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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15898 | Dynamite | Louis Adamic | 1931 | American | English | |
| 16520 | The Red Laugh | Leonid Andreyev | 1904 | Russian | English | |
| 17120 | Killshot | Elmore Leonard | 1989 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Newjack | Ted Conover | 2000 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Sons of Mississippi | Paul Hendrickson | 2003 | American | English | |
| 16850 | War Music | Christopher Logue | 1959 | British | English | |
| 17120 | District and Circle | Seamus Heaney | 2006 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | Savages | Don Winslow | 2010 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Lookout cartridge | Joseph McElroy | 1974 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Legs | William Kennedy | 1975 | American | English | |
| 17120 | In Memoriam to Identity | Kathy Acker | 1990 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Hogg | Samuel R. Delany | 1995 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Airships | Barry Hannah | 1978 | American | English | |
| 17120 | A Feast of Snakes | Harry Crews | 1976 | American | English | |
| 17120 | An American Dream | Norman Mailer | 1965 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Ray | Barry Hannah | 1980 | American | English | |
| 17120 | War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning | Chris Hedges | 2002 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Black Man | Richard Morgan | 2007 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Auē | Becky Manawatu | 2019 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | Coming Rain | Stephen Daisley | 2015 | Australian | English | |
| 17120 | Stonedogs | Craig Marriner | 2002 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted? | Alan Duff | 1996 | New Zealander | English | |
| 17120 | The Devil All The Time | Donald Ray Pollock | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Alice | Christina Henry | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion | Margaret Killjoy | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Delhi | Khushwant Singh | 1990 | Indian | English | |
| 17120 | Darkness Visible | William Golding | 1979 | British | English | |
| 17120 | A Shock | Keith Ridgway | 2021 | Irish | English | |
| 17120 | Death In Andes | Mario Vargas Llosa | 1993 | Peruvian | Spanish | |
| 17120 | The Thousand Crimes Of Ming Tsu | Tom Lin | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Eva's Man | Gayl Jones | 1976 | American | English | |
| 17120 | White Rage | Carol Anderson | 2016 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Osama | Lavie Tidhar | 2011 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Death Of Grass | John Christopher | 1956 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Heroes And Villains | Angela Carter | 1969 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Murderer | Roy Heath | 1978 | Guyanese | English | |
| 17120 | Black Robe | Brian Moore | 1985 | Canadian | English | |
| 17120 | My Idea Of Fun | Will Self | 1993 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Night In Question | Tobias Wolff | 1996 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Vagabond Volume 1 | Takehiko Inoue | 1998 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 17120 | The Rats | James Herbert | 1974 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Dawn Of The Dead | George Romero | 1978 | American | Unknown | |
| 17120 | Palestine | Joe Sacco | 1993 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Caravaggio | Andrew Graham Dixon | 2010 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Super Cannes | J. G. Ballard | 2000 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Far Away | Caryl Churchill | 2000 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Gloria | Branden Jacob-Jenkins | 2015 | American | English | |
| 17058 | Balm In Gilead | Lanford Wilson | 1965 | American | English | |
| 16951 | Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance | John Arden | 1959 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Short Eyes | Miguel Pinero | 1974 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Last Widow | Karin Slaughter | 2019 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Prince Of Thorns | Mark Lawrence | 2011 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace | Jeff Hobbs | 2014 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Evil And The Mask | Fuminori Nakamura | 2010 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 17120 | Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death | James Tiptree Jr. | 1973 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Ash | Mary Gentle | 2000 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Jagged Orbit | John Brunner | 1969 | British | English | |
| 17120 | No One Gets Out Alive | Adam Nevill | 2014 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Sleeping Beauties | Stephen King, Owen King | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Young Mungo | Douglas Stuart | 2022 | British | English | |
