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📚 **These 100 Books Literally Changed the World**


*And they’re not all what you’d expect…*


Imagine asking 108 writers, academics, and critics from **35 countries**: *“Which books shifted history, culture, or society?”* That’s exactly what BBC Culture did — and the results are fascinating:  


✨ **Why this list feels special:**  

→ Voters came from Uganda to China, Colombia to Pakistan  

→ Only 51% were native English speakers  

→ 60% women, 40% men  

→ Books span *33 languages* and 4,000 years of writing  


🏆 **Shakespeare, Kafka & Woolf dominated** — each had 3 books on the list!  


1.The Odyssey (Homer, 8th century BC)


2.Uncle Tom's cabin (HarrietJudge Sto, 1852)


3.Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818)


4.Nitin AT-Four (George Orwell, 1949)


5.Things Fruit Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958)


6.One Thouse and One Nights (different authors, 8th -19th century)


7.Don Kiho (Miguel de Servantis, 1605-1615)


8.Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1603)


9.One Hundred Years of Soload (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1967)


10.The Iliad (Homer,8th century BC)


11.Bilved (Tony Morrison, 1987)


12.The Divine Comedy (Dante Aligiarry, 1308-1320)


13.Romeo & Juliet (William Shakespeare, 1597)


14.The Epic of Gilgamesh (Author Unknown, approximately 22 -Hundred Century century BC)


15.Harry Potter Series (JK Rawling, 1997-2007)


16.The Handmade's Tel (Margaret Atwood, 1985)


17.Ulysis (James Joyce, 1922)


18.Animal Farm (GeorgeOrwell, 1945)


19.Jane Ayer (Charlotte Bronti, 1847)


20.Madam Bowby (Gustav Flebare, 1856)


21.Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Luo Guyzhong, 1321-1322


22.Journey to the West (U Cheng'N, approximately 1592)


23.Crime & Penalties (Fiodor Dostoyevsky, 1866)


24.Pride and Prajudis (Jane Austen, 1813)


25.water margin (Shi Nai'an, 1589)


26.War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy,1865-1867)


27.To Kil A Mackingbird (Harper Li, 1960)


28.Wide Sargaso C (Jean Rice, 1966)


20.Ishop's Fabls (Ishop, approximately 620-660)


30.Candid (Voltaire, 1759)


31.Media (Euripedis, 431 BC)


32.Mahabharata (Bedbas, 4th century BC)


33.King Lear (William Shakespeare, 1608)


34.The Tel of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu, before 1021)


35.The Saros of YoungWrether (Johan Wolfgang von Goth, 1774)


36.The Trial (Franz Kafka, 1925)


37.Remembrance of Things Past (Marcel Pros, 1913-1927)


38.Widing Heights (Emily Bronti, 18)


39.Invizable Man (Ralph Elison, 1952)


40.Mobi-Dick (Herman Melville, 1851)


41.Dear Izes Watch Watching God (Jor Blue Herston, 1937)


42.To the Lighthouse (Virginia Wolf, 1927)


43.The True Story of Ah Q (LuSun, 1921-1922)


44.Allis's Adventure in Wonderland (Lewis Carol, 1865)


45.Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy, 1873-1877)


46.Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad,)


47.Monkey Grip (Helen Garner, 1977)


48.Mrs. Daloy (Virginia Wolf, 1925)


49.Edipus The King (Sofocles, 429 BC)


50.The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka, 1915)


51.The Oresteyia (Eskilas, 5th of BCCentury)


52.Cinderella (Author Unknown, Date Unknown)


53.Hawle (Allen Ginsberg, 1956)


54.L Misreble (Victor Hugo, 1862)


55.Middlemmorch (George Eliot, 1871-1872)


56.Pedro Paramo (Juan Rulfo, 1955)


57.The Butterfly Lavars (folklore, different versions)


58.The Cantberry Tales (Geoffrey Chasar, 1387)


59.Panchatantra (Vishnu Sharma, approximately 300 BC)


60.The Posthumus Memorars OffBras Kubus (Hoquim Maria Machado de Asis, 1881)


61.The Prime of Miss Jean Body (Muriel Spark, 1961)


62.The Raged-Trozerd Philantropists (Robert Tracell, 1914)


63.Song of Lauino (Okot P'Beetch, 1966)


64.The Golden Notebook (Doris Lessing, 2962)


65.Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdi, 1981)


66.Nervous Conditions (Tusutsi Danggeramba, 1988)


67.The Little Prince (Antoya theSaint-Ekjuperi, 1943)


68.The Master & Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967)


69.Ramayana (Balmiki, 11th century BC)


70.Antigon (Sophocles, approximately 441 BC)


71.Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)


72.The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. L Guein, 1969)


73.A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)


74.America (Raul Otro Raich, 1980)


75.BeFour The L (Franz Kafka,1915)


76.Children of Gabelawi (Nagib Mahfuz, 1967)


77.Il Kannazierre (Petrark, 1374)


78.Kebra Nagast (different authors, 132)


79.Little Woman (Louisa May Alkot, 1868-1869)


80.Metamorphoses (Ovid, 8)


81.Omaros (Derek Walcott, 1960)


82.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Alexander Solzhenitsin, 1962)


83.Orlando (Virginia Wolf, 1928)


84.Rainbow Serpent (Aboriginal AustralianStorytelling, Sal is unknown)


85.Revolutionary Road (Richard Yeats, 1961)


86.Robinson Cruso (Daniel Defo, 1719)


87.Song of Myself (Walt Whitman, 1855)


88.The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884


89.The Adventure of Tom Soy (Mark Twain, 1876)


90.The Alef (Horah Luis Borhs, 1945)


91.The Elocayant Piazant (ancient Egyptian folk, approximately BC2000)


92.The Empter's New Clauds (Hans Christian Anderson, 1837)


93.The Jungle (Upton Sinclayer, 1906)


94.The Khamriyat (Abu Nuwas, the beginning of the 8th century -5th century)


95.The Radetzaki March (Joseph Roth, 1932)


96.The Reven (Edgar Alan Po, 1945)


97.The Sattanic Verses (Salman Rushdi, 1988)


98.The Secret History (Donna Tart, 1992)


99.The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Kates, 1962)


100.Toba Tech Singh (Sadat Hasan Manto, 1955)!


**Surprises?** Ancient Indian fables (*Panchatantra*), Aboriginal Australian storytelling (*Rainbow Serpent*), and Sudanese poetry (*Song of Lawino*) stand beside classics like *Pride and Prejudice* and *1984*.  


💬 **Your turn!**  

👉 **Which book changed YOUR worldview?**  

👇 Tag a friend who needs to see this list!  


*(Love exploring how ideas transform society? I curate thought-provoking reads like this — join me [buymeacoffee.com/Kabir1989] for more conversation-starters!)* 

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