The Greatest Books of All Time Set in Media

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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
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
364 White Noise Don DeLillo 1985 American English
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
435 Scoop Evelyn Waugh 1938 British English
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
791 Gone Girl Gillian Flynn 2012 American English
920 The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum Heinrich Böll 1974 German German
1356 Towards The End Of The Morning Michael Frayn 1967 British English
1545 Understanding Media Marshall McLuhan 1964 Canadian English
1565 A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again David Foster Wallace 1997 American English
1576 The Hidden Persuaders Vance Packard 1957 American English
1861 Citizen Claudia Rankine 2014 American English
1907 Consider The Lobster David Foster Wallace 2005 American English
2049 Amusing Ourselves To Death Neil Postman 1985 American English
2316 Backlash Susan Faludi 1991 American English
2327 What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe 1994 British English
2341 Personal History Katharine Graham 1997 American English
2436 Modern Times Paul Johnson 1983 British English
2603 Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag 2003 American English
2611 What It Takes Richard Ben Cramer 1992 American English
2659 Boys on the Bus Timothy Crouse 1973 American English
2731 The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer 1979 American English
2928 The Great Shark Hunt Hunter S. Thompson 1979 American English
3053 Red, White & Royal Blue Casey McQuiston 2019 American English
3073 The Armies of the Night Norman Mailer 1968 American English
3139 Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Ben Fountain 2012 American English
3148 All the President's Men Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein 1974 American English
3157 The Castafiore Emerald Hergé 1963 Belgian French
3199 Mao II Don DeLillo 1991 American English
3296 Cyropaedia Xenophon -370 Greek Ancient greek
3445 The Kandy Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby Tom Wolfe 1965 American English
3595 Thick Tressie McMillan Cottom 2019 American English
3623 The Atrocity Exhibition J. G. Ballard 1970 British English
3638 The Raging Reporter Egon Erwin Kisch 1924 Czech German
3851 JR William Gaddis 1975 American English
3876 Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 Hunter S. Thompson 1973 American English
3944 A Fire on the Moon Norman Mailer 1970 American English
4189 Age of Ambition Evan Osnos 2014 American English
4445 Chronicles of Wasted Time Malcolm Muggeridge 1972 British English
4528 The Medium Is The Massage Marshall McLuhan 1967 Canadian English
5414 Bad Science Ben Goldacre 2008 British English
5583 Democracy Joan Didion 1984 American English
5634 Sabrina Nick Drnaso 2018 American English
5736 Vernon God Little DBC Pierre 2003 British English
5804 Illuminations Walter Benjamin 1968 German German
6163 Arguably Christopher Hitchens 2011 British English
6214 Doppelganger Naomi Klein 2023 Canadian English
6248 The Unwinding George Packer 2013 American English
6255 Six Four Hideo Yokoyama 2012 Japanese Japanese
6266 Thank You For Not Reading Dubravka Ugrešić 2001 Croatian Croatian
6326 The New Kings Of Nonfiction Ira Glass 2007 American English
6340 China Pop Jianying Zha 1995 Unknown English
6353 The Shallows Nicolas Carr 2010 American English
6623 Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light Ivan Klima 1993 Czech Czech
6673 India After Gandhi Ramachandra Guha 2007 Indian English
6737 Political Fictions Joan Didion 2001 American English
6803 On Photography Susan Sontag 1977 American English
6859 A Head Full Of Ghosts Paul Tremblay 2015 American English
7047 The Making of the President, 1960 Theodore White 1961 American English
7101 The Glenn Gould Reader Glenn Gould 1984 Canadian English
7106 Technopoly Neil Postman 1992 American English
7216 It Can't Happen Here Sinclair Lewis 1935 American English
7216 Europe After The Rain Alan Burns 1965 British English
7582 Feed Seanan McGuire 2010 American English
7616 Everything Bad Is Good For You Steven Johnson 2005 American English
7692 Opernball Josef Haslinger 1995 Austrian German
7812 Shrill Lindy West 2016 American English
7964 Nothing Is True And Everything Is Possible Peter Pomerantsev 2014 British English
8076 The Great Derangement Matt Taibbi 2008 American English
8291 Feminism Is For Everybody bell hooks 2000 American English
8296 La Guerra De Galio Héctor Aguilar Camín 1991 Mexican Spanish
8311 Nixonland Rick Perlstein 2008 American English
8384 Outrageous Acts And Everyday Rebellions Gloria Steinem 1983 American English
8428 She Said Jodi Kantor 2019 American English
8645 Orality And Literacy Walter J. Ong 1982 American English
8701 Millennium People J. G. Ballard 2003 British English
8814 Feed M. T. Anderson 2002 American English
8972 The Society Of The Spectacle Guy Debord 1967 French French
9022 Memories Of My Father Watching Tv Curtis White 1998 American English
9136 How To Write About Africa Binyavanga Wainaina 2005 Kenyan English
9192 Hit Makers Derek Thompson 2017 American English
9970 Politics Hendrik Hertzberg 2004 American English
10452 Luce and His Empire W. A. Swanberg 1972 American English
10545 I Am Not Sidney Poitier Percival Everett 2009 American English
10631 United States Gore Vidal 1993 American English
10778 Female Chauvinist Pigs Ariel Levy 2005 American English
11336 The Blair Years Alastair Campbell 2007 British English
11941 The Most Famous Man in America Debby Applegate 2006 American English
12137 The Powers That Be David Halberstam 1979 American English
12259 Through The Arc Of The Rain Forest Karen Tei Yamashita 1990 American English
12290 The Bully Pulpit Doris Kearns Goodwin 2013 American English
12382 For An Ecology Of Images Peter Szendy 2025 French English
12804 Gilded Rage Jacob Silverman 2025 American English
12834 After Henry Joan Didion 1992 American English
13507 Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman 1988 American English
13886 American Voyeur Benoit Denizet-Lewis 2009 American English
13886 Googled Ken Auletta 2009 American English
13971 Star Island Carl Hiaasen 2010 American English
13971 Doonesbury And The Art Of G.B. Trudeau Brian Walker 2010 American English
14023 Generation Of Vipers Philip Wylie 1942 American English
14090 String Theory David Foster Wallace 2016 American English
14360 Why We're Polarized Ezra Klein 2020 American English
14458 The Image Men J. B. Priestley 1968 British English
14458 Cocksure Mordecai Richler 1968 Canadian English
14499 News Of A Kidnapping Gabriel García Márquez 1996 Colombian Spanish
14630 The Gutenberg Galaxy Marshall McLuhan 1962 Canadian English
14680 Being Nixon Evan Thomas 2015 American English
14680 Teenage Jon Savage 2007 British English
14698 The Age Of American Unreason Susan Jacoby 2008 American English
14961 Helter Skelter Vincent Bugliosi 1974 American English
14958 The Front Page Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur 1928 American English
14985 The Public Burning Robert Coover 1977 American English
14985 Crazy Salad Nora Ephron 1975 American English
14985 Synners Pat Cadigan 1991 American English
14985 People Who Eat Darkness Richard Lloyd Parry 2010 British English
14985 Within The Context Of No Context George W. S. Trow 1980 American English
14985 The Culture Of Narcissism Christopher Lasch 1979 American English
15567 The Ride Of A Lifetime Robert Iger 2019 American English
15594 Life In The West Brian Aldiss 1980 British English
15916 I, Claud Claud Cockburn 1962 Irish English