The Greatest Philosophical Books of All Time

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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
5026 Dying As A Country Dimitris Dimitriadis 1978 Greek Greek
5026 Στην Κοιλαδα Με Τους Ροδωνες Nikos Engonopoulos 1978 Greek Greek
5026 Deathfeast Takis Sinopoulos 1978 Greek Greek
5026 The Păltiniș Diary Gabriel Liiceanu 1983 Romanian Romanian
5037 Images And Symbols Mircea Eliade 1952 Romanian French
5038 Black Reconstruction In America W. E. B. Du Bois 1935 American English
5046 The Sandman E. T. A. Hoffmann 1816 German German
5046 Fantazius Mallare Ben Hecht 1922 American English
5046 Devil's Tor David Lindsay 1932 British English
5046 My First Two Thousand Years George Vierick 1928 American English
5046 The Invincible Adam George Vierick, Paul Eldridge 1932 American English
5046 Essays And Tales John Sterling 1848 British English
5046 The Well Of St. Clare Anatole France 1895 French French
5097 Where Do We Go From Here Martin Luther King 1967 American English
5098 The Disappearance Philip Wylie 1951 American English
5104 Антихрист Emilian Stanev 1939 Bulgarian Bulgarian
5105 Abel Sánchez Miguel de Unamuno 1917 Spanish Spanish
5106 Saving The Appearances Owen Barfield 1957 British English
5106 Zen Flesh, Zen Bones Paul Reps, Nyogen Senzaki 1957 Multiple English
5108 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Omar Khayyam 1859 Persian Persian
5110 The Ministry Of Pain Dubravka Ugrešić 2004 Croatian Croatian
5112 The Winter Of Our Discontent John Steinbeck 1961 American English
5113 The War Of Art Steven Pressfield 2002 American English
5123 Creation Gore Vidal 1981 American English
5126 Killing The Black Body Dorothy E. Roberts 1997 American English
5127 Ο Εχθρός του Ποιητή Giorgos Heimonas 1979 Greek Greek
5138 Before The Law Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
5159 With Love And Irony Lin Yutang 1934 Chinese English
5160 The Triumph Of Death Gabriele D'Annunzio 1894 Italian Italian
5173 Mosses From An Old Manse Nathaniel Hawthorne 1846 American English
5187 The World's Religions Huston Smith 1958 American English
5190 The Eternal Moment E. M. Forster 1928 British English
5190 A Strange Story Edward Bulwer-Lytton 1862 British English
5237 Deep River Shūsaku Endō 1993 Japanese Japanese
5260 Cockroaches Scholastique Mukasonga 2006 French French
5266 Accumulation On A World Scale Samir Amin 1970 French French
5283 The Complete Notebooks Of Henry James Henry James 1987 American English
5287 Gandhi's Truth Erik H. Erikson 1969 American English
5292 Notes On The Cinematographer Robert Bresson 1975 French French
5293 Der Kleine Unterschied Und Seine Großen Folgen Alice Schwarzer 1975 German German
5304 The Love Of Learning And The Desire For God Jean Leclercq 1960 French French
5320 The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte Karl Marx 1852 German German
5348 New Seeds Of Contemplation Thomas Merton 1961 American English
5362 To Have Or To Be? The Nature Of The Psyche Erich Fromm 1976 German English
5362 On Suicide Jean Améry 1976 Unknown German
5362 Foundations Of Christian Faith Karl Rahner 1976 German German
5370 The Way the World Works Jude Wanniski 1978 American English
5393 New Atlantis Francis Bacon 1627 British English
5393 Devotions upon Emergent Occasions John Donne 1624 British English
5425 Religion And The Decline Of Magic Keith Thomas 1971 British English
5446 The Red Lion Mária Szepes 1946 Hungarian Hungarian
5448 The Politics of Ecstasy Timothy Leary 1968 American English
5471 Markings Dag Hammarskjöld 1963 Swedish Swedish
5471 Meetings With Remarkable Men George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff 1963 Unknown Russian
5474 The Unicorn Iris Murdoch 1963 British English
5475 Working Studs Terkel 1974 American English
5478 Fado Alexandrino António Lobo Antunes 1983 Portuguese Portuguese
5482 The Inferno Dante Alighieri 1308 Italian Italian
5487 Sillabari Goffredo Parise 1984 Italian Italian
