The Greatest Books of All Time on Identity

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
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
7 Moby-Dick Herman Melville 1851 American English
10 Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy 1877 Russian Russian
12 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
77 Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman 1855 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
126 If This Is a Man Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italian
129 First Folio William Shakespeare 1623 British English
130 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
139 The Woman in White Wilkie Collins 1860 British English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
175 Metamorphoses Ovid 8 Roman Latin
188 A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens 1859 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
225 Fairy Tales and Stories Hans Christian Andersen 1835 Danish Danish
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
254 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
257 Finnegans Wake James Joyce 1939 Irish English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
271 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
275 The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1782 French French
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
278 A Wizard Of Earthsea Ursula K. Le Guin 1968 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
297 Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott 1819 British English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
362 Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor 1952 American English
371 History of My Life Giacomo Casanova 1822 Italian French
387 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
395 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein 1933 American English
399 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 1995 British English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
427 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell 2004 British English
436 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
459 The Island of Doctor Moreau H. G. Wells 1896 British English
463 The Songs of Maldoror Comte de Lautréamont 1868 French French
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
501 Another Country James Baldwin 1962 American English
512 The Golden Ass Apuleius 158 Roman Latin
521 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou 1969 American English
524 A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving 1989 American English
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
540 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe 1968 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
576 Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop 1969 American English
598 Night Elie Wiesel 1958 French French
602 The Go-Between L. P. Hartley 1953 British English
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
643 Silas Marner George Eliot 1861 British English
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
665 The Family Moskat Isaac Bashevis Singer 1950 Polish Yiddish
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
684 The Adventures Of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi 1883 Italian Italian
706 The Skin Curzio Malaparte 1949 Italian Italian
709 The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan 1963 American English
749 The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963 American English
808 Watchmen Alan Moore 1986 American, British English
812 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
827 Fear of Flying Erica Jong 1973 American English
838 The Book of Daniel E. L. Doctorow 1971 American English
847 Only Yesterday Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1945 Israeli Hebrew
879 A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute 1950 British English
892 The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini 2003 Afghan English
904 Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut 1973 American English
922 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
923 The World Of Yesterday Stefan Zweig 1942 Austrian German
970 The Maias Eça de Queirós 1888 Portuguese Portuguese
1016 Poems Of C. P. Cavafy C. P. Cavafy 1935 Greek Greek
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
1020 Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion 1968 American English
1027 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1071 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham 1957 British English
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
1181 The Painted Bird Jerzy Kosinski 1965 Polish English
1191 Blow Up And Other Stories Julio Cortazar 1968 Argentinian Spanish
1209 Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015 American English