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 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
949 Nada Carmen Laforet 1944 Spanish Spanish
954 Pygmalion George Bernard Shaw 1913 British English
956 The Girls of Slender Means Muriel Spark 1963 British English
957 The Little World Of Don Camillo Giovanni Guareschi 1948 Italian Italian
959 A Tomb for Boris Davidovich Danilo Kiš 1976 Serbian Serbo-croatian
960 The Gift Vladimir Nabokov 1938 Russian Russian
962 The Diary of a Country Priest Georges Bernanos 1936 French French
968 Jesus' Son Denis Johnson 1992 American English
970 The Maias Eça de Queirós 1888 Portuguese Portuguese
977 Couples John Updike 1968 American English
980 News from Nowhere William Morris 1890 British English
982 Speedboat Renata Adler 1976 American English
987 Harriet the Spy Louise Fitzhugh 1964 American English
989 The Grass Is Singing Doris May Lessing 1950 British English
989 The Lonely Londoners Sam Selvon 1956 Trinidadian English
994 Blindness José Saramago 1995 Portuguese Portuguese
995 Dombey and Son Charles Dickens 1846 British English
999 Chevengur Andrey Platonov 1928 Russian Russian
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
1002 Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko 1977 American English
1003 A Dry White Season Andre Brink 1979 South African Afrikaans
1006 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe 1958 British English
1008 Professor Unrat Heinrich Mann 1905 German German
1012 Invitation To A Beheading Vladimir Nabokov 1935 American Russian
1015 Justine Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
1023 Transit Anna Seghers 1944 German German
1024 Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki 1929 Japanese Japanese
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1028 Schindler's List Thomas Keneally 1982 Australian English
1029 Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Jorge Amado 1958 Brazilian Portuguese
1031 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
1032 In The Heart Of The Seas Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1938 Israeli Hebrew
1034 The Bostonians Henry James 1886 American English
1035 Uncle Vanya Anton Chekhov 1897 Russian Russian
1036 The Fortunes Of Richard Mahony Henry Handel Richardson 1917 Australian English
1039 Birds of America Lorrie Moore 1998 American English
1040 The German Lesson Siegfried Lenz 1968 German German
1044 A Ghost at Noon Alberto Moravia 1954 Italian Italian
1047 The Egoist George Meredith 1879 British English
1050 The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi 1990 British English
1056 Maurice E. M. Forster 1971 British English
1061 The Case of Sergeant Grischa Arnold Zweig 1927 German German
1061 The Hothouse Wolfgang Koeppen 1953 German German
1065 La Bête humaine Émile Zola 1890 French French
1069 The True Story Of Ah Q Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
1072 Gösta Berling's Saga Selma Lagerlöf 1891 Swedish Swedish
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1081 The War of the End of the World Mario Vargas Llosa 1981 Peruvian Spanish
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1097 My Name Is Aram William Saroyan 1940 American English
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1103 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 British English
1107 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1127 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet 1923 French French
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1140 Nana Émile Zola 1880 French French
1143 Tevye The Dairyman And The Railroad Stories Sholem Aleichem 1894 Jewish Yiddish
1145 The Bone People Keri Hulme 1984 New Zealand English
1146 Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1839 British English
1149 A Sportsman's Notebook Ivan Turgenev 1852 Russian Russian
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
1161 The Twelve Chairs Ilya Ilf, Evgeniy Petrov 1928 Russian Russian
1169 The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells 1910 British English
1174 As A Man Grows Older Italo Svevo 1898 Italian Italian
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
1181 The Painted Bird Jerzy Kosinski 1965 Polish English
1182 Poems of Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca 1921 Spanish Spanish
1183 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
1187 Jean Christophe Romain Rolland 1904 French French
1194 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead Olga Tokarczuk 2009 Polish Polish
1195 Song Of Lawino Okot P'Bitek 1966 Ugandan Acholi
1199 This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen Tadeusz Borowski 1947 Polish Polish
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1202 The Country Girls Edna O'Brien 1960 Irish English
1205 The Enchanted Wanderer Nikolai Leskov 1873 Russian Russian
1206 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 2017 American English
1208 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford 1949 British English
1215 Explosion In A Cathedral Alejo Carpentier 1962 Cuban Spanish
1216 Billy Liar Keith Waterhouse 1959 British English
1220 The Return of the Soldier Rebecca West 1918 British English
1219 The Time of Indifference Alberto Moravia 1929 Italian Italian
1221 Thank You, Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1934 British English
1222 Studs Lonigan James T. Farrell 1932 American English
1225 Untouchable Mulk Raj Anand 1935 Indian English
1229 Songs of Innocence and Experience William Blake 1789 British English
1230 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington 1918 American English
1231 Patience And Sarah Isabel Miller 1969 American English
1232 Children of Gebelawi Naguib Mahfouz 1959 Egyptian Arabic
1234 Woman at Point Zero Nawal El Saadawi 1975 Egyptian Arabic
1236 Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Ryunosuke Akutagawa 1915 Japanese Japanese
1237 Jacob the Liar Jurek Becker 1969 German German
1241 The Life Before Us Romain Gary 1975 French French
1253 Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes 1959 British English
1260 The President Miguel Angel Asturias 1946 Guatemalan Spanish
1262 Maud Martha Gwendolyn Brooks 1953 American English
1263 The Summer Book Tove Jansson 1972 Finnish Swedish
1266 The Heptameron Marguerite de Navarre 1558 French French
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
1277 A High Wind in Jamaica Richard Hughes 1929 British English
1278 So Long a Letter Mariama Bâ 1980 Senegalese French
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish
1282 The Plum in the Golden Vase Unknown 1610 Chinese Chinese
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
1287 Odessa Stories Isaac Babel 1923 Ukrainian Russian
1294 Peyton Place Grace Metalious 1956 American English
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
1300 The Guide R. K. Narayan 1958 Indian English
1303 The Seventh Cross Anna Seghers 1942 German German