5488 Body Rags Galway Kinnell 1968 American English
5497 Signs Of Fire Jorge de Sena 1979 Portuguese Portuguese
5500 After the Flood P. C. Jersild 1982 Swedish Swedish
5502 Steps To An Ecology Of Mind Gregory Bateson 1972 American English
5502 Does God Exist? Hans Küng 1978 German German
5516 Think On These Things Jiddu Krishnamurti 1964 Indian English
5523 The Logic of Scientific Discovery Karl Popper 1934 Austrian German
5529 The Rise And Fall Of The Third Chimpanzee Jared Diamond 1991 American English
5531 The Essential Kafka Franz Kafka 1913 Czech German
5531 The Sufferings Of Prince Sternenhoch Ladislav Klíma 1928 Czech Czech
5531 Marketa Lazarová Vladislav Vančura 1931 Czech Czech
5531 Zapomenuté Světlo Jakub Deml 1934 Czech Czech
5531 Cesta K Mrazu Jiří Orten 1941 Czech Czech
5531 Prométheova Játra Jiří Kolář 1950 Czech Czech
5577 VALIS Philip K. Dick 1981 American English
5583 Professor Martens' Departure Jaan Kross 1984 Estonian Estonian
5583 The Young Man Botho Strauß 1984 German German
5590 The Chimera Sebastiano Vassalli 1990 Italian Italian
5608 The Imperative Of Responsibility Hans Jonas 1979 German German
5612 The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt 2012 American English
5615 The Mushroom At The End Of The World Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 2015 American English
5621 Wealth and Poverty George Gilder 1981 American English
5623 V for Vendetta Alan Moore 1982 British English
5631 Ego Monster Sayd Bahodine Majrouh 1985 Afghan French
5643 Enlightenment Now Steven Pinker 2018 American English
5665 An Experiment In Criticism C. S. Lewis 1961 British English
5668 The Loser György Konrád 1980 Hungarian Hungarian
5691 Sur La Philosophie Africaine Paulin Hountondji 1976 French French
5700 The Little Virtues Natalia Ginzburg 1962 Italian Italian
5708 Kafka Was The Rage Anatole Broyard 1993 American English
5709 Ο Λουσίας Nikos Houliaras 1987 Greek Greek
5717 On Stories And Other Essays On Literature C. S. Lewis 1966 British English
5718 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
5724 The Rosy Crucifixion Henry Miller 1949 American English
5725 Politics And The English Language George Orwell 1946 British English
5732 In The Presence Of Absence Mahmoud Darwish 2006 Palestinian Arabic
5750 The Message In the Bottle Walker Percy 1975 American English
5775 Jurnalul Unui Jurnalist Fără Jurnal Ion D. Sîrbu 1993 Romanian Romanian
5781 Entangled Life Merlin Sheldrake 2020 British English
5783 The Maidens Of The Rocks Gabriele D'Annunzio 1895 Italian Italian
5783 Notturno Gabriele D'Annunzio 1916 Italian Italian
5783 Narrate, Uomini, La Vostra Storia Alberto Savinio 1942 Italian Italian
5783 Men And Not Men Elio Vittorini 1945 Italian Italian
5783 Dialogues With Leucò Cesare Pavese 1947 Italian Italian
5804 Illuminations Walter Benjamin 1968 German German
5811 The Insistence Of Horror Patricia Meyer Spacks 1962 American English
5813 The City Of The Sun Tommaso Campanella 1623 Italian Latin
5819 René François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand 1802 French French
5863 The Book Of The Courtier Baldassare Castiglione 1528 Italian Italian
5891 Sartor Resartus Thomas Carlyle 1836 British English
5896 A Confession Leo Tolstoy 1882 Russian Russian
5917 Our Lord Don Quixote Miguel de Unamuno 1935 Spanish Spanish
5905 Notes From Underground & Other Stories Fyodor Dostoevsky 1864 Russian Russian
5928 Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit 2004 American English
5932 King Kong Theory Virginie Despentes 2006 French French
5939 Hurramabad Andrei Volos 1998 Russian Russian
5939 The Turning Point Fritjof Capra 1982 American English
5939 Music As Speech Nikolaus Harnoncourt 1982 Austrian German
5939 The Spiral Of Silence Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann 1982 German German
5939 Der Bedrohte Friede Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker 1982 German German
5951 The Afternoon of a Writer Peter Handke 1987 Austrian German