The 20 most popular books of all time, according to Goodreads members

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  • Below are the 20 most popular books of all time, ranked by Goodreads members. 
  • Want more books? Check out the most popular books of 2021, based on Goodreads .

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Goodreads is the world's largest site for readers to rate and review their favorite books and authors , track their reading, participate in challenges, and discover new book recommendations. No matter what you like to read, you can find it on Goodreads along with tons of fellow readers who love the same books. 

With millions of ratings and community reviews, readers are encouraged to share their opinions to help others determine their next read. We used the number of ratings of each book to determine the most popular books amongst Goodreads members, so whether you're curious if your favorite book made the list or are looking for a new read with millions of recommendations , here are the top 20 most popular books on Goodreads. 

The 20 most popular books of all time on Goodreads:

"harry potter and the sorcerer's stone" by j.k. rowling.

best ten books ever written

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.98

With nearly 8 million ratings, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is the most popular book of all time on Goodreads and has sold over 120 million copies. In this first book of the "Harry Potter" series, readers meet a young orphan boy who learns he's a wizard and begins his magical training at Hogwarts, a special school for witches and wizards.

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

best ten books ever written

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.69

With almost 7 million ratings on Goodreads, "The Hunger Games" is the first book in a young adult dystopian series where the country is divided up into districts that annually select one boy and one girl to fight to the death in a highly publicized arena. When Katniss's little sister is chosen for the games, she volunteers in her sister's place and immediately begins training before entering the deadly arena.

"Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer

best ten books ever written

"Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $10.16

"Twilight" is an iconic young adult vampire romance novel about a high school girl named Bella who falls in love with a mysterious boy named Edward and quickly finds out he's a vampire. As the threat of a nearby nomadic vampire looms, Bella chooses to be with Edward and discovers the secrets of his world, despite the nearly constant risks to her life. 

"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

best ten books ever written

"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.19

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is an American classic from 1960, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and frequently voted as one of the best books of the 20th century . It's about a young girl named Scout who's growing up in a time of racial division, amplified as her lawyer father defends an innocent Black man wrongly accused of a horrible crime. 

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

best ten books ever written

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.97

First published in 1925, "The Great Gatsby" is a classic Jazz Age novel about millionaire Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan. Narrated by Gatsby's neighbor, Nick Carraway, the novel follows Gatsby's shady business dealings, extravagant parties, and pursuit of Daisy's affection. 

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green

best ten books ever written

"The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.10

In this absolute tear-jerker, Hazel is battling a terminal cancer diagnosis, offered a few extra years by a miracle medical advancement. In her cancer support group, she meets Augustus Waters and they immediately begin to fall for each other in this tragic and beautiful young adult love story. 

"1984" by George Orwell

best ten books ever written

"1984" by George Orwell, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.48

In this novel predicting a dystopian future from its original publication in 1949, Winston Smith is living in a totalitarian world defined by strict mass surveillance and inundating propaganda. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to fit the government's narrative, and can't help but wonder what the world was truly like before the revolution. 

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

best ten books ever written

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.47

"Pride and Prejudice" is an 1813 romantic classic about Elizabeth Bennet, a young woman who is pressured to marry a wealthy man in order to provide for her family. She meets the brooding Mr. Darcy, with whom she begins a witty but civilized sparring banter as they slowly fall for each other in this novel about the influences of class and the importance of being true to yourself. 

"Divergent" by Veronica Roth

best ten books ever written

"Divergent" by Veronica Roth, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.46

In the dystopian science fiction world of "Divergent," all 16-year-olds must devote themselves to one of five factions in society, each dedicated to a virtue. Beatrice Prior is torn between staying with her family and being true to herself, so she makes a daring and shocking decision, thrusting her into an intense initiation and transformation while keeping a potentially deadly secret and discovering the growing conflict within her seemingly flawless society. 

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling

best ten books ever written

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $8.78

When a murderer named Sirius Black escapes the wizarding world's highest security prison, rumor says he's headed to kill Harry since the dark Lord Voldemort's downfall was his as well. Even with the soulless prison guards searching the castle for Sirius, danger seems to follow Harry at every turn. 

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

best ten books ever written

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.37

This fantastical classic introduces readers to magical Middle-Earth where Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, sets out on a quest to win a treasure guarded by a dragon. Initially written for the author's children, this adventure novel is a prequel to the epic "Lord of the Rings" series and is a charming favorite with over three million ratings and 1.6 million five-star reviews on Goodreads.  

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling

best ten books ever written

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.98

In the final book of the "Harry Potter" series, Harry and his two best friends are on a cross-country journey to find the final answers that will help them defeat the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. Cumulating in an epic and devastating battle at Hogwarts, this intense novel closes the fantastical series with a shocking and emotional resolution. 

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell

best ten books ever written

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.48

"Animal Farm" is a classic satirical novel about a group of mistreated farm animals who rebel against the human farmer to take over the farm and attempt to create a system where all animals are free and equal. But when the community is betrayed and collapses under a single dictator, the animals' hopes for equality diminish. 

"The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

best ten books ever written

"The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.35

Written by Anne Frank during the Nazi occupation of Holland, this diary is a firsthand, nonfiction account of the two years Anne and her family spent hiding in a secret annex of an old office building. With thoughtful insight and emotional impressions of the time, Anne's diary is a testament to her courage during the final years of her life. 

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J.K. Rowling

best ten books ever written

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" by J.K. Rowling, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.98

Before returning to Hogwarts for his second year of school, Harry receives an ominous message of the danger that awaits him if he's to return. Needing to escape his dreadful aunt and uncle, Harry ignores the warning and happily returns to school — until students begin to turn to stone and a strange voice in the wall means Harry might be the only one who can save them.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

best ten books ever written

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $5.21

"The Catcher in the Rye" is a young adult classic about a 16-year-old boy named Holden Caulfield and his three-day adventure through New York City. Heavily impacted by his experiences, Holden is an example of teenage rebellion as he navigates complex feelings about innocence, connection, and loss. 

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling

best ten books ever written

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $6.92

In this fourth book of the "Harry Potter" series, Hogwarts is one of three schools participating in a Triwizard Tournament where one representative witch or wizard from each school must complete three extremely challenging tasks. When Harry's name is picked in addition to the three competitors, he must compete in the tournament, despite not knowing how he was entered. 

"Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown

best ten books ever written

"Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $16.20

"Angels & Demons" is the first book in the "DaVinci Code" series, a thrilling mystery novel where readers meet world-renowned symbologist Robert Langdon as he's called to help explain the mysterious symbols left seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. His research takes him through an intense investigation that leads him towards a deadly vendetta from the Illuminati. 

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson

best ten books ever written

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $9.19

In this international psychological thriller, Henrik Vanger is a billionaire whose niece disappeared over 40 years ago. Still searching for answers, he hires Mikal Blomkvist, a renowned journalist who recently lost a libel lawsuit, along with Lisbeth Salander, a mysterious but brilliant computer hacker. As the duo digs deeper into the investigation, they uncover a complex weave of family and financial secrets in this captivating Swedish thriller. 

"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

best ten books ever written

"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins, available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.98

The second book in the "Hunger Games" saga follows Katniss and her public love interest, Peeta, after their historic arena win. Though they should be celebrating, rumors of a growing rebellion infuriate the Capitol and threaten their safety in this fast-paced, science-fiction sequel.

best ten books ever written

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The Greatest Books of All Time

Click to learn how this list is calculated.

This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books in literature. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 200 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed literary works. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details about the selection process can be found on the rankings page .

List Calculation Details

If you're interested in downloading this list as a CSV file for use in a spreadsheet application, you can easily do so by clicking the button below. Please note that to ensure a manageable file size and faster download, the CSV will include details for only the first 500 books.

1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Cover of 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This novel is a multi-generational saga that focuses on the Buendía family, who founded the fictional town of Macondo. It explores themes of love, loss, family, and the cyclical nature of history. The story is filled with magical realism, blending the supernatural with the ordinary, as it chronicles the family's experiences, including civil war, marriages, births, and deaths. The book is renowned for its narrative style and its exploration of solitude, fate, and the inevitability of repetition in history.

2. Ulysses by James Joyce

Cover of 'Ulysses' by James Joyce

Set in Dublin, the novel follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman, as he navigates the city. The narrative, heavily influenced by Homer's Odyssey, explores themes of identity, heroism, and the complexities of everyday life. It is renowned for its stream-of-consciousness style and complex structure, making it a challenging but rewarding read.

3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Cover of 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Set in the summer of 1922, the novel follows the life of a young and mysterious millionaire, his extravagant lifestyle in Long Island, and his obsessive love for a beautiful former debutante. As the story unfolds, the millionaire's dark secrets and the corrupt reality of the American dream during the Jazz Age are revealed. The narrative is a critique of the hedonistic excess and moral decay of the era, ultimately leading to tragic consequences.

4. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

Cover of 'In Search of Lost Time' by Marcel Proust

This renowned novel is a sweeping exploration of memory, love, art, and the passage of time, told through the narrator's recollections of his childhood and experiences into adulthood in the late 19th and early 20th century aristocratic France. The narrative is notable for its lengthy and intricate involuntary memory episodes, the most famous being the "madeleine episode". It explores the themes of time, space and memory, but also raises questions about the nature of art and literature, and the complex relationships between love, sexuality, and possession.

5. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Cover of 'Don Quixote' by Miguel de Cervantes

This classic novel follows the adventures of a man who, driven mad by reading too many chivalric romances, decides to become a knight-errant and roam the world righting wrongs under the name Don Quixote. Accompanied by his loyal squire, Sancho Panza, he battles windmills he believes to be giants and champions the virtuous lady Dulcinea, who is in reality a simple peasant girl. The book is a richly layered critique of the popular literature of Cervantes' time and a profound exploration of reality and illusion, madness and sanity.

6. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Cover of 'The Catcher in the Rye' by J. D. Salinger

The novel follows the story of a teenager named Holden Caulfield, who has just been expelled from his prep school. The narrative unfolds over the course of three days, during which Holden experiences various forms of alienation and his mental state continues to unravel. He criticizes the adult world as "phony" and struggles with his own transition into adulthood. The book is a profound exploration of teenage rebellion, alienation, and the loss of innocence.

7. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Cover of 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

The novel is a detailed narrative of a vengeful sea captain's obsessive quest to hunt down a giant white sperm whale that bit off his leg. The captain's relentless pursuit, despite the warnings and concerns of his crew, leads them on a dangerous journey across the seas. The story is a complex exploration of good and evil, obsession, and the nature of reality, filled with rich descriptions of whaling and the sea.

8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cover of 'Crime and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A young, impoverished former student in Saint Petersburg, Russia, formulates a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker to redistribute her wealth among the needy. However, after carrying out the act, he is consumed by guilt and paranoia, leading to a psychological battle within himself. As he grapples with his actions, he also navigates complex relationships with a variety of characters, including a virtuous prostitute, his sister, and a relentless detective. The narrative explores themes of morality, redemption, and the psychological impacts of crime.

9. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

Cover of 'Nineteen Eighty Four' by George Orwell

Set in a dystopian future, the novel presents a society under the total control of a totalitarian regime, led by the omnipresent Big Brother. The protagonist, a low-ranking member of 'the Party', begins to question the regime and falls in love with a woman, an act of rebellion in a world where independent thought, dissent, and love are prohibited. The novel explores themes of surveillance, censorship, and the manipulation of truth.

10. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Cover of 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy

Set in the backdrop of the Napoleonic era, the novel presents a panorama of Russian society and its descent into the chaos of war. It follows the interconnected lives of five aristocratic families, their struggles, romances, and personal journeys through the tumultuous period of history. The narrative explores themes of love, war, and the meaning of life, as it weaves together historical events with the personal stories of its characters.

11. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Cover of 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë

This classic novel is a tale of love, revenge and social class set in the Yorkshire moors. It revolves around the intense, complex relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan adopted by Catherine's father. Despite their deep affection for each other, Catherine marries Edgar Linton, a wealthy neighbor, leading Heathcliff to seek revenge on the two families. The story unfolds over two generations, reflecting the consequences of their choices and the destructive power of obsessive love.

12. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Cover of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll

This novel follows the story of a young girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantastical world full of peculiar creatures and bizarre experiences. As she navigates through this strange land, she encounters a series of nonsensical events, including a tea party with a Mad Hatter, a pool of tears, and a trial over stolen tarts. The book is renowned for its playful use of language, logic, and its exploration of the boundaries of reality.

13. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Cover of 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen

Set in early 19th-century England, this classic novel revolves around the lives of the Bennet family, particularly the five unmarried daughters. The narrative explores themes of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage within the society of the landed gentry. It follows the romantic entanglements of Elizabeth Bennet, the second eldest daughter, who is intelligent, lively, and quick-witted, and her tumultuous relationship with the proud, wealthy, and seemingly aloof Mr. Darcy. Their story unfolds as they navigate societal expectations, personal misunderstandings, and their own pride and prejudice.

14. The Bible by Christian Church

Cover of 'The Bible' by Christian Church

This religious text is a compilation of 66 books divided into the Old and New Testaments, forming the central narrative for Christianity. It encompasses a variety of genres, including historical accounts, poetry, prophecy, and teaching, telling the story of God's relationship with humanity, from creation to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the early Christian church. It is considered by believers to be divinely inspired and serves as a guide for faith and practice.

15. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Cover of 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov

The novel tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a man with a disturbing obsession for young girls, or "nymphets" as he calls them. His obsession leads him to engage in a manipulative and destructive relationship with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Lolita. The narrative is a controversial exploration of manipulation, obsession, and unreliable narration, as Humbert attempts to justify his actions and feelings throughout the story.

16. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Cover of 'The Divine Comedy' by Dante Alighieri

In this epic poem, the protagonist embarks on an extraordinary journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso). Guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil and his beloved Beatrice, he encounters various historical and mythological figures in each realm, witnessing the eternal consequences of earthly sins and virtues. The journey serves as an allegory for the soul's progression towards God, offering profound insights into the nature of good and evil, free will, and divine justice.

17. The Odyssey by Homer

Cover of 'The Odyssey' by Homer

This epic poem follows the Greek hero Odysseus on his journey home after the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. Along the way, he encounters many obstacles including mythical creatures, divine beings, and natural disasters. Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus fend off suitors vying for Penelope's hand in marriage, believing Odysseus to be dead. The story concludes with Odysseus's return, his slaughter of the suitors, and his reunion with his family.

18. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Cover of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain

The novel follows the journey of a young boy named Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave named Jim as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft. Set in the American South before the Civil War, the story explores themes of friendship, freedom, and the hypocrisy of society. Through various adventures and encounters with a host of colorful characters, Huck grapples with his personal values, often clashing with the societal norms of the time.

19. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cover of 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoevsky

This classic novel explores the complex, passionate, and troubled relationship between four brothers and their father in 19th century Russia. The narrative delves into the themes of faith, doubt, morality, and redemption, as each brother grapples with personal dilemmas and family conflicts. The story culminates in a dramatic trial following a murder, which serves as a microcosm of the moral and philosophical struggles faced by each character, and by extension, humanity itself.

20. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Cover of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee

Set in the racially charged South during the Depression, the novel follows a young girl and her older brother as they navigate their small town's societal norms and prejudices. Their father, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, forcing the children to confront the harsh realities of racism and injustice. The story explores themes of morality, innocence, and the loss of innocence through the eyes of the young protagonists.

21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Cover of 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad

This classic novel follows the journey of a seaman who travels up the Congo River into the African interior to meet a mysterious ivory trader. Throughout his journey, he encounters the harsh realities of imperialism, the brutal treatment of native Africans, and the depths of human cruelty and madness. The protagonist's journey into the 'heart of darkness' serves as both a physical exploration of the African continent and a metaphorical exploration into the depths of human nature.

22. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Cover of 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy

Set in 19th-century Russia, this novel revolves around the life of Anna Karenina, a high-society woman who, dissatisfied with her loveless marriage, embarks on a passionate affair with a charming officer named Count Vronsky. This scandalous affair leads to her social downfall, while parallel to this, the novel also explores the rural life and struggles of Levin, a landowner who seeks the meaning of life and true happiness. The book explores themes such as love, marriage, fidelity, societal norms, and the human quest for happiness.

23. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Cover of 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary is a tragic novel about a young woman, Emma Bovary, who is married to a dull, but kind-hearted doctor. Dissatisfied with her life, she embarks on a series of extramarital affairs and indulges in a luxurious lifestyle in an attempt to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. Her desire for passion and excitement leads her down a path of financial ruin and despair, ultimately resulting in a tragic end.

24. The Iliad by Homer

Cover of 'The Iliad' by Homer

This epic poem focuses on the final weeks of the Trojan War, a conflict between the city of Troy and the Greek city-states. The story explores themes of war, honor, wrath, and divine intervention, with a particular focus on the Greek hero Achilles, whose anger and refusal to fight have devastating consequences. The narrative also delves into the lives of the gods, their relationships with humans, and their influence on the course of events.

25. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Cover of 'Catch-22' by Joseph Heller

The book is a satirical critique of military bureaucracy and the illogical nature of war, set during World War II. The story follows a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier stationed in Italy, who is trying to maintain his sanity while fulfilling his service requirements so that he can go home. The novel explores the absurdity of war and military life through the experiences of the protagonist, who discovers that a bureaucratic rule, the "Catch-22", makes it impossible for him to escape his dangerous situation. The more he tries to avoid his military assignments, the deeper he gets sucked into the irrational world of military rule.

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The Greatest Books of All Time, as Voted by 125 Famous Authors

Tolstoy holds an 11-point lead over Shakespeare in these literary opinion polls.

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“Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work,” Jennifer Egan once said . This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bidirectional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers’ success, as bespoken by their personal libraries . The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity’s greatest British and American writers—including Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, and Joyce Carol Oates—“to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time—novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”

Of the 544 separate titles selected, each is assigned a reverse-order point value based on the number position at which it appears on any list—so, a book that tops a list at No. 1 receives 10 points, and a book that graces the bottom, at No. 10, receives one point.

In introducing the lists, David Orr offers a litmus test for greatness:

If you’re putting together a list of “the greatest books,” you’ll want to do two things: (1) out of kindness, avoid anyone working on a novel; and (2) decide what the word “great” means. The first part is easy, but how about the second? A short list of possible definitions of “greatness” might look like this: 1. “Great” means “books that have been greatest for me.” 2. “Great” means “books that would be considered great by the most people over time.” 3. “Great” has nothing to do with you or me—or people at all. It involves transcendental concepts like God or the Sublime. 4. “Great”? I like Tom Clancy.

From David Foster Wallace (No. 1: The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis) to Stephen King (No. 1: The Golden Argosy , a 1955 anthology of the best short stories in the English language), the collection offers a rare glimpse of the building blocks of great creators’ combinatorial creativity —because, as Austin Kleon put it, “ you are a mashup of what you let into your life. ”

The book concludes with an appendix of “literary number games” summing up some patterns and constructing several overall rankings based on the totality of the different authors’ picks. Among them (*with links to free public domain works where available):

1. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

4. Ulysses * by James Joyce

5. Dubliners * by James Joyce

6. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

7. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

8. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

9. The complete stories of Flannery O'Connor

10. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

1. Anna Karenina * by Leo Tolstoy

2. Madame Bovary * by Gustave Flaubert

3. War and Peace * by Leo Tolstoy

4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn * by Mark Twain

5. The stories of Anton Chekhov

6. Middlemarch * by George Eliot

7. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

8. Great Expectations * by Charles Dickens

9. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

10. Emma * by Jane Austen

1. William Shakespeare – 11

2. William Faulkner – 6

3. Henry James – 6

4. Jane Austen – 5

5. Charles Dickens – 5

6. Fyodor Dostoevsky – 5

7. Ernest Hemingway – 5

8. Franz Kafka – 5

9. Tied: James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf – 4

1. Leo Tolstoy – 327

2. William Shakespeare – 293

3. James Joyce – 194

4. Vladimir Nabokov – 190

5. Fyodor Dostoevsky – 177

6. William Faulkner – 173

7. Charles Dickens – 168

8. Anton Chekhov – 165

9. Gustave Flaubert – 163

10. Jane Austen – 161

As a nonfiction loyalist, I'd love a similar anthology of nonfiction favorites—then again, famous writers might wave a knowing finger and point me to the complex relationship between truth and fiction .

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This post appears courtesy of Brain Pickings , an Atlantic partner site .

Image credits: AP Images / Wikimedia Commons

The 10 Greatest Books of All Time

best ten books ever written

Author Tom Wolfe

Let's not mince words: literary lists are basically an obscenity. Literature is the realm of the ineffable and the unquantifiable; lists are the realm of menus and laundry and rotisserie baseball. There's something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together. Take it from me, a critic who has committed this particular sin many times over.

Yes, it would probably still be an obscenity. But it would be a pretty interesting obscenity. And that's what we have in J. Peder Zane's The Top 10 (Norton; 352 pages).

