Parade's Top 222 of all Time
To help us narrow this down to the absolute best books, we reached out to thirty-three acclaimed and best-selling authors. Everyone from Anne Tyler to George R.R. Martin to Karin Slaughter took the time to share their passionate recommendations. Then we called some of our favorite bookstores and asked for their suggestions. So you’ll find personal picks on the list by dozens of writers and staff members from indie booksellers all over the country. We even scoured sites like Goodreads to see what you love the most. Our guiding principle was to include as many types of books as possible, because a great picture book is just as worthy as Proust. And both deserve to be on our list.
- 1
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989 · 0 lists
- 2
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Crockett Johnson · 1955 · 0 lists
- 3
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen · 1813 · 28 lists
- 4
The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien · 1954 · 23 lists
- 5
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson · 2004 · 12 lists
- 6
Arrow of God
Chinua Achebe · 1964 · 3 lists
- 7
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry · 1985 · 0 lists
- 8
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959 · 0 lists
- 9
Love and Rockets
Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Mario Hernandez · 2008 · 0 lists
- 10
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee · 2017 · 7 lists
- 11
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Judy Blume · 1970 · 0 lists
- 12
Another Country
James Baldwin · 1962 · 0 lists
- 13
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante · 2011 · 0 lists
- 14
The Stand
Stephen King · 1978 · 0 lists
- 15
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2013 · 9 lists
- 16
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams · 1979 · 0 lists
- 17
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë · 1847 · 29 lists
- 18
A Perfect Spy
John Le Carré · 1986 · 0 lists
- 19
Madeline
Ludwig Bemelmans · 1900 · 0 lists
- 20
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1615 · 27 lists
- 21
Stories of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway · 1930 · 0 lists
- 22
Bridget Jones's Diary
Helen Fielding · 1996 · 0 lists
- 23
Dune
Frank Herbert · 1965 · 0 lists
- 24
I Capture The Castle
Dodie Smith · 1948 · 0 lists
- 25
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle · 1900 · 0 lists
- 26
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel · 2009 · 0 lists
- 27
Sandman
Neil Gaiman · 2002 · 0 lists
- 28
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt · 2013 · 0 lists
- 29
The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara · 1974 · 0 lists
- 30
The End of the Affair
Graham Greene · 1951 · 6 lists
- 31
The Buddha in the Attic
Julie Otsuka · 2011 · 0 lists
- 32
His Dark Materials
Philip Pullman · 2000 · 0 lists
- 33
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Patricia Highsmith · 1955 · 13 lists
- 34
The Good Lord Bird
James McBride · 2013 · 0 lists
- 35
The Awakening
Kate Chopin · 1899 · 6 lists
- 36
Selected Stories
O. Henry · 2003 · 0 lists
- 37
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison · 1970 · 5 lists
- 38
Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak · 1958 · 6 lists
- 39
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee · 1960 · 33 lists
- 40
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz · 2007 · 0 lists
- 41
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders · 2017 · 0 lists
- 42
And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie · 1939 · 0 lists
- 43
The Sellout
Paul Beatty · 2015 · 0 lists
- 44
Birds of America
Lorrie Moore · 1998 · 0 lists
- 45
Madame Bovary
Gustave Flaubert · 1856 · 26 lists
- 46
Little Fires Everywhere
Celeste Ng · 2017 · 0 lists
- 47
The Princess Bride
William Goldman · 1973 · 0 lists
- 48
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley · 1818 · 20 lists
- 49
Labyrinths
Jorge Luis Borges · 2005 · 5 lists
- 50
The Fifth Season
N.K. Jemisin · 2015 · 0 lists
- 51
Indigo
Beverly Jenkins · 1996 · 0 lists
- 52
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville · 1851 · 0 lists
- 53
Blonde
Joyce Carol Oates · 2000 · 2 lists
- 54
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead · 2016 · 8 lists
- 55
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller · 2011 · 0 lists
- 56
The Last Good Kiss
James Crumley · 1978 · 0 lists
- 57
The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan · 1989 · 0 lists
- 58
Winesburg, Ohio
Sherwood Anderson · 1919 · 0 lists
