The Greatest Books of All Time Set in Illinois

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
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
587 The Man with the Golden Arm Nelson Algren 1949 American English
640 Black Boy Richard Wright 1945 American English
720 The Professor's House Willa Cather 1925 American English
758 Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury 1957 American English
1222 Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell 1932 American English
1489 Abraham Lincoln, Speeches And Letters Abraham Lincoln 1907 American English
1542 The Devil In The White City Erik Larson 2003 American English
1634 The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros 1984 American English
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
1783 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers 2000 American English
2193 American Gods Neil Gaiman 2001 British English
2250 Twenty Years at Hull-House Jane Addams 1910 American English
2613 Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant U. S. Grant 1885 American English
2884 Physics And Beyond Werner Heisenberg 1971 German German
3104 Spoon River Anthology Edgar Lee Masters 1915 American English
3252 Endless Love Scott Spencer 1979 American English
3301 The Red Record Ida B. Wells 1895 American English
3316 City Of Night John Rechy 1963 American English
3638 The Jazz Book Joachim-Ernst Berendt 1953 German German
3638 New Testament And Mythology Rudolf Bultmann 1941 German German
4459 The Truly Disadvantaged William Julius Wilson 1987 American English
5041 Storm Front Jim Butcher 2000 American English
5330 Grant Ron Chernow 2017 American English
5350 A Street In Bronzeville Gwendolyn Brooks 1945 American English
5359 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
5362 The Hite Report Shere Hite 1976 American English
5475 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
5598 The Lazarus Project Aleksandar Hemon 2008 Bosnian English
5933 King Jonathan Eig 2023 American English
5939 The Spiral Of Silence Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann 1982 German German
6005 Testimony Charles Reznikoff 1965 American English
6130 Negroland Margo Jefferson 2015 American English
6514 The Control Revolution James R. Beniger 1986 American English
6583 Hardball Sara Paretsky 2009 American English
6835 There Are No Children Here Alex Kotlowitz 1991 American English
6872 Eustace Chisholm And The Works James Purdy 1967 American English
6937 Century Of Struggle Eleanor Flexner 1959 American English
7062 Then We Came To The End Joshua Ferris 2007 American English
7122 Why We Love Helen Fisher 2004 American English
7142 Hello Beautiful Ann Napolitano 2023 American English
7216 Poems Of Vachel Lindsay Vachel Lindsay 1913 American English
7682 Left Behind Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins 1995 American English
8183 Dead Time Eleanor Taylor Bland 1992 American English
8309 How The Light Gets In M. J. Hyland 2003 Australian English
8466 Griftopia Matt Taibbi 2010 American English
8466 Being Wrong Kathryn Schulz 2010 American English
8574 Let The Trumpet Sound Stephen B. Oates 1982 American English
8701 Blacklist Sara Paretsky 2003 American English
8799 It Happened One Wedding Julie James 2014 American English
8853 I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home Lorrie Moore 2023 American English
8869 Crisis Of The House Divided Harry V. Jaffa 1959 American English
8927 How Children Succeed Paul Tough 2012 Canadian English
8974 The Dean's December Saul Bellow 1982 American English
9180 Beautiful Bastard Christina Lauren 2013 American English
9180 Off To Be The Wizard Scott Meyer 2013 English
9192 How We Got To Now Steven Johnson 2014 American English
9192 But What If We're Wrong? Chuck Klosterman 2016 American English
9237 Primal Fear William Diehl 1993 American English
9289 Brutal Prince Sophie Lark 2020 Unknown English
9323 The Beautiful Room Is Empty Edmund White 1988 American English
9326 The Hacker Crackdown Bruce Sterling 1992 American English
9330 In Search Of Excellence Tom Peters, Robert H. Waterman, Jr. 1982 American English
9571 Pucked Helena Hunting 2015 Canadian English
9621 We Are Never Meeting In Real Life. Samantha Irby 2017 American English
9711 The Dispatcher John Scalzi 2016 American English
9772 The Night Bookmobile Audrey Niffenegger 2010 American English
9942 Crusade For Justice Ida B. Wells 1970 American English
10062 Wellness Nathan Hill 2024 American English
10078 The Body Project Joan Jacobs Brumberg 1997 American English
10157 So Big Edna Ferber 1924 American English
10170 The Pale King David Foster Wallace 2011 American English
10240 Race For Profit Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 2019 American English
10450 The Speed Of Light Javier Cercas 2005 Spanish Spanish
10453 The Poison Squad Deborah Blum 2018 American English
10540 The Rediscovery Of America Ned Blackhawk 2023 Unknown English
10636 The New Me Halle Butler 2019 American English
10669 Our Migrant Souls Héctor Tobar 2023 American English
10773 Halfway Home Reuben Jonathan Miller 2021 American English
10849 Orson Welles André Bazin 1972 French French
10900 America’s Women Gail Collins 2003 American English
10942 I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Erika L. Sánchez 2017 American English
10955 Spillover David Quammen 2012 American English
11203 The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama 2006 American English
11226 Becoming Michelle Obama 2018 American English
11277 Gospel Wilton Barnhardt 1993 American English
11309 James Tiptree, Jr. Julie Phillips 2006 Unknown English
11422 Feminism And Pop Culture Andi Zeisler 2008 American English
11438 A History Of Bombing Sven Lindqvist 1999 Swedish Swedish
11482 Ali Jonathan Eig 2017 American English
11482 Why Comics? Hillary L. Chute 2017 American English
11491 When Everything Changed Gail Collins 2009 American English
11512 Race Experts Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn 2001 American English
11524 206 Bones Kathy Reichs 2009 American English
11578 Abraham Lincoln Carl Sandburg 1939 American English
11632 The Instructions Adam Levin 2010 American English
11652 American Musicians Ii Whitney Balliett 1996 American English
11662 Bad Blood James Jones 1981 American Unknown
11662 Him With His Foot In His Mouth And Other Stories Saul Bellow 1984 American English
11662 Fly Girls Keith O'Brien 2018 American English
11662 We The Corporations Adam Winkler 2018 American English
11840 Reality Bites Back Jennifer L. Pozner 2009 American English
11853 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation Allen Guelzo 2004 American English
11872 Weapons Of Math Destruction Cathy O'Neil 2016 American English
11900 The Book Of Ruth Jane Hamilton 1988 American English
11937 Coffee Will Make You Black April Sinclair 1995 American English
11940 The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas Charles Edward Russell 1927 American English
12177 Algorithms Of Oppression Safiya Umoja Noble 2018 American English
12310 When I Was Five I Killed Myself Howard Buten 1981 American English
12313 Yes Please Amy Poehler 2014 American English
12326 Lincoln David Herbert Donald 1995 American English
12326 Overcoming Law Richard A. Posner 1995 American English
12393 Abraham Lincoln Michael Burlingame 2008 American English
12505 Distributed Blackness André Brock Jr. 2020 Unknown English
12588 Geeks Jon Katz 2000 American English
12624 People Of Means Nancy Johnson 2025 Unknown English