The Greatest Western 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
2424 Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer 1997 American English
2425 Platform Michel Houellebecq 2001 French French
2427 The Tiger Who Came to Tea Judith Kerr 1968 British English
2428 A View From The Bridge Arthur Miller 1955 American English
2429 The Intuitionist Colson Whitehead 1999 American English
2430 The Physicists Friedrich Dürrenmatt 1962 Swiss German
2432 The Einstein Intersection Samuel R. Delany 1967 American English
2431 The Call Of Cthulhu H. P. Lovecraft 1928 American English
2433 The Forever War Joe Haldeman 1974 American English
2434 The Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Emmuska Orczy 1905 British English
2435 Modern Times Paul Johnson 1983 British English
2436 Nine Horrors And A Dream Joseph Payne Brennan 1958 American English
2437 The Railway Children Edith Nesbit 1906 British English
2438 The Crow Road Iain Banks 1992 British English
2439 Puckoon Spike Milligan 1963 Irish English
2440 Poems Of Anna Akhmatova Anna Akhmatova 1912 Russian Russian
2441 A Rage In Harlem Chester Himes 1957 American English
2442 How Green Was My Valley Richard Llewellyn 1939 British English
2443 The Ascent Of Rum Doodle W. E. Bowman 1956 British English
2444 Pudd'nhead Wilson Mark Twain 1894 American English
2445 The Space Merchants Frederik Pohl, C. M. Kornbluth 1952 American English
2446 The Map And The Territory Michel Houellebecq 2010 French French
2447 Blindness Henry Green 1926 British English
2447 The Rector's Daughter F. M. Mayor 1924 British English
2450 Henry V William Shakespeare 1600 British English
2451 Worse Things Waiting Manly Wade Wellman 1973 American English
2452 Joy in the Morning P. G. Wodehouse 1946 British English
2453 Black Mischief Evelyn Waugh 1932 British English
2454 The Sign of Four Arthur Conan Doyle 1890 British English
2455 By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept Elizabeth Smart 1945 Canadian English
2455 Frost In May Antonia White 1933 British English
2455 Molesworth Geoffrey Willans, Ronald Searle 1953 British English
2458 The Prisoner Of Zenda Anthony Hope 1894 British English
2461 Men At Arms Evelyn Waugh 1952 British English
2459 Shirley Charlotte Brontë 1849 British English
2461 The League Of Frightened Men Rex Stout 1935 American English
2460 Lark Rise To Candleford Flora Thompson 1945 British English
2463 Poems Of William Cullen Bryant William Cullen Bryant 1821 American English
2464 The Silent Duchess Dacia Maraini 1990 Italian Italian
2465 Non Stop Brian Aldiss 1958 British English
2467 Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Alice Munro 2001 Canadian English
2468 On Beauty Zadie Smith 2005 British English
2469 The Hill Of Dreams Arthur Machen 1907 British English
2470 Hyperion Dan Simmons 1989 American English
2471 The Grey King Susan Cooper 1975 British English
2472 Roll, Jordan, Roll Eugene Genovese 1974 American English
2473 Fall On Your Knees Ann-Marie MacDonald 1996 Canadian English
2474 On Obligations Marcus Tullius Cicero -44 Roman Latin
2475 Essays And Criticism William Hazlitt 1823 British English
2476 The Last Battle C. S. Lewis 1956 British English
2477 Quatermass And The Pit Nigel Kneale 1959 British English
2478 L'acacia Claude Simon 1989 French French
2479 Artemisia Anna Banti 1947 Italian Italian
2480 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William L. Shirer 1960 American English
2481 Mangeclous Albert Cohen 1938 French French
2482 Blood and Guts in High School Kathy Acker 1978 American English
2483 The Cider House Rules John Irving 1985 American English
2484 The Firm John Grisham 1991 American English
2485 The Good War Studs Terkel 1984 American English
