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Book Depository, Best Books Ever [2012]

102 entries: 96 monographical, six otherwise

Ranked

This list offered by the Book Depository, the British online book seller owned by an American online book seller, has been dated based upon the most-recent book in the list; the article itself is undated and no longer available except via the Internet Archive. Whoever made this list also created an alternate list based on votes from users, entitled Your Best Books Ever. We could include that list only as an extension of the original, since by itself it does not meet our criteria. For now, it is put aside. In neither case does the article provide any indication of the persons involved or when and how they made their choices.

  1. Gabriel García Márquez

    2. Cien Anõs de Soledad
    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    1967—Spanish

  2. F Scott Fitzgerald

    3. Tender Is the Night
    originally published serially Jan.-Apr. 1934 in Scribner's Magazine—English

  3. Emily Brontë

    4. Wuthering Heights
    originally published 1847 under the pseudonym, Ellis Bell; revised 1850—English

  4. Jane Austen

    5. Pride and Prejudice
    originally anonymously published 1813—English

  5. Charles Dickens

    6. Our Mutual Friend
    originally published serially May 1864-Nov. 1865—English

  6. Truman Capote

    7. Breakfast at Tiffany's
    originally published 1958 in Esquire—English

  7. Roald Dahl

    8. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
    1977—English

  8. Gustave Flaubert

    9. Madame Bovary
    originally published serially Oct. 1856-Dec. 1856 in La Revue de Paris—French

  9. Oscar Wilde

    10. The Picture of Dorian Grey
    originally published Jul. 1890 in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine; revised and expanded 1891; alternate earlier version published 2011—English

  10. Homer

    11. Iliad
    ca. Ninth-Eighth centuries B C#151;Greek

  11. Leo Tolstoy

    12. Voskresenie
    Resurrection
    1899—Russian

  12. Joseph Heller

    13. Catch-22
    1961—English

  13. Ernest Hemingway

    14. The Sun Also Rises
    1926—English

  14. Erich Maria Remarque

    15. Im Westen Nichts Neues
    All Quiet on the Western Front
    originally published Dec. 1928 in Vossische Zeitung—German

  15. Miguel de Cervantes

    16. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha
    Don Quixote
    originally published in two volumes, 1605 and 1615—Spanish

  16. George Orwell

    17. Homage to Catalonia
    1938—English

    Ursula K Le Guin
  17. A Wizard of Earthsea

    18. 1968—English

  18. The Tombs of Atuan

    19. 1971—English

  19. The Farthest Shore

    20. 1972—English

  20. Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea

    21. 1990—English

  21. Kurt Vonnegut
    Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
    1969—English

    • Philip Pullman

    Grimm Tales: For Young and Old
    2012; U S version entitled, Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm; new versions of the German-language original stories—English

    Charles Perrault
    • The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault

    22. 1977; translations by Angela Carter; includes nearly all of Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé, 1867—French

  22. Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé

    23. Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye
    1867—French

  23. Martin Amis

    24. Money
    1984—English

  24. P G Wodehouse

    25. Carry On, Jeeves
    1925—English

  25. Mary Shelley

    26. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
    originally anonymously published 1818—English

  26. Ray Bradbury

    27. Fahrenheit 451
    published in part, Feb. 1951, as 'The Fireman' in Galaxy Science Fiction; in its entirety, 1953—English

  27. John Steinbeck

    28. The Grapes of Wrath
    1939—English

  28. Ann Patchett

    29. Bel Canto
    2001—English

  29. Stephen King

    30. It
    1986—English

  30. George Eliot

    31. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
    originally published serially Dec. 1871-Dec. 1872—English

  31. Murakami Haruki

    32. Nejimaki-Dori Kuronikuru
    The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
    originally published in three volumes, 1994-5—Japanese

  32. Michael Ondaatje

    33. The English Patient
    1992—English

  33. Markus Zusak

    34. The Book Thief
    2005—English

  34. Émile Zola

    35. Thérèse Raquin
    originally published serially 1867 in L'Artiste—French

  35. Norman Mailer

    36. The Naked and the Dead
    1948—English

  36. Angela Carter
    The Magic Toyshop
    1967—English

    • Philip Pullman

    37. Northern Lights
    1995; U S title, The Golden Compass; first of three volumes of His Dark Materials—English

  37. Thomas Hardy

    38. Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented
    published in part serially Jul.-Dec. 1891 in the Graphic—English

  38. Daphne du Maurier

    39. Rebecca
    1938—English

  39. J D Salinger

    40. Franny and Zooey
    1961; 'Franny' originally published Jan. 1955 in the New Yorker; 'Zooey' originally published May 1957 in the New Yorker—English

  40. Georges Bataille

    41. L'Histoire d'Oeil
    Story of the Eye
    originally published 1928 under the pseudonym, Lord Auch; revised 1940—French

