aListofBooks

Ultimate Best Books

List: The Novel 100 by Daniel S. Bert

The Trial

The Trial

Franz Kafka

3.7 (10)

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.Jemand mußte Josef K. verleumdet haben, denn ohne daß er etwas Böses getan hätte, wurde er eines Morgens verhaftet.

#114
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7,219
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The Ambassadors

The Ambassadors

Henry James

4.0 (4)

Strether's first question, when he reached the hotel, was about his friend; yet on his learning that Waymarsh was apparently not to arrive till evening he was not wholly disconcerted.

#283
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2,023
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The Death of Artemio Cruz

The Death of Artemio Cruz

Carlos Fuentes

3.5 (2)

I wake ... the touch of that cold object against my penis awakens me.

#537
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487
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The Stranger

The Stranger

Albert Camus

3.71 (14)

Mother died today. (Stuart Gilbert translation)Maman died today. (Matthew Ward translation)Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

#53
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12,961
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Nineteen Eighty-Four

Nineteen Eighty-Four

George Orwell

4.36 (69)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

#3
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The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4.22 (18)

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.

#60
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11,642
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An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy

Theodore Dreiser

4.25 (4)

Dusk - of a summer night.

#228
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2,954
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Germinal

Germinal

Émile Zola

4.0 (2)

Dans la plaine rase, sous la nuit sans étoiles, d’une obscurité et d’une épaisseur d’encre, un homme suivait seul la grande route de Marchiennes à Montsou, dix kilomètres de pavé coupant tout droit, à travers les champs de betteraves.[translation by Havelock Ellis, 1894] Over the open plain, beneath a starless sky as dark and thick as ink, a man walked alone along the highway from Marchiennes to Montsou, a straight paved road ten kilometers in length, intersecting the beetroot-fields.

#401
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1,176
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Call it Sleep

Call it Sleep

Henry Roth

3.5 (2)

#498
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621
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The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

3.95 (97)

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

#1
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