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Cover of The Joke by Milan KunderaThe Joke
Classic · Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction

The Joke

by Milan Kundera
1967 · 336 pages · Fiction
Lifetime bestseller
≈ 8 hours to read · about 2 weeks at 30 minutes a day

By the numbers

61.1Must-Read Score
  • Readers46 out of 100 · counts 42%
  • Critics0 out of 100 · counts 14%
  • Bestseller22 out of 100 · counts 34% (its stronger lane)
  • Buzz0 out of 100 · counts 10%

Critics and Bestseller are two ways to earn a place: a book's stronger one counts more. Buzz rewards recent bestseller weeks and prizes, so older books start at zero. The parts combine into the Must-Read Score, shown on a scale where the best book we found scores 99 and the last book to make the ranking scores 50.

Where it ranks

Why it made the list

On the lists
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

Reads as

Moving, Thought-provoking

How we rank

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