The Greatest Books of All Time on Family

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.

View: List Grid Table
Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
11 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
18 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
19 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
28 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
29 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
70 The Aeneid Virgil -19 Roman Latin
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
73 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
83 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
93 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
94 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
120 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
136 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame 1908 British English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
184 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
186 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
192 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
194 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
208 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
215 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
241 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
242 The Godfather Mario Puzo 1969 American English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
248 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
250 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
251 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
256 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1922 American English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
267 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 1945 Swedish Swedish
273 The Betrothed Alessandro Manzoni 1827 Italian Italian
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
285 Oresteia Aeschylus -458 Greek Ancient greek
287 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
299 Kristin Lavransdatter Sigrid Undset 1920 Norwegian Norwegian
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
308 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
322 Household Tales Brothers Grimm 1812 German German
323 Mahabharata Vyasa -400 Indian Sanskrit
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
332 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
338 Effi Briest Theodor Fontane 1895 German German
341 The Human Comedy Honoré de Balzac 1830 French French
346 The Castle of Otranto Horace Walpole 1764 British English
349 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian