The Greatest Books of All Time on Violence
Click to learn how this list is calculated.
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.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9526 | King Suckerman | George P. Pelecanos | 1997 | American | English | |
| 9531 | Black Water Rising | Attica Locke | 2009 | American | English | |
| 9548 | Peppercanister Poems | Thomas Kinsella | 1972 | Irish | English | |
| 9611 | The Tin Roof Blowdown | James Lee Burke | 2007 | American | English | |
| 9626 | Queenpin | Megan Abbott | 2007 | American | English | |
| 9640 | Tram 83 | Fiston Mwanza Mujila | 2014 | Congolese | French | |
| 9652 | The Dinner | Herman Koch | 2009 | Dutch | Dutch | |
| 9654 | Terror Y Utopía | Karl Schlögel | 2018 | German | German | |
| 9677 | Gone Baby Gone | Dennis Lehane | 1998 | American | English | |
| 9739 | Crime | Ferdinand Von Schirach | 2009 | German | German | |
| 9741 | View Of Dawn In The Tropics | Guillermo Cabrera Infante | 1974 | Cuban | Spanish | |
| 9754 | Carry Me Home | Diane McWhorter | 2001 | American | English | |
| 9760 | The Armies | Evelio Rosero | 2007 | Colombian | Spanish | |
| 9793 | We Pierce | Andrew Huebner | 2002 | American | English | |
| 9799 | The Shepherd's Hut | Tim Winton | 2018 | Australian | English | |
| 9803 | Long Way Down | Jason Reynolds | 2017 | American | English | |
| 9803 | Dear Martin | Nic Stone | 2017 | American | English | |
| 9821 | Alex | Pierre Lemaitre | 2011 | French | French | |
| 9832 | The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley | Hannah Tinti | 2017 | American | English | |
| 9857 | The Delicate Prey | Paul Bowles | 1950 | American | English | |
| 9912 | Your House Will Pay | Steph Cha | 2019 | American | English | |
| 9927 | The Complete Plays | Joe Orton | 1976 | British | English | |
| 9927 | Streamers | David Rabe | 1976 | American | English | |
| 9939 | Crusade For Justice | Ida B. Wells | 1970 | American | English | |
| 9944 | El Testigo | Juan Villoro | 2004 | Mexican | Spanish | |
| 9945 | Retaguardia Roja | Fernando del Rey | 2019 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 10008 | Tamas | Bhisham Sahni | 1974 | Indian | Hindi | |
| 10017 | Mending Bodies | Hon Lai-Chu | 2010 | Chinese | Chinese | |
| 10094 | écrits 2003 2014 | Angélica Liddell | 2015 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 10118 | Angosta | Héctor Abad Faciolince | 2003 | Colombian | Spanish | |
| 10119 | Ghostman | Roger Hobbs | 2013 | American | English | |
| 10136 | Running Dog | Don DeLillo | 1978 | American | English | |
| 10158 | The Darling | Russell Banks | 2004 | American | English | |
| 10200 | From Hell | Alan Moore | 1991 | British | English | |
| 10236 | The Apology | Eve Ensler | 2019 | American | English | |
| 10281 | They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us | Hanif Abdurraqib | 2017 | American | English | |
| 10305 | The Broken Spears | Miguel Leon-Portilla | 1959 | Mexican | Spanish | |
| 10402 | Drama City | George P. Pelecanos | 2005 | American | English | |
| 10408 | The Harder They Come | Michael Thelwell | 1980 | American | English | |
| 10434 | Gomorrah | Roberto Saviano | 2006 | Italian | Italian | |
| 10450 | Intimacies | Katie Kitamura | 2021 | American | English | |
| 10450 | The Topeka School | Ben Lerner | 2019 | American | English | |
| 10507 | October Light | John Gardner | 1976 | American | English | |
| 10556 | Seven Plays | Sam Shepard | 1981 | American | English | |
| 10723 | The Amalgamation Polka | Stephen Wright | 2006 | American | English | |
| 10722 | In The Belly Of The Beast | Jack Henry Abbott | 1981 | American | English | |
| 10738 | The Fifth Child | Doris May Lessing | 1988 | British | English | |
| 10741 | The Collector Of Treasures | Bessie Head | 1977 | Botswanan | English | |
| 10808 | The Gypsy Goddess | Meena Kandasamy | 2014 | Indian | English | |
| 10812 | Dodgers | Bill Beverly | 2016 | American | English | |
| 10818 | An Untamed State | Roxane Gay | 2014 | American | English | |
| 10824 | The Ox Bow Incident | Walter Van Tilburg Clark | 1940 | American | English | |
| 10828 | The Lime Twig | John Hawkes | 1961 | American | English | |
| 10839 | I, Alex Cross | James Patterson | 2009 | American | English | |
| 10846 | Homo Necans | Walter Burkert | 1972 | German | German | |
| 10852 | American Appetites | Joyce Carol Oates | 1989 | American | English | |
| 10915 | The Shining Girls | Lauren Beukes | 2013 | South African | English | |
| 10922 | Fools of Fortune | William Trevor | 1983 | Irish | English | |
| 10937 | The Art Of Cruelty | Maggie Nelson | 2011 | American | English | |
| 10939 | The 57 Bus | Dashka Slater | 2017 | American | English | |
| 10970 | Pornography | Andrea Dworkin | 1981 | American | English | |
| 11002 | Balkan Ghosts | Robert D. Kaplan | 1993 | American | English | |
| 11014 | Camino de Perdición | Luis Mateo Díez | 2007 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 11056 | Coin Locker Babies | Ryū Murakami | 1980 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 11078 | Heaven | Mieko Kawakami | 2023 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 11137 | Imperial Reckoning | Caroline Elkins | 2005 | British | English | |
| 11137 | Black Flags | Joby Warrick | 2015 | American | English | |
| 11287 | Heartsick | Chelsea Cain | 2007 | American | English | |
| 11274 | Shella | Andrew Vachss | 1993 | American | English | |
| 11331 | The French Art Of War | Alexis Jenni | 2011 | French | French | |
| 11387 | The Devil In America | Kai Ashante Wilson | 2014 | American | English | |
| 11390 | Poor | Caleb Femi | 2020 | British | English | |
| 11416 | Winter Counts | David Heska Wanbli Weiden | 2020 | American | English | |
| 11430 | The Troop | Nick Cutter | 2014 | Canadian | English | |
| 11435 | Philadelphia fire | John Edgar Wideman | 1990 | American | English | |
| 11436 | A History Of Bombing | Sven Lindqvist | 1999 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 11468 | Furnace | Livia Llewellyn | 2016 | American | English | |
| 11535 | Thyestes | Seneca | 62 | Roman | Latin | |
| 11543 | Half The Sky | Nicholas Kristof | 2009 | American | English | |
| 11570 | The French Revolution | Thomas Carlyle | 1837 | British | English | |
| 11579 | Paradise | Toni Morrison | 1997 | American | English | |
| 11597 | Gone Tomorrow | Lee Child | 2009 | British | English | |
| 11627 | May We Be Forgiven | A. M. Homes | 2012 | American | English | |
| 11661 | War | Margaret MacMillan | 2020 | Canadian | English | |
| 11661 | Bad Blood | James Jones | 1981 | American | Unknown | |
| 11661 | Brothers And Keepers | John Edgar Wideman | 1984 | American | English | |
| 11661 | Friday Black | Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah | 2018 | American | English | |
| 11661 | The Witch Elm | Tana French | 2018 | Irish | English | |
| 11827 | The Mother Of All Questions | Rebecca Solnit | 2017 | American | English | |
| 11849 | The Demon | Hubert Selby | 1976 | American | English | |
| 11858 | The Return Of The Dancing Master | Henning Mankell | 2000 | Swedish | Swedish | |
| 11859 | Makes Me Wanna Holler | Nathan McCall | 1994 | American | English | |
| 11878 | Sololand | Hassan Blasim | 2021 | Iraqi | Arabic | |
| 11899 | Dumba Nengue, Run For Your Life | Lina Magaia | 1988 | Mozambican | Portuguese | |
| 11899 | A War Of Eyes And Other Stories | Wanda Coleman | 1988 | American | English | |
| 11936 | Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun | Geoffrey Canada | 1995 | American | English | |
| 12014 | Hygiene And The Assassin | Amélie Nothomb | 1992 | Belgian | French | |
| 12043 | Akira | Katsuhiro Otomo | 1982 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 12048 | Irakisk Kristus | Hassan Blasim | 2009 | Unknown | Arabic | |
| 12048 | Red April | Santiago Roncagliolo | 2002 | Peruvian | Spanish | |
| 12070 | Night Shift | Stephen King | 1978 | American | English | |
| 12083 | Jasmine | Bharati Mukherjee | 1989 | American | English | |
| 12141 | Drown | Junot Diaz | 1996 | American | English | |
| 12187 | American Street | Ibi Zoboi | 2017 | American | English | |
| 12221 | The Swallows Of Kabul | Yasmina Khadra | 2002 | Algerian | French | |
| 12258 | Because It Is Bitter, And Because It Is My Heart | Joyce Carol Oates | 1990 | American | English | |
| 12258 | Beirut Fragments | Jean Said Makdisi | 1990 | Lebanese | English | |
| 12258 | G Is For Gumshoe | Sue Grafton | 1990 | American | English | |
| 12324 | Mazurka For Two Dead Men | Camilo José Cela | 1983 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 12324 | Cloudsplitter | Russell Banks | 1998 | American | English | |
| 12324 | A Star Called Henry | Roddy Doyle | 1999 | Irish | English | |
| 12406 | Slammerkin | Emma Donoghue | 2000 | Irish | English | |
| 12436 | Imani All Mine | Connie Rose Porter | 1999 | American | English | |
| 12513 | The Montreal Massacre | Louise Malette, Marie Chalouh | 1991 | Canadian | French | |
| 12513 | Nampally Road | Meena Alexander | 1991 | Indian | English | |
| 12586 | Diamond Dogs | Alan Watt | 2000 | Unknown | English | |
| 12599 | The Winter Warriors | Olivier Norek | 2024 | French | French | |
| 12725 | A Little Hatred | Joe Abercrombie | 2019 | British | English | |
| 12738 | Small Country | Gaël Faye | 2016 | French | French | |
| 12804 | Only God Can Judge Me | Jeff Pearlman | 2025 | American | English |