Each individual top 10 list is like its own steeplechase through the international canon. Look at Michael Chabon's. He heads it up with Jorge Luis Borges's Labyrinths . (Nice: an undersung masterpiece by a writer's writer.) He follows that up with by Pale Fire by Nabokov at #2. (Hm. Does he really think it's better than Lolita ? Really?) Then with number 3 he goes straight off the reservation: Scaramouche , by Rafael Sabatini. (What? By who?) The whole exercise is an orgy of intellectual second-guessing, which as we all know is infinitely more fun than the first round of guessing.

There are several lifetimes' worth of promising literary leads here—544 books in all. An 85-page appendix providing enlightened summaries of all the works mentioned is worth the price of admission all on its own. But to get you started, here, in all its glory, is the all-time, ultimate Top Top 10 list, derived from the top 10 lists of 125 of the world's most celebrated writers combined. Read it and— well, just read it.

The 115 Best Books of All Time

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Blog – Posted on Wednesday, May 20

The 115 best books of all time.

The 115 Best Books of All Time

The written word is a pillar of human civilization — it signals complex thinking, it’s a tool to record history, and it allows for the development of ideas. Throughout our existence, so much has been written down, whether carved into stone or printed on paper, immortalizing thrilling tales and imparting wisdom. Many are lost, weathered by time or withered in flames like in the case of the Library of Alexandria; though plenty remain for us to peruse.

Let’s take a trip through time and discover the world’s literary trends by looking at 115 of the best books of all time! It took a while to compile this list (there is simply too much great writing!) but you’ll see that there’s a bit of everything: from poetry to plays to novels, from Chinese classics to Renaissance gems.

Feel free to skip to your favorite era using this table of contents:

Ancient civilizations

1. the story of sinuhe by unknown (c. 1800 bc) .

More than three thousand years before the Bard was born, the Egyptian Shakespeare wrote the Hathor worshipper’s answer to Hamlet — and we don’t even know their name. Anonymously authored, the elegant and haunting Story of Sinuhe has been hailed as ancient Egypt’s best. This epic poem follows the titular Sinuhe, an official who goes AWOL when he gets some explosive intel about the assassination of his king. His new life in Canaan brings him glorious victories, a high-society marriage, and honorable sons…. but the guilt of his exit continues to eat away at him, and he never stops longing for his homeland. 

2. Epic of Gilgamesh by Sin-liqe-unninni (c. 1700 BC) 

This four thousand year-old page-turner flies under the radar compared to high school staples like the Odyssey, but the Epic of Gilgamesh is nothing short of, well, epic . It’s a must-read whether you love the redemptive power of a good bromance or have a taste for quirky math (the titular Gilgamesh is one-third moral and two-thirds divine)! Our genetically improbable protagonist begins the story as a a king who brutalizes his people — in other words, a true antihero. He rules over the city of Uruk with an iron fist until the gods themselves mold the wild man Enkidu out of clay and water to strike the wicked king down. But when Enkidu  finally confronts his target, the two destined enemies become fast friends — inspiring Gilgamesh to mend his ways and go on a monster-hunting quest with his new bestie. 

3. The Odyssey by Homer (c. 700 BC) 

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4. Aesop’s Fables by Aesop (c. 500 BC)

City mouse and country mouse. Sour grapes. Slow and steady wins the race. Brought to life by an enslaved prisoner of war, Aesop’s Fables have shaped our everyday idioms and helped define how we see the world. These deceptively simple tales have clear moral messages that are served with a dash of darkness: in Aesop’s starkly enchanted world, anthropomorphic animals cavort, gambol, and sometimes die ignoble deaths, struck down by their own foolishness and arrogance. Whether you’re in the mood for Tweet-brief bedtime reading or hankering for a blunt reminder of life’s harshness, these timeless tales that have enriched the worlds of toddlers and philosophers alike will have you covered.

5. Oedipus the King by Sophocles (430 BC) 

This bleak masterclass in dramatic irony gave its name to the most famous of Freudian complexes, and it’s been reminding readers — and playgoers — for ages that sometimes you just can’t fight fate. The great tragedian Sophocles wrote it more than 2,000 years ago, so forgive us if we don’t issue any spoiler warnings. In any case, we all know how this story ends — with the unlucky Oedipus blinded and weeping blood, after accidentally killing his father and marrying his mother. The bitter fascination of reading Oedipus the King lies in following him to that grisly and inevitable conclusion. Trust us — the dread that grips you because you know exactly what’s coming will make your blood run colder than many a horror movie. 

6. The Mahabharata by Vyasa (c. 300 BC)

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If you’re not quite sure where to start, we recommend diving into the Bhagavad Gita . In this philosophically rich, 700-verse passage from the sixth book, the warrior prince Arjuna struggles to master his emotions on the eve of battle. His enemies, after all, are also his own kinsmen. Can his friend and charioteer — who also happens to be a reincarnated god — help him find a way out of his turmoil?

7. Adelphoe by Terence (160 BC)

This quirky Roman classic proves two things: the ancients knew how to get a laugh out of theatergoers, and bumbling fathers and rebellious sons are literally) an age-old recipe for comedy. Adelphoe kicks off with a parenting experiment: rural patriarch Demea has two sons, and he sends one to be raised by his city-dwelling brother Micio while rearing the other himself. Thus the two brothers grow up apart: Ctesipho lives it up in Athens with his indulgent uncle, while Aeschinus stays in the countryside, under his despotic father’s thumb. In short, one brother becomes repressed, and the other has become a louche. But when Ctesipho falls in love with an enslaved musician, he turns to his brother for help. When Demea and Micio find out what their boys are up to, will they finally agree on the right way to raise kids?

8. The Aeneid by Virgil (c. 20 BC)

For Odysseus, the Trojan War led to a ten-year nightmare involving six-headed monsters, vengeful sea-gods, and a scorned witch capable of turning men into pigs — and he was one of the winners! Which makes you wonder what it was like to be on the losing side. Let’s just ask the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose own post-war adventures spawned another epic poem.

The star of the Aeneid , he flees Troy just after the murder of its king. For a while, destiny seems to be on Aeneas’ side: a prophecy dictates he’ll establish a glorious nation in Rome, and his own mother is none other than Venus herself. But even with divine blood flowing through him, he can’t count on support from all the gods: Juno, in particular, seems intent on turning his journey to Italy into a real ordeal. We know that Aeneas will make it to Rome. But what will he suffer in the process — and who will suffer with him?

9. The Satyricon by Petronius (c. 90 AD) 

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10. The Tale of an Anklet by Unknown (c. 450 AD)

This Tamil answer to the Odyssey features one unforgettable heroine. Kannaki starts out as a long-suffering wife, but by the time the story’s done, she’s transformed into a goddess who sets cities on fire with her rage. But let’s rewind quickly to the start of The Tale of an Anklet , where she and the handsome Kovalan are married and living in bliss — as far as she’s concerned. Kovalan seems to feel differently: why else would he leave his wife at home to take up with a beautiful courtesan? 

But when Kovalan faces financial ruin, Kannaki swallows her betrayal and prepares to bail him out. She offers him a jeweled anklet to pawn — but he’s falsely accused of stealing it from the queen. Can Kannaki save him from a flawed justice system, or will she be forced to seek revenge for the husband who broke her heart? From the bitterness of love to the brokenness of law, this gorgeous, heartrending drama brings age-old issues to passionate life.

Post-classical literature

11. one thousand and one nights by unknown (c. 700)  .

This collection of Arabic-language folk tales shows the transformative power of a good cliffhanger — used right, it can apparently save your life! Over the course of, well, a thousand and one nights, the quick-witted storyteller Scheherazade (the latest in a long succession of King Shahryar’s unfortunate brides) draws on her imagination to stave off death. Embittered by a previous wife’s infidelity, King Shahryar has been marrying a new one every night — only to put her to death the next morning. Scheherazade, though, is different from these other one-night queens: she actually volunteered for the job. Every night, she regales her paranoid husband with a story but refuses to finish it — forcing him to push back her beheading in favor of the grand finale. And then she starts another one to keep him on the hook.

One Thousand and One Nights lets you listen in on these high-stakes bedtime stories. Scheherazade’s repertoire spans the spectrum from cozy childhood favorites ( Aladdin , anyone?) to historical, tragic, and erotic tales fit to stir a royal imagination. It turns out, the way to a king’s heart isn’t through his stomach — it’s through the magic of plot!

12. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (c. 1010)

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Unfortunately for Genji, his gifts seem to bring him more sorrow than joy: he falls in love with the worst possible woman — his own stepmother, Lady Fujitsubo. Unable to forget her, he kidnaps her niece, the preteen Murasaki, to raise as a replacement Fujitsubo — all while continuing his affair with the real Fujitsubo. Elegant, immersive, and dense, this strange and captivating classic blurs the line between truth and fiction. Did Murasaki, the author, name herself after her heroine? Or is Muraski the character a reflection of the woman who brought her to life?

14. Lais by Marie de France (c. 1100) 

If you’ve ever wanted to live out a courtly romance or daydreamed about saving lives as a dragon-slaying knight, you can thank Marie. This 12th-century poet — the first woman in French history to write verse — virtually invented chivalry through her Lais . Though we sadly don’t even know her real name today, we do know that her view of romance was subtle and even sometimes sinister — never sappy. In these twelve short narrative poems, werewolves suffer heartbreak, vassals betray their lords, and jealous husbands lash out against innocent wives with unimaginable cruelty. Love, Marie knew, could be as corrupting as it was powerful, making cunning and sophisticated beasts out of men. 

15. The Knight in Panther’s Skin by Shota Rusteveli (c. 1190) 

Up to a century ago, The Knight in Panther’s Skin was a part of every Georgian bride’s dowry. In this heart-stirring epic, medieval Georgia’s premiere poet uses a fictionalized Middle Eastern setting to glorify Queen Tamar, who presided over the kingdom’s golden age.

The poem opens on the warrior Avtandil as he takes on an unusual mission. Normally tasked with commanding the Arabian king’s armies, he’s been asked to spearhead a strange manhunt. His target? A mysterious knight dressed in a panther’s skin, whom the king’s men found weeping by a river — before he killed them and disappeared. Dangerous as he is, is this shadowy stranger a friend or a foe? The answer may surprise the noble Avtandil — and force him to turn against the king he’s served so faithfully.

16. The Song of the Nibelungs by Unknown (c. 1200) 

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Beyond the fascinating plot, this poem immortalized Siegfried and Hagen, Gunther’s loyal right-hand man, as the embodiment of the German spirit when the country unified in the late 1800s. Its influence on European culture attests to its status as one of the most impressive works of German Medieval literature ever created. 

17. The Poetic Edda by Unknown (13th century) 

You can thank this anonymous batch of poems for The Hobbit — not to mention the superhero Thor. The Poetic Edda , one of the most important sources for Nose mythology, surfaced in Iceland sometime during the 13th century. It’s since cast a vast shadow on western literature, with writers from Tolkien to Jorge Luis Borges touting it as a major influence.

This verse collection brings the deeds of gods and heroes to life. You’ll hear a witch’s prophecy foretelling Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods, see the All-father Odin match wits with the wisest of giants, and follow Heimdall, the divine watchmen, as he journeys through the land of mortals — fathering many children along the way. In the starkly beautiful world these poems sketch out, vows are binding, honor is everything, and not even the gods are safe from a painful death. 

17. Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (c. 1300)

If this glorious tale had to be described in three words, they would be: epic, tragic, and historical. One of the pillars of Chinese classical literature, Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a mythicized account of 80 years of political intrigue and warfare between three dynastic families over rulership of Northern China. As beloved generals and cunning strategists form leagues and battle it out, we learn of their love, their righteousness, and their camaraderie. The riveting plot ends with a twist that’s too well-crafted to be true — although the story is based on real events. 

This masterpiece and its philosophical explorations transcends time and borders, and it remains one of the most well-known novels in East Asian cultures today.  

18. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1320)

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Dante’s lyrical and intricate depictions of immorality are pertinent throughout history, inspiring writers in the craft of storytelling while provoking reflection among readers. It’s truly one of the greatest literary works of all time.

19. Piers Plowman by William Langland (c. 1380)

Taking a large leap across France, Spain and the Channel from Italy we arrive in England, where Langland recorded his take on Christianity in a colossal, alliterated poem.

Rather than delving into death as Dante had several decades prior, this poem explores human behaviors and morality through the visions of a man called Will. In his dreamscape, Will meets all kinds of “people” who are personified virtues — from the Seven Deadly Sins to Dowel (“do well”) and Dobet (“do better”). The metafictional quality of presenting vision within vision, the complexity of Middle English literature, and the depth of theological knowledge make Piers Plowman a difficult but very rich and sophisticated text. 

20. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1400)

From knights to monks to cooks — Chaucer’s elaborate collection of 24 stories unravels the journey that people make to Canterbury and its majestic cathedral. While they embark on the same journey, the protagonists of these tales are as different as can be — each hails from a different background and represents a different tier in the social hierarchy of feudal society. 

The Canterbury Tales are fascinating to read on their own, providing a magical portal to medieval villages and quests that came to be the inspiration for countless Hollywood movies. These odysseys shine the most, however, when they are experienced together, because that’s when Chaucer’s brilliance at displaying the complexities of society reveals itself. 

21. The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan (c. 1405)

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In The Book of the City of Ladies ,  Reason, Rectitude, and Justice appear to the narrator — Pizan herself — and ask her to build a city just for women. It turns out that building this city requires the dismantling of the narrator’s own preconceived notions of gender and societal norms. 

The resulting monumental literary work includes stories of legendary female figures in history and mythology — from the Virgin Mary to Helen of Troy — as Pizan reveals to readers that women are every bit as capable as men. Elegantly written and daringly conceived, this book will be a place of refuge for believers of gender equality. 

22. Hamlet by William Shakespeare (c. 1601)

Though you may be familiar with the plot by virtue of The Lion King, it’s always worth getting back to basics with the source material — inasmuch as you can call Shakespeare’s longest and arguably most influential play “basic.”

For those unfamiliar, we’ll back it up: Hamlet is the son of the recently deceased king of Denmark, whose sudden death has been hastily papered over by his brother and successor, Claudius. Hamlet, of course, is suspicious, especially after a vision of his father claims that Claudius murdered him to take the throne. To distract others from his plan of revenge, Hamlet pretends that he’s gone mad, and what follows is a tangled web of deceit, violence, and tragedy for the royal family and their compatriots — especially as it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether Hamlet is still faking his madness, or has genuinely gone off the deep end.

23. The Plum in the Golden Vase by Unknown (c. 1610) 

Arguably the world’s most famous erotic novel, The Plum in the Golden Vase seems to shape-shift depending on the angle you view it from. It’s a lavishly illustrated handbook of sexual peccadilloes and a harshly punitive morality tale; an irreverent fanfic for a foundational novel and an eminent classic in its own right. You can think of it as the late Ming answer to Lolita : artful in its execution, perverse and learned in its tone.

The Plum in the Golden Vase shines a spotlight (or a blacklight) on a minor figure from The Water Margin , the adventuresome ancestor of Chinese martial arts fiction. This, however, is a very different novel: light on honor among thieves and heavy on steamy social satire, its characters are much more likely to die by aphrodisiac poisoning than by the sword. The fabulously wealthy, fatally dissolute merchant Ximen Qing shares his bed with a rotating cast of six lovers — and counting. Needless to say, his appetites don’t always make for the most…  harmonious of households. As the novel tracks his social life with savage wit, the women around him take center stage, in all their cruel, bawdy complexity. 

24. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1615)

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Part two of the novel introduces an impostor — a writer who pretends to be Don Quixote the knight and publishes recounts of his imaginary adventures. As the metafiction develops, the lines and meanings of imagination and reality blurs even more, leaving only one thing crystal clear: Cervantes’ mastery of the art of storytelling. 

25. The Imposter by Molière (1644)

The Imposter is a satirical play that stars Tartuffe, a pious and well-respected man who has won the love and adoration of Orgon, the head of a well-to-do family. As Tartuffe wines and dines with this family, it quickly comes to light that Tartuffe is not who he pretends to be; that behind his facade of civility is an array of selfish intentions. As the story goes on, Orgon’s family make many attempts to reveal Tartuffe’s true nature.

In a time when religiousness was never a quality not deserving of respect, the preachy and pretentious character of Tartuffe was so well-crafted that his name came to mean “hypocrite” in contemporary French. Molière also faced backlash from the Church and Christain community at the time, but his brilliance as a playwright refuses to be disregarded, and his play stands as a literary classic. 

Literature in the modern age

26. robinson crusoe by daniel defoe (1719).

In a rebellious act that has inspired the wanderlust of many, Robinson Crusoe denies the stability of life in England to travel the world. Thankfully, his colonial adventures feature encounters foreign to modern travellers: slave trades, cannibalism, and shipwrecks on foreign islands. Through this flurry of events, Crusoe comes to appreciate his own upbringing and culture more.

First published under the pseudonym Robinson Crusoe, Defoe’s vivid narration fooled many of its contemporary readers into thinking it was a travel memoir, which back then was a very popular genre. Defoe’s creativity marks this stunning novel as a trailblazer for adventure fiction .

27. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

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28. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)

Widely considered to be one of the earliest English comic novels, Tom Jones is also an elaborate bildungsroman detailing the upbringing of the titular Tom. Born to an unwed mother and raised by the kindhearted squire Allworthy, Tom grows into a spirited but similarly compassionate young man, eventually falling in love with a neighboring squire’s daughter, Sophia. But after being foiled by a rival for her affections, Tom sets off on a series of adventures through England that are equal parts thrilling and purely comical, from accidental encounters with both of his alleged parents to a very Oscar Wilde-esque ending (though of course, Fielding preceded Wilde by 150 years!) wherein his true parentage is revealed at last.

29. Candide by Voltaire (1759)

As a boy, Candide was taught that everything in the world happens for a reason: that things good and bad serve their purpose in the grand scheme of it all. But as he ventures out into the world and comes face to face with hardships and sufferings, Candide begins to wonder if this optimistic philosophy is a manifestation of ignorance and indifference. 

Underneath this coming-of-age story is Voltaire’s brave effort to hold a mirror up to society, and make it examine its flaws. Hardly any author in his time dared to oppose the accepted virtues of the educated class  — Voltaire even refused to take credit for this masterpiece until years after the publication — and none did it with as much wit and passion as Voltaire did. 

30. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (c. 1767)

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31. Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin (1791) 

One of the longest and most treasured classics of Chinese literature, Dream of the Red Chamber centers around the life and loves of Jia Baoyu — heir of one of the most powerful families in the land. As with every dynastic family, there will always come a decline. And the Jias’ final days seem to be around the corner, as the political arena shifts and its heir appears bent on listening to his heart rather than his parents. 

From battles of the matriarchs, to noble garden parties and corrupt murder trials, this tale unravels the deepest and darkest corners of Chinese high society in the time of the Qing dynasty — all inspired by the author’s own prestigious upbringing. Dream of the Red Chamber ’s fame as a pillar of Chinese fiction extends far beyond its culture, astounding readers throughout the world with its thematic depth and allegorical intricacies. 

32. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)

You are probably familiar with Pride and Prejudice , the love story of the bright and beautiful Elizabeth Bennet and the stoic and aristocratic Mr. Darcy. If you read it when you were younger, it perhaps presented itself as a mere love story set in Regency England. But of course, that barely scratches the surface of all the book holds. Austen had gracefully weaved snarky commentary about wealth, social class, and individuality into the narrative. Austen’s attention to detail and her wonderful wit ultimately show how thought-provoking and entertaining a story can become if it falls into the hands of the right author. 

33. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)

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34. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (1819)

Often credited with renewing modern interest in the medieval period and its “romantic” culture, Ivanhoe tracks the adventures of its eponymous hero, who is disinherited by his Anglo-Saxon father for his allegiance to Richard the Lionheart. Undeterred, Ivanhoe accompanies his king on the Crusades as tensions mount back in England — and this is only the beginning of a rollicking ride full of trials and tournaments, secret identities and stormed castles, hard-won loves and loyalties, and much more. Coupling nineteenth-century sensibilities and style with a story that could otherwise have come straight from the quill of Chrétien de Troyes, Ivanhoe is a historical masterpiece that will enthrall fans of action, politics, and chivalric romance alike.

35. Faust by Goethe (1832)

We’ve all heard the phrase “a deal with the devil” — or, if you’re sufficiently literary, “a Faustian bargain.” The notion of a cursed contract did indeed originate with Faust, and was immortalized in this play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (though the story has much earlier roots). Goethe’s Faust, as he’s referred to, is a voracious scholar who desires to learn and achieve all that is possible in the human realm — yet suffers for the knowledge that he cannot. As another axiom goes, be careful what you wish for; Mephistopheles then appears to Faust, offering him all the worldly knowledge and pleasures that he can imagine, in exchange for Faust’s service in hell after death. Famously signing the contract in his own blood, Faust agrees… but how will their pact actually unfold? You’ll have to read this mesmerizing play to find out.

36. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844)

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37. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Arguably the first ever female bildungsroman, Jane Eyre is the story of a frail orphan girl who grows into a highly principled young woman. After a difficult childhood, Jane’s luck takes a turn when she’s employed by the wealthy and mysterious Edward Rochester, whose company she comes to enjoy a great deal. But just as Jane and Rochester become engaged to be married, increasingly frequent and disturbing occurrences take a toll on their relationship, and the revelation of a shocking secret forces Jane to reevaluate everything she once believed. (But fear not, dear reader; for all its Gothic overtones, this novel is still a superb romance above all.)

38. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery (1848)

An incisive satirist, William Makepeace Thackery intended this book as both social commentary and a deconstruction of conventional literary heroism. Vanity Fair follows the intertwined lives of two women, Amelia Sedley and Becky Sharp, as they forge their own paths in Regency society. Amelia is a sweet, simple girl who devotes herself to her husband, despite his flaws; Becky is a savvy social climber who uses her feminine wiles to further her personal interests, even after she is married. The stark contrast between them serves not so much to ridicule the characters, however, as to criticize the society that would make respectability so impossible — and to point out the rife ignorance, hypocrisy, and opportunism even in supposedly upper-class circles.

39. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

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40. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)

“I hate metaphors. That’s why my favorite book is Moby-Dick .” Of course, anyone who’s actually read Moby-Dick will recognize the irony of this Ron Swanson quote — not only is the book packed with symbolism, but Melville’s prose is wonderfully ornate (albeit a little too descriptive when he gets into cetology, the study of whales). The surface story of Moby-Dick is thus: our narrator, Ishmael, boards a whaling ship and quickly discovers its maimed captain is bent on a mission of revenge. The captain, Ahab, spends the next three years searching for the white whale, Moby-Dick, unable to shake his convictions even as he and his crew start to unravel. A timeless tale of delusion and destruction, Moby-Dick does a particularly good job of juxtaposing the gritty everyday realities of whaling with the philosophical allegory of Ahab’s pursuit.

41. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)

Though a 1,500-page tome promising certain misery might sound like an untenable read, we implore you to tackle this brick of a book for Victor Hugo’s glorious and masterful depiction of politics and the inherent tragedy of the human condition. The plot incites, as many likely know, with the peasant Jean Valjean stealing bread to feed his family and being imprisoned for 19 years. Upon his release, he remakes himself as an honest businessman, eventually growing wealthy and even rescuing a young girl, Cosette, from her abusive caretakers the Thénardiers.

All this occurs on the brink of Paris’s June Rebellion of 1832, a cause for which a young revolutionary named Marius risks his life. This event unexpectedly and movingly brings together a number of figures from the rest of the book… which is honestly impossible to explain in a mere synopsis. Just know this: for all the astonishing beauty and gut-wrenching emotion of the musical, Hugo’s source material makes it look like a joke on a candy bar wrapper. If you’re interested in a truly transcendent portrayal of humanity and history (and have enough time on your hands to fully appreciate it), please read Les Misérables .

42. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)

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43. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866)

What is the true nature of man? According to Dostoyevsky, the answer might be “dark and twisted, yet still plagued by his conscience.” This is the tragic combination that befalls Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished young man who believes that he can rob and murder an elderly pawnbroker without any psychological consequences… only to botch the job and immediately begin agonizing over it (the “punishment” to which the title refers). As Raskolnikov descends further into madness and misery, he grapples with whether to turn himself in, especially with a policeman on his tail and his mother and sister’s reputations at risk. This classic tale of morality, mentality, and social values aptly criticizes the then-prominent notions of nihilism and egoism, while also making profound statements about what it means to be human.

44. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877)

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Such is stated the first of many contentious issues addressed in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina , considered by many to be the greatest and best book of all time. The plot revolves around a tumultuous affair between the high-society Anna and cavalry officer Vronsky, with a parallel narrative detailing the religious and ethical quandaries of country landowner Levin. But even as these characters’ lives become increasingly intertwined, and their circumstances increasingly desperate — especially for Anna, whose fate has become a well-known literary reference point — this novel is so much more than an 800-page soap opera. Tolstoy’s exploration of relationships, family, sin, virtue, and the cultural contrast between city and country produces incredibly nuanced and brilliant ideas, many of which are still relevant today.

45. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

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46. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

If you’ve ever heard someone referred to as “a real Jekyll and Hyde character,” you probably know this story has something to do with the duality of man… but what you may not know is how this duality comes to be. In Stevenson’s gothic novella , it’s the result of the scientific Dr. Jekyll’s attempts to indulge in his vices undetected — specifically, by drinking a potion that transforms him into the horrific Mr. Hyde. But the more frequently Jekyll yields to his alter-ego, the more powerful Hyde becomes, until even Jekyll cannot control him. The ensuing tale is both a thrilling feat of supernatural horror and a potent allegory that warns against giving into one’s dark side, even occasionally, for fear that one may never escape its compulsions.

47. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897)

Long before Twilight and True Blood, vampires were no cause for swooning — or rather, they were, but in a manner more alarming than amorous. This is the iteration of vampires introduced by Bram Stoker’s genre-defining Dracula , an epistolary novel that traces the history and horrific deeds of the one and only Count Dracula. As more humans come into contact with Dracula, they start to understand what he is, and that he aims to infect and drink the blood of as many people as possible. Only Abraham van Helsing, a professor and bona fide vampire expert, has the power to stop him — and aided by his intrepid cohorts, that’s exactly what they set out to do.

48. The Call of the Wild by Jack London (1903)

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49. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad (1904)

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said of this book, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel.” The story commences with the titular Nostromo, an Italian seaman, transporting a wealth of silver so that it cannot corrupt the local affairs of Sulaco (a port city in a fictional Colombia-like country). But when Nostromo’s ship is compromised, he stashes the silver on a nearby island, leading everyone to believe it was lost at sea. What follows is an incredibly affecting account of Nostromo’s increasing disillusionment and paranoia, as he realizes that other men see him as a pawn and grows obsessed with his hoarded silver. If you loved The Great Gatsby , but wanted it to be even darker and more geopolitical — as Fitzgerald apparently did — you’ll devour Nostromo faster than you can say “quicksilver.”

50. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (1913)

The third of his published novels, Sons and Lovers brought D.H. Lawrence a new level of success and acclaim. It also established his reputation for bucking social mores — a talent which would eventually see him indicted for obscenity. Drawing from the author’s working-class upbringing, the book tells the story of Paul Morel, the son of an abusive father and a beloved mother. Escaping the trappings of the mining town where he grew up, Paul leaves for London and begins climbing the social ladder, even finding romance. But as the book’s title suggests, his attempts to separate his emotional identities of son and lover are futile, especially as his mother’s once-treasured affection poisons Paul against other women.

51. The Trial by Franz Kafka (1915)

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52. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (1915)

A wrenching, partially autobiographical account of the author’s own life, Of Human Bondage follows young Englishman Philip Carey in his quest to find meaning and love. Traumatized by the deaths of his parents, Philip struggles throughout his childhood; in later years, he rebels and pursues art instead of attending Oxford, but eventually returns to England for medical school. It is there that he meets his femme fatale, Mildred Rogers, who will break his heart over and over as Philip flits from job to job. But this sorrowful tale has a surprisingly uplifting ending, containing a powerful message about the bonds of society and expectations and how we can shed them by taking life one day at a time.

53. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)

With this book, Ford Madox Ford reinvigorated two crucial narrative elements that would go on to become huge parts of modern literature: flashbacks and the unreliable narrator. Basically, he was the original Gillian Flynn — a comparison that seems even more apt upon knowing the plot of The Good Soldier . It consists of domestic drama between two seemingly perfect couples: John and Florence Dowell, and Leonora and Edward Ashburnham. Edward, the soldier, seems committed to Leonora, but in truth she manipulates and controls him; Edward, meanwhile, is actually having an affair with Florence. John, the narrator, gravely recounts the deterioration of both marriages and the tragic repercussions of their repressive Edwardian era… but also, all is not as it seems, and what’s on the page is seen in a whole new light by the book’s end.

54. The Real Story of Ah-Q by Lu Xun (c. 1920)

best ten books ever written

Accompanying The Real Story of Ah-Q in this collection are short stories just as poignant and impactful. Lu Xun’s unconventional view of development and his ability to flesh out nuances from simple plots makes his stories bleakly insightful.  

55. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920)

Newland Archer — one of 1900s New York’s most eligible bachelors, with his upper-crust background and his established career as a lawyer — has been looking for a beautiful, traditional wife, and it appears May Welland is just the girl. She also grew up in high society, understands etiquette, and fits perfectly into his picture-perfect family. And yet, it is May’s cousin, Ellen Olenska — a dynamic character returning from her failed marriage in Europe — who catches Newland’s attention. The Age of Innocence follows Newland and his unprecedented dilemma between the two women — and by extension his struggle between upholding the prestige of old money, and seeking the real value behind the labels of social class. 

56. Ulysses by James Joyce (1922)

If you are only going to read one book from this elephantine list, it should be James Joyce’s literary jewel Ulysses . The tale mirrors that of Homer’s the Odyssey (hence the title), only this time, it’s set entirely during one of Leopold Bloom’s days in Dublin. A cast of characters — namely Bloom’s friends and wife — make up others who draw comparisons to the mythical ones in the Odyssey. While Joyce’s ability to bring a literary classic and its themes into modernity is astounding, the true beauty of this action-packed novel is its writing. Scattered across his paragraphs are intertwining perspectives and puzzles enamelled with pun and alliterations. Joyce’s illustration of the human mind, its processes, and its guardians is impeccable and unmatchable. 

57. A Passage to India by E. M. Foster (1924)

best ten books ever written

58. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Is it possible to now think of the Roaring Twenties and not think of The Great Gatsby ? Fitzgerald’s magnum opus has been adapted to the big screen numerous times, and its “green light at the end of the dock” symbolism is perhaps too well-known to all of us. But let’s still go through a quick summary: Nick Carraway moves to West Egg in Long Island and learns about his new, mysteriously well-to-do neighbor, Jay Gastby. Through endless house parties, Nick comes to know this man, his odd past, and his tragic love story with the lady of East Egg, Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald’s tale of sightless dream-chasing is the epitome of something small and yet mighty: with his succinct prose, the extravagance of post-WWI America is stripped bare, revealing the heartlessness underneath it all. 

59. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

When Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself, she had no idea what a momentous day was in store for her — though of course, much of this book’s momentousness must be attributed to Virginia Woolf’s brilliant prose. But even besides the writing, it’s a fantastic little slice-of-life story: Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class, middle-aged woman in London, decides to host a party for her fellow society people, and spends most of the day prepping for said party. But what would have been a mundane tale in the hands of a less thoughtful author becomes remarkable in Woolf’s, her stream-of-consciousness narrative shifting ever so subtly between past and present, and rendering Clarissa’s emotions with unprecedented vibrancy.

60. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

best ten books ever written

61. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (c. 1927)

Composed of seven volumes written throughout a decade, In Search of Lost Time is a long novel detailing the development of the unnamed narrator from childhood to adulthood and his struggles to define himself. Said protagonist desires to be an author but is unsure of how to get there, he is seeing his relationships with his family in a new light while he’s discovering new connections with others. Memory is a recurring theme in this novel, especially the involuntary ones, whereby Proust shows how little details can trigger an outpour of thoughts and emotions. His impressive narrative revolutionized the way novels are written — Proust’s emphasis lies not in creating an airtight and sensational plot, but in exploring with astonishing depth the emotional experiences and development of his protagonist. 

62. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)

This classic Southern gothic novel might seem like a typical family saga, but its grim conditions and dark twists are unlike those of other tales. The story of The Sound and the Fury proceeds as follows: the Compson family are disgraced former aristocrats attempting to adapt now that they’ve lost their money, religion, and elevated reputation. Unfortunately, the four children of the Compson family perpetuate its fatal flaws of greed, selfishness, and outdated values and ideas about the world at large. As the story shifts among them, as well as back and forth in time, it becomes clear that the Compsons are beyond repair — but nevertheless, they continue to press on. With a tragic story on par with Macbeth (from which the book takes its title) and Faulkner’s revolutionary prose, it’s no wonder this story still looms so large in American literature.

63. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

best ten books ever written

64. I, Claudius by Robert Graves (1934)

When it comes to historical novels, none is as well-celebrated as Robert Graves’s story of the Roman emperor, Claudius. Written in the first person perspective, this novel feigns an autobiography written by the nervous leader. Claudius is unlike his predecessors — he critically examined theirs and the corrupt system’s failures, exposing all the dramatic intrigue and high politics of this lauded empire to the world. He himself is spun into this entangled battle for the throne, although perhaps less willingly that his opponents. If you enjoy the political battles of Game of Thrones , you’ll without a doubt enjoy this novel , which would not only provide you with a good bit of entertainment, but also introduce to you the intricate structures of Roman civilization. 

65. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)

Miller’s sombre novel was not well-received when it was first published — in fact it was banned in the US and not published until the late 1960s, decades after its conception. The basic storyline is simple — it’s a blend of Miller’s memories as a struggling writer in Paris, and fictional elements that he added. Miller focused on his feelings and perceptions, propelling the stream-of-consciousness style of writing that was gaining popularity among writers of the time. What made the book so controversial was its featuring of sexuality, which, along with descriptions of the desperation, the poverty, and the grief present in the lives of those without a clear sense of direction, is part of Miller’s candor. If a book can hold the soul of a writer, perhaps none is as potent as Tropic of Cancer . 

66. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) 

best ten books ever written

67. Scoop by Evelyn Waugh (1938)

The controversial author of Brideshead Revisited , Evelyn Waugh also wrote this rip-roaring satire that made waves when it was published in 1938. This time, Waugh’s target is the media, particularly the newspaper industry. As a promising little civil war erupts in the African Republic of Ishmaelia, Lord Copper sends his reporter in the continent to cover it — to hilarious consequences. Wickedly funny and not at all politically correct as it skewers Fleet Street and its overeager occupants, Scoop is a comedy that will never be old news. 

68. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939) 

First, there were ten who arrived on the island. Among the guests of the house in And Then There Were None were Mrs. Rogers, a homely cook; Anthony Marston, a handsome and irresponsible young man; Emily Caroline Brent, an old and religious spinster; Dr. Armstrong, a Harley Street doctor; and Philip Lombard, a soldier with money. Strangers to one another, they nevertheless shared one similarity: they had all murdered in the past. And when people begin dropping like flies and their numbers begin to thin on the island, they begin to suspect that they are the ones being murdered. But who is the murderer in their midst? That’s the question that will leave your head spinning in this timeless example of a mystery novel done right by no other than the Queen of Mystery herself.

Contemporary literature

69. native son by richard wright (1940).

best ten books ever written

70. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (1940)

Carson McCullers’ debut novel — written when she was only 23! — was an instant classic when it was published. The author’s sheer prodigiousness is astonishing enough, but it is the rich wisdom and gentle insight that makes The Heart is a Lonely Hunter truly remarkable. You’ll probably never meet a protagonist quite as memorable as John Singer, a deaf and nonverbal man who sits in the same café every day. Here, in the deep American South of the 1930s, John meets an assortment of people: the café owner, Biff Brannon; Mick Kelly, a young girl who wants nothing more than to play music; Jake Blount, a desperate alcoholic; and Dr. Copeland, a frustrated and idealistic black doctor. 

John is the silent, kind keeper of their stories — right up until an unforgettable ending that will blow you away, placing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter squarely beside such southern classics as Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

71. The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)

Albert Camus’ own summary of The Stranger is perhaps the best way to describe this iconic book: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: ‘In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.’ I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.” And so The Stranger duly opens with Meursault, our hero, learning of the death of his mother. From this point onward, the reader is led in a strange dance of absurdism and existentialism that makes Meursault confront something even crueler than mortality: society’s expectations. 

72. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (1948)

best ten books ever written

73. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)

Big Brother is watching you: both the governmental slogan that has become synonymous with this iconic novel, and the eerie sense you’ll get as you’re reading it. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is a landmark work in the dystopian genre for its affecting portrayal of a totalitarian state that strictly controls and surveils its citizens — though of course, few are content with such an existence. Our narrator, Winston Smith, is one such citizen; employed by the “Ministry of Truth” (which actually serves the opposite cause), Winston fully grasps the corruption of the government, yet feels powerless to stop it. Yet what’s most compelling about this book isn’t Winston’s individual experience, but the exceptional detail and social commentary Orwell injects into the story — potently warning readers of a reality that could all too easily come to pass.

74. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (1951)

One of the most iconic coming-of-age novels in literature, J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is still a must-read today — and Holden Caulfield is still one of the most recognizable protagonists ever. Told from Holden’s point of view, this classic at first seems like a simple tale about a boy wandering the streets of New York with no plan in mind and nothing to do. Yet any reader who digs deeper will encounter a cry of teenage disillusionment — not to mention a moving story that confronts the reality of growing up. 

75. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (1952) 

best ten books ever written

76. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (1952) 

One of the perennial staples on “Books You Must Read Before You Die” lists, and possibly the best of John Steinbeck's books , East of Eden fully deserves its acclaimed place in American literature today. A family saga that spans generations, it follows two families — the Trasks and the Hamiltons — whose fates desperately entwine in the wild American West. It’s also a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis — particularly the fabled and tragic story of Cain and Abel. Ambitiously epic and thought-provoking, East of Eden is simply Steinbeck at his masterful, astonishing best. 

77. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)

Firemen mean something different in Guy Montag’s world: they start fires. And (every bookworm out there, cover your eyes now) books are the illegal, radical property to be burned. As one such fireman, Guy is in charge of destroying every book remaining… until a series of events occurs in rapid succession, making Guy question the job for the first time. This is one of the most famous books ever written — a revolutionary and fiery work about the cost of censoring knowledge and the beauty of the written world. Just don’t read it next to your stove, because what’s the temperature at which books burn? Well, Fahrenheit 451 . 

78. In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming (1953)

best ten books ever written

Don’t walk into it expecting a straightforward story: Lammings’ style could be termed impressionistic, and he narrates many of his personal anecdotes and vignettes from the perspective of others. But this experimental effect is often dazzling, and it’s made In the Castle of My Skin one of the most important works of postcolonial literature in history. 

79. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (1954) 

Though William Golding’s Lord of the Flies wasn’t initially well-received and sold poorly, Golding had the last laugh: Lord of the Flies is today one of the must-read books in every school curriculum. Its story about a group of schoolboys who have crashed on a lonely island is enduring not only for its shocking plot developments, but also the way that it reveals the truths of human nature at our basest. Today, it remains one of the most terrifying depictions of how quickly a society can fail — and a reminder of the fragility of the systems that we build to reassure ourselves. 

80. Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (c .1955) 

Lord of the Rings may be one of the most influential series ever written — not least for the way that it basically created the modern fantasy genre as we know it. The towering shadow that J.R.R. Tolkien cast over all fantasy books that followed in its path aside, Lord of the Rings should be read simply because it’s a rollicking good story. So if you also fall under the spell of Middle-Earth as you venture into Mordor with Frodo and his companions, don’t fear: there’s still a prequel ( The Hobbit ) and an origin story ( The Silmarillion ) to go. 

81. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

best ten books ever written

82. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

On the Road is the example of a good book that didn’t take years and years to produce: Jack Kerouac wrote it all in a mad three-week period in 1951. Decades later, it is regarded as a classic of the postwar Beat movement that captures the heart and soul of an entire generation. You’ll meet Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty: alter egos for Kerouac himself and his friend, Neal Cassady — On the Road is, at its heart, a semi-autobiographical account of Kerouac’s own travels across America. From New York to San Francisco, Sal and Dean tear through the streets  to a jazz rhythm all their own. Do they have any inkling of what they’re going to do with their lives? Heck no — but that’s the charm of On the Road , which will speak to the wanderlust in you, as it has done to millions of other readers since 1957.

83. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (1958) 

As the name of the novel suggests, protagonist Okonkwo might’ve had a good start in his youth as wrestling champion of his clan, but horrid things are waiting on the horizon for him. As he climbs to the top of the social hierarchy, Okonkwo faces tough decisions between his pride and his morality. Things become complicated as white men come in and begin tearing apart the fabric of his society. 

Things Fall Apart is a modern African classic: it’s poignant, nuanced, and moving. Okonkwo is not different from ancient literary heroes — he has virtues, he has gods to please, and he has obstacles to overcome. That’s a thought many wouldn’t have about Africans in the 50s and 60s, and Achebe was amongst the first writers who sought to challenge this. 

84. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

best ten books ever written

Set in rural Alabama, this book centers around Scout as her father, Atticus Finch, takes on an important trial. He’s been tasked with defending a black man falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white woman — not an easy case in the South in the 30s. Scout’s innocence may have been shaken by these events, but she comes to ground herself watching Atticus’s passionate defense, something that continues to inspire lawyers to this day. 

85. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) 

Although it takes place in World War II (and was loosely based on Heller’s own experiences), Catch-22 was actually a reaction to the Korean war and McCarthyism. This iconic satire follows Captain Yossarian, a bombardier who, along with his fellow service people, is attempting to navigate the absurdities of war in order to fulfill their service requirements so they can be sent home. Told in a non-linear, third person omniscient with plenty of anachronisms, it can seem a bit much to follow at first, but we promise it’s well worth the effort. This novel has been a staple of anti-war literature for decades, and with its perfectly tuned wit and wisdom, it’s not likely to be going anywhere anytime soon.

86. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961)

It’s tempting to describe The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as gender-bent Dead Poets Society , but that would be doing Jean Brodie a disservice — she predated the Robin Williams film by nearly three decades! Still, the comparison isn’t a bad one: set in Edinburgh during the 1920s and 30s, the novel explores what happens when a young teacher decides to take an active and unconventional interest in the futures of six of her students. Told through the eyes of these students, and full of tantalizing flashforwards, this book is a complicated, nuanced portrayal of mentorship and coming of age.

87. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (1962)

best ten books ever written

88. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

Following in the chilling tradition set by 1984 and A Brave New World, Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange is its own terrifying vision of the future. In Anthony Burgess’ dystopia, the world is overrun by juvenile delinquents and ultra-violent gangs in the city. Anarchy reigns on any given day, but when Alex — a sociopathic “droog” who nevertheless longs for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony— is captured and taken in by the authorities, he’ll have to confront what free will really means to him, and what he’d give up himself to keep it. 

89. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)

Written at the height of Stalin’s regime, The Master and Margarita is a daring, defiant satire that weaves together the spiritual and the supernatural to create a fantasy world at once chillingly real and utterly unique.

The story begins with the Devil arriving in atheistic Soviet Moscow, though the plot is split between those events and another thread taking place in ancient Jerusalem. As if that wasn’t surreal enough, there’s also a walking, talking black cat in league with the Devil, causing all sorts of trouble. This novel is a vivid portrait of life under Soviet regime, and an important reminder of the need for unfettered artistic expression.

90. Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (1967)

best ten books ever written

What follows is a gripping account of both the investigation as well as the impacts this event has upon the fate of the college itself. It’s a fascinating look into the impact that tragedy can have on ordinary circumstances, and a mystery that will leave you aching for answers that will never come.

91. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967) 

In this surrealist tale, José Arcadio Buendía flees his city with his wife after committing murder, and is now seeking refuge. Rather than finding life in a new city, he decides to found his own utopia — Macondo. This little town functions in its own odd way, separate from the rest of the world, save for a few interactions via a band of gypsies. But solitude doesn’t necessarily mean peace, as José’s descendants would discover, and neither can that solitude remain forever… 

One Hundred Years of Solitude is an outstanding blend of the fantastical and the real. Marquez’s prose will take you on a magical and sensational journey to discover the complex political developments of Latin America .

92. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974) 

In this rendition of reality, Earth is at war with the alien-kind called Taurans. In preparation for this drawn out conflict, William Mandella is drafted and enters a rigorous training program, starting first on Earth and then later on a foreign planet. Mandella hopes to survive the training and the war to return to his family, but his life will never be the same again, whether because of the time dilation between the planets, or because of the new lens that he will see life through, after participating in a lengthy and pointless war. 

Hats off to Haldeman for his creativity: he spectacularly spun his experiences as a drafted soldier in the Vietnam war into the moving interstellar story of The Forever War . 

93. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1978) 

best ten books ever written

94. So Long A Letter by Mariama Ba (1979)

So Long A Letter is a book of letters written by a Senegalese widow, Ramatoulaye Fall, to her friend during the time — four months and ten day, to be exact, as dictated by her religion and tradition — that she mourns her husband. As she explores her own emotions, Ramatoulaye reveals the complexities of the polygamous society that she lived in. Personal, raw, and unexpectedly relatable, this elegant novella extends beyond the illustration of the plight of women in 20th century Africa; Ramatoulaye’s sentiments and wonders are felt by all women. 

95. Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath (1981) 

Sylvia Plath’s Collected Poems collates 274 pieces that she wrote from 1956 to the time of her death. Her poetry is intense and personal; in her writing she explored her relationships with her family and the state of her mentality. At a time where depression and bipolar disorder is hardly talked about as serious conditions, Plath’s verses bring ringing clarity to the detrimental effects that they may have on a person’s life. If you are a lover of poems , if you want to be moved by powerful, intricate images, then you will not want to miss out on this collection of poems. 

96. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)

best ten books ever written

Using magical realism as a way to make the notion of common identity more tangible, Rushdie’s novel provides a fascinating inroad into the transition into modernity of a culture that has existed for many centuries. 

97. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)

Set in early 1900s Georgia, The Color Purple is a striking story about the debilitating conditions of black women during the years of intense segregation. Celie and Nettie grew up in a broken household, and have long been separated and are living disparate lives. Despite the distance between them, they seek solace in one another through letters, and support each other through the abuses of domestic life and social tensions that they undergo as African American women. 

The Color Purple deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Walker’s refusal to shy away from the difficult issues of violence and sexual abuse — problems that she presented from the perspective of the victims in the rawest and most powerful form available.

98. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1984)

In this philosophical novel, readers follow the “light” life of surgeon and womanizer Tomas. He lives to enjoy himself as much as possible because he believes his experience is a one-time and completely unique thing. In stark contrast to that is the perspective of Tereza, his wife, who’s a photographer who is faithful and puts “weight” on her every decision. Through the couple's struggles to harmonize themselves, with 1960s Czechoslovakia’s internal turmoil rife in the background, The Unbearable Lightness of Being reflects the intellectual rediscovery and transition into postmodernity that Eastern Europe at that historic time. 

99. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987) 

best ten books ever written

It follows Sethe, a woman who escaped slavery by fleeing to Ohio eighteen years before the novel starts. Still, “Sweet Home,” the picturesque farm that was the scene of her many living nightmares, continues to haunt her. And it’s not the only shadow casted over her life. Sethe’s home is also haunted by the ghost of her baby whose tombstone displays a lone word: Beloved.

Beloved is a suspenseful, heartbreaking, and intimate story. It deserves a spot on all “best books of all time” lists for the way it stands as a monument to the “Sixty Million and More,” as the book’s dedication reads, who lost their lives to the Atlantic slave trade.

100. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize-winning author, and The Remains of the Day is a Man Booker Prize winner with a film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, and which received eight Oscar nominations. No big deal, right?

Ishiguro’s impressive novel centres on Stevens, a butler who’s spent most of his life in service at Darlington Hall, a stately home near Oxford, England. When Stevens receives a letter from an old colleague who now lives in Cornwall, he decides to set out on a motoring trip through the West Country to visit her. Along the way, he reflects on England’s past, his own past, and his long-standing career serving Lord Darlington.

101. Angels in America by Tony Kushner (1991)

Angels in America is a two-part play and exploration of homosexuality and the AIDS crisis in America in the 1980s. The plays can be presented together or separately, and have been adapted for Broadway and as an HBO miniseries. 

The story starts with a gay couple living in Manhattan — Prior and Louis. When Louis discovers that Prior has AIDS, he finds himself unable to cope. He leaves Prior to have an affair with Joe, a Mormon, Republican clerk whose valium-addicted, agoraphobic wife is desperate to save their marriage. Several other storylines blossom as the play unfolds, many of which intersect and involve angels and ghosts.

If you need any more convincing of the power behind Kushner’s work, John M. Clum, a playwright and professor of theatre studies has called Angels in America , "A turning point in the history of gay drama, the history of American drama, and of American literary culture.” 

102. The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)

best ten books ever written

The six protagonists of The Secret History are a group of Classics students studying at a small, elite college in Vermont. Under the guidance of their favorite professor, the students begin to collectively challenge the norms of academia and society as a whole, questioning the way they’ve been taught to see the world. They blur the lines between good and evil, looking for the morally grey around them. But as they start to push the boundaries they’ve always known, their own moral compasses begin to veer, and unspeakable acts follow.

103. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1995) 

It’s 1975, and India has just declared a State of Emergency. In the midst of this bleak upheaval and political turmoil, the fates of four unlikely strangers intertwine: a courageous widow, a young, uprooted student, and two sailors who have escaped the violence of their native village — who all end up living in one, small apartment as they contend with their uncertain futures.

Just as the title suggests, A Fine Balance does a wonderful job paralleling the realism of the testing, cruel, and corrupt circumstances with compassion, humor, and insight into the power of love and friendship.

104. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (1996)

Written by Canadian poet Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces is a two-part novel that begins with an absolutely heart wrenching image: the war has just swept through a Polish city where seven-year old Jakob Beer’s family has just been murdered. The only reason he has survived is because he buried himself under mud until the coast was clear. A Greek geologist eventually comes across Jakob and rescues him — but the man doesn’t actually realize that Jakob is a human until the boy begins to weep.

The first part of the book continues to follow Jakob as he becomes a traveling artist, while the second explores different facets of WWII’s repercussions: it centers around Ben, a Canadian professor whose parents both survived the Holocaust. 

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Winner of the Lannan Literary Fiction Award, and Winner of the Guardian Fiction Award, Fugitive Pieces depicts tough subject matters with captivating elements of mystery and evocative prose. 

105. The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy (1999)

best ten books ever written

The World’s Wife is a modern, feminist reflection on many of history’s most well-known figures. Or rather, the great women behind those historical figures. From Mrs. Darwin to Queen Kong and Mrs. Midas, the counterparts of famous men are finally getting their day in the sun! 

Take it from publisher Pan Macmillan: “Original, subversive, full of imagination and quicksilver wit, The World's Wife is Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy at her beguiling best.”

106. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)

Interpreter of Maladies is a collection of nine short stories, and winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

From marriage problems to the peculiar experience of returning to a home you hardly remember, these stories provide a window into the culturally complex lives of first and second generation immigrants. The thread that weaves the story together is that of adaptation: they portray the lives of Indians and Indian Americans striving to find a connection between their roots and the “new world.”In the title short story, an Indian American family tours the India of their ancestors, accompanied by an interpreter who gets an unexpected insight into the family’s life. 

107. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001) 

On a hot summer day in post-World War Two England, 13-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses — and misinterprets — a private moment between her older sister Cecilia, and the son of their housekeeper, Robbie Turner. But with the precocious confidence of a young storyteller, Briony begins to weave what she believes she saw into fantasies that have long-lasting and rippling effects on her family. Told in three parts — the latter two during the Second World War and present-day England — Atonement is a brilliant and provocative reflection on the nature of writing itself.

108. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2002) 

best ten books ever written

The even-numbered chapters are about an aging war-vet called Nakata, who has an uncanny ability to find lost cats. One of his searches leads him out onto the road for the first time.

Both odysseys are vividly mysterious, and populated with imaginative accomplices and unexpected encounters that are characteristic of Murakami’s distinct and bizarre style .

109. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (2003) 

15 year-old Christopher John Francis Boone hates the color yellow and being touched by others. In fact, he’d much rather spend his time around animals and avoid complicated human emotions. He can also fire off all the countries of the world, their capitals, and every prime number up to 7,057. He thrives on logic, patterns, and carefully laid out rules. 

One day, in an unexpected turn of events, his neighbor’s dog dies. While Christopher is not a fan of plot twists, he decides to take a leaf out of his favorite, deerstalker-wearing detective’s book, and to solve — you guessed it — The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time .

110. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003) 

Set against a backdrop of chaos and tumult — such as the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet military intervention, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime — this story details the unlikely friendship between Amir, the son of a well-to-do-family, and Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant. 

A sweeping tale of family, love, and friendship, it’s not uncommon for someone to clutch their heart or take on a sombre expression when someone brings up The Kite Runner . It’s an emotionally devastating read that stays with you long after you’ve finished it.

111. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2005)

best ten books ever written

Zusak’s spectacular humanization of this ominous narrator emphasizes perfectly the inhumanity of war and discrimination in a never seen before lightm despite this commonly-used setting. 

112. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006) 

“Epic,” “ambitious,” “triumphant,” “masterful” are all adjectives that have widely been used to describe Half of a Yellow Sun — and for good reason! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s haunting (another adjective for you!) novel is dedicated to retelling a seminal moment in modern African history: the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s, and Biafra’s struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria. 

Readers are guided through this conflict from the perspectives of three main characters: 13 year-old Ugwu, a revolutionary-minded houseboy who works for a university professor; Olanna, a young woman who’s abandoned her cushy life in Lagos to take up a passionate affair with said university professor; and Richard, a shy Englishman who quietly falls in love with Olanna’s twin sister. 

As the war unfurls around them, Ugwa, Olanna, and Richard are all forced to flee for their lives, facing challenges and struggles that test their spirits, ideals, and trust for one another.

113. The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)

Oscar Wao has big dreams: he wants to become the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien, and to fall in love. But the fukú curse stands in his way, as it has for generations of Waos, dooming his family to ill fates for centuries. 

Told from the perspective of multiple characters, and interspersed with plenty of fantasy and sci-fi references, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao manages to capture a number of themes with warmth and honesty — from heartbreak to loss, and most strikingly, the Domincan-American experience — earning it the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

114. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak (2009)

best ten books ever written

One takes place in the thirteenth century, detailing the experiences of Rumi when he first met Shams of Tabriz, his mentor.

The other story is set in present day, and is about Ella Rubenstein, an unhappily married woman who’s just landed a job as a reader for a literary agent. One of the books she’s tasked to read is about Shams of Tabriz’s search for Rumi, and the transformation of the latter from an unhappy cleric into a passionate advocate of love. Ella becomes fascinated by the book, and as she reads, she can’t help but feel as though this book landed in her hands for a reason... 

115. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014)

When performing King Lear on stage one night, a Hollywood actor drops dead. Shortly after, civilization begins to collapse. This event is the middleground of Station Eleven , as the book pendulates back and forth between the actor’s early years and a dystopian future in which the world as we know it has changed forever. 

Hauntingly real and spellbindingly imaginative, it charts a theatre troupe called the Traveling Symphony as they roam wastelands and attempt to hold onto what it means to be human.

If you’d rather look at the latest hits, check out the 21 best books written in this century . Also, you might find the Kindle Cloud Reader useful in helping you make a dent to your reading lists. 

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The 10 Greatest Books Ever, According to 125 Top Authors (Download Them for Free)

in Books | September 25th, 2013 220 Comments

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Ear­li­er this month, we high­light­ed  The 10 Great­est Films of All Time Accord­ing to 846 Film Crit­ics . Fea­tur­ing films by Hitch­cock , Kubrick, Welles and Felli­ni, this mas­ter list came togeth­er in 2012 when  Sight & Sound   (the cin­e­ma jour­nal of the British Film Insti­tute) asked con­tem­po­rary crit­ics and direc­tors to name their 12 favorite movies. Near­ly 900 cinephiles respond­ed, and, from those sub­mis­sions, a meta list of 10 was culled.

So how about some­thing sim­i­lar for books, you ask? For that, we can look back to 2007, when  J. Ped­er Zane , the book edi­tor of the Raleigh News & Observ­er , asked 125 top writ­ers to name their favorite books — writ­ers like Nor­man Mail­er, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Mes­sud, and Michael Chabon. The lists were all com­piled in an edit­ed col­lec­tion,  The Top Ten: Writ­ers Pick Their Favorite Books , and then pref­aced by one uber list, “The Top Top Ten.”

Zane explained the method­ol­o­gy behind the uber list as fol­lows: “The par­tic­i­pants could pick any work, by any writer, by any time peri­od.… After award­ing ten points to each first-place pick, nine to sec­ond-place picks, and so on, the results were tab­u­lat­ed to cre­ate the Top Top Ten List — the very best of the best.”

The short list appears below, along with links to elec­tron­ic ver­sions of the works (and tra­di­tion­al pub­lished edi­tions). There’s one notable excep­tion, Vladimir Nabokov’s Loli­ta . We could­n’t pro­vide that elec­tron­ic text, but we do have some­thing spe­cial — an audio record­ing of Nabokov read­ing a chap­ter  from his con­tro­ver­sial 1955 nov­el.

The texts list­ed below are per­ma­nent­ly housed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks , along with many oth­er clas­sics. In many cas­es, you’ll find audio ver­sions of the same works in our ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books . If you have ques­tions about how to load files onto your Kin­dle, please see this  relat­ed instruc­tion­al video .

Got an issue with any of the selec­tions? Tell us all about it in the com­ments sec­tion below.

1. Anna Karen­i­na , by Leo Tol­stoy

iPad/iPhone  —  Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats

2. Madame Bovary , by Gus­tave Flaubert

  • iPad/iPhone  –  Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats

3. War and Peace , by Leo Tol­stoy

  • iPad/iPhone  —  Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats  —  Read Online

4. Loli­ta , by Vladimir Nabokov

  • Hear Nabokov read the next to final chap­ter here . 26 min­utes of clas­sic audio.

5. The Adven­tures of Huck­le­ber­ry Finn , by Mark Twain

6. Ham­let , by William Shake­speare

7. The Great Gats­by , by F. Scott Fitzger­ald

  • Kin­dle + Oth­er For­mats  –  Read Online

8. In Search of Lost Time , by Mar­cel Proust

  • Swan­n’s Way [1922]

9. The Sto­ries of Anton Chekhov

  • Read Online

10. Mid­dle­march , by George Eliot

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­sion­al­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com , you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here .

Relat­ed Con­tent:

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties .

The Ten Great­est Films of All Time Accord­ing to 358 Film­mak­ers

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free .

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta , Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

18 (Free) Books Ernest Hem­ing­way Wished He Could Read Again for the First Time

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Cre­ates a List of 22 Essen­tial Books, 1936

Down­load 55 Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es: From Dante and Mil­ton to Ker­ouac and Tolkien

by OC | Permalink | Comments (220) |

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Comments (220), 220 comments so far.

Why is Gats­by on this list? Why is there noth­ing by Faulkn­er?

No Dos­toyevsky?!? Are you KIDDING me?! He’s the inven­tor of the mod­ern nov­el!!!

So many of those are bor­ing. Where’s Ulysses?!

You want­ed some­thing that was­n’t bor­ing, and then you ask for ULYSSES?

No “Moby-Dick”? Real­ly? And two by Tol­stoy on the list is a bit much, I think. Also, no “Don Qui­jote de la Man­cha”? Seri­ous­ly? And I echo the sen­ti­ment of MB. The absence of Dos­toyevsky is mind-bog­gling. Also, “The 10 Great­est Books” list your authors com­piled invoves eight nov­els, one col­lec­tion of short fic­tion, and one play. So, there is noth­ing else to great lit­er­a­ture? No non-fic­tion? No poet­ry? Hmm­mm… Oh, and while we’re bring­ing up com­plaints and griev­ances, the com­pil­ers of this list were a bit short on com­e­dy (“Huck­le­ber­ry Finn” and “Loli­ta” pro­vide some com­e­dy, but in a side­ways sort of fashion).nnnSeriously, guys, a very strange list.

Moby Dick? Nev­er. Bartle­by the Scriven­er should be here, but not Moby Dick–one of the most bor­ing books I ever read.

Lists always come with ques­tions and dis­cus­sions. Who are the “125 Top Authors”? How were they select­ed? Was a com­par­i­son made with a list deter­mined by an alter­na­tive “125 Top Authors”?nBut any­way, I believe lists are use­ful as guides help­ing read­ers to notice impor­tant works.

Agreed ! “Top Ten” In rela­tions to what ? “great­est” Because why ? i.e best read, most sold, best sto­ry, I am opposed to list, and num­ber’s to prove a point…

I think when read­ers are con­scious enough, the lists can be more help­ful and mean­ing­ful. A list can be like the cen­tral meet­ing place in a city.

Recent­ly reread Loli­ta; it does­n’t belong on this list. Wan­ders wide­ly off base at the end and sim­ply isn’t one of Nabokov’s best. Gats­by’s great but in the top ten? The whole list rates an eh? It’s as if the names were pulled out of a hat.

No Odyssey, no Don Qui­jote, no Kaf­ka, no Dos­toyevsky… not a very sol­id list.

I’m con­fused too

Agreed. And both Anna Karin­i­na and Madame Bovary are about women who com­mit­ted adul­tery and could­n’t live with the consequences–one by tak­ing arsenic and the oth­er by throw­ing her­self under a train. One or the oth­er might be on the list, but not both.

i guess i’ll be the one to say it? 9 out of 10 by white males and the 10th by a white women writ­ing under the name of a white male? weird/not weird

What does it have to do with being white or any oth­er col­or????? The mas­ter­piece must be eval­u­at­ed by it’s depth and beau­ty, not by the race of the writer. How­ev­er, this list is high­ly sub­jec­tive.

can i just ask: why does it both­er you that i men­tioned the race of the writ­ers but not that i men­tioned their gen­der?

STFU Peter. Always some­one want­i­ng to bring up race. Get over it.

Hmm, no books were ever writ­ten in the east­ern hemi­sphere? Either that or this list mak­er has nev­er read any of them.

