The 100 Best Books of All Time

The 100 Best Books of All Time

The World Library is a list of the 100 best books, as proposed by one hundred writers from fifty-four different countries, compiled and organized in 2002 by the Norwegian Book Club. This list endeavours to reflect world literature, with books from all countries, cultures, and time periods. Eleven of the books included on the list are written by women, eighty-five are written by men and four have unknown authors. Each writer had to select his or her own list of ten books. The books selected by this process and listed here are not ranked or categorized in any way; the organizers have stated that "they are all on an equal footing," with the exception of Don Quixote which was given the distinction "best literary work ever written." The following list organizes the works alphabetically by author.

List of the 100 Best Books of All Time

Title Things Fall Apart Fairy tales Author Achebe, ChinuaChinua Achebe Andersen, Hans ChristianHans Christian Andersen Alighieri, DanteDante Alighieri Unknown 1958 183537 Year Nigeria Denmark Country Language English Danish

The Divine Comedy Epic of Gilgamesh

12651321 18th 17th century BCE 6th 4th century BCE 7001500

Italy Sumer and Akkadian Empire

Italian Akkadian

Book of Job

Unknown

Achaemenid Empire

Hebrew

One Thousand and One Nights Njl's Saga Pride and Prejudice Le Pre Goriot Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, a trilogy The Decameron Ficciones Wuthering Heights The Stranger Poems Journey to the End of the Night Don Quixote

Unknown

India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt/Tajikistan Persian

Unknown Austen, JaneJane Austen de Balzac, HonorHonor de Balzac Beckett, SamuelSamuel Beckett

13th century 1813 1835 195153

Iceland United Kingdom France Republic of Ireland

Old Norse English French French, English Italian Spanish English French German French

Boccaccio, GiovanniGiovanni Boccaccio Borges, Jorge LuisJorge Luis Borges Bront, EmilyEmily Bront Camus, AlbertAlbert Camus Celan, PaulPaul Celan Cline, Louis-FerdinandLouis-Ferdinand Cline Cervantes, Miguel deMiguel de Cervantes

134953 194486 1847 1942 1952 1932

Ravenna Argentina United Kingdom Algeria, French Empire Romania, France France

1605 (part 1), 1615 (part 2) 14th century 1886 1904 1861 1796

Spain

Spanish

The Canterbury Tales Stories Nostromo Great Expectations Jacques the Fatalist

Chaucer, GeoffreyGeoffrey Chaucer Chekhov, AntonAnton Chekhov Conrad, JosephJoseph Conrad Dickens, CharlesCharles Dickens Diderot, DenisDenis Diderot

England Russia United Kingdom United Kingdom France

English Russian English English French

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1929 1866 1869 1872 1880 1871 1952 431 BCE 1936 1929 1857 1869 1928 Germany Russia Russia Russia Russia United Kingdom United States Greece United States United States France France Spain German Russian Russian Russian Russian English English Greek English English French French Spanish

Berlin Alexanderplatz Crime and Punishment The Idiot The Possessed The Brothers Karamazov Middlemarch Invisible Man Medea Absalom, Absalom! The Sound and the Fury Madame Bovary Sentimental Education Gypsy Ballads

Dblin, AlfredAlfred Dblin Dostoevsky, FyodorFyodor Dostoevsky Dostoevsky, FyodorFyodor Dostoevsky Dostoevsky, FyodorFyodor Dostoevsky Dostoevsky, FyodorFyodor Dostoevsky Eliot, GeorgeGeorge Eliot Ellison, RalphRalph Ellison Euripides Faulkner, WilliamWilliam Faulkner Faulkner, WilliamWilliam Faulkner Flaubert, GustaveGustave Flaubert Flaubert, GustaveGustave Flaubert Lorca, Federico GarcaFederico Garca Lorca Mrquez, Gabriel GarcaGabriel Garca Mrquez Mrquez, Gabriel GarcaGabriel Garca Mrquez Goethe, Johann Wolfgang vonJohann Wolfgang von Goethe Gogol, NikolaiNikolai Gogol Grass, GnterGnter Grass Guimares Rosa, JooJoo Guimares Rosa

