The Greatest Books of All Time on Longing

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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
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
900 The Poems of Sappho Sappho -569 Greek Ancient greek
2914 Délie Maurice Scève 1544 French French
3145 Poems Hayyim Nahman Bialik 1901 Israeli Hebrew
3581 Call Me By Your Name André Aciman 2007 Italian English
4089 Silk Alessandro Baricco 1996 Italian Italian
4632 Christina Rossetti Christina Georgina Rossetti 2001 British English
5392 The Poems of Emily Bronte Emily Brontë 1846 British English
5726 Simple Passion Annie Ernaux 1991 French French
5862 Twenty Love Poems And A Song Of Despair Pablo Neruda 1924 Chilean Spanish
6004 Mes Heures Perdues Félix Arvers 1833 French French
6004 Sonnets Louise Labé 1556 French French
6841 Rapture Carol Ann Duffy 2005 British English
7216 Rime Gaspara Stampa 1554 Italian Italian
7216 Astrophel And Stella Philip Sidney 1591 British English
7216 Selected Poems Freidrich Hölderlin 1800 German German
7216 Hymns To The Night Novalis 1800 German German
7216 Selected Poems Of Eduard Mörike Eduard Mörike 1838 German German
7216 Poems Of Theodor Storm Theodor Storm 1852 German German
7216 Shirot Bialik Hayyim Nahman Bialik 1901 Israeli Hebrew
8009 100 Love Sonnets Pablo Neruda 1959 Chilean Spanish
9045 L'amour, La Mer Pascal Quignard 2002 French French
9857 Meghadūta Kālidāsa -400 Indian Sanskrit
10038 Poems Of Eugénio De Andrade Eugénio de Andrade 1977 Portuguese Portuguese
11365 La Fin D'amor Jean-Claude Marol French Unknown
11365 My Love Ishikawa Takuboku Japanese Japanese
11365 Rien Que L'amour Lucien Becker French French
12657 Record Of A Night Too Brief Kawakami Hiromi Japanese Japanese
13362 Sonnets from the Portuguese Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1850 British English
13362 The Spice Box Of Earth Leonard Cohen 1961 Canadian English
13362 The Rocket Man Ray Bradbury 1951 American English
14788 The Three Hundred Tang Poems China 1763 Chinese Chinese
14833 Listen To The Warm Rod McKuen 1967 American English
14884 Poems of Rumi Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi 1207 Persian Persian
15914 Days Of Longing Nirmal Verma, Krishna Baldev Vaid 1964 Unknown Hindi
15914 At Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept Elizabeth Smart 1945 Canadian English
16572 Letter From An Unknown Woman Stefan Zweig 1922 Austrian German
17155 Love And Longing In Bombay Vikram Chandra 1997 Indian English
17155 Eros The Bittersweet Anne Carson 1986 Canadian English
17122 Victoria Knut Hamsun 1898 Norwegian Norwegian
16833 The Biography Of Ying Ying Yuan Zhen 820 Chinese Classical chinese
17155 Poems Of Sextus Propertius Propertius -29 Roman Latin
17155 Couplets Maggie Millner 2023 Unknown English
17155 Eine Leidenschaft Annie Ernaux Unknown French
17155 Райский сад первой любви Линь Ихань 2017 Chinese Chinese (traditional)
17155 The Magpie At Night Li Qingzhao Chinese Chinese