- 59
The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood · 2000 · 0 lists
- 60
Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin · 1983 · 0 lists
- 61
The House at Pooh Corner
Christina Milner · 1925 · 0 lists
- 62
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel · 2014 · 0 lists
- 63
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens · 1850 · 19 lists
- 64
Another Brooklyn
Jacqueline Woodson · 2016 · 0 lists
- 65
Riders of the Purple Sage
Zane Grey · 1912 · 0 lists
- 66
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937 · 22 lists
- 67
The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
Oscar Hijuelos · 1989 · 0 lists
- 68
Lud-in-the-Mist
Hope Mirrlees · 1926 · 0 lists
- 69
Where I'm Calling From
Raymond Carver · 1988 · 0 lists
- 70
The Round House
Louise Erdrich · 2012 · 0 lists
- 71
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn · 2011 · 0 lists
- 72
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov · 1962 · 13 lists
- 73
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan · 2010 · 0 lists
- 74
Watership Down
Richard Adams · 1972 · 0 lists
- 75
The Namesake
Jhumpa Lahiri · 1964 · 0 lists
- 76
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1880 · 22 lists
- 77
Parable of the Talents
Octavia E. Butler · 1998 · 0 lists
- 78
- 79
Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion · 1970 · 5 lists
- 80
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy · 1876 · 24 lists
- 81
Dandelion Wine
Ray Bradbury · 1957 · 0 lists
- 82
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton · 1920 · 17 lists
- 83
Midnight’s Children
Salman Rushdie · 1981 · 25 lists
- 84
Devil's Cub
Georgette Heyer · 1932 · 0 lists
- 85
Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak · 1963 · 0 lists
- 86
Waiting to Exhale
Terry McMillan · 1992 · 0 lists
- 87
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner · 1929 · 26 lists
- 88
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith · 1943 · 0 lists
- 89
Sixty Stories
Donald Barthelme · 1981 · 0 lists
- 90
Get Shorty
Elmore Leonard · 1990 · 2 lists
- 91
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath · 1963 · 12 lists
- 92
Lake Wobegon Days
Garrison Keillor · 1985 · 0 lists
- 93
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah · 2000 · 0 lists
- 94
The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford · 1915 · 12 lists
- 95
Normal People
Sally Rooney · 2018 · 5 lists
- 96
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll · 1865 · 2 lists
- 97
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout · 2007 · 0 lists
- 98
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Michael Chabon · 2000 · 0 lists
- 99
An American Marriage
Tayari Jones · 2018 · 5 lists
- 100
The Chosen
Chaim Potok · 1967 · 0 lists
- 101
A Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin · 1996 · 0 lists
- 102
- 103
Roots
Alex Haley · 1861 · 0 lists
- 104
Anne of Green Gables
L.M. Montgomery · 1908 · 0 lists
- 105
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth
Chris Ware · 2000 · 0 lists
- 106
Speedboat
Renata Adler · 1976 · 0 lists
- 107
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck · 1939 · 32 lists
- 108
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Susanna Clarke · 2001 · 0 lists
- 109
A Death in the Family
James Agee · 1957 · 0 lists
- 110
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy · 1985 · 14 lists
- 111
Tipping the Velvet
Sarah Waters · 1999 · 2 lists
- 112
Howards End
E. M. Forster · 1910 · 11 lists
- 113
Underworld
Don DeLillo · 1997 · 9 lists
- 114
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy · 1997 · 0 lists
- 115
Ubik
Philip K. Dick · 1969 · 0 lists
- 116
The Golden Notebook
Doris May Lessing · 1962 · 0 lists
- 117
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Marlon James · 2014 · 0 lists
- 118
Life after life
Kate Atkinson · 2013 · 0 lists
- 119
The Adventures of Captain Underpants
Dav Pilkey · 1997 · 0 lists
- 120
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1925 · 0 lists
- 121
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
J.K. Rowling · 1997 · 0 lists
- 122
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez · 1967 · 33 lists
- 123
White Teeth
Zadie Smith · 2000 · 10 lists
- 124
Les Misérables
Victor Hugo · 1862 · 16 lists
- 125
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014 · 7 lists
- 126
A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle · 1962 · 0 lists
- 127
The Savage Detectives
Roberto Bolaño · 1998 · 0 lists
- 128
Bastard Out of Carolina
Dorothy Allison · 1992 · 0 lists
- 129
Captain Hornblower R.N.
