The Greatest Books of All Time on Intellectualism

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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
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
300 The Life of Samuel Johnson James Boswell 1791 British English
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
805 Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers 1935 British English
807 The Book of the City of Ladies Christine De Pizan 1405 French French
1363 The Liberal Imagination Lionel Trilling 1950 American English
1454 Pushkin House Andrey Bitov 1978 Russian Russian
1574 Nightmare Abbey Thomas Love Peacock 1818 British English
1611 Crome Yellow Aldous Huxley 1921 British English
2065 The Egghead Republic Arno Schmidt 1957 German German
3222 Ecce Homo Friedrich Nietzsche 1908 German German
3453 The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom 1987 American English
3637 Goat Song Konstantin Vaginov 1927 Russian Russian
3832 Stories Of Three Decades Thomas Mann 1936 German German
3954 For Two Thousand Years Mihail Sebastian 1934 Romanian Romanian
4758 The Faculty of Useless Knowledge Yuri Dombrovsky 1976 Russian Russian
5691 Sur La Philosophie Africaine Paulin Hountondji 1976 French French
5708 Kafka Was The Rage Anatole Broyard 1993 American English
5779 My Happy Days In Hell György Faludy 1962 Hungarian Hungarian
5893 Antic Hay Aldous Huxley 1923 British English
5918 The Damnation Of Theron Ware Harold Frederic 1896 American English
6493 A Voice From The South Anna Julia Cooper 1892 American English
7216 The Learned Ladies Molière 1672 French French
7216 Journals Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820 American English
7665 The Flowering of New England Van Wyck Brooks 1936 American English
7981 The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman 1998 American English
8308 A Life In The Twentieth Century Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr 2000 American English
9251 Sor Juana Or, The Traps Of Faith Octavio Paz 1982 Mexican Spanish
9630 Largo Desolato Vaclav Havel 1985 Czech Czech
9751 Anti-intellectualism in American Life Richard Hofstadter 1963 American English
10788 The New Negro Jeffrey C. Stewart 2018 American English
11140 Fin-de-Siècle Vienna Carl E. Schorske 1980 American English
11514 Le Recensement Des Intellos De Gauche Giacomo Papi 2019 Unknown French
11940 Margaret Fuller Megan Marshall 2013 American English
12326 Simone De Beauvoir Deirdre Bair 1990 American English
13362 The Unpossessed Tess Slesinger 1934 American English
13543 Mr. Sammler's Planet Saul Bellow 1970 American English
14435 Einstein Walter Isaacson 2007 American English
14899 Hypatia Charles Kingsley 1853 British English
14985 Wittgenstein Jr. Lars Iyer 2014 British English
14985 Cultural Amnesia Clive James 2007 Australian English
14985 Old Masters Thomas Bernhard 1985 Austrian German
15915 Masscult and Midcult Dwight Macdonald 1962 American English
15915 Holmes Laski Letters Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1953 American English
15915 An Oxford Tragedy J. C. Masterman 1933 British English
17161 Walter Lippmann and the American Century Ronald Steel 1980 American English
17161 Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph L. Rusk 1949 American English
17161 Mistress to an Age J. Christopher Herold 1958 American English
17161 Interpreters Wole Soyinka 1965 Nigerian English
17161 Thomas Mann Heinrich Mann Helmut Koopmann 2005 German German
17161 The Cannibal Galaxy Cynthia Ozick 1983 American English
17161 The Dictionary Of Fashionable Nonsense Ophelia Benson, Jeremy Stangroom 2004 British English
17161 The Closing Of The Western Mind Charles Freeman 2002 British English
17161 Naples 1925 Martin Mittelmeier 2024 Unknown German
16974 The Disconnected Oğuz Atay 1972 Turkish Turkish
17161 The Man From The Future Ananyo Bhattacharya 2021 Unknown English
17161 The Guest Lecture Martin Riker 2023 Unknown English