Avant-garde lit. Formally inventive styles. So unique it hurts.
1

by
4.25 avg rating — 101,232 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
2

by
4.10 avg rating — 1,479,899 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
3

by
4.01 avg rating — 48,087 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
4

by
3.99 avg rating — 885,393 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
5

by
3.69 avg rating — 97,078 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
6

by
4.01 avg rating — 111,611 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
7

by
3.86 avg rating — 126,800 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
8

by
4.14 avg rating — 314,133 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
9

by
4.40 avg rating — 78,836 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
10

by
3.87 avg rating — 942,934 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
11

by
4.09 avg rating — 199,552 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
12

by
3.46 avg rating — 98,484 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
13

by
3.97 avg rating — 25,293 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
14

by
4.12 avg rating — 1,101,178 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
15

by
4.17 avg rating — 57,421 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
16

by
4.06 avg rating — 279,399 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
17

by
4.39 avg rating — 593,319 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
18

by
4.15 avg rating — 436,228 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
19

by
3.86 avg rating — 86,715 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
20

by
4.44 avg rating — 33,790 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
21

by
4.01 avg rating — 267,258 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
22

by
4.18 avg rating — 641,609 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
23

by
4.03 avg rating — 1,392,099 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
24

by
4.28 avg rating — 418,515 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
25

by
4.18 avg rating — 336,949 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
26

by
4.20 avg rating — 5,435,230 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
27

by
4.14 avg rating — 394,729 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
28

by
3.97 avg rating — 22,885 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
29

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 767,978 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
30

by
3.85 avg rating — 197,947 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
31

by
3.95 avg rating — 339,211 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
32

by
3.97 avg rating — 434,838 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
33

by
4.22 avg rating — 48,623 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
34

by
3.80 avg rating — 3,883,430 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
35

by
4.21 avg rating — 6,337 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
36

by
3.80 avg rating — 360,969 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
37

by
3.91 avg rating — 74,770 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
38

by
3.96 avg rating — 163,340 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
39

by
3.97 avg rating — 2,823,870 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
40

by
3.88 avg rating — 55,487 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
41

by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,032,766 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
42

by
4.10 avg rating — 96,981 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
43

by
4.38 avg rating — 337,907 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
44

by
3.73 avg rating — 23,016 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
45

by
3.59 avg rating — 234,893 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
46

by
4.42 avg rating — 153 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
47

by
3.68 avg rating — 6,732 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
48

by
3.97 avg rating — 132,738 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
49

by
3.98 avg rating — 489,236 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
50

by
3.79 avg rating — 174,576 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
51

by
4.11 avg rating — 542,203 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
52

by
4.20 avg rating — 778,782 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
53

by
3.85 avg rating — 24,423 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
54

by
4.05 avg rating — 10,214 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
55

by
4.12 avg rating — 7,734 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
56

by
4.11 avg rating — 122,470 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
57

by
3.89 avg rating — 1,593,369 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
58

by
4.02 avg rating — 4,529,546 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
59

by
3.85 avg rating — 14,298 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
60

by
4.05 avg rating — 12,930 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
61

by
3.70 avg rating — 3,191,030 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
62

by
4.05 avg rating — 21,331 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
63

by
4.12 avg rating — 546,554 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
64

by
3.69 avg rating — 183,575 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
65

by
3.60 avg rating — 30,065 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
66

by
3.85 avg rating — 15,095 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
67

by
3.87 avg rating — 114,630 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
68

by
3.81 avg rating — 214,112 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
69

by
3.78 avg rating — 355,470 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
70

by
3.91 avg rating — 304,529 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
71

by
4.15 avg rating — 218,774 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
72

by
3.84 avg rating — 70,383 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
73

by
3.89 avg rating — 3,746 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
74

by
4.10 avg rating — 219,376 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
75

by
4.03 avg rating — 110,108 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
76

by
4.04 avg rating — 32,716 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
77

by
3.86 avg rating — 4,927 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
78

by
4.09 avg rating — 511,098 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
79

by
3.92 avg rating — 7,296 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
80

by
3.95 avg rating — 562,429 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
81