One Hundred Years of Solitude Love in the Time of Cholera

1967

Colombia

Spanish

1985

Colombia

Spanish

Faust

1832

Saxe-Weimar

German

Dead Souls The Tin Drum The Devil to Pay in the Backlands Hunger The Old Man and the Sea Iliad Odyssey A Doll's House Ulysses Stories The Trial The Castle Shakuntala

1842 1959 1956

Russia Germany Brazil

Russian German Portuguese

Hamsun, KnutKnut Hamsun Hemingway, ErnestErnest Hemingway Homer Homer Ibsen, HenrikHenrik Ibsen Joyce, JamesJames Joyce Kafka, FranzFranz Kafka Kafka, FranzFranz Kafka Kafka, FranzFranz Kafka Klidsa

1890 1952 760710 BC 8th century BCE 1879 1922 1924 1925 1926 1st century BCE 4th century CE 1954 1946 1913 193435 1818 1962

Norway United States Greece Greece Norway Irish Free State Austria Austria Austria India

Norwegian English Greek Greek Norwegian English German German German Sanskrit

The Sound of the Mountain Zorba the Greek Sons and Lovers Independent People Poems The Golden Notebook

Kawabata, YasunariYasunari Kawabata Kazantzakis, NikosNikos Kazantzakis Lawrence, D. H.D. H. Lawrence Laxness, HalldrHalldr Laxness Leopardi, GiacomoGiacomo Leopardi Lessing, DorisDoris Lessing

Japan Greece United Kingdom Iceland Italy United Kingdom

Japanese Greek English Icelandic Italian English

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1945 1918 1959 1901 1924 1851 1595 1974 1987 11th century 193032 1955 1949 1st century CE Sweden China Egypt Germany Germany United States France Italy United States Japan Austria Russia/United States United Kingdom Roman Empire Swedish Chinese Arabic German German English French Italian English Japanese German English English Classical Latin Portuguese English French French

Pippi Longstocking A Madman's Diary Children of Gebelawi Buddenbrooks The Magic Mountain Moby-Dick Essays History Beloved The Tale of Genji The Man Without Qualities Lolita Nineteen Eighty-Four Metamorphoses

Lindgren, AstridAstrid Lindgren Xun, LuLu Xun Mahfouz, NaguibNaguib Mahfouz Mann, ThomasThomas Mann Mann, ThomasThomas Mann Melville, HermanHerman Melville Montaigne, Michel deMichel de Montaigne Morante, ElsaElsa Morante Morrison, ToniToni Morrison Shikibu, MurasakiMurasaki Shikibu Musil, RobertRobert Musil Nabokov, VladimirVladimir Nabokov Orwell, GeorgeGeorge Orwell Ovid

The Book of Disquiet Tales In Search of Lost Time

Pessoa, FernandoFernando Pessoa Poe, Edgar AllanEdgar Allan Poe Proust, MarcelMarcel Proust

1928 19th century 191327 153234

Portugal United States France France

The Life of Gargantua and of Rabelais, FranoisFranois Rabelais Pantagruel Pedro Pramo Masnavi Midnight's Children Bostan Season of Migration to the North Blindness Hamlet King Lear Othello Oedipus the King The Red and the Black Tristram Shandy Confessions of Zeno Gulliver's Travels War and Peace Anna Karenina The Death of Ivan Ilyich Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Rulfo, JuanJuan Rulfo Rumi Rushdie, SalmanSalman Rushdie Saadi Salih, TayebTayeb Salih

1955 125873 1981 1257 1966

Mexico Persia, Persian Empire United Kingdom, India Persia, Persian Empire Sudan

Spanish Persian English Persian Arabic

Saramago, JosJos Saramago Shakespeare, WilliamWilliam Shakespeare Shakespeare, WilliamWilliam Shakespeare Shakespeare, WilliamWilliam Shakespeare Sophocles Stendhal Sterne, LaurenceLaurence Sterne Svevo, ItaloItalo Svevo Swift, JonathanJonathan Swift Tolstoy, LeoLeo Tolstoy Tolstoy, LeoLeo Tolstoy Tolstoy, LeoLeo Tolstoy Twain, MarkMark Twain

