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
1307 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry Mildred D. Taylor 1976 American English
1312 The Stories of Raymond Carver Raymond Carver 1981 American English
1313 The Optimist's Daughter Eudora Welty 1972 American English
1318 Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 1984 American English
1319 The Story Of An African Farm Olive Schreiner 1883 South African English
1321 A Question of Power Bessie Head 1973 Botswanan English
1325 A Far Cry From Kensington Muriel Spark 1988 British English
1328 Parable Of The Sower Octavia E. Butler 1993 American English
1329 Exodus Leon Uris 1958 American English
1331 Cathedral Raymond Carver 1983 American English
1332 One, No One and One Hundred Thousand Luigi Pirandello 1926 Italian Italian
1333 Barefoot Zaharia Stancu 1948 Romanian Romanian
1335 Kiss of the Spider Woman Manuel Puig 1976 Argentinian Spanish
1337 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1339 The Artificial Silk Girl Irmgard Keun 1932 German German
1341 The Graduate Charles Webb 1963 American English
1343 The Hamlet William Faulkner 1940 American English
1344 The Emigrants W. G. Sebald 1992 German German
1356 Towards The End Of The Morning Michael Frayn 1967 British English
1362 The Heart Of Midlothian Sir Walter Scott 1818 Scottish English
1365 Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya 1954 Indian English
1368 Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward 2011 American English
1369 Veronica Mary Gaitskill 2005 American English
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
1381 Station Eleven Emily St John Mandel 2014 Canadian English
1385 The Bell Iris Murdoch 1958 British English
1390 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James 2014 Jamaican English
1396 Pierre et Jean Guy de Maupassant 1888 French French
1401 Silence of the Sea Vercors 1942 French French
1402 The Seagull Anton Chekhov 1896 Russian Russian
1419 The Viceroys Federico De Roberto 1894 Italian Italian
1418 The Path to the Nest of Spiders Italo Calvino 1947 Italian Italian
1427 Vile Bodies Evelyn Waugh 1930 British English
1428 The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett 1896 American English
1431 Cakes And Ale Or, The Skeleton In The Cupboard W. Somerset Maugham 1930 British English
1432 A Woman's Life Guy de Maupassant 1883 French French
1439 Édes Anna Dezső Kosztolányi 1926 Hungarian Hungarian
1448 Suite Française Irène Némirovsky 2004 French French
1450 Mary Barton Elizabeth Gaskell 1848 British English
1454 Pushkin House Andrey Bitov 1978 Russian Russian
1457 Deliver Us Luigi Meneghello 1963 Italian Italian
1458 The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Carson McCullers 1951 American English
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
1461 Oranges are not the only Fruit Jeanette Winterson 1985 British English
1463 Camera Obscura Nicolaas Beets 1839 Dutch Dutch
1464 Little Dorrit Charles Dickens 1855 British English
1468 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1469 Last Afternoons With Teresa Juan Marsé 1966 Spanish Spanish
1471 Aurélien Louis Aragon 1944 French French
1473 What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver 1981 American English
1483 Tono Bungay H. G. Wells 1909 British English
1484 Independence Day Richard Ford 1995 American English
1487 Kokoro Natsume Sōseki 1914 Japanese Japanese
1490 The Garden Party And Other Stories Katherine Mansfield 1922 New Zealand English
1498 A King Alone Jean Giono 1947 French French
1501 The Magician of Lublin Isaac Bashevis Singer 1960 Polish Yiddish
1502 The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born Ayi K. Armah 1968 Ghanaian English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1506 Selected Stories William Trevor 1992 Irish English
1507 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya 1972 American English
1508 The Tower William Butler Yeats 1928 Irish English
1513 The Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor 1982 American English
1514 Pelle The Conqueror Martin Andersen Nexø 1906 Danish Danish
1516 The Alberta Trilogy Cora Sandel 1926 Norwegian Norwegian
1516 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
1516 The Bells of Basel Louis Aragon 1934 French French
1520 The Slaves of Solitude Patrick Hamilton 1947 British English
1522 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
1532 Arturo's Island Elsa Morante 1957 Italian Italian
1536 Rubyfruit Jungle Rita Mae Brown 1973 American English
1538 Snow Orhan Pamuk 2002 Turkish Turkish
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
1547 What Maisie Knew Henry James 1897 American English
1549 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Elizabeth Taylor 1971 British English
1552 Waterland Graham Swift 1983 British English
1553 Beauty and Sadness Yasunari Kawabata 1964 Japanese Japanese
1556 The Poems of Francois Villon François Villon 1489 French Middle french
1564 G. John Berger 1972 British English
1566 Love In A Fallen City Eileen Chang 1943 Chinese Chinese
1567 To Build A Fire Jack London 1902 American English
1568 The Beautiful Summer Cesare Pavese 1949 Italian Italian
1569 Empire of the Sun J. G. Ballard 1984 British English
1571 Fifth Business Robertson Davies 1970 Canadian English
1577 Deep Rivers José María Arguedas 1958 Peruvian Spanish
1579 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel Isaac Babel 1934 Russian Russian
1582 Quicksand Nella Larsen 1928 American English
1584 A Severed Head Iris Murdoch 1961 British English
1587 Past Continuous Yaakov Shabtai 1977 Israeli Hebrew
1592 Niels Lyhne Jens Peter Jacobson 1880 Danish Danish
1593 Good Morning, Midnight Jean Rhys 1939 British English
1595 The Garden Where the Brass Band Played Simon Vestdijk 1950 Dutch Dutch
1600 On the Edge of Reason Miroslav Krleža 1938 Croatian Croatian
1604 Phineas Finn Anthony Trollope 1869 British English
1605 The Foundation Pit Andrey Platonov 1930 Russian Russian
1608 The Loneliness of the Long-distance Runner Alan Sillitoe 1959 British English
1618 The Pursuit Of Love Nancy Mitford 1945 British English
1622 Fortress Besieged Qian Zhongshu 1947 Chinese Chinese
1623 Corregidora Gayl Jones 1975 American English
1629 Point Counter Point Aldous Huxley 1928 British English
1630 Halbzeit Martin Walser 1960 German German
1632 The Roots of Heaven Romain Gary 1956 French French
1637 The Sportswriter Richard Ford 1986 American English
1642 Song Of Myself Walt Whitman 1855 American English
1650 Sing, Unburied, Sing Jesmyn Ward 2017 American English
1651 The Yellow Wallpaper Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1892 American English
1653 The Loyal Subject Heinrich Mann 1918 German German
1656 Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis 1925 American English
1665 The House of Ulloa Emilia Pardo Bazán 1886 Spanish Spanish
1668 Solitude Caterina Albert 1905 Spanish Catalan
1669 The Underdogs Mariano Azuela 1915 Mexican Spanish
1670 The Emigrants Vilhelm Moberg 1949 Swedish Swedish
1678 A Time To Be Born Dawn Powell 1942 American English
1686 The Lorax Dr. Seuss 1971 American English
1689 Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk Nikolai Leskov 1865 Russian Russian
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
1700 The Hunger Angel Herta Müller 2009 German German
1702 Oreo Fran Ross 1974 American English
1704 Celestial Harmonies Peter Esterhazy 2000 Hungarian Hungarian