by
3.64 avg rating — 12,056 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
82

by
3.27 avg rating — 18,858 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
83

by
3.71 avg rating — 71,678 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
84

by
4.06 avg rating — 377,664 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.65 avg rating — 16,519 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
4.02 avg rating — 8,160 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
85

by
3.61 avg rating — 99,074 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
88

by
3.99 avg rating — 2,070,653 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
89

by
4.10 avg rating — 7,863 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
90

by
4.11 avg rating — 152,143 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
91

by
3.87 avg rating — 1,152 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
92

by
3.70 avg rating — 25,649 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
93

by
4.02 avg rating — 313,503 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
94

by
3.76 avg rating — 17,949 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
95

by
3.88 avg rating — 14,663 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
95

by
4.07 avg rating — 201,912 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
97

by
3.95 avg rating — 33,784 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
98

by
3.87 avg rating — 26,520 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
99

by
3.65 avg rating — 9,597 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
100

by
4.40 avg rating — 42,590 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
519 books · 584 voters · list created August 24th, 2010 by MJ Nicholls (votes) .
729 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


MJ 3048 books
2319 friends
Hubert 3907 books
94 friends
Jasmine 3637 books
199 friends
Mark 1378 books
113 friends
Rob 633 books
24 friends
Michael 1118 books
2383 friends
Dyuti 136 books
18 friends
Nick 381 books
20 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-17 of 17 (17 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Rayroy (new)

Rayroy great fucking list!


message 2: by Spencer (new)

Spencer Rich I'd like to suggest Ursula LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven as more suitably po-mo than her more famous Left Hand of Darkness. All the same--one of the best lists on this site.


Sentimental Surrealist The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is on here twice. Great list otherwise!


message 4: by David (new)

David Lentz The best list on Goodreads.


message 5: by Jason (new)

Jason Looks like another list of books i will have to read. Can you save these lists? Or is the only way just to bookmark the page?


message 6: by MJ (new)

MJ Nicholls Add all the books to your to-read lists. Job done.


message 7: by Jonathan (new)

Jonathan This list is awesome.


message 8: by Nate D (new)

Nate D 38 down out those first 100. Many more amazing books to go.


message 9: by Nate D (new)

Nate D White Noise also shows twice. Is there a way to just search the list when adding to avoid this? In any event, I added way way too many selections. There's very little on my top 100 ever that isn't arguably post-modern I find.


message 10: by Luke (new)

Luke If you're a librarian, you can vote through the 'add books' and check for duplicates through the edit option to avoid this. Otherwise, your best bet is to go to the most popular edition of the book and look through the lists it's on, as clicking on it through there will link you to its exact list position. There's no guarantee with the latter method, though.


message 11: by David (new)

David Lentz I just checked and ran de-dupe engine for this great list. Decided to buy this novel on Lulu: looks like an excellent value. I encourage you to support your Goodreads authors with your wallets. MJ is a devoted Goodreader and a wit. Buy and review his book on Goodreads.


message 12: by Matt (new)

Matt Can I add "The Public Burning" by Robert Coover?


message 13: by Peter (new)

Peter Stephan I dont think Don Quixote is postmodern...


message 14: by BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) (last edited Jan 31, 2017 10:36AM) (new)

BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) Unfortunately the duplicate check isn't working at the moment :-(
I noticed 2666 being on this list twice. Removing the duplicate by hand is not an option, unfortunately, as a duplicate check would not only remove the duplicate but would also combine the votes of the two books (and removing it by hand wouldn't).

There are only five pages to go through at the moment, so please, check the pages before you decide to add...


message 15: by [deleted user] (new)

Surprised Foucault isn't on this list. Added.


message 16: by John (new)

John Some of the books on this list are modernist, not postmodernist (e.g., James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot). Most scholars say that postmodernism started in the 1960s, although there were premodern precursors like Tristram Shandy and the works of Flann O'Brien.


message 17: by MJ (new)

MJ Nicholls John wrote: "Some of the books on this list are modernist, not postmodernist."

True. That's the problem with letting the public vote on things.


back to top