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
14816 Restaurant At The End Of The Universe Douglas Adams 1980 British English
14851 Memoirs Of A Dutiful Daughter Simone de Beauvoir 1958 French French
14885 Black Spring Henry Miller 1936 American English
14921 Life, The Universe And Everything Douglas Adams 1982 British English
14933 Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said Philip K. Dick 1974 American English
14944 Double Or Nothing Raymond Federman 1971 American English
14946 The Coming Of Age Simone de Beauvoir 1970 French French
14961 Dying Inside Robert Silverberg 1972 American English
14955 Lucky Per Henrik Pontoppidan 1898 Danish Danish
14974 The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo César Vallejo 1968 Peruvian Spanish
14970 All That Fall Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish English
14983 Wittgenstein Jr. Lars Iyer 2014 British English
14983 Altered Carbon Richard Morgan 2002 British English
14983 English, August Upamanyu Chatterjee 1988 Indian English
14967 End Zone Don DeLillo 1972 American English
14983 Old Masters Thomas Bernhard 1985 Austrian German
14983 The Man Who Killed Himself Julian Symons 1967 British English
14983 The New Confessions William Boyd 1987 British English
14983 Harold Steven Wright 2023 Unknown English
14983 Evening Edged In Gold Arno Schmidt 1975 German German
15678 Literature And Existentialism Jean Paul Sartre French French
15750 The Tree Of Knowledge Pío Baroja 1911 Spanish Spanish
15751 I Live Leila Baalbaki 1958 Lebanese Arabic
15780 Critique Of Religion And Philosophy Walter A. Kaufmann 1958 American English
15814 The Mystery Of Being 1 Gabriel Marcel 1949 French French
15811 Rabbit Angstrom John Updike 1960 American English
15868 Tomb For 500,000 Soldiers Pierre Guyotat 1967 French French
15897 Happy Days Samuel Beckett 1961 French English
15897 The Journal Of A Disappointed Man W. N. P. Barbellion 1919 British English
15897 Zibaldone Giacomo Leopardi 1898 Zibaldone Italian
15897 Ushant Conrad Aiken 1952 Ushant English
15897 Bestiario Juan José Arreola 1938 Mexican Spanish
16489 Sun & Steel Yukio Mishima 1968 Japanese Japanese
15886 At The Mind's Limits Jean Améry 1966 German German
15897 The Colossus Of Maroussi Henry Miller 1941 American English
16499 O Sonho De Um Homem Ridículo Fyodor Dostoevsky 1877 Russian Russian
15897 Amiel's Journal Henri-Frédéric Amiel 1883 Swiss French
16491 An Apprenticeship Or The Book Of Pleasures Clarice Lispector 1969 Brazilian Portuguese
16578 Schopenhauer As Educator Friedrich Nietzsche 1874 German German
16572 The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster Richard Brautigan 1968 American English
16608 Summerfolk Maxim Gorky 1904 Russian Russian
16727 Concluding Unscientific Postscript To Philosophical Fragments, Volume 1 Soren Kierkegaard 1846 Danish Danish
16673 The Ethics Of Ambiguity Simone de Beauvoir 1947 French French
16655 Madonna In A Fur Coat Sabahattin Ali 1943 Turkish Turkish
16749 A Moth To A Flame Stig Dagerman 1948 Swedish Swedish
16647 The Pilgrim's Regress C. S. Lewis 1933 British English
16751 Sun And Steel Yukio Mishima 1968 Japanese Japanese
16636 Kleine Weltgeschichte Der Philosophie Hans Joachim Störig 1950 German German
17114 Take It Or Leave It Raymond Federman 1976 American English
17114 An American Dream Norman Mailer 1965 American English
17114 Adam's Breed Radclyffe Hall 1926 British English
17114 You And I Padgett Powell 2011 American English
17114 Towing Jehovah James K. Morrow 1994 American English
17114 Galaxies Barry N. Malzberg 1975 American English
17114 The Aliens Annie Baker 2010 American English
16968 A Delicate Balance Edward Albee 1966 American English
16759 The Suicide Nikolai Erdman 1928 Russian Russian
17114 The Moment Of Eclipse Brian Aldiss 1970 British English
17114 I'm Thinking Of Ending Things Iain Reid 2016 Canadian English
17114 Be Here To Love Me At The End Of The World Sasha Fletcher 2021 American English