  41. Louis-Ferdinand Céline

    42. Voyage au Bout de la Nuit
    Journey to the End of Night
    1932—French

    Lewis Carroll
  42. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

    43. 1865—English

  43. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

    44. 1871—English

  44. Vikram Seth

    45. A Suitable Boy
    1993—English

  45. Salman Rushdie

    46. Midnight's Children
    1981—English

  46. Vladimir Nabokov

    47. Lolita
    1955—English

  47. Donna Tartt

    48. The Secret History
    1992—English

  48. Kazuo Ishiguro

    49. The Remains of the Day
    1989—English

  49. Joseph Conrad

    50. Heart of Darkness
    originally published serially Feb.-Apr. 1899 in Blackwood's—English

  50. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    51. Le Petit Prince
    1943—French

  51. John Kennedy Toole

    52. A Confederacy of Dunces
    written early 1960's; published 1980—English

  52. Victor Hugo

    53. Les Misérables
    1862—French

  53. Honoré de Balzac

    54. Illusions Perdues
    Lost Illusions
    1837-43—French

  54. Stendhal

    55. Le Rouge et le Noir, Chronique du XIXe Siècle
    The Red and the Black
    1830—French

  55. Fyodor Dostoevsky
    Idiot
    originally published serially 1868-9 in Rússkij Véstnik—Russian

    • Anton Chekhov

    56. Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
    2000—Russian

  56. Plato

    57. Politeia
    The Republic
    early Fourth Century B C#151;Greek

  57. Henry David Thoreau

    58. Walden; or, Life in the Woods
    1854—English

  58. Albert Camus

    59. L'Étranger
    The Stranger
    1942—French

  59. James Joyce

    60. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
    originally published serially Feb. 1914-Sep. 1915, in the Egoist—English

  60. Sigmund Freud

    61. Das Unbewusste
    The Unconscious
    1915—German

  61. Karl Marx

    62. Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie
    written ca. 1858; published 1939—German

  62. Niccolò Machiavelli

    63. Il Principe
    The Prince
    1532—Italian

  63. Herman Melville

    64. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
    1851—English

  64. Sūnzǐ (Sun-tzu)

    65. Sūnzǐ Bīngfǎ
    The Art of War
    written ca. Fifth-Third centuries B C—Chinese

  65. John Green
    The Fault in Our Stars
    2012—English

    • Carl Jung; Joseph L Henderson; Marie-Louise von Franz; Aniela Jaffé; Jolande Jacobi

    66. Man and His Symbols
    1964—English

  66. Voltaire

    67. Candide, ou L'Optimisme
    1759—French

  67. Charles Darwin

    68. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
    1859—English

  68. Robert Caro
    The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
    1982—English

    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    69. Faust. Der Tragödie Erster Teil
    first of two volumes of Faust; published in part, 1790; in its entirey, 1808; revised 1829; second volume, Faust. Der Tragödie Zweiter Teil, 1832

  69. Ken Kesey

    70. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
    1962—English

  70. Toni Morrison

    71. Beloved
    1987—English

  71. John Irving

    72. A Prayer for Owen Meaney
    1989—English

  72. James Baldwin

    73. Another Country
    1962—English

  73. Maya Angelou

    74. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
    1969—English

  74. Jaroslav Hasek

    75. Osudy Dobrého Vojáka Švejka za Svetové Války
    The Good Soldier Švejk
    1923—Czech

  75. Franz Kafka

    76. Die Verwandlung
    The Metamorphosis
    originally published 1915 in Die Weißen Blätter—German

  76. Samuel Beckett

    77. Watt
    published in part, 1950, in Envoy; in its entirety, 1953—English

  77. Jack London

    78. The Call of the Wild
    originally published serially 1903 in the Saturday Evening Post—English

  78. Baruch Spinoza

    79. Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata
    Ethics
    1677—Latin

  79. Thomas Hobbes

    80. Leviathan or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil
    1651—English

  80. Daniel Defoe

    81. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner
    originally anonymously published 1719—English

  81. Robert Graves

    82. I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B C, Murdered and Deified A D 54
    1934—English

  82. Philip Roth

    83. Portnoy's Complaint
    1969—English

  83. Raymond Chandler

    84. The Long Goodbye
    1953—English

  84. William Styron

    85. Sophie's Choice
    1979—English

  85. Christopher Isherwood

    86. Goodbye to Berlin
    1939—English

  86. Art Spiegelman

    87. Maus
    originally published serially 1980-91 in Raw; published in book form in two volumes: Maus: A Survivor's Tale, 1986; and And Here My Troubles Began, 1991;—English

  87. Rachel Carson

    88. Silent Spring
    originally published Jun. 1962 in the New Yorker—English

  88. Robert Hughes

    89. The Shock of the New: Art and the Century of Change
    1980; book accompanying television series of the same name—English

  89. James Agee

    90. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
    1941; photography by Walker Evans—English

  90. Edward Said

    91. Orientalism
    1978—English

  91. Hannah Arendt

    92. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
    originally published 1963 in the New Yorker; expanded 1965—English

  92. John Kenneth Galbraith

    93. The Affluent Society
    1958—English

  93. Barbara W Tuchman

    94. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
    1978—English

  94. Rebecca West

    95. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia
    1941—English

  95. Virginia Woolf

    96. A Room of One's Own
    1929—English

  96. Anne Frank

    97. Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven 14 Juni 1942 - 1 Augustus 1944
    The Diary of a Young Girl
    1947—Dutch