Only 41 of the 3,056 books we rank won a major prize and became a top bestseller

Prizes and bestseller lists rarely agree. Of the 3,056 books in our ranking, 442 won a major prize and 988 were #1 New York Times bestsellers or among the ten best-selling books of their year. Only 41 did both: 29 works of fiction and 12 of nonfiction, published from 1920 to 2025. Here they are, ranked by Must-Read Score.

How we counted

Major prize: a win, for the book itself, of one of the major prizes we track: Anthony Award, Baillie Gifford Prize, Booker Prize, Edgar Award, Hugo Award, International Booker Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Nebula Award, Pulitzer Prize, Women's Prize for Fiction. Open online reader polls (Goodreads Choice) don't count, and neither does a prize a later book in a series won.

Top bestseller: a #1 New York Times bestseller, or one of the ten best-selling books of its year on Publishers Weekly's annual list.

Only the 3,056 books in our ranking are counted: books that are widely read and well loved, chosen from more than a century of prizes, best-books lists, bestseller lists and reader data. These numbers describe that ranking, not every book ever published. How we rank

1
James
James
by Percival Everett · 2024
Huckleberry Finn, retold by the man on the raft.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2025)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (2024)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)52 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2024
99.0Must-Read Score
2
Between the World and Me
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates · 2015
Written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, this is Ta-Nehisi Coates explaining what it means to live in a Black body in America.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)107 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2015Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) finalist (2016)
95.4Must-Read Score
3
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell · 1936
It's 1861 in north Georgia, and sixteen-year-old Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled, scheming belle of the plantation Tara, cares about nothing but the man she can't have, Ashley Wilkes.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1937)One of the best-selling books ever (about 30 million copies)#1 New York Times bestseller (33 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
95.3Must-Read Score
4
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee · 1960
In the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s, six-year-old Scout Finch spends her summers with her brother Jem and their friend Dill, daring each other to approach the house of their mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1961)One of the best-selling books ever (about 40 million copies)One of the ten best-selling books of 1961, 2015 and 2016 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
95.0Must-Read Score
5
The Correspondent
The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans · 2025
Sybil Van Antwerp is a sharp, private woman in her seventies who has written letters nearly every day of her life: to her brother, to old friends, to her children, to authors she admires and to people who have annoyed her.
Why it made the list
Women's Prize for Fiction winner (2026)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)50 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2025Goodreads Choice (fiction) finalist (2025)
94.9Must-Read Score
6
All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr · 2014
Marie-Laure, blind since six, lives in Paris with her father, who builds her a miniature of their neighborhood so she can learn its streets by touch.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (3 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2015 and 2016 (Publishers Weekly)National Book Award (Fiction) finalist (2014)
92.9Must-Read Score
7
The Passage of Power
The Passage of Power
by Robert A. Caro · 2012
The fourth volume of Robert Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson covers 1958 to 1964.
Why it made the list
NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2012)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)National Book Award (Nonfiction) finalist (2012)NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
90.5Must-Read Score
8
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin · 2005
The definitive biography of J.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2006)NBCC Award (Biography) winner (2005)#1 New York Times bestseller (5 weeks at #1)
90.2Must-Read Score
9
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
by William L. Shirer · 1960
William Shirer was an American journalist who reported from Berlin in the 1930s, and after the war he gained access to the captured archives of the Nazi government.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (1961)#1 New York Times bestseller (39 weeks at #1)TIME All-TIME 100 Nonfiction
89.9Must-Read Score
10
Roots
Roots
by Alex Haley · 1976
In 1767, Kunta Kinte, a young man in the Gambia, is captured while searching for wood to make a drum, survives the Middle Passage and is sold into slavery in Virginia, where he never stops trying to keep his name and his memory of Africa alive.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Special Citation) winner (1977)#1 New York Times bestseller (22 weeks at #1)
89.8Must-Read Score
11
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk · 1951
Willie Keith is a privileged, aimless young man from Princeton who joins the Navy in World War II and is assigned to the USS Caine, a battered old minesweeper in the Pacific.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1952)#1 New York Times bestseller (48 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1951 and 1952 (Publishers Weekly)Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
