The Greatest Experimental Books Since 2000
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 232 | 2666 | Roberto Bolaño | 2004 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 262 | Austerlitz | W. G. Sebald | 2001 | German | German | |
| 427 | Cloud Atlas | David Mitchell | 2004 | British | English | |
| 607 | House of Leaves | Mark Z. Danielewski | 2000 | American | English | |
| 804 | The Vegetarian | Han Kang | 2007 | Korean | Korean | |
| 874 | The Last Samurai | Helen DeWitt | 2000 | American | English | |
| 898 | My Struggle | Karl Ove Knausgård | 2009 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 1022 | Lincoln in the Bardo | George Saunders | 2017 | American | English | |
| 1101 | Outline | Rachel Cusk | 2014 | British | English | |
| 1154 | True History of the Kelly Gang | Peter Carey | 2000 | Australian | English | |
| 1272 | Erasure | Percival Everett | 2001 | American | English | |
| 1472 | The Beauty Of The Husband | Anne Carson | 2001 | Canadian | English | |
| 1703 | The Argonauts | Maggie Nelson | 2015 | American | English | |
| 1861 | Citizen | Claudia Rankine | 2014 | American | English | |
| 1909 | The Collected Stories Of Lydia Davis | Lydia Davis | 2009 | American | English | |
| 2311 | Solenoid | Mircea Cărtărescu | 2015 | Romanian | Romanian | |
| 2334 | How to be both | Ali Smith | 2014 | British | English | |
| 2467 | On Beauty | Zadie Smith | 2005 | British | English | |
| 2805 | James | Percival Everett | 2024 | American | English | |
| 2842 | 10:04 | Ben Lerner | 2014 | American | English | |
| 3011 | By Night in Chile | Roberto Bolaño | 2000 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 3062 | Home Land | Sam Lipsyte | 2004 | American | English | |
| 3097 | Open City | Teju Cole | 2011 | American | English | |
| 3121 | The Possibility Of An Island | Michel Houellebecq | 2005 | French | French | |
| 3164 | Dept. of Speculation | Jenny Offill | 2014 | American | English | |
| 3470 | Solar Bones | Mike McCormack | 2016 | Irish | English | |
| 3540 | C | Tom McCarthy | 2010 | British | English | |
| 3604 | A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing | Eimear McBride | 2013 | Irish | English | |
| 3849 | Piranesi | Susanna Clarke | 2020 | British | English | |
| 3890 | There But For The | Ali Smith | 2011 | British | English | |
| 3945 | In The Dream House | Carmen Maria Machado | 2019 | American | English | |
| 4116 | Why Did I Ever? | Mary Robison | 2001 | American | English | |
| 4136 | The Faraway Nearby | Rebecca Solnit | 2013 | American | English | |
| 4152 | American Genius | Lynne Tillman | 2006 | American | English | |
| 4299 | Remainder | Tom McCarthy | 2005 | British | English | |
| 4391 | Crabwalk | Günter Grass | 2002 | German | German | |
| 4393 | The Friend | Sigrid Nunez | 2018 | American | English | |
| 4609 | Here | Richard McGuire | 2014 | American | English | |
| 4661 | The Complete Stories | Clarice Lispector | 2016 | Brazilian | Portuguese | |
| 4665 | Building Stories | Chris Ware | 2012 | American | English | |
| 5012 | The Lesser Bohemians | Eimear McBride | 2016 | Irish | English | |
| 5153 | Cursed Bunny | Bora Chung | 2021 | Korean | Korean | |
| 5462 | The Animals In That Country | Laura Jean McKay | 2020 | Australian | English | |
| 5581 | This Is How You Lose The Time War | Amal El Mohtar, Max Gladstone | 2019 | Multiple | English | |
| 5622 | Biography Of X | Catherine Lacey | 2023 | American | English | |
| 5719 | Warlight | Michael Ondaatje | 2018 | Canadian | English | |
| 5801 | Kruso | Lutz Seiler | 2014 | German | German | |
| 5803 | Martyr! | Kaveh Akbar | 2024 | American | English | |
| 5929 | Light | M. John Harrison | 2002 | British | English | |
| 6218 | Chronicle of Feelings | Alexander Kluge | 2000 | German | German | |
| 6282 | Sur La Scène Intérieure | Marcel Cohen | 2013 | French | French | |
| 6409 | Bluets | Maggie Nelson | 2009 | American | English | |
| 6460 | Never Did The Fire | Diamela Eltit | 2022 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 6541 | F | Dumitru Radu Popescu | 2000 | Romanian | Unknown | |
| 6566 | Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming | László Krasznahorkai | 2016 | Hungarian | Hungarian | |
| 6607 | The Anomaly | Hervé Le Tellier | 2020 | French | French | |
| 6620 | Zone | Mathias Enard | 2008 | French | French | |
| 6632 | Reveries Of The Wild Woman | Hélène Cixous | 2000 | French | French | |
| 6737 | Emergence | Steven Johnson | 2001 | American | English | |
| 6787 | Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments | Saidiya Hartman | 2019 | American | English | |
