The most popular books in English
from 19201 to 19400
What books are currently the most popular and which are the all time classics? Here we present you with a mixture of those two criteria. We update this list once a month.

Théophile Gautier
Romantic provocateur, flamboyant bohemian, precocious novelist, perfect poet—not to mention an inexhaustible journalist, critic, and man-about-town—Théophile Gautier is one of the major figures, and great characters, of French literature. In My Fantoms Richard Holmes, the …

Marcel Proust
In this conclusion to this section of Proust’s classic, we get to understand what he means by budding grove.’ As the summer on the beach winds down, the adolescent Proust is increasingly smitten by the young beauties his age he passes by but never gets to meet... until a …

Olivier Ka
"Peter was a populist priest. He was cool. He was funny. He was no priest, just a regular guy. It’s like I had another uncle. A great one, who laughed, who sang, who tickled. Until he took us for summer camp. Until we were so close, temptation came in the picture." Based on a …

Florian Zeller
The Catcher in the Rye with a French accent. Even if it blows your mind, I want to tell you about this unbelievable thing that happened to me last year. I’m not bragging, but things as unbelievable as the one I’m going to tell you about don’t happen every day, I swear. In fact, …

Frédérick Leboyer
The classic guide to gentle birth that revolutionized the way we welcome our children into the world. • The first book to express what mothers have always known: babies are born complete human beings with the ability to experience a full range of emotions. • Shows how gentle …

Alfred de Musset
Maître Blazius, Dame Pluche, le chœur. Le Choeur Doucement bercé sur sa mule fringante, messer Blazius s’avance dans les bluets fleuris, vêtu de neuf, l’écritoire au côté. Comme un poupon sur l’oreiller, il se ballotte sur son ventre rebondi, et les yeux à demi fermés, il …

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre
Paul et Virginie is a novel by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, first published in 1788. The novel's title characters are friends since birth who fall in love. The story is set on the island of Mauritius under French rule, then named Île de France. Written on the eve of …

Tonino Benacquista
Praise for Holy Smoke, the first in the Antoine series:“A terrific black comedy …both a blasphemously funny satire of provincial Italian chicanery and a wry acknowledgment of the ambivalence that ambitious immigrants feel about their roots.”—The New York Times“Unexpected deadly …

Jean-Claude Izzo
"Izzo digs deep into what makes men weep."-Time Out New York In this moving investigation into the human comedy, the men aboard an impounded freighter in the port of Marseilles are divided: Wait for the money owed them, or accept their fate and abandon ship? Captain Abdul Aziz …

Bertolt Brecht
Described by Brecht as 'a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all', Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler - recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster's takeover of the city's greengrocery trade. Using a wide range of …

Tahar Djaout
This elegant, haunting novel takes us deep into the world of bookstore owner Boualem Yekker. He lives in a country being overtaken by the Vigilant Brothers, a radically conservative party that seeks to control every element of life according to the laws of their stringent moral …

Carolyn Keene
Aunt Eloise Drew invited Nancy and her friends to Mirror Bay Bide-a-Wee cabin near Cooperstown, New York, for a visit and a chance to solve the mystery of the woman who glides across the water. Upon their arrival, Nancy becomes mixed up in a vacation hoax and is nearly arrested …

Arthur Yorinks
Al, a janitor, and his faithful dog, Eddie, live in a single room on the West Side. They eat together, they work together, they do everything together. So what's the problem?Thier room is crowded and cramped; their life is an endless struggle. Al and Eddie are practically at …

A. E. van Vogt
The Weapon Makers is a science fiction novel by A. E. van Vogt. The novel was originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction from February–April 1943. The serial version was first published in book form in 1947 with a print run of 1,000 copies. It was then thoroughly …

Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
Doctor Pascal is the twentieth and final novel of the Rougon-Macquart series by Émile Zola, first published in June 1893 by Charpentier. Zola's plan for the Rougon-Macquart novels was to show how heredity and environment worked on the members of one family over the course of the …

Alistair MacLean
San Andreas is a novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, first published in 1984. One of his final novels, it returns to MacLean's original genre: war at sea.

Georges Bernanos
Under the Sun of Satan was the first novel published by Georges Bernanos. It was #45 on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century.

William T. Vollmann
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means is a seven-volume essay on the subject of violence by American author William T. Vollmann. First published by McSweeney's in November 2003, it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. …

Mary Wesley
An Imaginative Experience is a novel by British author Mary Wesley. The story concerns a young mother who has lost her husband and son in a car crash and the guilt and self-reproach she has to go through as a consequence of her loss.

