The Greatest Experimental Books of All Time
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17117 | Ellipses | Vanessa Lawrence | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Exhibit | R. O. Kwon | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Whoever You Are, Honey | Olivia Gatwood | 2024 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Children Of Paradise | Camilla Grudova | 2022 | Canadian | English | |
| 17117 | Our Concealed Ballast | Marian Macken | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Karla's Choice | Nick Harkaway | 2024 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Because I Am Not Myself, You See | Ariane Beetson | 2024 | Unknown | Unknown | |
| 17117 | Rock Flight | Hasib Hourani | 2021 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Flight Notes | Hasib Hourani | 2021 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Ghost Mountain | Rónán Hession | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Only Sound Remains | Hossein Asgari | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | May Our Joy Endure | Kevin Lambert | 2022 | Canadian | French | |
| 17117 | Of Walking In Ice | Werner Herzog | 1978 | German | German | |
| 17117 | You Glow In The Dark | Liliana Colanzi | 2022 | Unknown | Spanish | |
| 17117 | The Freaks Came Out To Write | Tricia Romano | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Sarah Kane | Sarah Kane | 2001 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Autoportrait | Édouard Levé | 2005 | French | French | |
| 17117 | Paradise Rot | Jenny Hval | 2009 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 17117 | Room To Dream | David Lynch | 2018 | American | English | |
| 17115 | Sexus | Henry Miller | 1949 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Forty Stories | Donald Barthelme | 1981 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Girl With Curious Hair | David Foster Wallace | 1988 | American | English | |
| 17117 | The Broom Of The System | David Foster Wallace | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Women And Men | Joseph McElroy | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Storm Pegs | Jen Hadfield | 2024 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Two Hours | Alba Arikha | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Hagstone | Sinéad Gleeson | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Herscht 07769 | László Krasznahorkai | 2024 | Hungarian | Hungarian | |
| 17117 | Alt Nature | Saretta Morgan | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Children In Tactical Gear | Peter Mishler | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Volte Face | Dominique Hecq | 2024 | Unknown | Unknown | |
| 17117 | Georges Perec | David Bellos | 1993 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Harrow | Joy Williams | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Stranger Faces | Namwali Serpell | 2020 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | The Ark Sakura | Kobo Abé | 1984 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 17117 | Ľútostivosť | Stanislav Rakús | 2021 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Jedenie | Ivan Medeši | 2018 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Scenár | Etela Farkašová | 2017 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Som Paula | Ondrej Štefánik | 2012 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Tantalópolis | Peter Macsovszky | 2015 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | First And Last Love | Pavel Vilikovský | 2005 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Telegram | Stanislav Rakús | 2009 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Ostrovy Nepamäti | Alta Vášová | 2008 | Slovak | Slovak | |
| 17117 | Diwan On The Prince Of Emgion | Gunnar Ekelöf | 1965 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 17117 | Sju Ord På Tunnelbanan | Karl Vennberg | 1971 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 17117 | Uden Mål – Og Med | Villy Sørensen | 1974 | Danish | Danish | |
| 17117 | After The Sun | Jonas Eika | 2018 | Danish | Danish | |
| 17117 | A Breath Of Life | Clarice Lispector | 1978 | Brazilian | Portuguese | |
| 17117 | Elegy On Toy Piano | Dean Young | 2005 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Joy | Angelo Lacuesta | Philippine | English | ||
| 17117 | Flesh Coloured Dominoes | Zigmunds Skujiņš | 1999 | Latvian | Latvian | |
| 17117 | Those Whom I Would Like To Meet Again | Giedra Radvilavičiūtė | 2013 | Lithuanian | Lithuanian | |
| 17117 | The Confusion | Neal Stephenson | 2004 | American | English | |
| 17117 | The Machinic Unconscious | Félix Guattari | 1979 | French | French | |
| 17117 | Conversations With David Foster Wallace | David Foster Wallace | 2012 | American | English | |
| 17117 | The English Understand Wool | Helen DeWitt | 2022 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | The Hike | Drew Magary | 2016 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Fanged Noumena | Nick Land | 2011 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Great Expectations | Kathy Acker | 1989 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Diary Of A Void | Emi Yagi | 2020 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 17117 | Sombrero Fallout | Richard Brautigan | 1976 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Numbers In The Dark And Other Stories | Italo Calvino | 1995 | Italian | Italian | |