| 17120 | These Violent Delights | Micah Nemerever | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Great Leveler | Walter Scheidel | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17120 | A Painted House | John Grisham | 2001 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Cross Country | James Patterson | 2008 | American | English | |
| 17034 | The Chocolate War | Robert Cormier | 1974 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Alex Cross's Trial | James Patterson | 2009 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Covered With Night | Nicole Eustace | 2021 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Blood On The River | Marjoleine Kars | 2020 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Woman Hollering Creek | Sandra Cisneros | 1991 | American | English | |
| 17120 | No Name In The Street | James Baldwin | 1972 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Pillar Of Fire | Taylor Branch | 1998 | American | English | |
| 17120 | A Wilderness Station | Alice Munro | 1996 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Shadow Knows | Diane Johnson | 1974 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Line Becomes A River | Francisco Cantú | 2018 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Blood At The Root | Patrick Phillips | 2016 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Fishermen | Chigozie Obioma | 2015 | Nigerian | English | |
| 17120 | The Gothic Politics Of The Deep South | Robert Sherrill | 1968 | American | English | |
| 17120 | War Before Civilization | Lawrence H. Keeley | 1996 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Man Game | Lee Henderson | 2008 | Canadian | English | |
| 17120 | Eternal Treblinka | Charles Patterson | 2002 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Running Man | Stephen King | 1982 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Beirut Nightmares | Ghada Samman | 1977 | Syrian | Arabic | |
| 17120 | For Bread Alone | Mohamed Choukri | 1973 | Moroccan | Arabic | |
| 17120 | The Story Of Zahra | Hanan Al-Shaykh | 1980 | Lebanese | Arabic | |
| 17120 | Murder And Anger | Muwaffaq Khidr | Unknown | Unknown | ||
| 17120 | Nobody's Angel | Thomas McGuane | 1981 | American | English | |
| 17120 | When Victims Become Killers | Mahmood Mamdani | 2001 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Flowers Of War | Yan Geling | 2006 | Chinese | Chinese | |
| 17120 | Sharp Objects | Gillian Flynn | 2006 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Gone To See The River Man | Kristopher Triana | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Without Remorse | Tom Clancy | 1993 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Patriot Games | Tom Clancy | 1987 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Glamorama | Bret Easton Ellis | 1998 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Under The Dome | Stephen King | 2009 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Needful Things | Stephen King | 1991 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Hannibal | Thomas Harris | 1999 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Negative Space | B.R. Yeager | 2020 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Acid House | Irvine Welsh | 1994 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Carnage, Constellation | Marcus Malte | 1997 | French | Unknown | |
| 17120 | The A26 | Pascal Garnier | 1999 | French | French | |
| 17120 | Freedomland | Richard Price | 1998 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Simple Art Of Murder | Raymond Chandler | 1950 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Endings & Beginnings | Redi Tlhabi | 2012 | South African | English | |
| 17120 | Broken Glass Park | Alina Bronsky | 2008 | German | German | |
| 17120 | Fool Moon | Jim Butcher | 2001 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Empire Of The Summer Moon | S.C. Gwynne | 2010 | American | English | |
| 17120 | After Dark | Haruki Murakami | 2004 | Japanese | Japanese | |
| 16907 | Set This House On Fire | William Styron | 1960 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Season Of Blood | Fergal Keane | 1996 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Lesser Blessed | Richard Van Camp | 1996 | Canadian | English | |
| 17120 | Come West And See | Maxim Loskutoff | 2018 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Limehouse Nights | Thomas Burke | 1917 | British | English | |
| 17120 | Among The Thugs | Bill Buford | 1990 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Killer | Patrícia Melo | 1995 | Brazilian | Portuguese | |
| 17120 | The Storm Before The Storm | Mike Duncan | 2017 | American | English | |
| 17120 | Smaller And Smaller Circles | FH Batacan | 2002 | Philippine | English | |
| 17120 | Run | Blake Crouch | 2011 | American | English | |
| 17120 | The Tremor Of Forgery | Patricia Highsmith | 1969 | American | English | |
| 17120 | A Pinch Of Snuff | Reginald Hill | 1978 | British | English | |
| 17120 | The Green Ripper | John D. MacDonald | 1979 | American | English |