| 6851 | Apeirogon | Colum McCann | 2020 | Irish | English | |
| 6901 | Raymond And Hannah | Stephen Marche | 2005 | Canadian | English | |
| 6947 | Ducks, Newburyport | Lucy Ellmann | 2019 | British | English | |
| 6981 | Hawthorn & Child | Keith Ridgway | 2012 | Irish | English | |
| 6984 | Sleeping It Off in Rapid City | August Kleinzahler | 2008 | American | English | |
| 6991 | The Employees | Olga Ravn | 2018 | Danish | Danish | |
| 7001 | Collected Poems | Jack Gilbert | 2012 | American | English | |
| 7080 | The Blazing World | Siri Hustvedt | 2014 | American | English | |
| 7103 | Get In Trouble | Kelly Link | 2015 | American | English | |
| 7157 | La Horde Du Contrevent | Alain Damasio | 2004 | French | French | |
| 7205 | Animalinside | László Krasznahorkai, Max Neumann | 2010 | Hungarian | Hungarian | |
| 7212 | Question 7 | Richard Flanagan | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 7585 | After Sappho | Selby Wynn Schwartz | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 7602 | The Beginning Of Infinity | David Deutsch | 2011 | British | English | |
| 7625 | Caietul Albastru | Nicolae Balotă | 2007 | Romanian | Romanian | |
| 7626 | Whale | Cheon Myeong-kwan | 2004 | Korean | Korean | |
| 7631 | Telephone | Percival Everett | 2020 | American | English | |
| 7634 | The Big Music | Kirsty Gunn | 2012 | New Zealander | English | |
| 7725 | A Worldly Country | John Ashbery | 2007 | American | English | |
| 7736 | The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel | Amy Hempel | 2006 | American | English | |
| 7746 | Lifted | Bill Manhire | 2006 | New Zealand | English | |
| 7753 | Mr. Fox | Helen Oyeyemi | 2011 | British | English | |
| 7896 | Dangerous Laughter | Steven Millhauser | 2008 | American | English | |
| 7899 | Spreadeagle | Kevin Killian | 2012 | American | English | |
| 7914 | The Braindead Megaphone | George Saunders | 2007 | American | English | |
| 7941 | Phantom Pain Wings | Kim Hye-soon | 2019 | Korean | Korean | |
| 7958 | La Casa De La Fuerza | Angélica Liddell | 2009 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 8000 | Fragmentos De Un Libro Futuro | José Ángel Valente | 2000 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 8071 | Taipei | Tao Lin | 2013 | American | English | |
| 8142 | Walker On Water | Kristiina Ehin | 2014 | Estonian | Estonian | |
| 8142 | Alindarka’s Children | Alhierld Bakharevich | 2014 | Belarusian | Belarusian | |
| 8154 | Crush | Richard Siken | 2005 | American | English | |
| 8191 | The Order Of Time | Carlo Rovelli | 2017 | Italian | Italian | |
| 8201 | 4.48 Psychosis | Sarah Kane | 2000 | British | English | |
| 8201 | Insomnia Drawings | Louise Bourgeois | 2000 | Unknown | English | |
| 8201 | The Day I Wasn't There | Hélène Cixous | 2000 | French | French | |
| 8217 | Rok Perel | Zuzana Brabcová | 2000 | Czech | Czech | |
| 8247 | Always Unreliable | Clive James | 2001 | British | English | |
| 8296 | Kokuhaku | Kō Machida | 2005 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 8326 | This All Happened | Michael Winter | 2000 | Canadian | English | |
| 8379 | Towards Another Summer | Janet Frame | 2007 | New Zealander | English | |
| 8400 | About The Author | John Colapinto | 2001 | American | English | |
| 8441 | Diaries 1959 1971 | Alejandra Pizarnik | 2003 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 8443 | Panorama | Dušan Šarotar | 2016 | Slovenian | Slovene | |
| 8459 | Headshot | Rita Bullwinkel | 2024 | Unknown | English | |
| 8494 | Margaret The First | Danielle Dutton | 2016 | American | English | |
| 8532 | L'amour, Roman | Camille Laurens | 2003 | French | French | |
| 8621 | Play The Monster Blind | Lynn Coady | 2000 | Canadian | English | |
| 8629 | Vanishing Point | David Markson | 2004 | American | English | |
| 8679 | The Chronology Of Water | Lidia Yuknavitch | 2011 | American | English | |
| 8786 | The Diaries Of Emilio Renzi | Ricardo Piglia | 2015 | Argentinian | Spanish | |
| 8842 | Negative Space | Luljeta Lleshanaku | 2018 | Albanian | Albanian | |
| 8845 | Seeing Red | Lina Meruane | 2012 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 8883 | Black and Blur | Fred Moten | 2017 | American | English | |
| 8887 | Cendrillon | Éric Reinhardt | 2007 | French | French | |
| 8895 | I Have Not Seen Mandu | Swadesh Deepak | 2003 | Indian | Hindi | |
| 8902 | Blackouts | Justin Torres | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 8975 | Clavícula | Marta Sanz | 2015 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 9059 | Pond | Claire-Louise Bennett | 2015 | Irish | English | |
| 9126 | Génie Divin | Guillaume Dustan | 2001 | French | French |