There are a ton of russ­ian authors. East­ern hemi­sphere.

no Franz Kafka???no Dos­toyevsky???? no James Joyce????no Albert Camus???NO Fer­nan­do Pes­soa????

Rub­bish! 10 great­est books ‚with­out a sin­gle title out­side Europe-and Amer­i­ca

C’mon. Two Tol­stoy books and no Dos­toyevsky? Chekhov, Flaubert, Nabokov are excel­lent writ­ers but they are pet­ty bour­geois com­pared to authors such as Dos­toyevsky, Homer, Balzac, Macha­do de Assis, Borges, Faulkn­er, Mishi­ma, Goethe, Joyce…

All big, expan­sive reads. Should­n’t Pride & Prej­u­dice be on this list?

Only men, but I sup­pose only men were asked

And I can see that not only men were asked, but still, only men at the top ten list.

What female work would you nom­i­nate?

to the light­housen­le pianiste nto kill a mock­ing bird­n­mrs dal­loway nbeloved­nI know why the caged bird singsnthe awak­en­ing nnnThose are just off the top of my head and all are bet­ter than Gatsby!nnnAlso, to be fair, let’s not for­get about the tremen­dous oppres­sion of female any­things pri­or to this cen­tu­ry, and for that mat­ter, in the present.

george eliot is a woman, but yeah

I’m not a big fan, but what about The Bible…? Ham­let isn’t a book, is it? And, at the risk of seem­ing undu­ly low­brow, Dick­ens deserves a men­tion.

The bible can make it eas­i­ly to the nntop ten most ridicu­lous books .

Is ridicu­lous­ness a dis­qual­i­fi­er? I mean, have you read Proust?

Ham­let is a play.

And not even his best work, imho.nI would eas­i­ly put Lear or Rick 3 ahead of it.

If it’s between two cov­ers, it’s also a book.

Clear­ly their most favorite favorites but leav­ing the ques­tion of top ten best wide open…

I agree, no Dos­to­evsky? Then no Faulkn­er? Almost each book by Dos­to­evsky is a real mas­ter­piece: Demons, Idiot, Broth­ers Kara­masov!…

No Don Qui­jote? The great­est nov­el ever writ­ten?

Don Quixote is #1 on many lists, includ­ing mine. And Ham­let isn’t a “book.”

Also…what about Pla­to’s Repub­lic? Why restrict “books” to fic­tion? And if you’re going to add a play, Sopho­cles Oedi­pus … hel­lo?

sad there are ZERO women. The her­itage of world cul­ture leaves a fem­i­nist want­i­ng…

George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Anne Evans.

Also, I find these lists pet­ty, if slight­ly use­ful for adding clas­sics I’ve missed to my to-read list. How can you com­pare great works of art and attempt to rank them like a sports team? it’s asi­nine.

The com­ments have more of inter­est than the top ten list. There are some good reads post­ed.

The com­ments are always my favorite reads ;-)

It seems Kaf­ka and Dos­to­evsky are too dark and com­plex for this bunch. Maybe we should select the top ten crit­ics first.

“The Top Ten: Writ­ers Pick Their Favorite Books.“nnnnNot nec­es­sar­i­ly the “great­est” books.

A list that excludes King Lear, Don Quixote, The Divine Com­e­dy, and The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov is a list beg­ging to be mocked. nLoli­ta? Real­ly? nFeh.

Like any list, it is only a list and can be ignored quite eas­i­ly.

You peo­ple who are bitch­ing about what’s been left off, it’s not the web­site’s fault. Did you read what the cri­te­ria is? “…asked 125 top writ­ers to name their favorite books…” nBlame the writers!nPersonally I don’t agree with a cou­ple of selec­tions, Madame Bovary heads my list. I found it dif­fi­cult to read because the main char­ac­ter is just so unlik­able. Same with Loli­ta, I hat­ed the lech­er­ous main char­ac­ter and the way he excus­es his actions.

I’M ANGRY AT THIS ARBITRARY LIST OF PERSONAL BIAS TOO!!!! RAHHHH!!!!!! RABBLE RABBLE!

Best com­ment on the board. :)

I par­tic­u­lar­ly liked part of the com­ment in low­er case.

Well, they’re all good books, but of course one could argue end­less­ly about what is and isn;t here. I’d pick Moby Dick and Absa­lom, Absa­lom myself. But my greater con­cern is that there’s a rad­i­cal flaw in this. The authors were asked what are their FAVORITE books, and this was trans­lat­ed into what are the GREATEST books. These are prob­a­bly over­lap­ping lists, but I seri­ous­ly doubt that for most seri­ous read­ers they are iden­ti­cal.

How is every­one miss­ing the point that this isn’t a list of the ten great­est books? Read the arti­cle, not just the (mis­lead­ing) title. This is a list of ten books that were most fre­quent­ly nom­i­nat­ed as favourites by 125 top writ­ers. I’m not sure who every­one is argu­ing with in their out­raged com­ments.

no Joyce, Beck­ett, Dos­toyevsky, Kaf­ka, Mar­quez, Borges?!!!

This per­son obvi­ous­ly has a soft­ness for realism/naturalism or trag­ic point­less deaths (some­times all com­bined) nnHam­let, Gats­by and Mid­dle­march are amongst my favourites, for the rest… not real­ly.

Stunned. Where is Crime & Pun­ish­ment ? Ulysses and/or Dublin­ers ? And what is Gats­by doing in there ?

shite.… read that.

It shows that even great writ­ers do not read wide­ly enough.

No Cortu00e1zar, Borges .…. real­ly fun­ny

No James Joyce?

Only ONE woman writ­ing under a male pseu­do­nym! And what is the bal­ance of male/female amongst the ‘125 Top Authors’ Who decreed these 125 ‘Top’ authors? Who are they?

Peo­ple who read.

What bugs me is that there is noth­ing on this list writ­ten after the mid-fifties! Are you seri­ous­ly telling us that noth­ing good has been writ­ten in the last 50+ years?

Are you a time trav­eller?

No, but I play one on TV. lol

Bul­gakov? I would pick “Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta”, “White Guard”, “Beg” and bump Tol­stoy, Chekhov and Nabokov off the top 10 list.nnnBrodsky? Even though he is most­ly known for poet­ry, his prose is great.

Wow. Right. No Dos­toyevsky? Although rel­a­tive­ly “light,” I would have put one of Hes­se’s works there some­where, too. Gats­by? No way. And, if you’re going to include one of Shake­speare’s plays, why not oth­er the­ater? Lysis­tra­ta? Yes, also on Camus.

I think this list should have been pre­sent­ed as works of fic­tion. How was Ham­let list­ed as a book when it is a stage play?

won­der­ful list …most of them are tragedies!

This list is by the Gay and Les­bian leage. It is the fore­run­ner to the deca­dent state of affairs we have today where trash like “Ger­ry Springer” and ” Real House­wives of …” are more wide­ly viewed than the clas­sics as aired on Mas­ter­piece The­ater. It s no won­der that the soci­ety is about to dis­in­te­grate with crit­ics who view the above list as worth­while. 80% of the above belongs in the shred­der. I am glad I am an old man and my time will end soon…

Where in the world did you come up with a non­sen­si­cal idea like that? What is “the Gay and Les­bian leage”? Google it. There’s no such thing.

He is just an old and grumpy clos­et queen that thinks it is too late now to come out of the clos­et.

But tru­ly it’s nev­er too late?

He should also get off my lawn. I have reserved it for the League of Extra­or­di­nar­i­ly Gay and Les­bian Folk.

It all start­ed with the rail­ways when the cows stopped giv­ing milk. Civ­i­liza­tion is going down the drains since Socrates and Nero.

Well of course that’s true but cows and trains have lit­tle to do with it. That most peo­ple have nev­er heard of any of these books or authors is more like­ly the prob­lem.

“80% of the above belongs in the shred­der” Seri­ous­ly? Give your head a shake. Btw, what exact­ly is the “Gay and Les­bian leage” I’m neither.…but just to piss you off I think I’ll sign up.…if they’ll have me.

Go Down Moses, Light in August, the Snopes Tril­o­gy by Faulkn­er. East of Eden by John Stein­beck. Sophie’s Choice by William Stry­on. The Col­or Pur­ple. To Kill a Mock­ing­bird by Harp­er Lee. Nev­er read any­thing by Nathaniel Hawthorne or Edgar Allen Poe. Only read short sto­ries by Heminway–a mas­ter of them. And always, always read Huck­le­ber­ry Finn–it is the first excel­lent Amer­i­can nov­el and always on point.

WTF THIS LAST DOESN’T HAVE “SEE SPOT RUN”. IT BELONGS UP THERE IN THE TOP THREE RIGHT BEHIND “SEE SPOT POOP”.

HERP DERP DUR DE DOO

So arbi­trary. No Harp­er Lee? No Art Of War? Mar­garet Mitchell?The Brontes? Austen? Come on.…WHO are these “writ­ers” any­way?

Well, all I can say is:nThe russ­ian writ­ers are the best!nAccept that.n

Rus­sians books are as good as their Tupolevs and their dri­ving skills.

I would choose Dos­toievs­ki as well.nNow thats a good ranking:nhttp://g1.globo.com/platb/files/2286/2013/04/Vencedores.jpg

I did­n’t read any of them. Writ­ers about oth­er writ­ers? That sounds like the madame of a broth­el com­ment­ing on the per­for­mance of the employ­ees of the broth­el nextdoor. :-p

Nice incom­plete list. Dante, Jean Gion­no, Hen­ry Miller, Alice Walk­er, Tom Wolfe, Don Delil­lo, Mar­garet Atwood,Goldsmith,Dickens,Porter,Roth,Wharton.

Noth­ing by Jack­ie Collins? I’d much rather read her than some of this drudgery.

Where is Dos­toyevs­ki?? “Crime and Punishment“ndeserves to be in this list.

Unre­li­able. The lack of Don Qui­jote is a joke I guess…

Are you kid­ding me!!!! Where is the hunger games or diver­gent

Catch­er in the Rye

Total­ly Euro­cen­tric list of 10 great­est books by West­ern Euro­pean male writ­ers (except for George Elliott, who was only pre­tend­ing to be a man) — cho­sen by whom?

If you can put up ‘The Short Sto­ries of Chekhov,’ you can put up ‘The Plays of Shake­speare.’

So, 125 (male?) authors rel­ish suf­fer­ing women sto­ries.

Nabakov Loli­ta seems like a father daugh­ter trick­le down Oedi­pus reversed love affair. Psy­cholithis­to­ry vs Sci­col­it­fu­ture

Opin­ions are like…, every­body has one. At least no one is sug­gest­ing they burn all those not on the “list”.

Why not Joseph Heller’s Catch-22? Hon­est­ly, the obses­sion with Russ­ian nov­el­ists is hard to under­stand. And, Madame Bovary? Please.

#1 Div­ina Com­me­dia n#2 Bha­gavad Gitan#3 Don Quixote

Well, con­sid­er­ing the deep Chris­t­ian beliefs of Dante and Cer­vantes, I feel the Bha­gavad Gita should be replaced with the Bible. But, thanks for list­ing some greats that are over­looked by this trashy list!

i don’t see moby-dick in this list. odd, because the old­er i get, the more i appre­ci­ate its bril­liance, both in con­tent and style. it set a high bar for every­thing that fol­lowed. yes, it makes cer­tain demands of the read­er, but then, great art should pro­voke thought and curios­i­ty.

best com­ment!

Such a list sans Dick­ens is not worth its weight in pix­els.

The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar did­n’t make the list? WTF?!

Also no “Go The Fuck To Bed”

They should have read Borges before giv­ing their opin­ion.

Agree. No Men­tion of Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez? Simone de Beauvoir?Jorge Luis Borges? Goethe? Niet­zche? It seems the list is for high­school lev­el read­ers with­in the USA: real­ly real­ly weak lit­er­a­ture.

I think Neitzche did­n’t make the cut because it had to be fic­tion.

Stend­hal: Le rouge et le noir, La char­treuse de Parme…

I am shocked to see no Jane Austen list­ed here

She seems to be omit­ted fre­quent­ly in these “polls”, which make them com­plete­ly bogus, in my opin­ion. She was the pre­dom­i­nant Euro­pean writer, ever.

She was the pre­dom­i­nant Euro­pean writer, ever? You’re out of your mind.

If by “the” you mean “a”, and if by “pre­dom­i­nant” you mean “pret­ty good”, and if by If by “Euro­pean” you mean “British,” and if by “ever” you mean…something else, then…yeah, absolute­ly.

“Mid­dle­march” is soooo great. Every page con­tains a per­fect, orig­i­nal metaphor, expressed as effort­less­ly as if gift­ed from the gods. Fan­tas­ti­cal­ly real­ized char­ac­ters. And long, a long book, the read­er lives in the epony­mous town for a sur­ro­gate life­time. Won­der­ful.

What you real­ly mean is “10 good books whose copy­right has expired” ! — anoth­er arti­cle engi­neered specif­i­cal­ly for SEO.

All good books, the idea of pick­ing the best 10 is not so great.

FYI George Eliot was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans

real­ly? no Don Qui­jote?

What para­me­ters those “125 top authors” used?

Why not pre­tend you can’t see their names, read them and see what you think regard­less of gen­der or race? Of course you can always like what you feel is bet­ter — it’s art.

Besides Proust, Tol­stoy, and Shake­speare, those are WEAK. Hmmm, some of these are not close to being in my top 50… No Men­tion of Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez? Simone de Beauvoir?Jorge Luis Borges? Goethe? Niet­zche? It seems the list is for high­school lev­el read­ers with­in the USA: real­ly real­ly weak lit­er­a­ture.

Yep. Books we read in HS. :)

Hmmm, some of these are not close to being in my top 50… No Men­tion of Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez? Simone de Beauvoir?Jorge Luis Borges? Goethe? Niet­zche? It seems the list is for high­school lev­el read­ers with­in the USA: real­ly real­ly weak lit­er­a­ture.

Hi there,nnnWas just curi­ous, could any­one tell us who gave our post a men­tion on Facebook?nnnThanks nDan (edi­tor)

Think it was the folks at “Dan­ger­ous Minds,” a quite fun place to spend a few idle moments, btw.

Yep…I came over after see­ing the “Dan­ger­ous Minds” Face­book share…so if page hits went up this evening..that is prob­a­bly why…:)

I came from a link from a “Dan­ger­ous Minds” post too…

El Feli­bus­ter­is­mo by Jose Rizal made waves in the ear­ly 20th Cen­tu­ry. And is still being read in Europe and the Amer­i­c­as.

Crit­i­cize instead of say­ing some­thing use­ful. Must be a Demo­c­rat huh?

George Eliot was white but she lacked that cer­tain some­thing.

So, Proust, Gats­by and Loli­ta are the only 20th Cen­tu­ry choic­es to make the Top Ten — and only one of those from the lat­ter half? Inter­est­ing. No Ulysses. No Dick­ens or Bronte sis­ter or Austen or Whar­ton or Hen­ry James, but Eliot (I actu­al­ly love “Mid­dle­march” but…). Heavy on the Russkies. Chekhov and dou­bling down on Tol­stoy, but why no Dos­to­evsky (I woul­da tak­en “Broth­ers Karamo­zov” over “War and Peace”). No Latin or African writ­ers — agree with those who think Mar­quez or Borges or Var­gas Llosa or Achebe could/should have snuck in there. Also, isn’t there ANY late 20th Cen­tu­ry, ear­ly 21st Cen­tu­ry work that mea­sures up? Pyn­chon? Wal­lace? Heller? Hell, Von­negut. And, I know this sounds shit­ty, and I’m not one of the great 125 writ­ers polled, but gimme Stein­beck­’s “Grapes of Wrath” or “East of Eden” over any­thing Fitzger­ald ever wrote any day of the week. In fact, I’ll take Dreis­er or even Sin­clair Lewis over Fitzger­ald. Final­ly, am I the only one who thinks “Loli­ta” is just kin­da creepy. I will say this. Total­ly not shocked to see a dearth of Ayn Rand. Let’s all say a prayer for that one.

Please tell me, who is Achebe?

A list with­out Dos­toievsky, Borges, Bul­gakov and Sartre it’s not a real list to me! You do your lists and charts and i’ll read what is a real work of art.

I do respect your opin­ion but I have to say that these lists and charts are great for me just so I can choose which book to read next since I con­sid­er myself pret­ty young and igno­rant when it comes to books

Whit­man’s Moby dick, Thore­au’s Walden?nnEven on an sub­jec­tive list, omit­ting Walt Whit­man ..odd

That’s Melville’s MOBY DICK, which would have been on my list for sure…

I’d pre­fer a list that does­n’t com­pare apples and oranges — Proust’s entry is actu­al­ly 7 books (!), and short sto­ry col­lec­tions and dra­mat­ic works are not nov­els (obvi­ous­ly). If the rules are this ill-defined, I would put the com­plete “Peanuts” by Charles Schultz as issued by Fan­ta­graph­ics Books on the list!

What about “The Prophet”?

Great Gats­by is the most over­rat­ed nov­el of all times

I’ve read all of them and many, many, many more. It’s impos­si­ble to put the best in such a small list, there should be at least 100. And it is always a sub­jec­tive list, so bet­ter not do it. The lack­ing writ­ers are so impor­tant! Cul­ture would not be the same with­out them.

I did­n’t find any of these espe­cial­ly great. Loli­ta in par­tic­u­lar was a huge let down. Maybe I will re-read them.

1. These are all nov­els. Not all books are novels.nnn2. Two books by Tol­stoy, but no Dostoevsky?nnn3. They are all rel­a­tive­ly recent books. There is noth­ing from the ancient authors or any­thing before the 1800s. Pret­ty glar­ing omis­sion, if you ask me.nnn4. Great Gats­by? Real­ly?

Ok did­n’t see Shake­speare on the list.…

Don Qui­jote by Cer­vantes???????

What about The Hob­bit by J.R.R Tolkien.…??

I would add cer­tain non fic­tion such as Dar­win’s Ori­gin of the Species.

Sor­ry Homer, Aeschy­lus, Vir­gil, Ovid, Dante, Chaucer, Cer­vantes, Mil­ton, and Goethe, you did­n’t make the cut. This just shows why mod­ern lit­er­a­ture is friv­o­lous. “What are the clas­sics but the noblest thoughts record­ed by man?” (Thore­au, Walden “Read­ing).

Gats­by is a good book, but Emi­ly Bronte did the whole love triangle/boy amass­es wealth and pres­tige to win over girl who reject­ed him so much bet­ter, with more com­plex­i­ty, depth and exper­i­men­ta­tion in Wuther­ing Heights. As for 20th Cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture? The Leop­ard by Guiseppe Lampe­dusa real­ly is deserv­ing of a place in more of these polls, cer­tain­ly one of the great­est nov­els writ­ten in my mind.

A very spe­cial edi­tions of Geron­i­mo Stil­ton is — The hunt for the gold­en book,The king­dom of fantasy,The amaz­ing voy­age, drag­on prophe­cy and the Jour­ney through the time are the very spe­cial edi­tions of Geron­i­mo Stilton.I love these kind of books very much.

https://www.facebook.com/ricardo.amorim.ricam?fref=nf

Thanks for let­ting me know. Dan

No Dos­toyevs­ki? Hahah, shame on you igno­rant bas­tard!

125 top authors and they haven’t heard of Dos­toyevs­ki ? Or Austen? Or Homer? This is sil­ly.

just want­ed to know some works to read but peo­ple’s com­ments say oth­er­wise… now total­ly con­fused

This list is too lily white and full of men. Ms. Eliot is the sole excep­tion as a female, but there are no peo­ple of col­or on this list.

Why lists like these con­tin­ue to per­pet­u­ate that books writ­ten by old white men are to be her­ald­ed as the default “great” and the rest are either too “niche” for women and/or PoC or sim­ply not good enough con­tin­ues to frus­trate and even baf­fle me.

The more peo­ple are exposed to these “top ten” lists that sup­pos­ed­ly have great book sug­ges­tions which include women and peo­ple of col­or, the more peo­ple’s minds can shift. Isn’t that obvi­ous?

I think cura­tors of such lists need to under­stand that. I think that the jour­nal­ists or writ­ers who ASK the ques­tion, “What are you favorite books?” or “favorite authors?” need to ask ques­tions that would inspire answers that include con­tem­po­rary writ­ers who ARE women AND PoC.

No one’s argu­ing that those writ­ers up there are good writ­ers. We’ve been TOLD that they are since mid­dle school all the way through col­lege. But we’re not told ENOUGH about writ­ers who hap­pen to be women and PoC.

That needs to change.

Where the red fern grows beeeeatch

les misrables of vic­tor hugo is real­ly best best best best nov­el of all time.victor hugo is my god.go and read les misrables

The inse­cure list.

My favorite author is Émile Zola. I also love Dos­toievs­ki

The method­ol­o­gy is faulty. That’s why this list is so bad. This is more like a list of what 125 writ­ers con­sid­er the best sin­gle book. If you went back to the orig­i­nal authors and asked them what impor­tant books are miss­ing, then you’d get a bet­ter list.

“Les Misrables” is the best of all …

Only one female author. I’ve read most of the books on that list and not many are as great as Don­na Tart­t’s The Secret His­to­ry or Atwood’s Oryx & Crake.

C’est une plaisan­terie! Vos 125 experts n’ont jamais lu de lit­téra­ture alle­mande, ital­i­enne, espag­nole, entre beau­coup d’autres? Ils n’ont pas enten­du par­ler de Rabelais, de Rousseau ou de Balzac? Ils n’ont pas lu Lawrence, Faulkn­er, Joyce, Dos­toyevs­ki? et tant d’autres. Je ne vois que qua­tre géants dans la liste pro­posée: Shake­speare, Tol­stoï, Proust, Tchékov.

thank you for hav­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty

Instead of mak­ing a point of a nov­el den why cant you come and write one novel.…Den we all will gonna make com­ment on dat.….

If Don Quixote is not on the list, this is rub­bish. The jury should be ashamed of the result. Like the Times list and oth­ers, too much fash­ion, sno­bism and anglosax­on chau­vin­ism. Also they for­got Dos­toievs­ki, Homer and oth­ers… This is a list made by writ­ers from ALL the world, not your sad “con­cil­i­ab­u­lo” of suposed top authors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokklubben_World_Library

Such lists are quite mean­ing­less: they could have picked anoth­er group of dis­tin­guished literati who would have come up with some­thing dif­fer­ent. How­ev­er, in the present list I would not include Mark Twain and Fitzger­ald. If there are any Amer­i­can writ­ers who have achieved some sort of uni­ver­sal­i­ty, they would be Melville and Faulkn­er. I sus­pect the oth­ers were there because it was most­ly an Amer­i­can pan­el and they all read them in school or col­lege. Homer and Sopho­cles should have been there, as well as Dick­ens, Dos­to­evsky, Kaf­ka, Leopol­do Alas and Cer­vantes (DQ is the great­est nov­el no-one has actu­al­ly read today). I would also have added Vir­ginia Woolf. These lists are fun, but reduc­ing them to ten peo­ple is arbi­trary.

No Alain Robbe-Gril­let, WIlliam H. Gass or Zamyetin???

I com­plete­ly agree. Wur­ther­ing Heights is one of the great­est nov­els of all time !

Charles Dick­ens.

Where’s Wuther­ing Heights by Emi­ly Bronte Seri­ouslys one of the great­est boots ever penned

Books dam auto cor­rect

Ham­let was a book? and Loli­ta should be no.1

great­est nov­el ever writ­ten this is Anna Karen­i­na

Where is Dos­toievs­ki!!! Crime and punishment,demons,Idiot… Or you still dont know him!!!

My favorite ten Books, in no par­tic­u­lar order:

-Illu­mi­na­tions by Arthur Rim­baud ‑The Cat Inside by William Bur­roughs ‑Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov ‑For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hem­ing­way ‑The Twelve Cae­sars by Sue­to­nius ‑Brew­er’s Dic­tio­nary of Phrase and Fable ‑A Lover’s Dis­course by Roland Barthes ‑Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges ‑Dune by Frank Her­bert ‑The Psy­cho­analy­sis of Fire by Gas­ton Bachelard

I have found that all of these titles reward­ed mul­ti­ple read­ings. Cheers!

William Faulkn­er — As I lay dying Franz Kaf­ka — The pro­ces Thomas Mann — The mag­ic Moun­tain James Joyce — Ulysses Dos­toyevs­ki — The broth­ers Kara­zov

Cer­tain­ly, lists are always ques­tion­able for their arbi­trari­ness, but the two books you men­tioned are indis­putable two great mas­ter­pieces.

The lit­er­a­ture means metaphors; it means explo­ration of human beings and it is moti­vat­ed by the writ­ers’ urgency to inves­ti­gate the com­plex­i­ty and con­tra­dic­to­ry human souls’ depth and/or the social rela­tions.

While Tolstoy’s inspi­ra­tion is the empa­thy with the oth­ers to under­stand him­self bet­ter, and so his nov­els are always moral, philo­soph­i­cal, soci­o­log­i­cal explo­ration, Flaubert’s intent is a social crit­i­cism.

Emma Bovary is a crit­ic of the bour­geoisie whose behav­ior is deter­mined by appear­ance and alien­ation from one­self. Emma mar­ried a physi­cian to upgrade her social sta­tus. Con­verse­ly, she dis­cov­ers that the “right groom” is only a coarse peas­ant with­out either voca­tion or intel­lect. He became physi­cian only for the same desire of social climb­ing that pushed her to mar­ry him. Thus, dis­ap­point­ed not to have found the glit­ter­ing life that she want­ed first she push­es her hus­band to try a risky surgery hop­ing to let him get fame so she could enjoy reflex of his glo­ry, suc­ces­sive­ly, this attempt failed, she vents her dis­con­tent by look­ing for love. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, self­ish, super­fi­cial peo­ple can­not love, and so she falls in an equiv­o­cal and expen­sive love affair that makes her in debts. There­fore, she swal­lows rat poi­son to escape the usurer’s black­mail. Is it a real sui­cide, or an attempt went over due? The author describes an equiv­o­cal sit­u­a­tion. Maybe she sim­u­lat­ed to get the erase of her debt promis­so­ry, or she want­ed to over­turn her unpleas­ant sit­u­a­tion, or she did not exact­ly know what she want­ed because she can­not intro­spect. Dur­ing the tri­al for obscen­i­ty, the writer said “Emma Bovary, c’est moi!” a claim that the obscen­i­ty is the appearance’s empti­ness and alien­ation that con­cern all of us.

On the con­trary Tolstoy’s emo­tion­al mas­ter­piece is a com­plex plot of many sto­ries, e.g. Levin’s Bil­dungsro­man (by the way, Levin=diminutive of Lev, the name of the author), the Oblovsky’s adul­tery, Nikolai’s ill­ness, etc.

There is the con­tra­po­si­tion of the puri­ty of the ide­al­ized coun­try­side life and the cor­rupt and the hyp­ocrite life of aris­toc­ra­cy, and a deep analy­sis of social and mat­ri­mo­ni­al usages, the asym­me­try of the hus­bands that can grant the divorce or deny it, and the wives that are at the mer­cy of their “own­ers”. The writer crit­i­cizes the per­ni­cious influ­ence of reli­gious fanati­cism that for­gives lust, but pun­ish­es love, and so on.

At the end, the Anna‘s sui­cide is the con­se­quence of her and Vroskij’s exile in his estate because of the ostracism for their “Werther­ian pas­sion” (Vronskij’s mother’s quote). Her iso­la­tion push­es her to doubt of her lover’s feel­ings and sus­pect that it was only an infat­u­a­tion. She asks her­self if she sac­ri­ficed all of her life, her son, her hon­ored posi­tion, her social rela­tions for an illu­sion. As in the pre­des­ti­na­tion fig­ured in the sce­nario of her meet­ing with Vron­skij, she throws her­self on the tracks, but she does not die imme­di­ate­ly. Vron­skij gets to the sta­tion and founds her on the table of tick­et office. She is ago­niz­ing, deformed by the bro­ken spine, gib­ber­ing in a painful mask. He is upset, and he declares he is going to leave for Crimea’s war, and his moth­er agrees because she thought he lost his hon­or. His train trip towards the front is one of the most pow­er­ful anti­mil­i­tarist man­i­festo indeed the descrip­tion of play­ers who flee gam­bling debts, peas­ants who wish to offer a chance to their fam­i­lies, and so on, shows war as an escape for losers.

It is impos­si­ble to sum­ma­rize the rich­ness and the beau­ty of these works and explore all their mul­ti­fac­eted, deep metaphors. Any­way, I had to tes­ti­fy their val­ue.

Some­one wrote What no Faulkn­er! Indeed!! Absa­lom Absa­lom belongs on this list. I won’t quib­ble over where on this list it belongs. Replace Huck­le­ber­ry Finn if you have to.

Such a poor list, with very low cri­te­ria.

This is not the 10 great­est books ever. It’s the 10 great­est books in Europe and US! There are many great books, much greater than many books in this list, in oth­er parts of the world.

I want to see the list of Indi­a’s top author book. Your web­site is very infor­ma­tive I just search about lat­est jobs in jobisearch.com. I found your web­site is very use­ful for lat­est updates about edu­ca­tion and stu­dents. Who want to know about edu­ca­tion I book­mark your site and also recruit­ment to all of my friends.

Cor­mac McCarthy belongs here

Had a ball read­ing all the com­ments. Just like com­par­isons, lists are odi­ous. I’m sug­gest­ing a much more recent book, Free­dom by Jonathon Franzen. Don’t any­one throw stones. I absolute­ly loved it. Wal­ter Berg­land is my fave. Oh and I agree about Cor­mac McCarthy. He should be on the odi­ous list as well.

A list is a list is a list. Sure, none of the books on this list are bad, most of them are bet­ter than bad, they’re good. Are they great? Sure. Per­son­al­ly, I’m glad to see “In Search of Lost Time” but con­fused by the absence of “Ulysses.” I enjoyed “Wuther­ing Heights” more than “Pride and Prej­u­dice,” but the lat­ter might be a bet­ter choice for such a enu­mer­a­tion. Kafka’s “The Tri­al” would make my list, but not every read­er can relate to it’s sen­ti­ment. Then again, I cer­tain­ly can­not relate to Gats­by. “War and Peace” is mas­sive, but isn’t “Les Mis­er­able” a bet­ter sto­ry? “Moby Dick,” “Ili­ad,” and “Odyssey” are all on my list, but that reflects the kinds of books I like to read. My point? My point is that these types of lists serve us best as cat­a­lysts for dis­cus­sion, with civil­i­ty I would hope, and that such a con­ver­sa­tion might lead us to con­sid­er a few well aged titles we’d not pre­vi­ous­ly con­sid­ered.

Loli­ta belongs on most any­one’s top ten list. The Grapes of Wrath should be too. I’ve read many books in my life and sev­er­al on this list. Here’s a book that few have heard of but should read. The Stones of Sum­mer. It reach­es inside of you with the best of them. And I might add Hek­tor Atre­des sen­ti­ments about lists was right on the mon­ey.

The only list that Moby Dick belongs on is the list of most bor­ing nov­els. God, what drudgery. Rather lis­ten to Ted Cruz all damn night.

1. Catch­er in the Rye 2. Crime and Pun­ish­ment 3. Por­trait of the Artist as a Young Man 4. Black Boy 5. War and Peace 6. A Con­necti­cut Yan­kee in King Arthur’s Court 7. Palace Walk 8. The Stranger 9. The Black Prince 10. Tie — Rab­bit Run and All the Pret­ty Hors­es

Just my take.

Anglo-cen­tric and biased. Sub­jec­tive and ulti­mate­ly point­less.

I grew up in the com­pa­ny of great writ­ers from Brasil, Spain, Italy and France …and I’m sure many here of Asian descent will also resent no rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their authors on the list.

I expect­ed bet­ter from this page.

M.S.Kottmeier

125 of the most promi­nent liv­ing writ­ers sub­mit­ted their indi­vid­ual Top Tens from which this cumu­la­tive list was com­piled, using the stan­dard points for­mu­la. did you not read the method­ol­o­gy of this list? take up your griev­ances with the likes of Nor­man Mail­er, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Mes­sud, and Michael Chabon since they are the com­pil­ers.

Stfu sjw fag­got

It is impos­si­ble to pick 10 and even if you list­ed 100 you would still leave out some­one’s favorite.

But, nice try.

No James Bald­win? No Thore­au?

Catch­er in the Rye, yes. Thank you.

Bor­ing? Are you kid­ding me? It is the most vivid and tumul­tuous romp imag­in­able — from begin­ning to end. Try again

Dick­ens is hard­ly low­brow!

Russ­ian Far East is very sparse­ly inhab­it­ed; pop­u­lat­ed Rus­sia is part of Europe and the Russ­ian lan­guage is indoeu­ro­pean. It’s a lot of shared cul­ture with West­ern Europe and Amer­i­ca. I live in Japan and have read many nov­els from India, Chi­na Korea, Japan that moved mil­lions and would move you too. This list needs to open up!!

Astound­ing! I must say that it is a very com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion! I like every­thing! Thank­ful for shar­ing. If you want to get more about this top­ic then vis­it here:

As a lit­er­a­ture major in col­lege, I would LOVE to know what you would include on the list! I know it would nec­es­sar­i­ly be sub­jec­tive; but at least I’d have the opin­ion of at least ONE avid read­er not liv­ing in the west. Since Gar­cía-Mar­quez’s death, my favorite liv­ing author is Muraka­mi BUT I dis­cov­ered him by acci­dent!

I am a child of the American/European edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem. Some of my favorites are Voltaire, Kaf­ka, Twain, Camus, Hux­ley, Austen, Borges, etc. I’d real­ly like to expand that. Would you mind rec­om­mend­ing?

And thank you in advance!

Oh, FFS — George Eliot was a woman — Mary Anne Evans. Not that I’m defend­ing this idi­ot­ic list in the least. Prob­lem #1 — two by Tol­stoi? #2 Ham­let is a play, not a book. #3 As point­ed out above, the the­mat­ic dupli­ca­tion of Anna Karen­i­na and Madame Bovary. #4 Much as I like Chekhov, an anthol­o­gy does­n’t count. #5 The Great Gats­by?!? Real­ly? #6 Loli­ta? Meh. #7 No Ulysses? #8 No Ili­ad? #9 No Quixote? #10 I could go on, but I’ve made my point

It’s a ridicu­lous list.

Ham­let is not a book.

Why no Crime and Pun­ish­ment by Dos­tovesky???

agreed — came here to state that. While I’m super sad to see only one woman (who had to write under a male name, sure­ly to even be pub­lished), it did ask women writ­ers to sub­mit lists.

Too many here are not tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion how the list was curated/formulated.

What I would love to see is writ­ers of all time who have made com­ments about who their favorite writ­ers were. Sure­ly there are plen­ty of media archives giv­ing infor­ma­tion from inter­views and such. To know who Tol­stoy enjoyed read­ing, that would be some­thing.

As a Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing major in col­lege, I would go with either: 1. Momen­tum, Heat and Mass Trans­fer, McCabe & Smith, or 2. Bossy­pants, Tina Fey

The Great Gats­by is unread­able. One of the most over­rat­ed nov­els in the Eng­lish lan­guage. And Ham­let? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a clas­sic. But it’s a play meant to be seen and heard, not read.

1984 and Drac­u­la should be in any top ten. 1984 as a warn­ing and Drac­u­la because it brought hor­ror into the modern(ish) era and spawned a mas­sive genre.

Only old white men writ­ing about their desire to get laid and what dis­trac­tions they turn to when they real­ize get­ting laid isn’t as easy as they hoped, but with elab­o­rate words… of course…

African lit­er­a­ture is a fas­ci­nat­ing untapped resource. I have only recent­ly start­ed explor­ing it and already added Ahmadou Kourouma, Pie Tshiban­da and Maria­ma Bâ to my per­son­al pan­theon.

Do you real­ize how like a lot of ‘best of…’ lists how West­ern-cen­tric and there­fore how skewed and pos­si­bly irrel­e­vant the list feels in today’s times. I would real­ly like to see such efforts be more inclu­sive of the cor­pus of world lit­er­a­ture — not in a patron­iz­ing way — but for the greater ben­e­fit and expo­sure to all con­cerned. This of course in no way takes away from the mer­it of the works in the list. It is only to bring atten­tion to the utter­ly pompous title — 10 Great­est Books Ever!

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best ten books ever written

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100 must-read classics, as chosen by our readers

They broke boundaries and challenged conceptions. We asked you for your must-read classics; from iconic bestsellers to lesser-known gems, these are your essential recommends. 

Everyone loves a  classic novel , but where to start? From  Jane Austen  to  Charles Dickens ,  Toni Morrison  to  Fyodor Dostoevsky , the fiction canon is so vast you can easily get lost in it.

So we asked our readers to tell us about their favourite classic books. The resulting list of must-reads is a perfect way to find inspiration to start your classics adventure. There's something for everyone, from family sagas and  dystopian fiction  to  romances  and historical fiction.

And if you enjoy this, you can also learn about our reader's favourite  books by female authors , most loved  children's books  and the  best memoirs  they've ever read.

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MARK MANSON

The 47 Best Fiction Books of All Time

If you’re looking for a good novel or story to read, here’s my list of the 47 best fiction books of all time—in no particular order.

  • Ulysses by James Joyce – Banned for obscenity in the United States, a stream of consciousness classic that follows one Irish man’s every thought for an entire day.
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – Often called the best novel ever written. Dozens of characters, stretching from Muscovite peasants all the way to Napoleon himself. The modern epic.
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – A hundred years ahead of its time, Tolstoy’s investigation of the silent, stifling life of women is an all-time great.
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – A classic of 19th century realism. A cautionary tale about romanticism.
  • The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – Often considered Hemingway’s greatest work. A short novella about a Cuban fisherman. Hemingway won his Nobel Prize for this.
  • The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – A novel told from the perspective of different members of the same family, including the mentally handicapped main character. Stretches all boundaries and brilliantly written.
  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck – A refashioning of the biblical Cain and Abel story based on a family that settles in California. Steinbeck’s masterpiece.
  • Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov – The scandalous love story of a man and a 12-year-old girl. As beautifully written as it is disturbing.
  • Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger – As if high school angst was chopped up, splattered onto pages and glued to binding.
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – One of the “Great American Novels.” Timeless story of class divisions, love and the inevitability of loneliness.
  • 1984 by George Orwell – Orwell’s dystopian tale of a totalitarian government enabled by futuristic technology.
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison – A tale about an escaped slave who would go to any length to guarantee her and her children’s freedom. Winner of a Nobel Prize.
  • 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Another Nobel Prize winner. No other book is even remotely like it. Descriptions don’t do it justice.
  • The Iliad by Homer – The classic Greek epic and possibly the oldest story of western civilization.
  • The Odyssey by Homer – See above.
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – A character study of a man driven to murder for no rational reason and the aftermath. Russian novelists tend to be psychological and this may be the most psychological of all the Russian classics.
  • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – A grand and beautiful portrait of a frayed family–three brothers struggling to understand and accept each other.
  • Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes – Considered the first novel ever written. Cervantes’ classic story tells of a man who imagines himself a knight, heroically defending the land.
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – One of the most universally loved novels in the English language, it’s still revered today.
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – The best-selling English language novel of all time and a historical fiction about an English doctor who finds himself caught up in the French Revolution and Reign of Terror.
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte – The coming of age of a young woman, this is considered the first book to ever follow a single person’s psychological and spiritual growth throughout their lives from the first person.
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen – The timeless classic about love, romance, money, class, and family. Still as relevant as ever.
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – A shockingly dark and twisted book critical of the stifling morals of 19th century England. Published posthumously, the book came under heavy attack at the time, but is considered prescient now.
  • In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust – The longest novel ever written, clocking in at an astounding 4,200 pages. You really will search for your lost time if you make it through this whole thing.
  • Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain – Another candidate for the “Great American Novel,” Huck Finn is about an homeless boy who befriends an escaped slave. An odd yet powerful friendship emerges.
  • To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf – A novel that challenged and broke all traditional forms and expectations for what a novel should be. Part philosophical musings, part emotional meanderings, part story, the book defined a style of its own.
  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka – An investigation into the absurd. A man wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant beetle. His family is… not supportive.
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus – A novel that follows a nihilistic main character through situations, both extreme and mundane. Throughout, his lack of emotional response challenges our sense of what is actually meaningful and what is not. Camus won a Nobel Prize for this book.
  • Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie – A dizzying display of brilliance from the first-time novelist. This book would cement Rushdie as one of the top authors of his generation.
  • Candide by Voltaire – A satirical classic of a wealthy young man, brought up to be naive and optimistic about the world, is repeatedly confronted with harsh truth after harsh truth.
  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe – The great African novel about the experiences of Africans during the colonial years.
  • Hamlet by William Shakespeare – To be or not to be… that is one of many questions.
  • Macbeth by William Shakespeare – Spoiler: everybody dies.
  • Les Miserables by Victor Hugo – Before Hugh Jackman danced around singing it, Hugo’s classic was a brooding investigation into the nature of law, society, love and family.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas – A modern adventure epic written on the scale of one of the ancient Greek or Roman poems. Not only is it readable but it’s impossible to put down at times.
  • Oedipus the King by Sophocles – The most famous Greek tragedy. Even today, reading it is unforgettable.
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley – Huxley’s take on a dystopian future where populations are not controlled by fear, but rather, controlled by pleasure.
  • Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut – Considered the ultimate anti-war novel, this book is based on Vonnegut’s own experiences in World War II. Hilarious and heartwarming.
  • The Master and Margarita by Mihkail Bulgakov – Considered both the best Russian novel of the 20th century and the best piece of Soviet-era criticism and satire, it took 20 years for this book to be published uncensored. And even then, it was after the author had died.
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen – The consummate criticism of middle American suburban life in the 21st century. One of my favorite books ever written. National Book Award winner.
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston – A tale of a young black woman’s empowerment in 1920s United States. A huge influence on both the later civil rights movements.
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley – Considered the first true science fiction story ever told. Shelley was a mere 18 years old when she wrote it. It continues to be a classic.
  • White Noise by Don DeLillo – A breakout novel in the 80s and one of the first great pieces of fiction to criticize consumer culture and modern entertainment.
  • Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood – A feminist dystopia where women are mere vessels for childbirth and everything is controlled by a bizarre religion. Now a famous Hulu series.
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – Published a month before she committed suicide, The Bell Jar broke open the public discussion of mental health, depression and suicide and cemented Plath as one of the centuries greatest talents.
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy – Perhaps the darkest and yet most powerful book about parenthood. A father fights to keep his boy alive in a post-apocalyptic world.
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace – As long as it is brilliant and funny. Most people can’t finish it as it seems, well, infinite. Considered the hallmark novel of Generation X, Wallace’s critique of technology and our obsession with entertainment only grows more relevant each year.

