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 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
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
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
126 If This Is a Man Primo Levi 1947 Italian Italian
133 Confessions Augustine 397 Roman Latin
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
166 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
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
276 Life, a User's Manual Georges Perec 1978 French French
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
359 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
360 Ada or Ardor Vladimir Nabokov 1969 American English
370 The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion 2005 American English
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
411 Underworld Don DeLillo 1997 American English
416 Out of Africa Isak Dinesen 1937 Danish Danish
426 The Moon and the Bonfires Cesare Pavese 1950 Italian Italian
436 El Aleph Jorge Luis Borges 1949 Argentinian Spanish
451 Hiroshima John Hersey 1946 American English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
464 Petrarch's Songbook Francesco Petrarca 1341 Italian Italian
466 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
486 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
501 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
526 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
545 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
632 Dom Casmurro Machado de Assis 1899 Brazilian Portuguese
635 Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo 1939 American English
644 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje 1992 Canadian English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
650 The Flanders Road Claude Simon 1960 French French
672 Three Trapped Tigers Guillermo Cabrera Infante 1965 Cuban Spanish
697 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
719 Thousand Cranes Yasunari Kawabata 1952 Japanese Japanese
720 The Professor's House Willa Cather 1925 American English
727 The Street of Crocodiles Bruno Schulz 1934 Polish Polish
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
752 Poems Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1898 British English
758 Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury 1957 American English
798 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
838 The Book of Daniel E. L. Doctorow 1971 American English
855 A Moveable Feast Ernest Hemingway 1964 American English
869 Woodcutters Thomas Bernhard 1984 Austrian German
877 The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov 1904 Russian Russian
885 A Tale of Love and Darkness Amos Oz 2002 Israeli Hebrew
895 The Ravishing of Lol Stein Marguerite Duras 1964 French French
898 My Struggle Karl Ove Knausgård 2009 Norwegian Norwegian
912 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
923 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
969 Storm of Steel Ernst Jünger 1920 German German
973 The Burning Plain and Other Stories Juan Rulfo 1953 Mexican Spanish
975 The Reader Bernhard Schlink 1995 German German
981 It Stephen King 1986 American English
982 Speedboat Renata Adler 1976 American English
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
1015 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1027 Secondhand Time Svetlana Alexievich 2013 Belarusian Russian
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1138 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
1139 The Unquiet Grave Cyril Connolly 1944 British English
1144 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
1160 Norwegian Wood Haruki Murakami 1987 Japanese Japanese
1171 Residence on Earth Pablo Neruda 1933 Chilean Spanish
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
1201 Kafka On The Shore Haruki Murakami 2002 Japanese Japanese
1220 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1246 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1258 The General of the Dead Army Ismail Kadare 1963 Albanian Albanian
1261 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