Christopher Hitchens
Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography is Christopher Hitchens's contribution to the Books That Changed the World series. Hitchens, a great admirer of Thomas Paine, covers the history of Paine's 1791 book, The Rights of Man, and analyzes its significance.

Ousmane Sembène
Xala is a 1973 novel by Ousmane Sembène. It is about El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye, a businessman who is struck by impotence on the night of his wedding to his third wife. It was adapted into a movie, also called Xala and directed by Sembene.

Iris Murdoch
Nuns and Soldiers is a 1980 novel by Iris Murdoch. The setting is England and two of the main characters are Gertrude, a widow, and Anne, an ex-nun.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The Execution of Justice is a 1985 novel by the Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt. It tells the story of an attorney who is tasked to reinvestigate a man sentenced for murder. The book criticises elements of the legal system and ponders on the nature of justice. It was adapted …

Bernard MC Laverty
Grace Notes is a novel by Bernard MacLaverty, first published in 1997.

Jack Vance
Servants of the Wankh is the second science fiction adventure novel in the tetralogy Tschai, Planet of Adventure. Written by Jack Vance, it tells of the efforts of the sole survivor of a human starship destroyed by an unknown enemy to return to Earth from the distant planet …

Jack Vance
The Pnume is the final science fiction adventure novel in the tetralogy Tschai, Planet of Adventure. Written by Jack Vance, it tells of the efforts to return to Earth by the sole survivor of a human starship destroyed while investigating a mysterious signal from the distant …

James Ellroy
Because the Night is a crime fiction novel written by James Ellroy. Released in 1984, it is the second installment of a trilogy often titled "Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy", after its main character, or "L.A Noir", after the hard-book copy that was released containing all three books in …

Lawrence Durrell
Monsieur, published in 1974 and sub-titled The Prince of Darkness, is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet. As a group, the five novels narrate the lives of a group of Europeans prior to and after World War II. Monsieur begins the quincunx of novels with a …

V.S. Naipaul
The Mimic Men is a novel by V. S. Naipaul first published by Andre Deutsch in the UK in 1967.

Patrick Modiano
La Place de l'étoile is the first novel of the French writer Patrick Modiano. It was published by Gallimard in 1968 and won the Roger Nimier Prize and Fénéon Prize. The novel, which draws on elements of autobiography, recounts the story of Raphael Schlemilovitch, a French Jew …

Enid Blyton
Five Get into a Fix is a children's novel written by Enid Blyton and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1958. It is the seventeenth book in the Famous Five series.

Georges Simenon
Maigret and the Yellow Dog is a detective novel by the Belgian writer Georges Simenon.

Allan Massie
Tiberius is a 1991 historical novel by Scottish writer Allan Massie, about the Roman Emperor Tiberius. It is the second in the series of novels Massie wrote about the early Roman Emperors.

Richard Garfinkle
Celestial Matters is a science fantasy novel, set in an alternate universe with different laws of physics, written by Richard Garfinkle and published by Tor Books in 1996. It is a work of alternate history and meticulously elaborated "alternate science", as the physics of this …

Garry Disher
The Dragon Man is a 1999 crime novel by the Australian author Garry Disher.

Arthur Nersesian
Chinese Takeout is a novel written by American author, playwright and poet, Arthur Nersesian. The novel was dedicated "To the memory of Tom Reiss, teacher, artist, friend". It was released in 2003, by HarperCollins Publishers, to generally positive reviews.

Fergus Hume
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is a mystery fiction novel by English writer Fergus Hume. The book was first published in Australia in 1886. Set in Melbourne, the story focuses on the investigation of a homicide involving a body discovered in a hansom cab, as well as an exploration …

William Faulkner
A Fable is a 1954 novel written by the American author William Faulkner. He spent more than a decade and tremendous effort on it, and considered it his masterpiece when it was completed. It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, but critical reviews were mixed and …

Robert Anton Wilson
Right Where You Are Sitting Now, fully titled Right Where You Are Sitting Now: Further Tales of the Illuminati, is a book of philosophical writings written by Robert Anton Wilson and first published in 1982 by Ronin Publishing. Dedicated to William S. Burroughs and Philip K. …

John Barnes
Orbital Resonance is a science fiction novel by John Barnes. It is the first of four books comprising the Century Next Door series, followed by Kaleidoscope Century, Candle, The Sky So Big and Black. Orbital Resonance was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991.

