The Greatest Social & Cultural Fiction 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
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
4 The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger 1951 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
41 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1957 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
61 The Golden Notebook Doris May Lessing 1962 British English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
64 Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 1981 Indian English
68 Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston 1937 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
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
86 All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque 1928 German German
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera 1984 Czech Czech
107 Native Son Richard Wright 1940 American English
112 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak 1957 Russian Russian
118 The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers 1940 American English
124 Pedro Páramo Juan Rulfo 1955 Mexican Spanish
128 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
140 The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir 1949 French French
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
147 Confessions of Zeno Italo Svevo 1923 Italian Italian
148 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1962 Russian Russian
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
151 Molloy Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
158 Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys 1966 British English
160 My Antonia Willa Cather 1918 American English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
168 Tender Is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald 1934 American English
169 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark 1961 British, Scottish English
170 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck 1937 American English
173 A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf 1929 British English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
181 Light in August William Faulkner 1932 American English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
183 The Jungle Upton Sinclair 1906 American English
185 U.S.A. Trilogy John Dos Passos 1930 American English
187 The Power and the Glory Graham Greene 1940 British English
193 East of Eden John Steinbeck 1952 American English
195 An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser 1925 American English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
201 Berlin Alexanderplatz Alfred Döblin 1929 German German
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
204 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro 1989 British English
207 Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis 1946 Greek Greek
213 The Counterfeiters André Gide 1925 French French
214 Life and Fate Vasily Grossman 1980 Russian Russian
217 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
219 Brighton Rock Graham Greene 1938 British English
221 White Teeth Zadie Smith 2000 British English
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
231 Death of Virgil Hermann Broch 1945 Austrian German
232 2666 Roberto Bolaño 2004 Chilean Spanish
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
237 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen 2001 American English
239 Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller 1934 American English
241 Portnoy's Complaint Philip Roth 1969 American English
242 The Godfather Mario Puzo 1969 American English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
245 Nausea Jean Paul Sartre 1938 French French
246 The Forsyte Saga John Galsworthy 1906 British English
247 Kim Rudyard Kipling 1901 British English
253 Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe 1929 American English
255 Disgrace J. M. Coetzee 1999 South African English
256 Babbitt Sinclair Lewis 1922 American English
259 Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs 1959 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
261 Wings of the Dove Henry James 1902 American English
265 Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton 1948 South African English
269 Nightwood Djuna Barnes 1936 American English
270 Malone Dies Samuel Beckett 1951 Irish French
272 The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Joao Guimaraes Rosa 1956 Brazilian Portuguese
280 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
291 The House of the Spirits Isabel Allende 1982 Chilean Spanish
292 Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maugham 1915 British English
296 The Lover Marguerite Duras 1984 French French
298 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
302 The Lost Estate Henri Alain-Fournier 1913 French French
308 The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison 1970 American English
309 Tarzan of the Apes Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912 American English
310 Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe 1987 American English
311 Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson 1919 American English
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
325 A Dance to the Music of Time Anthony Powell 1951 British English
329 History Elsa Morante 1974 Italian Italian
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
333 Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace 1996 American English
335 The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani 1962 Italian Italian
336 Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser 1900 American English
347 The Day of the Locust Nathanael West 1939 American English