The Greatest Philosophical Books Since 1900

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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
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
45 Fictions Jorge Luis Borges 1944 Argentinian Spanish
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
76 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
82 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
111 The Waste Land T. S. Eliot 1922 British English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
114 The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco 1980 Italian Italian
123 Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar 1951 French French
135 Doctor Faustus Thomas Mann 1947 German German
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
163 Siddhartha Hermann Hesse 1922 German German
171 Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse 1927 German German
172 Man's Fate Andre Malraux 1933 French French
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
198 Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy 1985 American English
200 The Book of Disquiet Fernando Pessoa 1982 Portuguese Portuguese
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
206 The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1973 Russian Russian
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
240 Death in Venice Thomas Mann 1912 German German
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
305 The Confusions of Young Törless Robert Musil 1906 Austrian German
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
315 Relativity Albert Einstein 1916 German German
319 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes 1936 British English
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
348 The Glass Bead Game Hermann Hesse 1943 German German
354 Hopscotch Julio Cortazar 1963 Argentinian Spanish
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
369 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Ludwig Wittgenstein 1921 Austrian German
373 The Duino Elegies Rainer Maria Rilke 1923 German German
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
377 The Education of Henry Adams Henry Adams 1907 American English
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
398 The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 1910 German German
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
408 The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus 1942 French French
410 The Razor's Edge W. Somerset Maugham 1944 British English
417 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 American English
434 The Fountainhead Ayn Rand 1943 American English
438 Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein 1953 Austrian German
440 The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt 1951 German English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
444 The Man Who Was Thursday G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
446 Joseph and His Brothers Thomas Mann 1933 German German
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
462 The Prophet Kahlil Gibran 1923 Lebanese English
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
479 Four Quartets T. S. Eliot 1943 British English
485 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
493 Auto Da Fé Elias Canetti 1935 Bulgarian German
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
498 The Immoralist André Gide 1902 French French
504 Her Lover Albert Cohen 1968 Swiss French
506 The Affluent Society John Kenneth Galbraith 1958 American English
516 Season of Migration to the North Al-Tayyib Salih 1966 Sudanese Arabic
517 Being and Time Martin Heidegger 1927 German German
528 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick 1968 American English
532 The Passion According to G.H. Clarice Lispector 1964 Brazilian Portuguese
534 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie 1988 British English
537 The Waning of the Middle Ages Johan Huizinga 1919 Dutch Dutch
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
557 The Souls of Black Folk W. E. B. Du Bois 1903 American English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
582 Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl 1946 Austrian German
592 The Sleepwalkers Hermann Broch 1932 Austrian German
603 Barabbas Par Lagerkvist 1950 Swedish Swedish
604 The Blind Owl Ṣādiq Hidāyat 1937 Iranian Persian
609 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
610 Requiem Anna Akhmatova 1963 Russian Russian
616 The Rebel Albert Camus 1951 French French
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
619 The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles 1949 American English
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 American English
638 Being and Nothingness Jean Paul Sartre 1943 French French
645 A Study of History Arnold J. Toynbee 1934 British English
646 The Varieties of Religious Experience William James 1902 American English
650 The Flanders Road Claude Simon 1960 French French
657 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
664 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter 1942 Austrian English
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
682 The Open Society and Its Enemies Karl Popper 1945 British English
695 Boys Alive Pier Paolo Pasolini 1955 Italian Italian
697 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
730 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
732 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 Trinidadian English