The Greatest Books of All Time on Memory

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 743 '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
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
101 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
123 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
125 If This Is a Man Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italian
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
168 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez 1985 Colombian Spanish
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
206 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1973 Russian Russian
227 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
261 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
269 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
274 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
290 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
291 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
325 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
330 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
334 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
357 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
358 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
369 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
396 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
410 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
413 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
425 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
434 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
450 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
453 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
462 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
468 A Death in the Family James Agee 1957 American English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
474 Embers Sandor Marai 1942 Hungarian Hungarian
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
477 Fateless or Fatelessness Imre Kertész 1975 Hungarian Hungarian
478 Alcools Guillaume Apollinaire 1913 French French
479 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
485 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
502 W, or the Memory of Childhood Georges Perec 1975 French French
514 Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov 1951 American English
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
524 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
544 The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie Agota Kristof 1986 Hungarian French
576 Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop 1969 American English
577 Anniversaries Uwe Johnson 1970 German German
597 The Years Annie Ernaux 2008 French French
602 The Go-Between L. P. Hartley 1953 British English
610 Requiem Anna Akhmatova 1963 Russian Russian
617 Pnin Vladimir Nabokov 1957 Russian English
630 Dom Casmurro Machado de Assis 1899 Brazilian Portuguese
633 Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo 1939 American English
645 The Flanders Road Claude Simon 1960 French French
651 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
653 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
670 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
696 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
718 Thousand Cranes Yasunari Kawabata 1952 Japanese Japanese
719 The Professor's House Willa Cather 1925 American English
725 The Street of Crocodiles Bruno Schulz 1934 Polish Polish
737 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
751 Poems Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1898 British English
757 Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury 1957 American English
797 The Life Of Arseniev Ivan Bunin 1930 Russian Russian
809 Poems by Machado Antonio Machado 1907 Spanish Spanish
812 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
836 Second Thoughts Michel Butor 1957 French French
837 The Book of Daniel E. L. Doctorow 1971 American English
854 A Moveable Feast Ernest Hemingway 1964 American English
869 Woodcutters Thomas Bernhard 1984 Austrian German
877 The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov 1904 Russian Russian
884 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
893 The Ravishing of Lol Stein Marguerite Duras 1964 French French
896 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
911 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
922 The World Of Yesterday Stefan Zweig 1942 Austrian German
958 The Periodic Table Primo Levi 1975 Italian Italian
960 The Gift Vladimir Nabokov 1938 Russian Russian
964 Paroles Jacques Prévert 1946 French French
968 Storm of Steel Ernst Jünger 1920 German German
972 The Burning Plain and Other Stories Juan Rulfo 1953 Mexican Spanish
974 The Reader Bernhard Schlink 1995 German German
980 It Stephen King 1986 American English
981 Speedboat Renata Adler 1976 American English
987 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
1011 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1024 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1058 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1073 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
1075 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1083 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1091 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1098 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1099 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1112 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1119 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1137 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
1138 The Unquiet Grave Cyril Connolly 1944 British English
1143 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
1159 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
1170 Residence on Earth Pablo Neruda 1933 Chilean Spanish
1195 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
1199 Kafka On The Shore Haruki Murakami 2002 Japanese Japanese
1217 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
1240 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1244 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1257 The General of the Dead Army Ismail Kadare 1963 Albanian Albanian
1260 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood 2000 Canadian English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
1271 Extinction Thomas Bernhard 1986 Austrian German
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish