The Greatest Books of All Time on Grief
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14984 | The Infatuations | Javier Marias | 2011 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 14984 | Call Me Zebra | Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi | 2018 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Everything Inside | Edwidge Danticat | 2019 | Haitian | English | |
| 14984 | My Brother's Husband | Gengoroh Tagame | 2014 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 14984 | The Book Of Form And Emptiness | Ruth Ozeki | 2021 | Japanese | English | |
| 14984 | The Folding Star | Alan Hollinghurst | 1994 | British | English | |
| 14984 | The Sweetness Of Water | Nathan Harris | 2021 | American | English | |
| 14984 | August | Tracy Letts | 2008 | American | English | |
| 14984 | The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? | Edward Albee | 2000 | American | English | |
| 14971 | All That Fall | Samuel Beckett | 1957 | Irish | English | |
| 14984 | Olive, Again | Elizabeth Strout | 2019 | American | English | |
| 14984 | People Who Eat Darkness | Richard Lloyd Parry | 2010 | British | English | |
| 14984 | The Extremes | Christopher Priest | 1998 | British | English | |
| 14984 | Walk Two Moons | Sharon Creech | 1994 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Death Without Weeping | Nancy Scheper-Hughes | 1992 | American | English | |
| 14984 | The Outlander | Gil Adamson | 2007 | Canadian | English | |
| 14984 | The Enlightenment Of The Greengage Tree | Shokoofeh Azar | 2017 | Iranian | Persian | |
| 14984 | Razorblade Tears | S. A. Cosby | 2021 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Lisey's Story | Stephen King | 2006 | American | English | |
| 14984 | Monstrilio | Gerardo Sámano Córdova | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 15583 | Ghana Must Go | Taiye Selasi | 2013 | American | English | |
| 15712 | Holiday | Stanley Middleton | 1974 | British | English | |
| 15898 | A Mass For The Dead | William Gibson | 1968 | American | English | |
| 15898 | The Perfect Stranger | P. J. Kavanagh | 1966 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Mrs. Ted Bliss | Stanley Elkin | 1995 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Facts of Life | Maureen Howard | 1965 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Thursbitch | Alan Garner | 2003 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Young Shoulders | John Wain | 1982 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Elegies | Douglas Dunn | 1985 | Scottish | English | |
| 17120 | The Queen of the Tambourine | Jane Gardam | 1991 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club | Benjamin Alire Sáenz | 2012 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Delicious Foods | James Hannaham | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17120 | I Loved You More | Tom Spanbauer | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Human Chain | Seamus Heaney | 2010 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | Cards of Grief | Jane Yolen | 1984 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Root Magic | Eden Royce | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Auē | Becky Manawatu | 2019 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | The Hut Builder | Laurence Fearnley | 2010 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | As The Earth Turns Silver | Alison Wong | 2009 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | Harlequin Rex | Owen Marshall | 1999 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | Hate To Want You | Alisha Rai | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Widow | Fiona Barton | 2016 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Riceyman Steps | Arnold Bennett | 1923 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Middle Age Of Mrs Eliot | Angus Wilson | 1958 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Our Horses In Egypt | Rosalind Belben | 2007 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Reservoir 13 | Jon McGregor | 2017 | British | English | |
| 17120 | With The End In Mind | Kathryn Mannix | 2017 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Die Wise | Stephen Jenkinson | 2015 | Canadian | English | |
| 17120 | The Ground Beneath Her Feet | Salman Rushdie | 1999 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Ugly Ways | Tina McElroy Ansa | 1993 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Happiness And Other Stories | Mary Lavin | 1969 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | A Book Of Common Prayer | Joan Didion | 1977 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Salt Path | Raynor Winn | 2018 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Lady In Waiting | Anne Glenconner | 2019 | British | English | |
| 17120 | An Oak Tree | Tim Crouch | 2005 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Frozen | Bryony Lavery | 1998 | British | English | |
| 17120 | 4000 Miles | Amy Herzog | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Proof | David Auburn | 2000 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Between Riverside & Crazy | Stephen Adly Guirgis | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Other Desert Cities | Jon Robin Baitz | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall | Will Chancellor | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Fates Will Find Their Way | Hannah Pittard | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name | Vendela Vida | 2007 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Collected Works Of Phillis Wheatley | Phillis Wheatley | 1988 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Furies | Janet Hobhouse | 1984 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Age Of Grief | Jane Smiley | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Spring | Ali Smith | 2019 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Silent Land | Graham Joyce | 2010 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Reading List | Sara Nisha Adams | 2021 | British | English | |
| 17120 | I'll Be Right There | Kyung-sook Shin | 2010 | South Korean | Korean | |
| 17120 | The Rift | Nina Allan | 2017 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Outside The Dog Museum | Jonathan Carroll | 1991 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Long Lost | Ramsey Campbell | 1993 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Requiem | Graham Joyce | 1995 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Disappearance At Devil's Rock | Paul Tremblay | 2016 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Cuckoo Song | Frances Hardinge | 2014 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Higher Power Of Lucky | Susan Patron | 2006 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Nights In Rodanthe | Nicholas Sparks | 2002 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Koko's Kitten | Francine Patterson | 1985 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Work Of The Dead | Thomas W. Laqueur | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Trumpet | Jackie Kay | 1998 | Scottish | English | |
| 17120 | This House Of Sky | Ivan Doig | 1978 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Spare Room | Helen Garner | 2008 | Australian | English | |
| 16769 | The Dead Of The House | Hannah Green | 1971 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Undertaking | Thomas Lynch | 1997 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Artful | Ali Smith | 2012 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Kaddish | Leon Wieseltier | 1998 | Kaddish | English | |
| 17120 | Claire Of The Sea Light | Edwidge Danticat | 2013 | Haitian | English | |
| 17120 | Birds Of The Dawn | Lily Osseiran | Unknown | Unknown | ||
| 17120 | Dog Flowers | Danielle Geller | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Zinky Boys | Svetlana Alexievich | 1989 | Belarusian | Russian | |
| 17120 | The Sum Of Our Days | Isabel Allende | 2008 | Chilean | Spanish | |
| 17120 | A Heart That Works | Rob Delaney | 2022 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Look To Windward | Iain Banks | 2000 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Negative Space | B.R. Yeager | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17120 | In Silent Graves | Gary A. Braunbeck | 2003 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Master Of Petersburg | J. M. Coetzee | 1994 | South African | English | |
| 17120 | Naoko | Keigo Higashino | 1998 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 17120 | Life On Mars | Tracy K. Smith | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Broken Glass Park | Alina Bronsky | 2008 | German | German | |
| 17120 | The Book Of Lost Things | John Connolly | 2006 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | Love Is A Mix Tape | Rob Sheffield | 2007 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Bad Cree | Jessica Johns | 2023 | Unknown | English | |
| 17120 | The Immortalists | Chloe Benjamin | 2018 | American | English |