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
653 Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas 1274 Italian Latin
654 The Praise of Folly Erasmus 1511 Dutch Latin
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
656 The Time Of The Doves Merce Rodoreda 1962 Spanish Catalan
657 The Elementary Particles Michel Houellebecq 1998 French French
658 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
660 The Thin Man Dashiell Hammett 1934 American English
661 Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice 1976 American English
662 The House On The Borderland And Other Novels William Hope Hodgson 1908 British English
663 The Siege of Krishnapur J. G. Farrell 1973 British English
664 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter 1942 Austrian English
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
668 Rabbit Redux John Updike 1971 American English
670 Persepolis Marjane Satrapi 2000 French French
671 The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe 1839 American English
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French
674 Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy 1874 British English
675 The Joy of Cooking Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker 1931 American English
676 The Princess Bride William Goldman 1973 American English
677 Lud-in-the-Mist Hope Mirrlees 1926 British English
678 Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope 1857 British English
679 The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Tobias Smollett 1771 British English
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
681 Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut 1963 American English
682 The Open Society and Its Enemies Karl Popper 1945 British English
683 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 1971 American English
684 The Adventures Of Pinocchio Carlo Collodi 1883 Italian Italian
685 Them Joyce Carol Oates 1969 American English
686 Rabbit Is Rich John Updike 1981 American English
688 From Here to Eternity James Jones 1951 American English
689 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin 1791 American English
690 Anton Reiser Karl Philipp Moritz 1785 German German
691 Excellent Women Barbara Pym 1952 British English
692 The Hive Camilo José Cela 1951 Spanish Spanish
693 Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls Wilder 1935 American English
694 La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine 1668 French French
695 Boys Alive Pier Paolo Pasolini 1955 Italian Italian
696 King Solomon's Mines H. Rider Haggard 1885 British English
697 The Rings of Saturn W. G. Sebald 1995 German German
698 The Glass Key Dashiell Hammett 1931 American English
699 The Nibelungenlied Unknown 1200 German Middle high german
700 Tales of the City Armistead Maupin 1978 American English
702 Vathek William Beckford 1786 British French
703 The Way We Live Now Anthony Trollope 1875 British English
704 Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote 1958 American English
705 Oroonoko Aphra Behn 1688 British English
706 The Skin Curzio Malaparte 1949 Italian Italian
707 Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson 1830 British English
708 Captain Hornblower R.N. C. S. Forester 1937 British English
709 The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan 1963 American English
710 At the Mountains of Madness H. P. Lovecraft 1936 American English
711 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 1959 American English
712 A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court Mark Twain 1889 American English
713 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara 1974 American English
714 Encyclopedia Britannica Encyclopedia Britannica 1768 British English
716 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler 1925 German German
715 The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving 1819 American English
717 A Sport and a Pastime James Salter 1967 American English
718 Possession A. S. Byatt 1990 British English
720 The Professor's House Willa Cather 1925 American English
721 Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1795 German German
722 Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison 1992 American English
723 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst 2004 British English
724 Michael Kohlhaas Heinrich von Kleist 1810 German German
726 The Caine Mutiny Herman Wouk 1951 American English
728 Erewhon Samuel Butler 1872 British English
729 Thérèse Desqueyroux François Mauriac 1927 French French
730 Petersburg Andrei Bely 1913 Russian Russian
731 The Mysteries of Udolpho Ann Radcliffe 1794 British English
734 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
736 Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Edward FitzGerald 1859 British English
737 The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton 1913 American English
738 The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan 1989 American English
739 The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy 1878 British English
741 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
742 The Crime of Father Amaro Eça de Queirós 1875 Portuguese Portuguese
743 On Liberty John Stuart Mill 1859 British English
744 Moscow to the End of the Line Venedikt Yerofeev 1970 Russian Russian
747 Blonde Joyce Carol Oates 2000 American English
748 Howl and Other Poems Allen Ginsberg 1956 American English
749 The Fire Next Time James Baldwin 1963 American English
750 Money Martin Amis 1984 British English
751 All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy 1992 American English
752 Poems Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1898 British English
753 Henderson The Rain King Saul Bellow 1959 American English
754 If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem William Faulkner 1939 American English
755 The Well of Loneliness Radclyffe Hall 1928 British English
757 The Adventures of Caleb Williams William Godwin 1794 British English
758 Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury 1957 American English
759 Thérèse Raquin Émile Zola 1867 French French
760 Decline and Fall Evelyn Waugh 1928 British English
761 Goodbye to Berlin Christopher Isherwood 1939 British English
762 Ballet Shoes Noel Streatfeild 1936 British English
763 The Case of Comrade Tulayev Victor Serge 1949 French French
764 Mother Maxim Gorky 1906 Russian Russian
765 The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough 1977 Australian English
766 Adolphe Benjamin Constant 1816 Swiss French
767 The Tree of Man Patrick White 1955 Australian English
768 A Glastonbury Romance John Cowper Powys 1932 British English
769 A Voyage To Arcturus David Lindsay 1920 Scottish English
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
772 The Group Mary McCarthy 1963 American English
773 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym Edgar Allan Poe 1838 American English
774 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft 1792 British English
775 Cheese Willem Elsschot 1933 Belgian Dutch
776 War with the Newts Karel Čapek 1936 Czech Czech
777 I Am Legend Richard Matheson 1954 American English
778 The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss 1957 American English
779 The Outsiders S. E. Hinton 1967 American English
780 Maxims François duc de La Rochefoucauld 1665 French French
781 Simplicius Simplicissimus Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen 1668 German German
782 Three Men in a Boat Jerome K. Jerome 1889 British English
783 Anabasis Xenophon -390 Greek Ancient greek
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
785 The Stechlin Theodor Fontane 1898 German German
786 The Far Pavilions Mary Margaret Kaye 1978 British English
788 Roots Alex Haley 1976 American English
789 The Piano Teacher Elfriede Jelinek 1983 Austrian German
790 The Mask of Dimitrios Eric Ambler 1939 British English