Exclusive Infographic: The Greatest Books of All Time

What are the greatest books of all time? And who should be the judge? Recently, Brain Pickings pointed out an awesome book of lists wherein 125 famous authors — everyone from Norman Mailer to Claire Messud to Annie Proulx to Stephen King — choose their ten favorite books. The book, The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books, then handily synthesizes all that info (544 works total mentioned in 125 lists) into a few important master lists: namely, the greatest books and authors of all time. Each book is assigned a value based on its position in any given list — that is, ”a first-place pick is worth ten points, and a tenth-place pick is worth one point” and so on — and those numbers are then added up to give each book a ranking. We’ve collected a few of the top rankings here in an easy to digest infographic. How many have you read?

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@meh - think you'll find a fair portion of the writers up there didn't write in English.

I fully support the suggestion that the bible should be on this list... filed exactly where it belongs: in the FICTION section.

You left out the Holy Bible. The most durable book of all time. Always a best seller. A road map for a good life.

Top 10 Authors by number of books selected has 4 authors?

125 writers, who write in English, is not a particularly strong sample size.

Man, I just wish there were some more white people on this info graphic! Waaay too many women as well.

re: Bible; Author (singular)NOT Authors (plural). Oh and written by a Bunch of Guys.

Where is the Bible??? It has the highest readership and the most sales of any book ever written.

why Sherlock Holmes is not there instead of some not so good choices...terrible list...can everybody read and enjoy War and Peace..it looks like bigger is better...

@florin In Search of Lost Time is number 3 for 20th Century... And if you mean in Authors, it is evaluated by number of books, and technically he only has one.

I guess it depends on who's reading it.

I agree with Thomas, Borges should be included...still a good list though. My personal favorite: Chekhov.

Florin Gatsby is in fifth, and I think its a great book but thats beside the point. This list is pretty standard with others i have seen. I am glad that Anna Karenina got the nod and not Ulysses as i have so often seen.

Great infographic! Good to see Gabriel Garcia up there, though I wish Jorge Luis Borges was beside him.

The awful "The great Gatsby" on 2nd place? really? And no Proust in top 10?