus 2000 American English
17161 Angry Candy Harlan Ellison 1988 American English
16960 Trout Fishing In America / The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan 1967 American English
17161 Sombrero Fallout Richard Brautigan 1976 American English
17161 Numbers In The Dark And Other Stories Italo Calvino 1995 Italian Italian
17161 Pulp Charles Bukowski 1994 American English
17161 August Blue Deborah Levy 2023 British English
17031 Under The Autumn Star Knut Hamsun 1906 Norwegian Norwegian
17072 The Wanderer Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
17161 The Bright Book Of Life Harold Bloom 2020 American English
16845 Sette Piani Dino Buzzati 1954 Italian Italian
17161 The Sea Came In At Midnight Steve Erickson 1999 American English
17057 Dostoevsky Joseph Frank 1864 American English
17161 A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe Fernando Pessoa 1998 Portuguese Portuguese
17161 Autobiography Of A Corpse Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky 2013 Russian Russian
17161 A Shining Jon Fosse Unknown Norwegian
17161 If Cats Disappeared From The World Genki Kawamura 2012 Japanese Japanese
16804 A Moth To A Flame Stig Dagerman 1948 Swedish Swedish
17161 Tutti I Nomi José Saramago 1997 Portuguese Italian
17161 The Seducer Jan Kjærstad 1993 Norwegian Norwegian
17161 Katherine Carlyle Rupert Thomson 2015 British English
17161 Threshold Rob Doyle 2020 Irish English
17161 Cave & Julia M. John Harrison 2014 British English
17161 Here Goes Nothing Steve Toltz 2022 Australian English
17161 People From Bloomington Budi Darma 1980 Indonesian Indonesian
16871 Tears And Saints Emil Cioran 1937 Romanian French
16947 Notes From Underground & The Double Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
17161 The Collected Stories Lorrie Moore 2008 American English
17161 Breaking And Entering Joy Williams 1988 American English
17161 The Humans Matt Haig 2013 British English
17161 Rituals Of Restlessness Yaghoub Yadali 2016 Iranian Persian
17161 Looking For The Stranger Alice Kaplan 2016 Unknown English
17161 Homunculus 1 Hideo Yamamoto 2003 Japanese Japanese
17161 Länsimaisen Filosofian Historia Huipulta Huipulle, Sokrateesta Marxiin Esa Saarinen 1985 Finnish Finnish
16974 The Disconnected Oğuz Atay 1972 Turkish Turkish
17161 No One Writes Back Jang Jin-sung 2013 Unknown Korean
17161 Kafka Gilles Deleuze 1975 French French