J. G. Ballard
Hello America is a science fiction novel by J. G. Ballard, first published in 1981. The plot follows an expedition to a North America rendered uninhabitable by an ecological disaster.

James A. Michener
The Bridge at Andau is a 1957 nonfiction book by James Michener chronicling the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Michener was living in Austria in the 1950s. He was at the border of Austria and Hungary during the period in which a significant wave of refugees fled Hungary. The book …

Charles Taylor
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity is a work of philosophy by Charles Taylor, published in 1989 by Harvard University Press. It is an attempt to articulate and to write a history of the "modern identity".

Herman Wouk
War and Remembrance is a novel by Herman Wouk, published in October 1978, which is the sequel to The Winds of War. It continues the story of the extended Henry family and the Jastrow family starting on 15 December 1941 and ending on 6 August 1945. This novel was adapted into the …

Ralph Ellison
Juneteenth is Ralph Ellison's second novel, published posthumously in 1999 as a 368-page condensation of over 2000 pages written by him over a period of forty years. It was originally written without any real organization, and Ellison's longtime friend, biographer and critic …

Jacques Derrida
Limited Inc is a 1988 book by Jacques Derrida, containing two essays and an interview. The first essay, "Signature Event Context," is about J. L. Austin's theory of the illocutionary act outlined in his How To Do Things With Words. The second essay, "Limited Inc a b c...", is …

Rex Stout
Triple Jeopardy is a collection of Nero Wolfe mystery novellas by Rex Stout, published by the Viking Press in 1952. Itself collected in the omnibus volume Kings Full of Aces, the book comprises three stories that first appeared in The American Magazine: "Home to Roost" "The …

Richard Brautigan
Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork is Richard Brautigan's ninth poetry publication. Published in 1976, the book includes 127 poems. The four line title poem discusses the effort and interest in undertaking an obviously impossible task, such as loading the liquid metal Mercury …

Ricky Gervais
Flanimals is a children's book series written by comedian Ricky Gervais. The book, illustrated by Rob Steen, depicts a list of seemingly useless or inadequate animals, and their behaviour. The cover Flanimal is the Grundit. The book is published by Faber and Faber, which has …

Anthony Burgess
1985 is a novel by English writer Anthony Burgess. Originally published in 1978, it was inspired by, and was intended as a tribute to, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

R. L. Stine
The Werewolf of Fever Swamp is the fourteenth book in Goosebumps, the series of children's horror fiction novellas created and authored by R. L. Stine. The story follows Grady Tucker, who moves into a new house with his parents next to the Fever Swamp. After a swamp deer is …

Elaine Cunningham
The Dream Spheres is a book published in 1999 that was written by Elaine Cunningham.

Gerald Durrell
The Overloaded Ark, first published in 1953, is the debut book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It is the chronicle of a six months collecting trip to the West African colony of British Cameroon - now Cameroon - - that Durrell made with the highly regarded aviculturist and …

Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer's 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe was a large-format book of glamor photographs of Monroe for which Mailer supplied the text. Originally hired to write an introduction by Lawrence Schiller, who put the book package together, Mailer expanded the introduction into a …

Robert Girardi
Madeleine's Ghost is a well-regarded first mystery novel by Robert Girardi.

Bruce Coville
The skull of truth is a book published in 1997 that was written by Bruce Coville.

James R. Hansen
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong is the official biography of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon. It was written by James R. Hansen and published in 2005 by Simon & Schuster.

Colin Greenland
Take Back Plenty, is a novel by Colin Greenland and is the winner of both major British science fiction awards, the 1990 British SF Association award and the 1991 Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as being a nominee for the 1992 Philip K. Dick Award for the best original paperback …

Nancy Mitford
Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry Into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy is a book that purports to be edited by Nancy Mitford, illustrated by Osbert Lancaster, caricaturist of English manners, and published by Hamish Hamilton. The anthology comprises four …

Donald Antrim
The Hundred Brothers is a 1997 novel by American author Donald Antrim. The substance of the novel consists of the nocturnal reunion of one hundred brothers in the library of their ancestral home, as they attempt to locate and inter the ashes of their deceased father, an insane …

Neal Shusterman
Jason is having a bad day. The kind of day when you just don't feel like yourself. Only for Jason, it's not just a feeling. He really isn't himself.Not any more.Who is he? That's the problem. Jason isn't sure. And it's not just him. Everyone in town is acting weird. His friends. …

John Saul
Faces of Fear is a thriller horror novel by John Saul, published by Ballantine Books on August 12, 2008. The novel follows the story of teenage Alison Shaw, who finds a shocking background behind her mother's new husband, who is a plastic surgeon.

