ReadingRate · Best Books · 2026

The 100 best books from France

The 100 best books from France, ranked by literary regard. Difficulty and reading-time estimates where measured.

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection. Ranked by literary regard, French literature's best runs from Proust's In Search of Lost Time and Flaubert's Madame Bovary through Camus, Hugo, and Stendhal. This list ranks the top French works in ReadingRate's catalogue, with difficulty scores and reading-time estimates for each.

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible works currently in the catalogue for this selection. This is a computed ranking ordered by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent.

About 953 hours for 99 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use a 250-word-per-minute baseline adjusted for each book's difficulty. At two hours a day, about 477 days for those books.

1–10

1. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (1913, difficulty 7.1/10, 19 hours)
2. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (2016, difficulty 7.8/10, 13 hours)
3. Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (1975, difficulty 7.1/10, 11 hours)
4. Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida (1967, difficulty 8.5/10, 20 hours)
5. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction by Michel Foucault (1976, difficulty 8.1/10, 4.8 hours)
6. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason by Michel Foucault (1961, difficulty 7.4/10, 8.6 hours)
7. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857, difficulty 7.1/10, 10 hours)
8. The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942, difficulty 6.4/10, 2.6 hours)
9. Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust (1919, difficulty 6.7/10, 19 hours)
10. Writing and Difference by Jacques Derrida (1967, difficulty 8.6/10, 18 hours)

11–20

11. The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust (1920, difficulty 7.8/10, 24 hours)
12. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862, difficulty 6.4/10, 39 hours)
13. Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre (1943, difficulty 7.8/10, 30 hours)
14. Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (1532, difficulty 6.9/10, 26 hours)
15. Discourse on the Method by René Descartes (1637, difficulty 3.5/10, 1.3 hours)
16. Écrits by Jacques Lacan (1966, difficulty 9.4/10, 18 hours)
17. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences by Michel Foucault (1966, difficulty 8.3/10, 17 hours)
18. Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust (1921, difficulty 7.2/10, 24 hours)
19. Time Regained by Marcel Proust (1927, difficulty 7.8/10, 13 hours)
20. S/Z by Roland Barthes (1970, difficulty 8.2/10, 9 hours)

21–30

21. Tartuffe by Molière (1669, difficulty 4.8/10, 1.3 hours)
22. The Bourgeois Gentleman by Molière (1670, difficulty 4.6/10, 1.2 hours)
23. Image-Music-Text by Roland Barthes (1977, difficulty 7.1/10, 5.7 hours)
24. Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon (1952, difficulty 5.8/10, 6.1 hours)
25. The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust (1923, difficulty 7.3/10, 24 hours)
26. Pensées by Blaise Pascal (1670, difficulty 4.9/10, 6.3 hours)
27. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu (1979, difficulty 7.7/10, 23 hours)
28. Candide by Voltaire (1759, difficulty 6.2/10, 5.9 hours)
29. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo (1831, difficulty 6.1/10, 14 hours)
30. Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze (1972, difficulty 8.8/10, 19 hours)

31–40

31. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (1835, difficulty 6.2/10, 24 hours)
32. The Misanthrope by Molière (1666, difficulty 5.6/10, 1.3 hours)
33. Bérénice by Jean Racine (1670, difficulty 4.1/10, 48 min)
34. Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975, difficulty 8.6/10, 3 min)
35. The Miser by Molière (1668, difficulty 4.3/10, 1.5 hours)
36. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961, difficulty 5.7/10, 6.3 hours)
37. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes (1980, difficulty 6.6/10, 1.9 hours)
38. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949, difficulty 5.8/10, 21 hours)
39. Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1982, difficulty 8.2/10, 16 hours)
40. Essays by Michel de Montaigne (1580, difficulty 4.8/10, 34 hours)

41–50

41. The Theatre and Its Double by Antonin Artaud (1938, difficulty 7.4/10, 8 hours)
42. The Plague by Albert Camus (1947, difficulty 5.3/10, 6.6 hours)
43. The Fall by Albert Camus (1956, difficulty 6.2/10, 2.3 hours)
44. Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert (1877, difficulty 7.4/10, 4.2 hours)
45. Le Cid by Pierre Corneille (1637, difficulty 4.7/10, 1.2 hours)
46. Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (1869, difficulty 6.8/10, 13 hours)
47. No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (1944, difficulty 5.4/10, 5.8 hours)
48. W, or the Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec (1975, difficulty 8.2/10, 4.4 hours)
49. The Imaginary Invalid by Molière (1673, difficulty 4.6/10, 1.6 hours)
50. Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac (1835, difficulty 5.5/10, 7.4 hours)