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Best Books of all Time: 14 Greatest Books Ever Written

Posted by Why Read | Jun 22, 2015 | Best Selling Books , Classic Books , Fantasy Books

To rank the best books of all time, there are many criteria to consider. Are these books ranked based on sales, revenue, longevity or user reviews and ratings? One of the best ways to find out whether a book is worth reading, is a recommendation from a book lover.

WhytoRead is graced by thousands of book lovers everyday, finding new books to read and recommending them to their friends and family. So we decided the best way to rank the best books of all time, would be to use Goodreads and Amazon ratings and reviews. The top books have the best positive reviews and the greatest number of votes as the best book of all time on Goodreads.

1. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Best Books of all Time

Suzanne Collins narrative here has an immediacy to it that, when combined with the very dramatic life-or-death plot, is incredibly compelling. It’s entertaining, and incredibly disturbing all at once. A true page turner, and a very watchable movie series.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Best Books of all Time

From the opening line of the book, “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow…” Lee hooks the reader with a deceptively simple story of a Southern family and a Southern town caught up in a cataclysmic moral crisis, and keeps us enthralled till the very last word.

3. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Best Books of all Time

4. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis

Best Books of all Time

Four adventurous siblings—Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie—step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.

C.S. Lewis wrote a masterpiece which has stood the test of time and proven to be one of the best books of all time.

5. Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Best Books of all Time

6. Animal Farm – George Orwell

Best Books of all Time

In Animal Farm, Orwell tried to depict a totalitarian state, where the truth didn’t exist as such, but was merely what the “Big Brother” said it was. Freedom was only total obedience to the Party, and love an alien concept, unless it was love for the Party. This book will make you realize the world isn’t as fair as you thought.

7. The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein

best ten books ever written

The Giving Tree is a beautiful book about a tree who loves a little boy. In the beginning, the love the two share is enough to make them both happy. As the boy grows older, his needs change and the tree gives him everything in order to help him achieve happiness. When the boy is gone and the tree is left with nothing, she is happy, but not really.

Eventually the boy returns and the tree has nothing left to give, but the boy has changed and no longer wants anything from the tree other than the companionship they once shared, and both are happy once again.

8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

(As featured in 15 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once In Their Life )

This book is not only a good book to read for teens, but everyone should read this book at least once in their life . Adams’ peculiar humour also draws deeply from the well of sociology,  philosophy , and  science . Beneath the surface of utter hilarity, Adams actually used his sarcasm and wit to make some rather poignant statements about this silly thing called life and the manner in which we are going about living it.

9. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

Best Books of all Time

The Book Thief describes that while being subjected to the horrors of World War II Germany, young Liesel finds solace by stealing books and sharing them with others.

10. Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë

Best Books of all Time

11. The Da Vinci Code  –  Dan Brown

Best Books of all Time

Dan Brown’s, The Da Vinci Code , is great fun, a real page turner and, in the course being entertaining it stimulates the reader to investigate a number of subjects that he might never have considered. Not only is this one of the best selling books of all time , it has also been voted as one of the best books of all time by its readers. A great achievement for an author who continues to write best sellers.

12. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

best ten books ever written

Arthur Golden, a student of Japanese art and language, paints a remarkably true-sounding account of one woman’s training and practice as a geisha. There’s not a false note in the writing: The characters, dialogue, and emotional content all ring true. Aside from some slightly plodding descriptions of the protagonist’s introduction to the geisha district of Gion, the pacing is excellent.

13. The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Best Books of all Time

14.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings –  J.R.R. Tolkien

best ten books ever written

There is absolutely no way to produce a fantasy books list without J.R.R. Tolkiens  fantasy epic  The Lord of the Rings .

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them” .

Undoubtedly one of the top three fantasy books and one of the best books of all time.

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Composite for the 100 best nonfiction books of all time list

The 100 best nonfiction books of all time: the full list

After two years of careful reading, moving backwards through time, Robert McCrum has concluded his selection of the 100 greatest nonfiction books. Take a quick look at five centuries of great writing

  • Robert McCrum reflects on his 100 greatest nonfiction books list
  • The 100 best novels written in English: the full list
  • What did Robert miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments

1. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014) An engrossing account of the looming catastrophe caused by ecology’s “neighbours from hell” – mankind.

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005) This steely and devastating examination of the author’s grief following the sudden death of her husband changed the nature of writing about bereavement.

3. No Logo by Naomi Klein (1999) Naomi Klein’s timely anti-branding bible combined a fresh approach to corporate hegemony with potent reportage from the dark side of capitalism.

4. Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes (1998) These passionate, audacious poems addressed to Hughes’s late wife, Sylvia Plath, contribute to the couple’s mythology and are a landmark in English poetry.

5. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama (1995) This remarkably candid memoir revealed not only a literary talent, but a force that would change the face of US politics for ever.

6. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1988) The theoretical physicist’s mega-selling account of the origins of the universe is a masterpiece of scientific inquiry that has influenced the minds of a generation.

7. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979) Tom Wolfe raised reportage to dazzling new levels in his quest to discover what makes a man fly to the moon.

8. Orientalism by Edward Said (1978) This polemical masterpiece challenging western attitudes to the east is as topical today as it was on publication.

9. Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977) A compelling sense of urgency and a unique voice make Herr’s Vietnam memoir the definitive account of war in our time.

10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins (1976) An intoxicating renewal of evolutionary theory that coined the idea of the meme and paved the way for Professor Dawkins’s later, more polemical works.

Tom Wolfe.

11. North by Seamus Heaney (1975) This raw, tender, unguarded collection transcends politics, reflecting Heaney’s desire to move “like a double agent among the big concepts”.

12. Awakenings by Oliver Sacks (1973) Sacks’s moving account of how, as a doctor in the late 1960s, he revived patients who had been neurologically “frozen” by sleeping sickness reverberates to this day.

13. The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer (1970) The Australian feminist’s famous polemic remains a masterpiece of passionate free expression in which she challenges a woman’s role in society.

14. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn (1969) This passionate account of how rock’n’roll changed the world was written with the wild energy of its subject matter.

15. The Double Helix by James D Watson (1968) An astonishingly personal and accessible account of how Cambridge scientists Watson and Francis Crick unlocked the secrets of DNA and transformed our understanding of life.

16. Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag (1966) The American novelist’s early essays provide the quintessential commentary on the 1960s.

17. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1965) The groundbreaking collection, revolving around the poet’s fascination with her own death, established Plath as one of the last century’s most original and gifted poets.

18. The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (1963) The book that ignited second-wave feminism captured the frustration of a generation of middle-class American housewives by daring to ask: “Is this all?”

19. The Making of the English Working Class by EP Thompson (1963) This influential, painstakingly compiled masterpiece reads as an anatomy of pre-industrial Britain – and a description of the lost experience of the common man.

20. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) This classic of American advocacy sparked a nationwide outcry against the use of pesticides, inspired legislation that would endeavour to control pollution, and launched the modern environmental movement in the US.

Susan Sontag 1975

21. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S Kuhn (1962) The American physicist and philosopher of science coined the phrase “paradigm shift” in a book that is seen as a milestone in scientific theory.

22. A Grief Observed by CS Lewis (1961) This powerful study of loss asks: “Where is God?” and explores the feeling of solitude and sense of betrayal that even non-believers will recognise.

23. The Elements of Style by William Strunk and EB White (1959) Dorothy Parker and Stephen King have both urged aspiring writers towards this crisp guide to the English language where brevity is key.

24. The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith (1958) An optimistic bestseller, in which JFK’s favoured economist promotes investment in both the public and private sectors.

25. The Uses of Literacy: Aspects of Working-Class Life by Richard Hoggart (1957) This influential cultural study of postwar Britain offers pertinent truths on mass communication and the interaction between ordinary people and the elites.

26. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1955) Baldwin’s landmark collection of essays explores, in telling language, what it means to be a black man in modern America.

27. The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art by Kenneth Clark (1956) Clark’s survey of the nude from the Greeks to Picasso foreshadows the critic’s towering claims for humanity in his later seminal work, Civilisation.

28. The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin (1953) The great historian of ideas starts with an animal parable and ends, via a dissection of Tolstoy’s work, in an existential system of thought.

29. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952/53) A bleakly hilarious, enigmatic watershed that changed the language of theatre and still sparks debate six decades on. An absurdist masterpiece.

30. A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (1950) This landmark recipe book, a horrified reaction to postwar rationing, introduced cooks to the food of southern Europe and readers to the art of food writing.

American novelist, writer, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist James Baldwin in 1979.

31. The Great Tradition by FR Leavis (1948) The controversial critic’s statement on English literature is an entertaining, often shocking, dissection of the novel, whose effects are still felt to this day.

32. The Last Days of Hitler by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1947) The historian’s vivid, terrifying account of the Führer’s demise, based on his postwar work for British intelligence, remains unsurpassed.

33. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946) The groundbreaking manual urged parents to trust themselves, but was also accused of being the source of postwar “permissiveness”.

34. Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946) Hersey’s extraordinary, gripping book tells the personal stories of six people who endured the 1945 atom bomb attack.

35. The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper (1945) The Austrian-born philosopher’s postwar rallying cry for western liberal democracy was hugely influential in the 1960s.

36. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth by Richard Wright (1945) This influential memoir of a rebellious southern boyhood vividly evokes the struggle for African American identity in the decades before civil rights.

37. How to Cook a Wolf by MFK Fisher (1942) The American culinary icon was one of the first writers to use food as a cultural metaphor, describing the sensual pleasures of the table with elegance and passion.

38. Enemies of Promise by Cyril Connolly (1938) Connolly’s dissection of the art of writing and the perils of the literary life transformed the contemporary English scene.

39. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell (1937) Orwell’s unflinchingly honest account of three northern towns during the Great Depression was a milestone in the writer’s political development.

40. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron (1937) Much admired by Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, Byron’s dazzling, timeless account of a journey to Afghanistan is perhaps the greatest travel book of the 20th century.

George Orwell At A TypewriterCaption: George Orwell, British writer and journalist, at a typewriter (Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

41. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936) The original self-help manual on American life – with its influence stretching from the Great Depression to Donald Trump – has a lot to answer for.

42. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (1933) Brittain’s study of her experience of the first world war as a nurse and then victim of loss remains a powerful anti-war and feminist statement.

43. My Early Life: A Roving Commission by Winston Churchill (1930) Churchill delights with candid tales of childhood and boy’s own adventures in the Boer war that made him a tabloid hero.

44. Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves (1929) Graves’s account of his experiences in the trenches of the first world war is a subversive tour de force.

45. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1929) Woolf’s essay on women’s struggle for independence and creative opportunity is a landmark of feminist thought.

46. The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922) Eliot’s long poem, written in extremis, came to embody the spirit of the years following the first world war.

47. Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed (1919) The American socialist’s romantic account of the Russian revolution is a masterpiece of reportage.

48. The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes (1919) The great economist’s account of what went wrong at the Versailles conference after the first world war was polemical, passionate and prescient.

49. The American Language by HL Mencken (1919) This declaration of linguistic independence by the renowned US journalist and commentator marked a crucial new chapter in American prose

50. Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey (1918) Strachey’s partisan, often inaccurate but brilliant demolitions of four great 19th-century Britons illustrates life in the Victorian period from different perspectives.

Virginia Woolf, pictured in 1933.

51. The Souls of Black Folk by WEB Du Bois (1903) The great social activist’s collection of essays on the African American experience became a founding text of the civil rights movement.

52. De Profundis by Oscar Wilde (1905) There is a thrilling majesty to Oscar Wilde’s tormented tour de force written as he prepared for release from Reading jail.

53. The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James (1902) This revolutionary work written by Henry James’s less famous brother brought a democratising impulse to the realm of religious belief.

54. Brief Lives by John Aubrey, edited by Andrew Clark (1898) Truly ahead of his time, the 17th-century historian and gossip John Aubrey is rightly credited as the man who invented biography.

55. Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S Grant (1885) The civil war general turned president was a reluctant author, but set the gold standard for presidential memoirs, outlining his journey from boyhood onwards.

56. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (1883) This memoir of Samuel Clemens’s time as a steamboat pilot provides insight into his best-known characters, as well as the writer he would become.

57. Travels With a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson (1879) The Scottish writer’s hike in the French mountains with a donkey is a pioneering classic in outdoor literature – and as influential as his fiction.

58. Nonsense Songs by Edward Lear (1871) The Victorians loved wordplay, and few could rival this compendium of verbal delirium by Britain’s “laureate of nonsense”.

59. Culture and Anarchy by Matthew Arnold (1869) Arnold caught the public mood with this high-minded but entertaining critique of Victorian society posing questions about the art of civilised living that still perplex us.

60. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859) Darwin’s revolutionary, humane and highly readable introduction to his theory of evolution is arguably the most important book of the Victorian era.

American writer and satirist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by pen name Mark Twain.

61. On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (1859) This fine, lucid writer captured the mood of the time with this spirited assertion of the English individual’s rights.

62. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands by Mary Seacole (1857) A gloriously entertaining autobiography by the widely revered Victorian sometimes described as “the black Florence Nightingale”.

63. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell (1857) Possibly Gaskell’s finest work – a bold portrait of a brilliant woman worn down by her father’s eccentricities and the death of her siblings.

64. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (1854) This account of one man’s rejection of American society has influenced generations of free thinkers.

65. Thesaurus by Dr Peter Mark Roget (1852) Born of a Victorian desire for order and harmony among nations, this guide to the English language is as unique as it is indispensable.

66. London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew (1851) The influence of the Victorian journalist’s detailed, dispassionate descriptions of London lower-class life is clear, right up to the present day.

67. Household Education by Harriet Martineau (1848) This protest at the lack of women’s education was as pioneering as its author was in Victorian literary circles.

68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass (1845) This vivid memoir was influential in the abolition of slavery, and its author would become one of the most influential African Americans of the 19th century.

69. Essays by RW Emerson (1841) New England’s inventor of “transcendentalism” is still revered for his high-minded thoughts on individuality, freedom and nature expressed in 12 essays.

70. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Frances Trollope (1832) Rich in detail and Old World snobbery, Trollope’s classic travelogue identifies aspects of America’s national character still visible today.

Frederick Douglass, pictured in 1855.

71. An American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster (1828) Though a lexicographical landmark to stand alongside Dr Johnson’s achievement, the original sold only 2,500 copies and left its author in debt.

72. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey (1822) An addiction memoir, by the celebrated and supremely talented contemporary of Coleridge and Wordsworth, outlining his life hooked on the the drug.

73. Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807) A troubled brother-and-sister team produced one of the 19th century’s bestselling volumes and simplified the complexity of Shakespeare’s plays for younger audiences.

74. Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park (1799) The Scottish explorer’s account of his heroic one-man search for the river Niger was a contemporary bestseller and a huge influence on Conrad, Melville and Hemingway.

75. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin (1793) The US founding father’s life, drawn from four different manuscripts, combines the affairs of revolutionary America with his private struggles.

76. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) This radical text attacked the dominant male thinkers of the age and laid the foundations of feminism.

77. The Life of Samuel Johnson LLD by James Boswell (1791) This huge work is one of the greatest of all English biographies and a testament to one of the great literary friendships.

78. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke (1790) Motivated by the revolution across the Channel, this passionate defence of the aristocratic system is a landmark in conservative thinking.

79. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano (1789) The most famous slave memoir of the 18th century is a powerful and terrifying read, and established Equiano as a founding figure in black literary tradition.

80. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne by Gilbert White (1789) This curate’s beautiful and lucid observations on the wildlife of a Hampshire village inspired generations of naturalists.

“Mary Wollstonecraft.

81. The Federalist Papers by ‘Publius’ (1788) These wise essays clarified the aims of the American republic and rank alongside the Declaration of Independence as a cornerstone of US democracy.

82. The Diary of Fanny Burney (1778) Burney’s acutely observed memoirs open a window on the literary and courtly circles of late 18th-century England.

83. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1776-1788) Perhaps the greatest and certainly one of the most influential history books in the English language, in which Gibbon unfolds the narrative from the height of the Roman empire to the fall of Byzantium.

84. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776) Blending history, philosophy, psychology and sociology, the Scottish intellectual single-handedly invented modern political economy.

85. Common Sense by Tom Paine (1776) This little book helped ignite revolutionary America against the British under George III.

86. A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson (1755) Dr Johnson’s decade-long endeavour framed the English language for the coming centuries with clarity, intelligence and extraordinary wit.

87. A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume (1739) This is widely seen as the philosopher’s most important work, but its first publication was a disaster.

88. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (1729) The satirist’s jaw-dropping solution to the plight of the Irish poor is among the most powerful tracts in the English language.

89. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain by Daniel Defoe (1727) Readable, reliable, full of surprise and charm, Defoe’s Tour is an outstanding literary travel guide.

90. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke (1689) Eloquent and influential, the Enlightenment philosopher’s most celebrated work embodies the English spirit and retains an enduring relevance.

Samuel Johnson, circa 1754.

91. The Book of Common Prayer by Thomas Cranmer (1662) Cranmer’s book of vernacular English prayer is possibly the most widely read book in the English literary tradition.

92. The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys (1660) A portrait of an extraordinary Englishman, whose scintillating firsthand accounts of Restoration England are recorded alongside his rampant sexual exploits.

93. Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or A Brief Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk by Sir Thomas Browne (1658) Browne earned his reputation as a “writer’s writer” with this dazzling short essay on burial customs.

94. Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651) Hobbes’s essay on the social contract is both a founding text of western thought and a masterpiece of wit and imagination.

95. Areopagitica by John Milton (1644) Today, Milton is remembered as a great poet. But this fiery attack on censorship and call for a free press reveals a brilliant English radical.

96. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne (1624) The poet’s intense meditation on the meaning of life and death is a dazzling work that contains some of his most memorable writing.

97. The First Folio by William Shakespeare (1623) The first edition of his plays established the playwright for all time in a trove of 36 plays with an assembled cast of immortal characters.

98. The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621) Burton’s garrulous, repetitive masterpiece is a compendious study of melancholia, a sublime literary doorstop that explores humanity in all its aspects.

99. The History of the World by Walter Raleigh (1614) Raleigh’s most important prose work, close to 1m words in total, used ancient history as a sly commentary on present-day issues.

100. King James Bible: The Authorised Version (1611) It is impossible to imagine the English-speaking world celebrated in this series without the King James Bible, which is as universal and influential as Shakespeare.

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Epic Tales: The 10 Best-Selling Fantasy Books Ever Written

Quick links, a song of ice and fire by george r. r. martin - 60 million copies, discworld by terry pratchett - 80 million copies, the wheel of time by robert jordan and brandon sanderson - 80 million copies, twilight by stephenie meyer - 100+ million copies, the chronicles of narnia by c. s. lewis - 100+ million copies, le petit prince (the little prince) by antoine de saint-exupéry - 140 million copies, the hobbit by j.r.r. tolkien - 142 million copies, the lord of the rings by j.r.r. tolkien - 150 million copies, harry potter series by j.k. rowling - 500 million copies.

In the already  enchanting realm of literature , imagination knows no bounds, and fantasy books have long held a special place in the hearts of readers. These captivating tales transport readers to magical worlds, introduce them to mythical creatures, and immerse them in epic adventures that defy the constraints of reality. Today, let’s embark on a journey through the pages of literary history to unveil the top 10 best-selling fantasy books ever written.

George R. R. Martin's series, A Song of Ice and Fire, is believed to have achieved an astonishing 60 million copies in global sales. This remarkable number is undoubtedly bolstered by the anticipation he builds through the extended gaps between his book releases. The inaugural entry in the series , A Game of Thrones, hit the shelves in 1996. Subsequently, A Clash of Kings arrived in 1998, and the third volume, A Storm of Swords, enthralled readers with its twists and turns in 2000. Devotees had to exercise patience until 2005 to delve into the fourth installment, A Feast For Crows, and endure another six years for the arrival of A Dance With Dragons.