1995 1603 1608 1609 430 BCE 1830 1760 1923 1726 18651869 1877 1886 1884

Portugal England England England Greece France England Italy Ireland Russia Russia Russia United States

Portuguese English English English Greek French English Italian English Russian Russian Russian English

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5th century BCE 4th century BCE 2919 BCE India Sanskrit

Ramayana

Valmiki

Aeneid

Virgil

Roman Empire

Classical Latin Sanskrit

Mahabharata

Vyasa

9th century BCE 5th century BCE 1855 1925 1927 1951

India

Leaves of Grass Mrs Dalloway To the Lighthouse Memoirs of Hadrian

Whitman, WaltWalt Whitman Woolf, VirginiaVirginia Woolf Woolf, VirginiaVirginia Woolf Yourcenar, MargueriteMarguerite Yourcenar

United States United Kingdom United Kingdom France

English English English French

List of Authors Surveyed

Name Aitmatov, ChinghizChinghiz Aitmatov Altan, AhmetAhmet Altan Appelfeld, AharonAharon Appelfeld Auster, PaulPaul Auster Aza, Flix deFlix de Aza Barnes, JulianJulian Barnes Behbahani, SiminSimin Behbahani Bly, RobertRobert Bly Brink, AndrAndr Brink Brgger, SuzanneSuzanne Brgger Byatt, A. S.A. S. Byatt Carey, PeterPeter Carey Cerda, MarthaMartha Cerda Chang, JungJung Chang Cond, MaryseMaryse Cond Couto, MiaMia Couto Crace, JimJim Crace Danticat, EdwidgeEdwidge Danticat Dao, BeiBei Dao Djebar, AssiaAssia Djebar Dowlatabadi, MahmoudMahmoud Dowlatabadi Echenoz, JeanJean Echenoz Ekman, KerstinKerstin Ekman Englander, NathanNathan Englander Country Kyrgyzstan Turkey Israel United States Spain United Kingdom Iran United States South Africa Denmark United Kingdom Australia Mexico China/United Kingdom France Mozambique United Kingdom Haiti China Algeria Iran France Sweden United States

Enzensberger, Hans MagnusHans Magnus Enzensberger Germany Estvez, EmilioEmilio Estvez Cuba

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Somalia Norway Norway New Zealand United States Mexico Palestine India Spain South Africa Israel Iceland Ireland Germany Bosnia-Herzegovina United States Zimbabwe Egypt United States Sweden Turkey Norway Czech Republic/France Finland United Kingdom Germany United Kingdom Sweden Estonia Lebanon/France Italy United States Argentina Ireland/United States India Brazil India/Canada Saudi-Arabia Romania

Farah, NuruddinNuruddin Farah Flgstad, KjartanKjartan Flgstad Fosse, JonJon Fosse Frame, JanetJanet Frame French, MarilynMarilyn French Fuentes, CarlosCarlos Fuentes Ghazzawi, IzzatIzzat Ghazzawi Ghosh, AmitavAmitav Ghosh Gimferrer, PerePere Gimferrer Gordimer, NadineNadine Gordimer Grossman, DavidDavid Grossman Gumundsson, Einar MrEinar Mr Gumundsson Heaney, SeamusSeamus Heaney Hein, ChristophChristoph Hein Hemon, AleksandarAleksandar Hemon Hoffman, AliceAlice Hoffman Hove, ChenjeraiChenjerai Hove Ibrahim, SonallahSonallah Ibrahim Irving, JohnJohn Irving Jersild, P. C.P. C. Jersild Kemal, YasarYasar Kemal Kjrstad, JanJan Kjrstad Kundera, MilanMilan Kundera Lander, LeenaLeena Lander le Carr, JohnJohn le Carr Lenz, SiegfriedSiegfried Lenz Lessing, DorisDoris Lessing Lindgren, AstridAstrid Lindgren Luik, ViiviViivi Luik Maalouf, AminAmin Maalouf Magris, ClaudioClaudio Magris Mailer, NormanNorman Mailer Martnez, Toms EloyToms Eloy Martnez McCourt, FrankFrank McCourt Mehta, GitaGita Mehta Miranda, AnaAna Miranda Mistry, RohintonRohinton Mistry Munif, Abdel RahmanAbdel Rahman Munif Mller, HertaHerta Mller

