The Greatest Philosophical Books Since 1950

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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
34 The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov 1967 Russian Russian
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
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
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
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
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
262 Austerlitz W. G. Sebald 2001 German German
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
326 The Unnamable Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
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
375 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
389 The Alchemist Paulo Coelho 1988 Brazilian Portuguese
403 The Words Jean Paul Sartre 1963 French French
417 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 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
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
461 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand 1957 American English
465 Collected Poems Wallace Stevens 1954 American English
473 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 1994 Japanese Japanese
485 Tristes Tropiques Claude Lévi-Strauss 1955 French French
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
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
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
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
561 The Recognitions William Gaddis 1955 American English
568 The Mandarins Simone de Beauvoir 1954 French French
603 Barabbas Par Lagerkvist 1950 Swedish Swedish
609 The Opposing Shore Julien Gracq 1951 French French
610 Requiem Anna Akhmatova 1963 Russian Russian
616 The Rebel Albert Camus 1951 French French
634 Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert M. Pirsig 1974 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
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
695 Boys Alive Pier Paolo Pasolini 1955 Italian Italian
697 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
732 A Bend in the River V. S. Naipaul 1979 Trinidadian English
740 Silence Shūsaku Endō 1966 Japanese Japanese
744 Moscow to the End of the Line Venedikt Yerofeev 1970 Russian Russian
749 The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963 American English
753 Henderson The Rain King Saul Bellow 1959 American English
756 The Labyrinth of Solitude Octavio Paz 1950 Mexican Spanish
787 Quotations from Chairman Mao Mao 1964 Chinese Chinese
796 The Fall Albert Camus 1956 French French
812 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
826 Voss Patrick White 1957 Australian English
874 The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt 2000 American English
884 Homo Faber Max Frisch 1957 Swiss German
902 Under the Net Iris Murdoch 1954 British English
941 Collected Essays of George Orwell George Orwell 1968 British English
958 The Periodic Table Primo Levi 1975 Italian Italian
959 A Tomb for Boris Davidovich Danilo Kiš 1976 Serbian Serbo-croatian
971 The Discovery of Heaven Harry Mulisch 1992 Dutch Dutch
988 Flaubert's Parrot Julian Barnes 1984 British English
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
1011 Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis 1952 British English
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1038 Cosmos Carl Sagan 1980 American English
1042 Franny and Zooey J. D. Salinger 1961 American English
1044 A Ghost at Noon Alberto Moravia 1954 Italian Italian
1051 The Phenomenon Of Man Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1955 French French
1058 Memories, Dreams, Reflections Carl Jung 1963 Swiss German
1060 Fun Home Alison Bechdel 2006 American English
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1080 Mount Analogue René Daumal 1952 French French
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
1159 Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt 1963 German English
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1194 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk 2009 Polish Polish
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1201 Kafka On The Shore Haruki Murakami 2002 Japanese Japanese
1217 Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco 1988 Italian Italian
1239 The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne John Donne 1952 British English
1242 The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis José Saramago 1984 Portuguese Portuguese
1246 Danube Claudio Magris 1986 Italian Italian
1248 The Conservative Mind Russell Kirk 1953 American English
1251 The Last Gentleman Walker Percy 1966 American English
1252 Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari 2011 Israeli Hebrew
1254 Death and the Dervish Meša Selimović 1966 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
1255 Jonathan Livingston Seagull Richard Bach 1970 American English
1258 The General of the Dead Army Ismail Kadare 1963 Albanian Albanian
1259 The Female Eunuch Germaine Greer 1970 Australian English
1271 Extinction Thomas Bernhard 1986 Austrian German
1298 The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson 1960 Swedish Swedish
1311 Boredom Alberto Moravia 1960 Italian Italian
1320 God and Man at Yale William F. Buckley, Jr 1951 American English
1321 A Question of Power Bessie Head 1973 Botswanan English
1323 A Canticle for Leibowitz Walter M. Miller 1960 American English