51–60

51. The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1830, difficulty 6.4/10, 14 hours)
52. Andromaque by Jean Racine (1667, difficulty 4.3/10, 55 min)
53. Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782, difficulty 6.9/10, 29 hours)
54. Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782, difficulty 4.0/10, 3.1 hours)
55. A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes (1977, difficulty 7.8/10, 3 min)
56. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (1938, difficulty 5.9/10, 6 hours)
57. Mythologies by Roland Barthes (1957, difficulty 6.4/10, 3.8 hours)
58. Structure, Sign, and Play by Jacques Derrida (1972, difficulty 8.7/10)
59. The Savage Mind by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1962, difficulty 5.2/10, 7.4 hours)
60. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt by Albert Camus (1951, difficulty 6.6/10, 8.1 hours)

61–70

61. Preface to Cromwell by Victor Hugo (1827, difficulty 5.1/10, 1.7 hours)
62. Phèdre by Jean Racine (1677, difficulty 4.4/10, 52 min)
63. Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac (1843, difficulty 5.6/10, 18 hours)
64. Les Contemplations by Victor Hugo (1856, difficulty 4.9/10, 3.7 hours)
65. L'Assommoir by Émile Zola (1877, difficulty 4.8/10, 6.2 hours)
66. Happening by Annie Ernaux (2000, difficulty 6.6/10, 1.5 hours)
67. Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau (1947, difficulty 5.9/10, 1.9 hours)
68. Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre (1946, difficulty 4.6/10, 1.8 hours)
69. The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal (1839, difficulty 6.2/10, 15 hours)
70. Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil (1947, difficulty 7.5/10, 5.2 hours)

71–80

71. The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco (1950, difficulty 5.4/10, 3.7 hours)
72. Britannicus by Jean Racine (1669, difficulty 4.7/10, 59 min)
73. Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1932, difficulty 6.9/10, 15 hours)
74. Emile, or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762, difficulty 4.0/10, 12 hours)
75. The World Republic of Letters by Pascale Casanova (1999, difficulty 7.1/10, 9.3 hours)
76. The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir (1947, difficulty 5.8/10, 3.2 hours)
77. The Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes (1973, difficulty 7.7/10, 2.8 hours)
78. Persian Letters by Montesquieu (1721, difficulty 6.3/10, 6.4 hours)
79. A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze (1980, difficulty 9.3/10, 22 hours)
80. Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson (1907, difficulty 6.0/10, 8.7 hours)

81–90

81. The Flanders Road by Claude Simon (1960, difficulty 6.6/10, 6.7 hours)
82. Waiting for God by Simone Weil (1950, difficulty 6.5/10, 6.6 hours)
83. A Void by Georges Perec (1969, difficulty 8.3/10, 8.6 hours)
84. The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord (1967, difficulty 7.4/10, 2.4 hours)
85. Time and Narrative by Paul Ricoeur (1984, difficulty 8.2/10, 7.6 hours)
86. The Laugh of the Medusa by Hélène Cixous (1975, difficulty 7.7/10, 1.1 hours)
87. Salammbô by Gustave Flaubert (1862, difficulty 4.7/10, 6.9 hours)
88. Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac (1833, difficulty 4.8/10, 5 hours)
89. Life A User's Manual by Georges Perec (1978, difficulty 7.3/10, 18 hours)
90. Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus (1957, difficulty 5.6/10, 3.6 hours)

91–100

91. Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss (1955, difficulty 6.1/10, 12 hours)
92. Life Is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera (1973, difficulty 7.1/10, 7.8 hours)
93. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (1942, difficulty 6.0/10, 4.1 hours)
94. A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes (1979, difficulty 7.3/10, 5.4 hours)
95. The School for Wives by Molière (1662, difficulty 3.0/10, 1.2 hours)
96. The Vatican Cellars by André Gide (1914, difficulty 6.7/10, 5.9 hours)
97. The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre (1945, difficulty 6.9/10, 9.8 hours)
98. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844, difficulty 4.7/10, 27 hours)
99. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera (1979, difficulty 5.9/10, 4.6 hours)
100. Athalie by Jean Racine (1691, difficulty 5.1/10, 1.2 hours)