The Greatest Books of All Time on Tradition

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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
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English
90 Buddenbrooks Thomas Mann 1901 German German
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
179 Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev 1862 Russian Russian
199 The Radetzky March Joseph Roth 1932 Austrian German
223 A House for Mr. Biswas V. S. Naipaul 1961 Trinidadian English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
288 Independent People Halldor Laxness 1934 Icelandic Icelandic
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
390 The Old Wives' Tale Arnold Bennett 1908 British English
391 Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather 1927 American English
430 The Bridge on the Drina Ivo Andrić 1945 Bosnian Serbo-croatian
447 Gypsy Ballads Federico García Lorca 1928 Spanish Spanish
480 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons 1932 British English
484 Dream of the Red Chamber Cao Xueqin 1754 Chinese Chinese
487 Rainbow D.H. Lawrence 1915 British English
525 Gormenghast Mervyn Peake 1950 British English
526 Family Sayings Natalia Ginzburg 1963 Italian Italian
537 The Waning of the Middle Ages Johan Huizinga 1919 Dutch Dutch
571 And Quiet Flows The Don Mikhail Sholokhov 1928 Russian Russian
580 Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Rebecca West 1941 British English
594 Growth of the Soil Knut Hamsun 1917 Norwegian Norwegian
624 The Histories of Herodotus Herodotus -450 Greek Ancient greek
625 The Nine Tailors Dorothy L. Sayers 1934 British English
629 Titus Groan Mervyn Peake 1946 British English
639 Reflections on the Revolution in France Edmund Burke 1790 British English
665 The Family Moskat Isaac Bashevis Singer 1950 Polish Yiddish
677 Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees 1926 British English
715 The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving 1819 American English
719 Thousand Cranes Yasunari Kawabata 1952 Japanese Japanese
733 Arrow of God Chinua Achebe 1964 Nigerian English
735 A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth 1993 Indian English
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
746 Nervous Conditions Tsitsi Dangarembga 1988 Zimbabwean English
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
785 The Stechlin Theodor Fontane 1898 German German
806 The Story of Art Ernest H. Gombrich 1950 British English
813 Cranford Elizabeth Gaskell 1851 British English
818 The African Child Camara Laye 1953 Guinean French
847 Only Yesterday Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1945 Israeli Hebrew
857 Midaq Alley Naguib Mahfouz 1947 Egyptian Arabic
873 Call to Arms Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
880 Orthodoxy G. K. Chesterton 1908 British English
903 Wild Swans Jung Chang 1991 Chinese English
912 The Making of Americans Gertrude Stein 1925 American English
931 The House by the Medlar Tree Giovanni Verga 1881 Italian Italian
957 The Little World Of Don Camillo Giovanni Guareschi 1948 Italian Italian
970 The Maias Eça de Queirós 1888 Portuguese Portuguese
1002 Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko 1977 American English
1024 Some Prefer Nettles Junichiro Tanizaki 1929 Japanese Japanese
1025 Ambiguous Adventure Cheikh Hamidou Kane 1961 Senegalese French
1029 Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon Jorge Amado 1958 Brazilian Portuguese
1032 In The Heart Of The Seas Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1938 Israeli Hebrew
1037 The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston 1976 American English
1045 Selected Essays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1932 British English
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
1087 Home and the World Rabindranath Tagore 1916 Indian Bengali
1097 My Name Is Aram William Saroyan 1940 American English
1108 Chaka Thomas Mofolo 1925 South African Sesotho
1115 The Cairo Trilogy Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1143 Tevye The Dairyman And The Railroad Stories Sholem Aleichem 1894 Jewish Yiddish
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
1182 Poems of Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca 1921 Spanish Spanish
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1195 Song Of Lawino Okot P'Bitek 1966 Ugandan Acholi
1202 The Country Girls Edna O'Brien 1960 Irish English
1206 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 2017 American English
1248 The Conservative Mind Russell Kirk 1953 American English
1278 So Long a Letter Mariama Bâ 1980 Senegalese French
1299 My Name is Red Orhan Pamuk 1998 Turkish Turkish
1300 The Guide R. K. Narayan 1958 Indian English
1313 The Optimist's Daughter Eudora Welty 1972 American English
1337 A Legacy Sybille Bedford 1956 German English
1343 The Hamlet William Faulkner 1940 American English
1360 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
1365 Nectar in a Sieve Kamala Markandaya 1954 Indian English
1367 Like Water For Chocolate Laura Esquivel 1989 Mexican Spanish
1375 The Sea of Fertility Yukio Mishima 1965 Japanese Japanese
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
1408 Amongst Women John McGahern 1990 Irish English
1419 The Viceroys Federico De Roberto 1894 Italian Italian
1428 The Country of the Pointed Firs Sarah Orne Jewett 1896 American English
1442 Little House In The Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder 1932 American English
1468 The Collected Stories of William Faulkner William Faulkner 1950 American English
1504 Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey 1964 American English
1505 The Famished Road Ben Okri 1991 Nigerian English
1507 Bless Me, Ultima Rudolfo Anaya 1972 American English
1516 The People of Hemsö August Strindberg 1887 Swedish Swedish
1537 The Owl Service Alan Garner 1967 British English
1566 Love In A Fallen City Eileen Chang 1943 Chinese Chinese
1611 The Song of Hiawatha Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1855 American English
1611 Some Experiences Of An Irish R.M. E.Œ. Somerville, Martin Ross 1899 Irish English
1622 Fortress Besieged Qian Zhongshu 1947 Chinese Chinese
1665 The House of Ulloa Emilia Pardo Bazán 1886 Spanish Spanish
1668 Solitude Caterina Albert 1905 Spanish Catalan
1710 The Peasants Władysław Reymont 1904 Polish Polish
1714 Go Down, Moses William Faulkner 1942 American English
1716 Lake Wobegon Days Garrison Keillor 1985 American English
1774 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri 1999 American English
1796 Collected Stories Isaac Bashevis Singer 1982 Polish English
1814 Christ Recrucified Nikos Kazantzakis 1948 Greek Greek
1867 The Woodlanders Thomas Hardy 1887 British English
1903 Handley Cross R. S. Surtees 1843 British English
1906 Red Sorghum Yan Mo 1986 Chinese Chinese
1944 My Name Is Asher Lev Chaim Potok 1972 American English
1966 Truth And Method Hans-Georg Gadamer 1960 German German
1985 Black Elk Speaks John G. Neihardt 1932 American English
1986 The Sound of the Mountain Yasunari Kawabata 1954 Japanese Japanese
2024 The Chosen Chaim Potok 1967 American English
2025 Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden 1997 American English
2031 The Devil's Pool George Sand 1846 French French
2051 Palace Walk Naguib Mahfouz 1956 Egyptian Arabic
2055 Satan In Goray Isaac Bashevis Singer 1935 Polish Yiddish
2079 Rationalism in Politics Michael Oakeshott 1962 British English
2104 Chronicle of a Death Foretold Gabriel García Márquez 1981 Colombian Spanish
2131 Seven Brothers Aleksis Kivi 1870 Finnish Finnish