The Greatest Social & Cultural Fiction 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 464 '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 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
2 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
3 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
4 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
5 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
10 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
13 War and Peace Leo Tolstoy 1869 Russian Russian
16 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
17 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
19 Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert 1857 French French
20 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky 1880 Russian Russian
23 Middlemarch George Eliot 1871 British English
22 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
24 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
25 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
31 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
33 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
32 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
34 Catch-22 Joseph Heller 1961 American English
35 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
42 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 British, Indian English
43 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
44 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
45 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
48 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
49 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
54 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 American English
56 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
66 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
74 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky 1869 Russian Russian
78 Little Women Louisa May Alcott 1868 American English
80 The Leopard Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 1958 Italian Italian
83 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
84 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
86 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
88 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
98 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
105 Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1847 British English
104 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
111 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
115 The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil 1930 Austrian German
116 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
117 The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu 1001 Japanese Classical japanese
122 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
126 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
127 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
132 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
134 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
136 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
143 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
145 A Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 1869 French French
156 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
158 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
159 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
161 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
164 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
166 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
175 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
178 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
182 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
183 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
185 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
188 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
191 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
200 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
217 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
207 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
209 Persuasion Jane Austen 1817 British English
210 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
213 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
219 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
224 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
229 Oblomov Ivan Goncharov 1859 Russian Russian
230 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
232 Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe 1852 American English
238 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
240 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
244 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
250 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
251 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
254 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
256 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
257 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
262 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
265 The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy 1886 Russian Russian
269 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
270 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
272 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men James Agee 1941 American English
273 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
274 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
275 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
278 The Pickwick Papers Charles Dickens 1836 British English
280 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1922 American English
287 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
289 The Call of the Wild Jack London 1903 American English
301 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
302 Father Goriot Honoré de Balzac 1835 French French
304 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
305 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
307 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy 1997 Indian English
309 The Awakening Kate Chopin 1899 American English
317 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
321 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
322 La Regenta Clarín 1884 Spanish Spanish
323 The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas Machado de Assis 1881 Brazilian Portuguese
324 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
327 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
331 The Mill on the Floss George Eliot 1860 British English
339 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
343 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
344 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
349 Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens 1864 British English
353 Clarissa Samuel Richardson 1748 British English
355 Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon 1973 American English
365 Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy 1895 British English
369 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
370 Kolyma Stories Varlam Shalamov 1954 Russian Russian
372 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English