17114 The Other Shore Xingjian Gao 1986 Chinese Chinese
17114 The World As I Found It Bruce Duffy 1987 American English
17114 Confessions Of A Philosopher Bryan Magee 1997 British English
17114 What's The Big Idea? Oscar Brenifier 2001 French English
17114 A Short History Of Modern Philosophy Roger Scruton 1982 British English
17114 In Search Of Walid Masoud Jabra Ibrahim Jabra 1978 Palestinian Arabic
17114 The Woman And The Rose Mohamed Zafzaf 1986 Moroccan Arabic
16996 The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir 1967 French French
17114 Permafrost Eva Baltasar 2018 Spanish Catalan
16746 Caligula Albert Camus 1944 French French
17114 Love's Executioner Irvin D. Yalom 1989 American English
17114 The Marriage Question Clare Carlisle 2022 British English
17105 Existentialism From Dostoevsky To Sartre Walter A. Kaufmann 1956 American English
17114 What Is All This? Stephen Dixon 2010 American English
17114 Zero Gine Cornelia Pedersen 2013 Norwegian Norwegian
17114 Border State Tõnu Õnnepalu 1993 Estonian Estonian
17114 Those Whom I Would Like To Meet Again Giedra Radvilavičiūtė 2013 Lithuanian Lithuanian
17114 Tūla Jurgis Kunčinas 1993 Lithuanian Lithuanian
17114 Conversations With David Foster Wallace David Foster Wallace 2012 American English
17114 Stranger Than We Can Imagine John Higgs 2015 British English
17114 The Salmon Of Doubt Douglas Adams 2002 British English
17114 The Tremor Of Forgery Patricia Highsmith 1969 American English
17114 Diary Of A Void Emi Yagi 2020 Japanese Japanese
17114 Ripe Sarah Rose Etter 2023 Unknown English
17114 Better Never To Have Been David Benatar 2006 South African English
17114 Aliens & Anorexia Chris Kraus 2000 American English
17114 Angry Candy Harlan Ellison 1988 American English
16950 Trout Fishing In America / The Pill Vs. The Springhill Mine Disaster / In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan 1967 American English
17114 Sombrero Fallout Richard Brautigan 1976 American English
17114 Numbers In The Dark And Other Stories Italo Calvino 1995 Italian Italian
17114 Pulp Charles Bukowski 1994 American English
17114 August Blue Deborah Levy 2023 British English
16987 Under The Autumn Star Knut Hamsun 1906 Norwegian Norwegian
17016 The Wanderer Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
17114 The Bright Book Of Life Harold Bloom 2020 American English
16803 Sette Piani Dino Buzzati 1954 Italian Italian
17114 The Sea Came In At Midnight Steve Erickson 1999 American English
17039 Dostoevsky Joseph Frank 1864 American English
17114 Autobiography Of A Corpse Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky 2013 Russian Russian
17114 A Shining Jon Fosse Unknown Norwegian
17114 If Cats Disappeared From The World Genki Kawamura 2012 Japanese Japanese
17114 Tutti I Nomi José Saramago 1997 Portuguese Italian
17114 The Seducer Jan Kjærstad 1993 Norwegian Norwegian
17114 Katherine Carlyle Rupert Thomson 2015 British English
17114 Threshold Rob Doyle 2020 Irish English
17114 Cave & Julia M. John Harrison 2014 British English
17114 Here Goes Nothing Steve Toltz 2022 Australian English
17114 People From Bloomington Budi Darma 1980 Indonesian Indonesian
16846 Tears And Saints Emil Cioran 1937 Romanian French
16902 Notes From Underground & The Double Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
17114 The Collected Stories Lorrie Moore 2008 American English
17114 Breaking And Entering Joy Williams 1988 American English
17114 The Humans Matt Haig 2013 British English
17114 Rituals Of Restlessness Yaghoub Yadali 2016 Iranian Persian
17114 Looking For The Stranger Alice Kaplan 2016 Unknown English
17114 Homunculus 1 Hideo Yamamoto 2003 Japanese Japanese
17114 Länsimaisen Filosofian Historia Huipulta Huipulle, Sokrateesta Marxiin Esa Saarinen 1985 Finnish Finnish
16927 The Disconnected Oğuz Atay 1972 Turkish Turkish
17114 Kafka Gilles Deleuze 1975 French French
17110 Heaven Has No Favorites Erich Maria Remarque 1961 German German