88.8Must-Read Score
12
Master of the Senate
Master of the Senate
by Robert Caro · 2002
Book three of Robert Caro's The Years of Lyndon Johnson covers Johnson's twelve years in the Senate, from 1949 to 1960.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2003)National Book Award (Nonfiction) winner (2002)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)
88.8Must-Read Score
13
Sophie's Choice
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron · 1979
Brooklyn, 1947.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1980)#1 New York Times bestseller (6 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1979 (Publishers Weekly)Modern Library 100 Best Novels
87.4Must-Read Score
14
The Day of the Jackal
The Day of the Jackal
by Frederick Forsyth · 1971
France, 1963.
Why it made the list
Edgar Award winner (1972)#1 New York Times bestseller (7 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1971 and 1972 (Publishers Weekly)BBC's The Big Read
86.9Must-Read Score
15
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck · 1939
When the Dust Bowl and the banks drive them off their Oklahoma farm in the 1930s, the Joad family, newly paroled Tom Joad, his determined mother, his grandparents and the rest, pile everything onto a truck and head west on Route 66 toward the promise of work in California.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1940)#1 New York Times bestseller (24 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1939 and 1940 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
86.5Must-Read Score
16
How the Word Is Passed
How the Word Is Passed
by Clint Smith · 2021
Poet and historian Clint Smith travels to places across America where the history of slavery is remembered, or misremembered: Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, a Louisiana plantation turned museum, Angola prison built on a former plantation, a Confederate cemetery, Galveston where Juneteenth began, New York City and Senegal's Gorée Island.
Why it made the list
NBCC Award (Nonfiction) winner (2021)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)Goodreads Choice (history biography) finalist (2021)
86.5Must-Read Score
17
Angela's Ashes
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt · 1996
Frank McCourt was born in Brooklyn during the Depression, but his family moved back to Limerick, Ireland, where they lived in desperate poverty: a flooded slum, little food, children dying of illness, and a charming father who drank away every wage.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1997)#1 New York Times bestseller (22 weeks at #1)
85.7Must-Read Score
18
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
by Daniel Yergin · 1991
Daniel Yergin's history of oil, from the first well in Pennsylvania in 1859 through John D.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) winner (1992)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)
85.1Must-Read Score
19
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
by John le Carré · 1963
Alec Leamas is tired.
Why it made the list
Edgar Award winner (1965)#1 New York Times bestseller (34 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1964 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
84.9Must-Read Score
20
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
by James Jones · 1951
In 1941, Private Robert E.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1952)#1 New York Times bestseller (20 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1951 and 1953 (Publishers Weekly)Modern Library 100 Best Novels
83.1Must-Read Score
21
The Brass Verdict
The Brass Verdict
by Michael Connelly · 2008
After two years of wrong turns, defense attorney Mickey Haller is back in the courtroom.
Why it made the list
Anthony Award winner (2009)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)
82.2Must-Read Score
22
A Great Reckoning
A Great Reckoning
by Louise Penny · 2016
An intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines.
Why it made the list
Anthony Award winner (2017)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)
81.3Must-Read Score
23
John Adams
John Adams
by David McCullough · 2001
John Adams was a stubborn, prickly, brilliant lawyer from Massachusetts who helped lead the American Revolution, argued for independence in the Continental Congress, served as a diplomat in Europe, and became the second president.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (2002)#1 New York Times bestseller (14 weeks at #1)
80.7Must-Read Score
24
The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt · 2013
Thirteen-year-old Theo Decker is visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother when a bomb goes off.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (2014)#1 New York Times bestseller (4 weeks at #1)111 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2013Women's Prize for Fiction finalist (2014)
80.5Must-Read Score
25
The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence
by Edith Wharton · 1920
New York, the 1870s.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1921)One of the ten best-selling books of 1921 (Publishers Weekly)Modern Library 100 Best NovelsGuardian 100 Best Novels in English
80.2Must-Read Score
26
Advise and Consent
Advise and Consent
by Allen Drury · 1959
The president nominates Robert Leffingwell, a brilliant but divisive liberal, to be Secretary of State, and the Senate must decide whether to confirm him.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1960)#1 New York Times bestseller (28 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1959 and 1960 (Publishers Weekly)
79.3Must-Read Score
27
So Big
So Big
by Edna Ferber · 1920