Roger Zelazny
Today We Choose Faces is a 1973 science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny. As originally constructed, Part 1 was an extensive flashback which followed Part 2, but the order of the sections was changed at the request of editor David Hartwell, who felt that the novel worked better in …

John Brunner
The Traveller in Black is a collection of short stories, written in a fantasy vein, by John Brunner. The first edition, titled The Traveler in Black, had four stories and was issued in 1971 in the Ace Science Fiction Specials line. Some stories were rewritten for this book. …

Clive Cussler
The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks is a nonfiction work by adventure novelist Clive Cussler published in the United States in 2002. This work details the author's continuing search for famous shipwrecks with his nonprofit organization NUMA. There is …

Barry Williams
Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg is a 1992 autobiography written by actor Barry Williams with Chris Kreski. In Growing Up Brady, Williams discusses his childhood, the production of the ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, his relationship with co-star Maureen McCormick, disputes …

Willa Cather
Sapphira and the Slave Girl is Willa Cather's last novel, published in 1940. It is the story of Sapphira Dodderidge Colbert, a bitter but privileged white woman, who becomes irrationally jealous of Nancy, a beautiful young slave. The book balances an atmospheric portrait of …

Agatha Christie
A collection of Hercule Poirot mystery novels which includes Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express, The ABC Murders, Cards on the Table, and Thirteen at Dinner

James Marshall
Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a book by James Marshall.

Noel Streatfeild
The Circus Is Coming is a children's novel by Noel Streatfeild, about the working life of a travelling circus. It was first published in 1938 with illustrations by Steven Spurrier. For this novel, Streatfeild was awarded the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, …

Jachym Topol
City Sister Silver is the title of Alex Zucker's English-language translation of the 1994 novel Sestra by Czech author Jáchym Topol, published by Catbird Press in 2000. The Czech original was described by Czech writer Ivan Klíma as "a first attempt at expressing, in a profound …

E. E. "Doc" Smith
Skylark Three is a science fiction novel by author Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., the second in his Skylark series. Originally serialized through the Amazing Stories magazine in 1930, it was first collected in book form in 1948 by Fantasy Press.

John Ringo
Von Neumann's War is a book published in 2006 that was written by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor.

Sesyle Joslin
What Do You Say, Dear? is a book written by Sesyle Joslin and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Margaret Wise Brown
The Color Kittens is a children's book by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen published in 1949.

Geoffrey Canada
Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence is a memoir by Geoffrey Canada, an American social activist who is the current president and chief executive officer of Harlem Children's Zone. Beacon Press published the book on January 31, 1995. Publishers Weekly praised the …

Claude Lévi-Strauss
The Raw and the Cooked is the first volume from Mythologiques, a structural study of Amerindian mythology written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. It was originally published in French as Le Cru et le Cuit. Although the book is part of a larger volume Lévi-Strauss …

Maya Angelou
And Still I Rise is author Maya Angelou's third volume of poetry, published by Random House in 1978. It was published during one of the most productive periods in Angelou's career; she had written three autobiographies and published two other volumes of poetry up to that point. …

Mark Behr
The Smell of Apples is a 1993 debut novel by South African Mark Behr, also published in the same year in Afrikaans as Die Reuk van Appels. Mark Behr describes the Afrikaner mentality and in apartheid South Africa as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy called Marnus, the …

Ruth Rendell
Put on by Cunning is a novel by British crime-writer Ruth Rendell. It was first published in 1981, and features her popular series protagonist Inspector Wexford. It is the 11th in the series. The title comes from a quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act V Scene II: "How these …

John Feinstein
A March to Madness: A View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference is a book written by John Feinstein. It was written about the 1996-97 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball season, chronicling each ACC school's team's season, from the first practice, to the Big Dance. …

Amiri Baraka
Blues People is a seminal study of Afro-American music by Amiri Baraka, who published it as LeRoi Jones in 1963. In Blues People Baraka explores the possibility that the history of black Americans can be traced through the evolution of their music. It is considered a classic …

Tanith Lee
Drinking Sapphire Wine is a book published in 1977 that was written by Tanith Lee.

