Discover the best books

The 100 best books of all time, the best from 14 countries and every winner of 17 literary prizes. Each book is scored for how hard it is and how long it takes, so you can pick one you will finish.

The 100 best books of all time

Ranked by literary regard: the canon, the critics and the curricula. Each list below narrows the same ranking to one country or one kind of book.

1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare — difficulty 67/100, about 3.1 hours
2. Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri — difficulty 67/100, about 11 hours
3. Ulysses by James Joyce — difficulty 89/100, about 47 hours

The whole list

By country

• The best books from Italy — 97 books, 759 hours, opens with Divine Comedy
• Russian literature: the best books from Russia — 79 books, 614 hours, opens with Anna Karenina
• French literature: the best books from France — 100 books, 782 hours, opens with In Search of Lost Time
• The best books from Japan — 80 books, 565 hours, opens with The Tale of Genji
• The best books from the United States — 100 books, 827 hours, opens with Moby-Dick
• The best books from Britain — 100 books, 905 hours, opens with Hamlet
• The best books from Ireland — 100 books, 729 hours, opens with Ulysses
• German literature: the best books from Germany — 84 books, 861 hours, opens with Mother Courage and Her Children
• The best books from Canada — 100 books, 687 hours, opens with The Handmaid's Tale
• The best books from Spain — 94 books, 666 hours, opens with Don Quixote
• Polish literature: the best books from Poland — 66 books, 615 hours, opens with Heart of Darkness
• The best books from India — 82 books, 704 hours, opens with Mahabharata
• The best books from China — 85 books, 950 hours, opens with Dream of the Red Chamber
• The best books from Australia — 80 books, 585 hours, opens with Voss

More ways in

• The best books by women — 100 books, 747 hours, opens with Beloved
• The best books that are easy to read — 81 books, 372 hours, opens with The Peloponnesian War
• The hardest books to read — 100 books, 1,502 hours, opens with Finnegans Wake

Every winner of 17 prizes

The Nobel, the Booker, the Pulitzer and 14 more, every winner since 1901, with the shortlist of the prize being decided now.

The Booker Prize 2026 is decided on Monday 9 November 2026

6 books on the shortlist. The most approachable is The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout; the hardest, The End of Everything by M. John Harrison.

• The End of Everything by M. John Harrison — difficulty 64/100
• The Disappearers by Marlon James — difficulty 60/100
• Black Bag by Luke Kennard — difficulty 52/100, about 5.8 hours
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry — difficulty 45/100, about 5.2 hours
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout — difficulty 35/100, about 3.5 hours
• John of John by Douglas Stuart — difficulty 35/100, about 6.3 hours

Every Booker winner

The winners of 2026

10 prizes have named a 2026 winner; still to come: the Booker, the National Book Award and the National Book Award (Nonfiction).

• Nobel Prize in Literature: Anne Carson — difficulty 66/100
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Angel Down by Daniel Kraus — difficulty 41/100, about 5.7 hours
• International Booker Prize: Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi — difficulty 59/100, about 6.5 hours
• Women's Prize for Fiction: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans — difficulty 43/100, about 5.2 hours
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow — difficulty 49/100, about 6.4 hours
• Nebula Award for Best Novel: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones — difficulty 62/100, about 12 hours
• Prix Goncourt: L'Inconnue du quai de Javel by Philippe Jaenada
• Dublin Literary Award: Gliff by Ali Smith — difficulty 54/100, about 3.7 hours
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Small Scale Sinners by Mahreen Sohail — difficulty 44/100, about 4.8 hours
• Albert J. Beveridge Award: The Home Front by Lauren Duval

All the winners of 2026

Every prize: Nobel Prize in Literature, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, International Booker Prize, National Book Award for Fiction, Women's Prize for Fiction, Hugo Award for Best Novel, Nebula Award for Best Novel, Prix Goncourt, Dublin Literary Award, PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, National Book Award for Nonfiction, Costa Novel Award, Albert J. Beveridge Award, Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction. All awards.

The lists of record

Modern Library 100 Best Novels, TIME All-TIME 100 Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, BBC Big Read Top 100, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Open Syllabus Top 500 - Literature, Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World; the publishers' series; each year's best; the set texts of school systems. These books are on the most of them.

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — on 7 of 8 rankings
• 1984 by George Orwell — on 7 of 8 rankings
• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie — on 7 of 8 rankings
• Ulysses by James Joyce — on 6 of 8 rankings
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov — on 6 of 8 rankings
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner — on 6 of 8 rankings
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck — on 6 of 8 rankings
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger — on 6 of 8 rankings

Every list: Modern Library 100 Best Novels, TIME All-TIME 100 Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, BBC Big Read Top 100, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Open Syllabus Top 500 - Literature, Bokklubben World Library, Great Books of the Western World, Penguin Classics Collection, Penguin Modern Classics, NYRB Classics, Everyman's Library, Library of America, Biblioteca Ayacucho, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Heinemann African Writers Series, Oxford World's Classics, UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, NYT 100 Notable Books 2024 - Fiction, The Guardian Best Books 2024, The New Yorker Best Books 2024, NPR Best Books 2024, The Times Best Books 2024, NYT 100 Notable Books 2023 - Fiction, Oprah's Book Club, Reese's Book Club. All lists.

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