The Greatest Books of All Time Set in Illinois

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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.

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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
2192 American Gods Neil Gaiman 2001 British English
2249 Twenty Years at Hull-House Jane Addams 1910 American English
2612 Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant U. S. Grant 1885 American English
2882 Physics And Beyond Werner Heisenberg 1971 German German
3103 Spoon River Anthology Edgar Lee Masters 1915 American English
3251 Endless Love Scott Spencer 1979 American English
3300 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
4458 The Truly Disadvantaged William Julius Wilson 1987 American English
5037 Storm Front Jim Butcher 2000 American English
5328 Grant Ron Chernow 2017 American English
5348 A Street In Bronzeville Gwendolyn Brooks 1945 American English
5357 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
5360 The Hite Report Shere Hite 1976 American English
5472 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
5595 The Lazarus Project Aleksandar Hemon 2008 Bosnian English
5935 The Spiral Of Silence Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann 1982 German German
5997 King Jonathan Eig 2023 American English
6002 Testimony Charles Reznikoff 1965 American English
6127 Negroland Margo Jefferson 2015 American English
6512 The Control Revolution James R. Beniger 1986 American English
6581 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
7215 Poems Of Vachel Lindsay Vachel Lindsay 1913 American English
7681 Left Behind Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins 1995 American English
8181 Dead Time Eleanor Taylor Bland 1992 American English
8307 How The Light Gets In M. J. Hyland 2003 Australian English
8461 Griftopia Matt Taibbi 2010 American English
8461 Being Wrong Kathryn Schulz 2010 American English
8570 Let The Trumpet Sound Stephen B. Oates 1982 American English
8697 Blacklist Sara Paretsky 2003 American English
8794 It Happened One Wedding Julie James 2014 American English
8849 I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home Lorrie Moore 2023 American English
8865 Crisis Of The House Divided Harry V. Jaffa 1959 American English
8923 How Children Succeed Paul Tough 2012 Canadian English
8970 The Dean's December Saul Bellow 1982 American English
9176 Beautiful Bastard Christina Lauren 2013 American English
9176 Off To Be The Wizard Scott Meyer 2013 English
9188 How We Got To Now Steven Johnson 2014 American English
9188 But What If We're Wrong? Chuck Klosterman 2016 American English
9233 Primal Fear William Diehl 1993 American English
9284 Brutal Prince Sophie Lark 2020 Unknown English
9318 The Beautiful Room Is Empty Edmund White 1988 American English
9321 The Hacker Crackdown Bruce Sterling 1992 American English
9325 In Search Of Excellence Tom Peters, Robert H. Waterman, Jr. 1982 American English
9566 Pucked Helena Hunting 2015 Canadian English
9617 We Are Never Meeting In Real Life. Samantha Irby 2017 American English
9708 The Dispatcher John Scalzi 2016 American English
9769 The Night Bookmobile Audrey Niffenegger 2010 American English
9938 Crusade For Justice Ida B. Wells 1970 American English
10057 Wellness Nathan Hill 2024 American English
10073 The Body Project Joan Jacobs Brumberg 1997 American English
10153 So Big Edna Ferber 1924 American English
10166 The Pale King David Foster Wallace 2011 American English
10234 Race For Profit Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor 2019 American English
10445 The Speed Of Light Javier Cercas 2005 Spanish Spanish
10448 The Poison Squad Deborah Blum 2018 American English
10534 The Rediscovery Of America Ned Blackhawk 2023 Unknown English
10629 The New Me Halle Butler 2019 American English
10663 Our Migrant Souls Héctor Tobar 2023 American English
10767 Halfway Home Reuben Jonathan Miller 2021 American English
10843 Orson Welles André Bazin 1972 French French
10894 America’s Women Gail Collins 2003 American English
10936 I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Erika L. Sánchez 2017 American English
10949 Spillover David Quammen 2012 American English
11197 The Audacity of Hope Barack Obama 2006 American English
11220 Becoming Michelle Obama 2018 American English
11271 Gospel Wilton Barnhardt 1993 American English
11303 James Tiptree, Jr. Julie Phillips 2006 Unknown English
11417 Feminism And Pop Culture Andi Zeisler 2008 American English
11433 A History Of Bombing Sven Lindqvist 1999 Swedish Swedish
11479 Ali Jonathan Eig 2017 American English
11479 Why Comics? Hillary L. Chute 2017 American English
11488 When Everything Changed Gail Collins 2009 American English
11510 Race Experts Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn 2001 American English
11522 206 Bones Kathy Reichs 2009 American English
11576 Abraham Lincoln Carl Sandburg 1939 American English
11630 The Instructions Adam Levin 2010 American English
11650 American Musicians Ii Whitney Balliett 1996 American English
11660 Bad Blood James Jones 1981 American Unknown
11660 Him With His Foot In His Mouth And Other Stories Saul Bellow 1984 American English
11660 Fly Girls Keith O'Brien 2018 American English
11660 We The Corporations Adam Winkler 2018 American English
11839 Reality Bites Back Jennifer L. Pozner 2009 American English
11852 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation Allen Guelzo 2004 American English
11871 Weapons Of Math Destruction Cathy O'Neil 2016 American English
11899 The Book Of Ruth Jane Hamilton 1988 American English
11936 Coffee Will Make You Black April Sinclair 1995 American English
11939 The American Orchestra and Theodore Thomas Charles Edward Russell 1927 American English
12176 Algorithms Of Oppression Safiya Umoja Noble 2018 American English
12309 When I Was Five I Killed Myself Howard Buten 1981 American English
12312 Yes Please Amy Poehler 2014 American English
12324 Lincoln David Herbert Donald 1995 American English
12324 Overcoming Law Richard A. Posner 1995 American English
12391 Abraham Lincoln Michael Burlingame 2008 American English
12503 Distributed Blackness André Brock Jr. 2020 Unknown English
12586 Geeks Jon Katz 2000 American English
12622 People Of Means Nancy Johnson 2025 Unknown English