| 17117 | Cyclonopedia | Reza Negarestani | 2008 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Tiny Experiments | Anne-Laure Le Cunff | Unknown | Unknown | ||
| 17117 | The Book | Amaranth Borsuk | 2018 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Out Of Mesopotamia | Salar Abdoh | 2020 | Iranian | English | |
| 17117 | Morgon Og Kveld | Jon Fosse | 2000 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 17117 | Big Fiction | Dan Sinykin | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Yellow Book | Amitava Kumar | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | The Ecliptic | Benjamin Wood | 2015 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Threshold | Rob Doyle | 2020 | Irish | English | |
| 17117 | Sphinx | Anne Garréta | 1986 | French | French | |
| 17117 | The Wake | Paul Kingsnorth | 2014 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Our Ecstatic Days | Steve Erickson | 2005 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Extracting The Stone Of Madness | Alejandra Pizarnik | 2016 | Argentine | Spanish | |
| 17117 | An Elemental Thing | Eliot Weinberger | 2007 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Essays Critical And Clinical | Gilles Deleuze | 1993 | French | French | |
| 17117 | A Shining | Jon Fosse | 2023 | Norwegian | Unknown | |
| 17117 | Earlier | Sasha Frere‑Jones | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | The Long Form | Kate Briggs | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Paris Notebooks | Mavis Gallant | 2023 | Canadian | English | |
| 17117 | The Rigor Of Angels | William Egginton | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | I’m A Fan | Sheena Patel | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | All Souls | Saskia Hamilton | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Shy | Max Porter | 2023 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Ghost Music | An Yu | 2022 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Thin Skin | Jenn Shapland | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Couplets | Maggie Millner | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Bunny & Tree | Balint Zsako | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Confidence | Rafael Frumkin | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Dayswork | Chris Bachelder, Jennifer Habel | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Straw Dogs Of The Universe | Ye Chun | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | The Blazing World | Jonathan Healey | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | Temporary | Hilary Leichter | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17117 | I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times | Taylor Byas | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | T. Singer | Dag Solstad | 1999 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 17117 | God's Grace | Bernard Malamud | 1982 | American | English | |
| 17117 | The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again | M. John Harrison | 2020 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Tentacle | Rita Indiana | 2015 | Dominican | Spanish | |
| 17117 | Mouthful Of Birds | Samanta Schweblin | 2009 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 17117 | Homestuck | Andrew Hussie | 2009 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Homage To The Lame Wolf | Vasko Popa | 1979 | Serbian | Serbo-croatian | |
| 17117 | The Gray House | Mariam Petrosyan | 2009 | Armenian | Russian | |
| 16949 | The Other Side | Alfred Kubin | 1909 | Austrian | English | |
| 17117 | A "Working Life" | Eileen Myles | 2023 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Burning Angel And Other Stories | Lawrence Osborne | Unknown | English | ||
| 17117 | Revelation Freshly Erupting | Nelly Sachs | German | German | ||
| 17117 | Eine Leidenschaft | Annie Ernaux | Unknown | French | ||
| 17117 | Die Kunst Des Verschwindens. | Jim Dodge | 1990 | Unknown | German | |
| 17117 | El Nervio óptico | Maria Gainza | 2014 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 17117 | Talking It Over | Julian Barnes | 1991 | British | English | |
| 17117 | Não Fossem As Sílabas Do Sábado | Mariana Salomão Carrara | 2020 | Brazilian | Portuguese | |
| 17007 | The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions | Larry Mitchell | 1977 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Ratner's Star | Don DeLillo | 1976 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Pequena Coreografia Do Adeus | Aline Bei | Brazilian | Portuguese | ||
| 17117 | The Sarah Book | Scott McClanahan | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Melvill | Rodrigo Fresán | 2022 | Argentine | Spanish | |
| 17117 | Drift | Caroline Bergvall | 2014 | Unknown | English | |
| 17117 | I Must Be Living Twice | Eileen Myles | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17117 | Palmares | Gayl Jones | 1994 | American | English |