The Greatest Family 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 488 '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.

Filter by: Genres Dates Countries

Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
2 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
3 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
4 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
5 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
9 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
11 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 1847 British English
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
13 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
14 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1866 Russian Russian
15 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
17 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
19 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
20 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
24 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
25 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
28 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
29 The Bible Unknown -1400 Jewish Hebrew, aramaic, greek
30 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 1847 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
41 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 British, Indian English
43 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
44 One Thousand and One Nights Unknown 800 Multiple Arabic
47 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
48 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
49 The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy Laurence Sterne 1759 British English
52 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
59 The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank 1947 Dutch Dutch
60 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
61 The Aeneid Virgil 19 Roman Latin
63 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
68 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
69 The Portrait of a Lady Henry James 1881 American English
76 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
79 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
80 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
81 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
82 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
83 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
86 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
89 Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky 1872 Russian Russian
91 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
96 Emma Jane Austen 1815 British English
97 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
102 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
104 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
105 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
107 The Tin Drum Günter Grass 1959 German German
109 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
110 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
112 The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler 1939 American English
114 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
115 The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle 1902 British English
122 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
123 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
127 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
134 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 1860 British English
135 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
138 The Charterhouse of Parma Stendhal 1839 French French
142 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
148 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
155 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
161 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
166 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
171 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
172 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
174 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
179 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
181 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
184 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
187 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
188 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
191 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
192 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
195 Bonjour Tristesse Francoise Sagan 1954 French French
196 Atonement Ian McEwan 2001 British English
199 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
202 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
204 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson 1959 American English
205 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
206 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
210 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
213 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
217 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
219 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
221 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
223 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
224 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
225 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
227 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Agatha Christie 1926 British English
231 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
232 Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Judy Blume 1970 American English
235 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
242 The World According to Garp John Irving 1978 American English
243 The Godfather Mario Puzo 1969 American English
244 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
246 Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery 1908 Canadian English
249 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
250 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
251 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
253 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
255 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
257 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
259 The Chronicles of Narnia C. S. Lewis 1950 British English
264 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
265 The Shining Stephen King 1977 American English
266 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
272 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
275 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
277 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
278 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
279 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
280 Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren 1945 Swedish Swedish
283 Mahabharata Vyasa -400 Indian Sanskrit
285 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
290 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
297 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
300 The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Machado de Assis 1881 Brazilian Portuguese