2486 Small Island Andrea Levy 2004 British English
2487 The Golden Compass Philip Pullman 1995 British English
2488 Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann 2005 German German
2489 The Millstone Margaret Drabble 1965 British English
2490 Murder In The Cathedral T. S. Eliot 1935 British English
2491 The Moon And Sixpence W. Somerset Maugham 1919 British English
2492 A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines 1993 American English
2493 All Souls Javier Marias 1989 Spanish Spanish
2495 Rogue Moon Algis Budrys 1960 American English
2497 Mortals Norman Rush 2003 American English
2498 Room Emma Donoghue 2010 Irish English
2499 The South Pole Roald Amundsen 1912 Norwegian Norwegian
2499 Psychopathia Sexualis Richard von Krafft-Ebing 1886 German German
2504 The Prairie James Fenimore Cooper 1827 American English
2505 Pastoralia George Saunders 2000 American English
2506 Memoirs of Louis XIV Louis de Rouvroy Saint-Simon (duc de) 1740 French French
2507 Mrs. Bridge Evan S. Connell 1959 American English
2508 The Abyss Marguerite Yourcenar 1968 French French
2509 Metaphysics Aristotle -347 Greek Ancient greek
2510 Curial e Güelfa Unknown 1450 Spanish Catalan
2511 Life With A Star Jiří Weil 1949 Czech Czech
2512 On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin 1982 British English
2513 Howl, Kaddish And Other Poems Allen Ginsberg 1956 American English
2514 Deathbird Stories Harlan Ellison 1975 American English
2515 The New Sorrows of Young W. Ulrich Plenzdorf 1972 German German
2516 L.A. Confidential James Ellroy 1990 American English
2517 Hippolytus Euripides -428 Greek Ancient greek
2518 Rites of Passage William Golding 1980 British English
2519 The American Way of Death Jessica Mitford 1963 American English
2520 A Flight Of Curlews Maarten 't Hart 1978 Dutch Dutch
2521 Waiting For God Simone Weil 1950 French French
2522 The Happy Prince And Other Tales Oscar Wilde 1888 British English
2523 The Passage Of Power Robert Caro 2012 American English
2524 Old Filth Jane Gardam 2004 British English
2525 Beyond the Pleasure Principle Sigmund Freud 1920 Austrian German
2526 The Everlasting Man G. K. Chesterton 1925 British English
2527 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong 2019 American English
2528 Life of Christ Giovanni Papini 1921 Italian Italian
2529 The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen Alan Garner 1960 British English
2530 The Mystery Of The Yellow Room Gaston Leroux 1907 French French
2531 The Anatomy Lesson Philip Roth 1983 American English
2532 Day Of The Owl Leonardo Sciascia 1961 Italian Italian
2533 Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories Nathaniel Hawthorne 1835 American English
2534 A Man Called Ove Fredrik Backman 2012 Swedish Swedish
2535 Into the Wild Jon Krakauer 1996 American English
2536 The Way of a Pilgrim Unknown 1884 Russian Russian
2537 Jazz Toni Morrison 1992 American English
2539 A Bear Called Paddington Michael Bond 1958 British English
2541 Pilgrimage Dorothy Richardson 1915 British English
2542 The Artamonov Business Maxim Gorky 1925 Russian Russian
2543 Camilla Fanny Burney 1796 British English
2544 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day Winifred Watson 1938 British English
2548 Stories Heinrich von Kleist 1810 German German
2547 The Thinking Reed Rebecca West 1936 British English
2545 The Pit and the Pendulum Edgar Allan Poe 1842 American English
2548 The Enormous Room E. E. Cummings 1922 American English
2548 Her Privates We Frederic Manning 1929 Australian English
2548 Death in Rome Wolfgang Koeppen 1954 German German
2553 The Last Temptation of Christ Nikos Kazantzakis 1955 Greek Greek
2555 Amok Stefan Zweig 1922 Austrian German
2556 Dangling Man Saul Bellow 1944 American English