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Trinidad/United Kingdom Netherlands Nigeria/United Kingdom Turkey United States United States Russia Brazil France India/United Kingdom Egypt Lebanon Syria Sweden United States Nigeria Switzerland United Kingdom Italy Iraq United Kingdom United Kingdom Denmark Russia Indonesia Poland France Belgium Turkey Spmi Greece Zimbabwe United Kingdom Germany Israel Afghanistan

Naipaul, V. S.V. S. Naipaul Nooteboom, CeesCees Nooteboom Okri, BenBen Okri Pamuk, OrhanOrhan Pamuk Paretsky, SaraSara Paretsky Phillips, Jayne AnneJayne Anne Phillips Rasputin, ValentinValentin Rasputin Ribeiro, Joo UbaldoJoo Ubaldo Ribeiro Robbe-Grillet, AlainAlain Robbe-Grillet Rushdie, SalmanSalman Rushdie Saadawi, Nawal ElNawal El Saadawi al-Shaykh, HananHanan al-Shaykh Sirees, NihadNihad Sirees Sonnevi, GranGran Sonnevi Sontag, SusanSusan Sontag Soyinka, WoleWole Soyinka Spth, GeroldGerold Spth Swift, GrahamGraham Swift Tabucchi, AntonioAntonio Tabucchi al-Tikerly, FouadFouad al-Tikerly Thomas, D. M.D. M. Thomas Thorpe, AdamAdam Thorpe Thorup, KirstenKirsten Thorup Tkachenko, AleksandrAleksandr Tkachenko Toer, Pramoedya AnantaPramoedya Ananta Toer Tokarczuk, OlgaOlga Tokarczuk Tournier, MichelMichel Tournier Toussaint, Jean-PhilippeJean-Philippe Toussaint Uzun, MehmedMehmed Uzun Valkeap, Nils-AslakNils-Aslak Valkeap Vassilikos, VassilisVassilis Vassilikos Vera, YvonneYvonne Vera Weldon, FayFay Weldon Wolf, ChristaChrista Wolf Yehoshua, A. B.A. B. Yehoshua Zarib, SpjmaSpjma Zarib

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References External links

Official site (http://www.evene.fr/livres/selection/les-100-meilleurs-livres-de-tous-les-temps.php?) (French) The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews) Norwegian Book Club's World Library (http://www.bokklubben.no/SamboWeb/side.do?rom=WB)
(Norwegian)

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors

The 100 Best Books of All Time Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=592303513 Contributors: -liaez-, Anthrophilos, BD2412, Bladesmulti, Cdizzle1992, Chickenmonkey, Columbopatton, DerechoReguerraz, Dftylr, Discospinster, EamonnPKeane, Evelyn Waugh, Faizan, Feydey, Flare111, Fraggle81, Gidonb, Gilliam, Glane23, Goethean, Goustien, Gregcaletta, I1990k, Indopug, Inhighspeed, Jamesx12345, JustAGal, Kibiusa, Koresdcine, Lmviterbo, Maine12329, Maltaboy101, Mediator Scientiae, Mogism, NCDane, Orland, Pembers, Permikrishna, Pgilman, Phoenix79, Qwerty Binary, Shearonink, ShelfSkewed, Slavcyo, Srich32977, Stefanomione, Tassedethe, Teasey21, The dark lord trombonator, ThisMakesNoSenseToUs, Thryduulf, Timohuatl, Varlaam, Whitebit, WikiDao, Yintan, Zanyplebeian, 240 anonymous edits

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