William Steig
The Amazing Bone is a 32-page picture book by William Steig from 1976. It was nominated for the Caldecott Medal in 1977; however, Leo & Diane Dillon's Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions won, so The Amazing Bone only received the Caldecott Honor Award. It was the first of …

Christopher Golden
Child of the Hunt is an original novel based on the U.S. television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Booth Tarkington
Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventures of Penrod Schofield, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War I Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to The Adventures of Tom …

Fred Saberhagen
The Second Book of Swords is a book published in 1983, written by Fred Saberhagen.

Joan Lowery Nixon
EDGAR AWARD WINNERFor fans of Gillian Flynn, Caroline Cooney, and R.L. Stine comes The Other Side of Dark from four-time Edgar Allen Poe Young Adult Mystery Award winner Joan Lowery Nixon. Stacy wakes up in a hospital room, in a body she doesn’t recognize. Her mother is …

Gael Baudino
Maze of Moonlight is a novel written by Gael Baudino in 1993. It is the second in the Strands of Starlight tetralogy. The other novels are Strands of Starlight, Shroud of Shadow, and Strands of Sunlight.

Stephen King
Stephen King Goes to the Movies is a short story collection by Stephen King, released in paperback on January 20, 2009. It contains five previously collected pieces of short fiction that have been adapted to popular films, each with a short introduction by the author written …

Robin Jarvis
The Alchymist's Cat is the first book in The Deptford Histories series by Robin Jarvis. Published in 1994, the series presents a fantasy set in 1660s London. The Alchymist's Cat provides background material for Jarvis' earlier Deptford Mice series, showing the beginning of …

C. Dale Brittain
A Bad Spell In Yurt is a book by C. Dale Brittain that takes place in the fictional kingdom of Yurt where Daimbert, a wizard who has just graduated from the wizards' school, takes up his post as the new Royal Wizard. The book's story is continued in The Wood Nymph and The Cranky …

Jacques Steinberg
The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College is a 2002 nonfiction book written by education reporter Jacques Steinberg that examines the inner workings of the admissions committee at Wesleyan University. The book expands upon a series of articles Steinberg …

Martin Wilson
JAMES AND ALEX have barely anything in common anymore—least of all their experiences in high school, where James is a popular senior and Alex is suddenly an outcast. But at home, there is Henry, the precocious 10-year-old across the street, who eagerly befriends them both. And …

Henry Fielding
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. The novel is both a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. First published on 28 February 1749 in London, Tom Jones is among the …

Hilaire Belloc
Cautionary Tales for Children: Designed for the Admonition of Children between the ages of eight and fourteen years is a 1907 children's book written by Hilaire Belloc. It is a parody of the cautionary tales that were popular in the 19th century. The work is in the public domain …

Poul Anderson
A Midsummer Tempest is an 1974 alternative history fantasy novel by Poul Anderson. In 1975, it was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the Mythopoeic Award.

Dale Peck
Drift House: The First Voyage is a 2005 children's novel written by Dale Peck. This was Peck's first children's book; he is best known as a polemicist reviewer, and adult novelist. In 2007 and 2008, Chicago Public Schools placed the novel on their recommended reading list for …

Jose Canseco
Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big is a 2005 book by Jose Canseco and his personal account of steroid usage in Major League Baseball. The book is autobiographical, and it focuses on Canseco's days as a major leaguer, his marriages, his …

Margi Preus
In 1841, a Japanese fishing vessel sinks. Its crew is forced to swim to a small, unknown island, where they are rescued by a passing American ship. Japan's borders remain closed to all Western nations, so the crew sets off to America, learning English on the way. Manjiro, a …

Miley Cyrus
Miles to Go is an autobiography by Miley Cyrus, co-written by Hilary Liftin and published by Disney Hyperion in March 2009. The memoir discusses Cyrus' relationship with her parents, her thoughts on the media, her love life, her future ambitions and milestones she still has to …

Brandon Mull
Jason tumbles into a quest to save a magical in this #1 New York Times bestselling start to Brandon Mull’s Beyonders fantasy series.Jason Walker has often wished his life could be a bit less predictable—until a routine day at the zoo ends with Jason suddenly transporting from …

Fern Michaels
Vendetta is a novel by Michael Dibdin, and is the second book in the popular Aurelio Zen series. Zen has earned a return to the fold of actual police work, but now Officials in a high government ministry are desperate to finger someone—anyone—for the murder of an eccentric …

A.D. Miller
Snowdrops is a novel by A. D. Miller which was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

William Shakespeare
Macbeth /məkˈbɛθ/ is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, and is considered one of his darkest and most powerful works. Set in Scotland, the play illustrates the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. The …