Terry Pratchett, a literary genius and a true titan in the world of fantasy literature, left an indelible mark on the literary landscape with his beloved Discworld series. Debuting in 1983 with The Colour of Magic, the Discworld series took readers on an unforgettable journey to a flat, disc-shaped world carried through space on the back of four giant elephants, who in turn stand atop Great A'Tuin, a colossal turtle. Spanning an impressive 41 volumes, this series is believed to have reached sales of over 80 million copies across the globe.

Having garnered an impressive sales figure of more than 80 million copies to date, The Wheel of Time stands as one of the most beloved fantasy novel series of all time. The visionary mind behind the series, Robert Jordan, passed away in 2007 -- but left behind a substantial body of work for Brandon Sanderson to conclude the epic tale. Sanderson contributed three additional novels to the series: The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers of Midnight (2010), and A Memory of Light (2013).

Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles has achieved tremendous success as a series of novels, a film (notorious for the questionable choice of Tom Cruise as the French nobleman-vampire, Lestat De Lioncourt), and a television series. The series remains a testament to the enduring appeal of dark fantasy and the enduring power of Anne Rice's storytelling, promising to enchant readers for generations to come. With a whopping 80 million copies sold to date, it's unlikely that Rice's works will fade into obscurity any time soon.

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The books that launched the careers of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have garnered immense popularity and widespread critical acclaim across the globe. They have received numerous awards and have contributed to writer Stephenie Meyer amassing a personal fortune estimated at approximately $120 million. Her storytelling talent, combined with an ability to tap into the emotional core of her audience, set Stephenie Meyer apart as a writer capable of crafting stories that resonate on a profound level .

C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia retains its spot as a timeless and enduring classic in the world of children's literature, captivating readers with its magical world and profound themes. With over 100 million copies sold worldwide, this series has found its way into the hearts and imaginations of generations of readers, young and old alike. The series weaves themes of courage, sacrifice, redemption, and the battle between light and darkness throughout its narratives, providing readers with not only an exciting adventure but also valuable life lessons.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's most beloved masterpiece, The Little Prince, deserves special recognition as one of the few standalone entries on this list. Despite lacking an extensive franchise , Saint-Exupéry's expert fusion of fantasy, philosophy, and magical realism successfully sold more than 140 million copies across the globe. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's masterpiece remains a storied testament to the enduring power of storytelling and the ability of a single work to touch the hearts and minds of millions.

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For more than 70 years -- before Peter Jackson brought the world of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, and others to the silver screen -- J.R.R. Tolkien was effectively piquing interest in Middle Earth entirely on his own. Featuring tales of battles, adventures, dwarves, wizards, dragons, and elves, The Hobbit ticks all the boxes you'd anticipate in an epic fantasy novel, and the outcomes are self-evident. At present, J.R.R. Tolkien's magnum opus has been sold in the vicinity of 142 million copies all over the world.

Narrowly surpassing its predecessor is another creation by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings. This grand high fantasy novel initially started as a humble sequel to Tolkien's prior work -- but evolved into something considerably more extensive, significantly longer, and somewhat more popular, as evidenced by sales in excess of 150 million copies. In addition, Tolkien’s masterful approach to fantasy has led to the inclusion of the terms "Tolkienian" and "Tolkienesque" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Who better to claim the top spot on this list than J.K. Rowling's bespectacled hero, Harry Potter? With a staggering 500 million copies sold worldwide , Rowling's creation not only leads the chart for best-selling fantasy, but reigns supreme across all genres. The film adaptations of the books have enjoyed comparable blockbuster status, with all eight installments pulling in colossal box office revenues. The ultimate entry in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 holds the eleventh position among the highest-grossing films of all time.

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Epic Tales: The 10 Best-Selling Fantasy Books Ever Written

The 10 best football books EVER

Going away and need a holiday read? After the perfect gift idea? FFT has you covered, with our definitive list of the 10 best football books ever written

Liverpool v Arsenal, Michael Thomas avoids the challenge of Ray Houghton to score Arsenal's last minute title winning goal.

What are the best football books ever?

If you only had to take a handful of books to a desert island, these are the ones you should be packing. 

The following top 10 represent the greatest football books ever published. How many of them have you read?

1. I Think Therefore I Play

Andrea Pirlo, 2014

Former Milan and Juventus midfielder Andrea Pirlo’s tome  I Think Therefore I Play  is short, sharp, but packed to bursting with everything you want. Clocking in at only 150 pages, you could read it in the time it takes Pirlo to misplace two passes.

From transfers that never happened – including Pirlo nearly joining Barcelona and a fascinating description of Pep Guardiola’s office – to playing PlayStation hours before winning the World Cup, the book is a fascinating, non-linear route into the mind of football’s greatest wine-loving luxury.

There are points where he descends into pseudo-intellectual self-parody – like describing the warm-up as “nothing but masturbation for conditioning coaches” – but  I Think Therefore I Play  is the perfect distillation of what a football autobiography should be.

2. How Not To Be A Professional Footballer

Paul Merson, 2011

Forget about literary grandeur: Merse’s painfully honest rollercoaster ride through almost every level of English football won’t change the way you feel about the game. But it will take you on a mesmerising jaunt from the highs at trophy-winning Arsenal, to the lows of dealing with the intense pressures at the pinnacle of our national obsession.

From gambling away his wages to going straight at Villa and Pompey, Merson’s ‘lad banter’ balances out the sad self-destruction of the  Soccer Saturday  heavyweight, providing the inside line on that ruinous drinking culture inherent to the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. 

3. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw

The Robin Friday Story – Paolo Hewitt & Paul McGuigan, 1998

Drinking binges, drug-fuelled rages, disappearing acts, jail sentences, an outrageous talent squandered, and a shockingly early death amid suspicious circumstances: meet Reading and Cardiff ’70s cult hero Robin Friday – football’s Keith Moon.

The Friday legend is perpetuated by the fact that so little footage of him remains. He spent his entire career in the lower leagues, and despite extensive research, Hewitt unearthed only a few grainy images of him in action.

But team-mates vouch for Friday’s unorthodox brand of genius. He set the tone after his Reading debut in 1973. When asked if he was satisfied with his debut goal, he replied: “Yeah, I could have back-heeled it in actually, but I thought that might be taking the p*** a bit.”

4. Fear And Loathing in La Liga

Barcelona vs Real Madrid – Sid Lowe, 2013

You might find this hard going at first, but stick with it. There’s much to be fascinated by in each club’s humble beginnings; of General Franco and the Catalan resistance; of Madrid’s mercurial Alfredo Di Stefano; of Barça’s brilliant László Kubala and his escape from Hungary dressed as a Russian soldier.

As Lowe digs deeper you’ll find interviews with legendary representatives on either side of the divide – Di Stefano, Johan Cruyff, Zinedine Zidane and Hristo Stoichkov. Yet these are all just characters in a much greater story, one in which each side has grown to despise and yet need the other to further validate its ideals.

5. The Damned United

David Peace, 2006

Peace described  The Damned Utd  as an “occult history of Leeds United”, but it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a brutally powerful first-person stream-of-consciousness based around Brian Clough’s 44-day stint at the club he hated, attempting to replace the manager he despised, Don Revie.

Peace maintains a taut rhythm by alternating italicised flashbacks to Clough’s stressful but successful rise to the top of management (and rancorous rivalry with Revie) with day-by-day descriptions of the six weeks at Leeds, all in the present tense (and boy, is it tense).

It’s not an accurate history – Johnny Giles sued and won – but it’s acutely moving, a terrifying glimpse into the mind of a man going mad. 

6. Inverting The Pyramid

The History Of Football Tactics – Jonathan Wilson, 2008

Tracing the development of various tactics over the last century and a half, Wilson spins a consistently interesting tale spanning various continents and fascinating characters who have helped football gradually invert the pyramid – from the attack-minded 2-3-5 to the sole strikers and packed back halves of today.

It’s to Wilson’s credit that although long, it’s far from dry. He rails against the British game’s entrenched anti-intellectualism and stages a passionate takedown of the statistical misreadings upon which Charles Reep and Charles Hughes did so much damage.

And although it may not be entirely new, all-encompassing or unarguable, it’s a thoroughly entertaining education for anyone wishing to be an internet quarterback.

7. All Played Out

The Story Of Italia 90  – Pete Davies, 1990 

This riveting, passionately written inside story of the England team and its fans during Italia 90 made ‘football literature’ mean more than daft ghosted biographies. “There had been good football books before,” recalls Davies, “but they were rare, and there’d been bugger all in the 1980s. 

“I wanted football to have a proper place in popular culture; I thought someone should say ‘Not all of us are lunatics. We have legitimate emotional reasons for watching this game, which is incredibly important culturally and matters to everyone in the world.’”

Even more remarkable than winning the trust of England boss Bobby Robson and his players was persuading a major publisher to take a gamble on a genre that didn’t yet exist. Davies then wrote the book in just eight weeks after the World Cup, in order to hit the Christmas market. “It’s still incredibly vivid to me,” he adds. “I’ll never forget being in Turin.” 

8. Fever Pitch

Nick Hornby, 1993

A completely original book. Hornby didn’t start the new wave of football writing – Pete Davies did – but he was the first British writer to examine the apparently unremarkable experience of being a fan.

Following the theory of fandom as therapy, Hornby describes how he used Arsenal to escape from his parents’ divorce, problems with women, the question of what to do with his life, and so on. He treats his fandom as a problem, as something not entirely healthy. This set him apart from the previous notion of fandom as a hobby, and from his imitators who wrote cutesy accounts of watching bad football in the rain without any of Hornby’s honesty about their own lives.

It helps that Fever Pitch is hilarious and beautifully written and that it offers a social history of Britain from the 1960s through to the early 1990s. Its only flaw is its formlessness: it’s a book to dip in rather than to read through. 

9. Football Against The Enemy

Simon Kuper, 1994

For better or worse, the modern football fan knows at least a little about much more than was the case in the mid-90s. It’s hard for many to imagine a time before the mass-market penetration of the internet and satellite broadcasters, when foreigners were still a tiny minority in the British game. Such was the inevitably parochial climate into which Simon Kuper launched his debut book – part anthropology, part travelogue, all fascinating – on football rivalries around the world.

“I had mixed feelings when I began work on the book,” confesses Kuper. “I felt that the whole thing might be too big for me, and I was concerned about what friends would say when they read it. Yet I also had a sort of blind confidence in my writing ability. An established author probably wouldn’t have taken on such a project. It’s the sort of thing that a young writer needed to do.”

With a small(ish) £5,000 budget, the 22-year-old set off on a Palinesque jaunt which saw him visit 22 countries in a crazy nine-month period – “I’d go around Europe for three months, using mainly Inter Rail tickets, then come home to London and wash my clothes, fly to Cameroon, come home and then fly off to South Africa.”

His aim? “To investigate precisely how politics and football intertwined throughout the world. It was a subject that always fascinated me, and I was conscious that such a book hadn’t been written before.”

In the course of his epic adventure, he interviewed an eclectic mix of players and officials, including an Argentine general with unique views on the way the game should be played, a Berliner who’d suffered persecution at the hands of the Stasi simply because he supported his local team, and most bizarrely, Cameroon star Roger Milla, who had made headlines with his attempts to organise a tournament for pygmy tribes. 

Kuper planned the trip carefully, but the actual interviewing process was distinctly ad hoc. “In the pre-internet age, it could be difficult. I’d arrive in Argentina, speak to someone in basic Spanish, and arrange to meet the friend of a friend. At first, I had a vague idea of meeting up with people in bars, but I quickly realised that I needed to be far more proactive in speaking to people. Sometimes I just got lucky, and bumped into people in airport queues – like a Dynamo Kiev official who spoke perfect English.”

Groundbreaking though Kuper’s book is, he denies that it was responsible for the mushrooming of more insightful football literature. “Nick Hornby and Pete Davies created the idea in publishers’ minds that football books could be good and sell, not me. Maybe I did influence some authors to carry out studies on football in other countries, but the process of excellent books being published was already under way.”

Two decades after the book’s publication, saturation football coverage and internet access means that fans are far more cosmopolitan in their outlooks than ever before. However, Football Against The Enemy remains the only book to take a definitive sweep on world football, and explain how political and cultural issues influence the game across the globe. Jon Spurling

10. Provided You Don't Kiss Me

20 Years With Brian Clough – Duncan Hamilton, 2007

“I didn’t need a f**king motivational talk tonight. I just had to show them the s**t you’d written. Now, I’ve got a message for you. Take your f**king portable typewriter and stick it up your arse. You’re banned. You’re f**king banned for ever from this ground. F**king for ever.”

Two days later, Brian Clough would call Duncan Hamilton at the Nottingham Evening Post and say, “Don’t be such a stupid bugger. I didn’t mean it. Come down here and we’ll have a drink. Fancy a glass of champagne?”

Hamilton recalls, “I stayed well into the autumn afternoon and left hopelessly drunk on Bell’s Whisky. We never got to the champagne. My notebook was choked with stories.”

This anecdote, thrown almost carelessly into the prologue, reveals Hamilton’s skill at capturing the essence of Brian Clough: the good, the bad and the ugly. Indeed, the first 30 pages of Provided You Don’t Kiss Me are among the best of any book, sports or otherwise, written in the past decade. When Hamilton recalls how this stammering teenage journalist first met Clough to interview him, only to find himself being quizzed instead, we are in the room, hearing Clough’s nasal tone, seeing him bounce a squash ball on the head of a racquet.

Crucially, though, and despite the book being based on his own experiences across 20 years of professional intimacy with Clough at Nottingham Forest , Hamilton doesn’t dominate the narrative. He knows who’s the star of the show. It’s the man who’d start singing just so people would look at him.

Naturally the book is bursting with anecdotes, and unlike the after-dinner exaggerations shared by some of Clough’s former colleagues, they’re diverse, heartfelt and true.

We learn the reason for Forest’s training trips to Scarborough – Peter Taylor, Clough’s assistant manager and the yin to his yang, had a flat there and wouldn’t hire a furniture van – and see examples of Clough’s generosity, but not without tales of his pigheadedness and pride. While the book is often hilarious, Hamilton’s accounts of Clough’s spectacular falling-out with Taylor, his descent into alcoholism and his death are heartbreaking.

But Hamilton doesn’t just tell stories. He presents an enduring character study of a man who cared deeply about other people while being driven by a need to prove them wrong; a man “obsessed with money, as if he feared he might wake up one morning and find himself a pauper again”; a man just as proud of reaching cup finals with a patchwork Forest side and no facilities as he was of winning two European Cups during richer times.

Clough even becomes a sort of father figure to Hamilton, albeit one feeding him whisky for breakfast. The author was right to drop strict chronology and instead, in his own words, make “each chapter about a different piece of him”. 

Football is still paramount. The book brings alive Forest’s European successes when, Clough says, “no one gave us a prayer” – you sense he’d love what Leicester are doing, albeit while claiming he did it better – as well as his mixed experiences with Derby , Brighton and Leeds . Through recollections of little measures taken, such as sitting off-form or out-of-favour players next to him on the bench for “the best coaching lesson of them all”, we learn how Clough was both unique and successful.

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Ed McCambridge

Ed is a staff writer at FourFourTwo, working across the magazine and website. A German speaker, he’s been working as a football reporter in Berlin since 2015, predominantly covering the Bundesliga and Germany's national team. Favourite FFT features include an exclusive interview with Jude Bellingham following the youngster’s move to Borussia Dortmund in 2020, a history of the Berlin Derby since the fall of the Wall and a celebration of Kevin Keegan’s playing career.

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Our recommended books this week run the gamut from a behind-the-scenes look at the classic film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to a portrait of suburbia in decline to a collection of presidential love letters with the amazing title “Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?” (That question comes from a mash note written by Woodrow Wilson.) In fiction, we recommend debuts from DéLana R.A. Dameron, Alexander Sammartino and Rebecca K Reilly, alongside new novels by Cormac James, Ashley Elston and Kristin Hannah. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

COCKTAILS WITH GEORGE AND MARTHA: Movies, Marriage and the Making of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Philip Gefter

Rarely seen diary entries from the screenwriter who adapted Edward Albee’s Broadway hit are a highlight of this unapologetically obsessive behind-the-scenes look at the classic film starring the super-couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

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“Showed how the ‘cartoon versions of marriage’ long served up by American popular culture ... always came with a secret side of bitters.”

From Alexandra Jacobs’s review

Bloomsbury | $32

TRONDHEIM Cormac James

James’s new novel is a deep dive into a family navigating a crisis. It follows two mothers waiting in the I.C.U. to see if their son will wake up from a coma, and through that framework, explores their lives, their relationship, their beliefs and much more.

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“Hospital time has a particular and peculiar quality, and ‘Trondheim’ is dedicated to capturing the way it unfolds.”

From Katie Kitamura’s review

Bellevue Literary Press | Paperback, $17.99

REDWOOD COURT DéLana R.A. Dameron

This richly textured and deeply moving debut novel begins with an innocuous question: “What am I made of?” From there, a young Black girl in South Carolina begins to grapple with — and attempt to make sense of — a complicated family history and her place in it.

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“Dameron is a prizewinning poet and it shows: She does a beautiful job weaving in local vernacular and casting a fresh gaze on an engaging, though flawed, cast of characters.”

From Charmaine Wilkerson’s review

Dial Press | $28

LAST ACTS Alexander Sammartino

In this hilarious debut, a young man moves in with his father after a near-fatal overdose and decides to help save the family business, a Phoenix gun shop facing foreclosure. Their idea is to pledge a cut of every sale to fighting drug addiction, but they soon find themselves mired in controversy.

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“Sammartino is extraordinarily good at balancing the farcical nature of contemporary America with the complex humanity of his characters. He’s also a magnificent sentence writer.”

From Dan Chaon’s review

Scribner | $27

DISILLUSIONED: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs Benjamin Herold

Once defined by big homes, great schools and low taxes, the country’s suburbs, Herold shows in this dispiriting but insightful account, were poorly planned and are now saddled with poverty, struggling schools, dilapidated infrastructure and piles of debt.

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“An important, cleareyed account of suburban boom and bust, and the challenges facing the country today.”

From Ben Austen’s review

Penguin Press | $32

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE STORM OF LOVE MAKING? Letters of Love and Lust From the White House Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

This charming collection features presidents from Washington to Obama writing about courtship, marriage, war, diplomacy, love, lust and loss, in winningly besotted tones.

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“Answers the question ‘What does a president in love sound like?’ with a refreshing ‘Just as dopey as anybody else.’ ... It is a lovely book, stuffed with romantic details.”

From W.M. Akers’s review

Simon & Schuster | $28.99

GRETA & VALDIN Rebecca K Reilly

Reilly’s generous, tender debut novel follows the exploits of two queer New Zealand 20-something siblings from a hodgepodge, multicultural family as they navigate the chaos of young adulthood, and as they come closer to understanding themselves and their desires.

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“If this novel shows us anything, it’s that love — of family, of romantic partners, of community — is most joyful when it’s without limits.”

From Eleanor Dunn’s review

Avid Reader Press | $28

THE WOMEN Kristin Hannah

In her latest historical novel, Hannah shows the Vietnam War through the eyes of a combat nurse. But what the former debutante witnesses and experiences when she comes home from the war is the true gut punch of this timely story.

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“The familiar beats snare you from the outset. ... Hannah’s real superpower is her ability to hook you along from catastrophe to catastrophe, sometimes peering between your fingers, because you simply cannot give up on her characters.”

From Beatriz Williams’s review

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FIRST LIE WINS Ashley Elston

In Elston’s edgy, smart thriller, Evie Porter has just moved in with her boyfriend, a hunky Louisiana businessman. Sadly for him, their relationship is likely to be short-lived, because she’s a criminal and he’s her latest mark.

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“Evie makes for a winning, nimble character. Elston raises the stakes with unexpected developments.”

From Sarah Lyall’s thrillers column

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Want to know about the best books to read and the latest news start here..

In her new memoir, “Splinters,” the essayist Leslie Jamison  recounts the birth of her child  and the end of her marriage.

The Oscar-nominated film “Poor Things” is based on a 1992 book by Alasdair Gray. Beloved by writers, it was never widely read  but is now ripe for reconsideration.

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In Lucy Sante’s new memoir, “I Heard Her Call My Name,” the author reflects on her life and embarking on a gender transition  in her late 60s.

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    The Talented Mr. Ripley (B&N Exclusive Edition) By Patricia Highsmith In Stock Online Many of us dream of winning the lottery and changing our lives. Some of us fantasize about being another person; losing one's identity to someone else "better."

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    1 The Iliad / The Odyssey Homer 860 votes Iliad and Odyssey combines Homer's two epic poems in one book. 2 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky 2,786 votes Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866.

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  18. The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written

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    Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë. This books is a sweeping, disturbing, intense, thrilling, very romantic gothic love story, written in the voice of a very intense, almost claustrophobically self-aware young heroine. One of the most popular classics and voted for as one of the top 10 best books of all time. The Da Vinci Code -.

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