In the 1880s, Selina Peake, orphaned and penniless at nineteen, takes a teaching job in a Dutch farming community outside Chicago.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1925)One of the ten best-selling books of 1924 (Publishers Weekly)
77.6Must-Read Score
28
The Fixer
The Fixer
by Bernard Malamud · 1966
In Kiev in 1911, Yakov Bok, a poor Jewish handyman, hides his identity to take a job in a district where Jews are forbidden to live.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1967)National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1967)One of the ten best-selling books of 1966 (Publishers Weekly)
76.8Must-Read Score
29
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Confessions of Nat Turner
by William Styron · 1967
In 1831 Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher in Virginia, led the bloodiest slave revolt in American history.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1968)#1 New York Times bestseller (21 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1967 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
76.7Must-Read Score
30
Mr. Mercedes
Mr. Mercedes
by Stephen King · 2014
Before dawn, a stolen Mercedes plows into a crowd of people waiting at a job fair, killing eight.
Why it made the list
Edgar Award winner (2015)#1 New York Times bestseller (1 week at #1)24 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists since 2014
76.3Must-Read Score
31
Eye of the Needle
Eye of the Needle
by Ken Follett · 1978
His code name is the Needle: a German aristocrat, brilliant and ruthless, and Hitler's most valuable spy in Britain.
Why it made the list
Edgar Award winner (1979)One of the ten best-selling books of 1978 (Publishers Weekly)
76.3Must-Read Score
32
Personal History
Personal History
by Katharine Graham · 1997
Katharine Graham grew up rich and shy, the daughter of the man who bought the Washington Post.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1998)#1 New York Times bestseller (3 weeks at #1)
76.1Must-Read Score
33
Ragtime
Ragtime
by E. L. Doctorow · 1974
In New Rochelle, New York, in the early 1900s, a well-off family's life becomes entangled with two others: a Jewish immigrant artist and his young daughter, and Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Black ragtime pianist whose new car is vandalized by racist firemen.
Why it made the list
NBCC Award (Fiction) winner (1975)#1 New York Times bestseller (13 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1975 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
75.6Must-Read Score
34
The Corrections
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen · 2001
Enid Lambert wants her three grown children to come home to their Midwestern town for one last Christmas, while her husband Alfred is still well enough; he has Parkinson's and is slipping.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Fiction) winner (2001)#1 New York Times bestseller (2 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 2001 (Publishers Weekly)Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist (2002)
75.3Must-Read Score
35
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier · 1997
Near the end of the Civil War, Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, walks out of a military hospital and starts the long journey home to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, hunted as a deserter.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1997)#1 New York Times bestseller (18 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1997 (Publishers Weekly)NBCC Award (Fiction) finalist (1997)
73.5Must-Read Score
36
The Good Earth
The Good Earth
by Pearl S. Buck · 1931
Wang Lung, a poor farmer in rural China, marries O-lan, a slave from the great house in town, and together they work the land through drought, famine, revolution and, eventually, wealth.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1932)#1 New York Times bestseller (3 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1931 and 1932 (Publishers Weekly)
73.4Must-Read Score
37
The Old Man and the Sea
The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway · 1952
Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish, and the other fishermen think he's finished.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1953)One of the ten best-selling books of 1952 (Publishers Weekly)Bokklubben World Library (100 greatest books)BBC's The Big Read
72.9Must-Read Score
38
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
by Thornton Wilder · 1927
On July 20, 1714, the finest bridge in Peru, an old rope bridge woven by the Incas, breaks and throws five travelers into the gorge below.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1928)One of the ten best-selling books of 1928 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 NovelsModern Library 100 Best Novels
70.6Must-Read Score
39
Profiles in Courage
Profiles in Courage
by John F. Kennedy · 1955
Written while he was a young senator recovering from back surgery, John F.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize (Biography) winner (1957)#1 New York Times bestseller (12 weeks at #1)
69.3Must-Read Score
40
Herzog
Herzog
by Saul Bellow · 1964
Moses Herzog, a scholar in his forties, has just been divorced by his second wife, who left him for his best friend.
Why it made the list
National Book Award (Fiction) winner (1965)#1 New York Times bestseller (29 weeks at #1)One of the ten best-selling books of 1964 and 1965 (Publishers Weekly)TIME All-TIME 100 Novels
69.3Must-Read Score
41
Humboldt's Gift
Humboldt's Gift
by Saul Bellow · 1975
Charlie Citrine is a successful, middle-aged Chicago writer whose life is falling apart: a nasty divorce, a gangster who's smashed his car, a young girlfriend.
Why it made the list
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner (1976)One of the ten best-selling books of 1975 (Publishers Weekly)Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
67.4Must-Read Score