C.S. Forester · 1939 · 0 lists
- 130
Charming Billy
Alice McDermott · 1997 · 0 lists
- 131
Great Heart
James West Davidson, John Rugge · 2006 · 0 lists
- 132
The Tale of Genji
Murasaki Shikibu · 2000 · 10 lists
- 133
The Code of the Woosters
P. G. Wodehouse · 1938 · 0 lists
- 134
The Children of Men
P. D. James · 1992 · 0 lists
- 135
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger · 1951 · 32 lists
- 136
The Women of Brewster Place
Gloria Naylor · 1982 · 0 lists
- 137
We Others
Steven Millhauser · 2011 · 0 lists
- 138
Flight Behavior
Barbara Kingsolver · 2012 · 0 lists
- 139
A Boy’s Own Story
Edmund White · 1982 · 2 lists
- 140
Mason & Dixon
Thomas Pynchon · 1997 · 4 lists
- 141
The Overstory
Richard Powers · 2018 · 0 lists
- 142
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin · 1969 · 0 lists
- 143
My Name Is Red
Orhan Pamuk · 1998 · 0 lists
- 144
Harriet the Spy
Louise Fitzhugh · 1960 · 0 lists
- 145
Fight Club
Chuck Palahniuk · 1996 · 0 lists
- 146
The Magic Mountain
Thomas Mann · 1924 · 18 lists
- 147
The Color Purple
Alice Walker · 1982 · 20 lists
- 148
Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace · 1996 · 11 lists
- 149
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark · 1961 · 13 lists
- 150
Atonement
Ian McEwan · 2001 · 0 lists
- 151
Zorba the Greek
Nikos Kazantzákis · 1965 · 0 lists
- 152
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Jesmyn Ward · 2017 · 6 lists
- 153
True Grit
Charles Portis · 1968 · 0 lists
- 154
The World According to Garp
John Irving · 1979 · 12 lists
- 155
- 156
The Ministry for the Future
Kim Stanley Robinson · 2020 · 2 lists
- 157
To The Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf · 1927 · 25 lists
- 158
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami · 1997 · 8 lists
- 159
Bel Canto
Ann Patchett · 2001 · 0 lists
- 160
The Hours
Michael Cunningham · 1998 · 4 lists
- 161
Tales of the City
Armistead Maupin · 1978 · 0 lists
- 162
Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow · 1974 · 10 lists
- 163
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Anne Tyler · 1982 · 0 lists
- 164
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell · 2004 · 0 lists
- 165
My Ántonia
Willa Cather · 1918 · 0 lists
- 166
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini · 2003 · 0 lists
- 167
- 168
Angle of Repose
Wallace Stegner · 1971 · 0 lists
- 169
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera · 2006 · 7 lists
- 170
Cold Mountain
Charles Frazier · 1997 · 0 lists
- 171
The Road Less Traveled
M. Scott Peck · 1978 · 0 lists
- 172
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain · 1885 · 0 lists
- 173
A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry · 1995 · 7 lists
- 174
Cod
Mark Kurlansky · 1997 · 0 lists
- 175
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis · 2020 · 3 lists
- 176
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson · 1992 · 0 lists
- 177
A Thousand Acres
Jane Smiley · 1991 · 0 lists
- 178
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison · 1952 · 29 lists
- 179
Empire Falls
Richard Russo · 1776 · 0 lists
- 180
Edisto
Padgett Powell · 1984 · 0 lists
- 181
The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett · 1989 · 0 lists
- 182
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
Elizabeth Taylor · 1971 · 0 lists
- 183
The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien · 1990 · 10 lists
- 184
Dracula
Bram Stoker · 1897 · 16 lists
- 185
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers · 1940 · 0 lists
- 186
True History of the Kelly Gang
Peter Carey · 2000 · 0 lists
- 187
The Death of Vivek Oji
Akwaeke Emezi · 2020 · 0 lists
- 188
On the Road
Jack Kerouac · 1957 · 24 lists
- 189
The Old Forest
Peter Taylor · 1985 · 0 lists
- 190
The Rings of Saturn
W.G. Sebald · 1998 · 3 lists
- 191
A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles · 2016 · 3 lists
- 192
The Far Pavilions
Mary Margaret Kaye · 1978 · 0 lists
- 193
The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen · 2015 · 0 lists
- 194
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Truman Capote · 1956 · 3 lists
- 195
Ulysses
James Joyce · 1920 · 39 lists
- 196
The Outsiders
S. E. Hinton · 1967 · 0 lists
- 197
Darkness at Noon
Arthur Koestler · 1948 · 0 lists
- 198
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Ken Kesey · 1962 · 13 lists
- 199
So Long, See You Tomorrow
William Maxwell · 1980 · 0 lists
- 200
The Stories of Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov · 1932 · 0 lists
- 201
American Pastoral
Philip Roth · 1997 · 10 lists
- 202
The Known World
Edward P. Jones · 2003 · 0 lists
- 203
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman; translated by Henning Koch · 2014 · 0 lists
- 204
Devotions
Mary Oliver · 2017 · 0 lists
- 205
The Thin Red Line
James Jones · 1962 · 0 lists
- 206
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
Julia Alvarez · 1992 · 0 lists
- 207
The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas · 1970 · 6 lists
- 208
Last Days of Summer
Steve Kluger · 1998 · 0 lists
- 209
Brooklyn
Colm Tóibín · 1943 · 0 lists
- 210
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut · 1969 · 0 lists
- 211
Middlemarch
George Eliot · 1871 · 26 lists
- 212
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Sherman Alexie · 2007 · 0 lists
- 213
The Duke and I
Julia Quinn · 2000 · 0 lists
- 214
The Stranger
Albert Camus · 1942 · 0 lists
- 215
High Fidelity
Nick Hornby · 1995 · 0 lists
- 216
Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides · 2002 · 0 lists
- 217
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988 · 0 lists
- 218
Why Did I Ever
Mary Robison · 2001 · 0 lists
- 219
Disgrace
J.M. Coetzee · 1999 · 0 lists
- 220
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1880 · 13 lists
- 221
In Search of Lost Time
Marcel Proust · 1913 · 0 lists
- 222
Goodnight Moon
Margaret Wise Brown · 1947 · 0 lists
