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
1067 A Boy's Own Story Edmund White 1982 American English
1068 The Seven Storey Mountain Thomas Merton 1948 American English
1070 Birdsong Sebastian Faulks 1993 British English
1071 The Midwich Cuckoos John Wyndham 1957 British English
1072 Gösta Berling's Saga Selma Lagerlöf 1891 Swedish Swedish
1073 The Lottery and Other Stories Shirley Jackson 1948 American English
1074 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 American English
1075 The Kon-Tiki Expedition Thor Heyerdahl 1948 Norwegian Norwegian
1076 Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Henry Adams 1904 American English
1077 Cider with Rosie Laurie Lee 1959 British English
1078 Death on Credit Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1936 French French
1079 The Book of the New Sun Gene Wolfe 1980 American English
1080 Mount Analogue René Daumal 1952 French French
1082 The Abolition of Man C. S. Lewis 1943 British English
1084 Mother Courage and Her Children Bertolt Brecht 1941 German German
1085 The Book Thief Markus Zusak 2005 Australian English
1086 Misery Stephen King 1987 American English
1088 The Dwarf Par Lagerkvist 1944 Swedish Swedish
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
1090 The Kreutzer Sonata Leo Tolstoy 1889 Russian Russian
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
1094 Gorky Park Martin Cruz Smith 1981 American English
1095 The Swimming-Pool Library Alan Hollinghurst 1988 British English
1096 The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard 1980 Australian English
1097 My Name Is Aram William Saroyan 1940 American English
1098 Seven Years in Tibet Heinrich Harrer 1952 Austrian German
1099 The Blue Flower Penelope Fitzgerald 1995 British English
1100 Collected Poems Of Edward Thomas Edward Thomas 1920 British English
1101 Outline Rachel Cusk 2014 British English
1103 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë 1848 British English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
1105 The Chill Ross Macdonald 1964 American English
1106 The Passion Jeanette Winterson 1987 British English
1107 The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene 1948 British English
1109 Othello William Shakespeare 1603 British English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
1111 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard 1990 American English
1112 The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake William Blake 1827 British English
1113 The Christmas Oratorio Göran Tunström 1983 Swedish Swedish
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
1116 Hadrian the Seventh Frederick Rolfe 1904 British English
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
1118 Germany, a Winter Tale Heinrich Heine 1844 German German
1119 The Street Ann Petry 1946 American English
1120 The Sorrow of Belgium Hugo Claus 1983 Belgian Dutch
1121 Fantasia Assia Djebar 1985 French French
1122 A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking 1988 British English
1123 The Symposium Plato -385 Greek Ancient greek
1124 Ajax Sophocles -440 Greek Ancient greek
1125 Philoctetes Sophocles -409 Greek Ancient greek
1126 Women of Trachis Sophocles -450 Greek Ancient greek
1127 The Devil in the Flesh Raymond Radiguet 1923 French French
1128 The Price Of Salt Patricia Highsmith 1952 American English
1129 The Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri 2003 American English
1130 Too Loud A Solitude Bohumil Hrabal 1976 Czech Czech
1132 Lenz Georg Buchner 1836 German German
1132 Fanny Hill John Cleland 1748 British English
1134 The Neverending Story Michael Ende 1979 German German
1136 The Black Prince Iris Murdoch 1973 British English
1137 Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanael West 1933 American English
1138 The Unwomanly Face Of War Svetlana Alexievich 1985 Russian Russian
1139 The Unquiet Grave Cyril Connolly 1944 British English
1140 Nana Émile Zola 1880 French French
1141 The Golden Bough James George Frazer 1890 British English
1142 Life of Pi Yann Martel 2001 Canadian English
1143 Tevye The Dairyman And The Railroad Stories Sholem Aleichem 1894 Jewish Yiddish
1144 A Month In The Country J. L. Carr 1980 British English
1146 Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1839 British English
1147 Dialectic Of Enlightenment Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer 1944 German German
1148 The Werewolf Of Paris Guy Endore 1933 American English
1149 A Sportsman's Notebook Ivan Turgenev 1852 Russian Russian
1150 Witness Whittaker Chambers 1952 American English
1152 The Wapshot Chronicle John Cheever 1957 American English
1153 Beast In View Margaret Millar 1955 Canadian English
1154 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey 2000 Australian English
1155 Three Lives Gertrude Stein 1909 American English
1156 Apology Plato -389 Greek Ancient greek
1157 Twice-Told Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne 1837 American English
1159 Eichmann in Jerusalem Hannah Arendt 1963 German English
1161 The Twelve Chairs Ilya Ilf, Evgeniy Petrov 1928 Russian Russian
1162 Essays Francis Bacon 1597 British English
1163 The Road to Oxiana Robert Byron 1937 British English
1164 The Nose Nikolai Gogol 1836 Russian Russian
1165 The Horse's Mouth Joyce Cary 1944 British English
1166 Lanark Alasdair Gray 1981 Scottish English
1167 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Anita Loos 1925 American English
1168 The Diaries Franz Kafka 1948 Czech German
1169 The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells 1910 British English
1170 Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman 1962 American English
1172 My Family And Other Animals Gerald Durrell 1956 British English
1173 Little, Big John Crowley 1981 American English
1174 As A Man Grows Older Italo Svevo 1898 Italian Italian
1175 The Demons Heimito von Doderer 1956 Austrian German
1176 Carmen Prosper Mérimée 1845 French French
1177 Phèdre Jean Racine 1677 French French
1178 Nathan the Wise Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1779 German German
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
1180 Annals Cornelius Tacitus 109 Roman Latin
1182 Poems of Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca 1921 Spanish Spanish
1184 Mr Norris Changes Trains Christopher Isherwood 1935 British English
1183 In A Lonely Place Dorothy B. Hughes 1947 American English
1185 The Inimitable Jeeves P. G. Wodehouse 1923 British English
1186 Tristan Gottfried von Strassburg 1210 German Middle high german
1187 Jean Christophe Romain Rolland 1904 French French
1188 The Quest for Community Robert Nisbet 1953 American English
1189 A Writer's Diary Virginia Woolf 1953 British English
1190 The Spirit Of The Laws Montesquieu 1748 French French
1192 The Politics Aristotle -350 Greek Ancient greek
1193 Double Indemnity James M. Cain 1943 American English
1196 Conjure Wife Fritz Leiber 1943 American English
1197 Light Years James Salter 1975 American English
1198 Lorna Doone R. D. Blackmore 1869 British English
1200 Mating Norman Rush 1991 American English
1202 The Country Girls Edna O'Brien 1960 Irish English
1203 Nine Coaches Waiting Mary Stewart 1958 British English
1204 Nickel And Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich 2001 American English
1205 The Enchanted Wanderer Nikolai Leskov 1873 Russian Russian
1206 Pachinko Min Jin Lee 2017 American English
1207 How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie 1936 American English
1208 Love in a Cold Climate Nancy Mitford 1949 British English