List :: Books You Can't Live Without by The Guardian

  • Little Women

    #11

    Little Women

    by Louisa May Alcott

    (18 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 38

    348 points

    "“Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug."

  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles

    #12

    Tess of the D'Urbervilles

    by Thomas Hardy

    (13 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 51

    315 points

    "On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor."

  • Catch-22

    #13

    Catch-22

    by Joseph Heller

    (30 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 6

    823 points

    "It was love at first sight."

  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

    #14

    The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

    by William Shakespeare

    (4 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 239

    87 points

    "William Shakespeare's date of birth is not precisely known, but it probably preceded his baptism on April 26, 1564, in Stratfordon-Avon, by only a few days."

  • Rebecca

    #15

    Rebecca

    by Daphne du Maurier

    (12 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 43

    333 points

    "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

  • The Hobbit

    #16

    The Hobbit

    by J. R. R. Tolkien

    (29 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 47

    322 points

    "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to..."

  • Birdsong

    #17

    Birdsong

    by Sebastian Faulks

    (6 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 80

    226 points

    "The boulevard du cange was a broad, quiet street that marked the eastern flank of the city of Amiens."

  • The Catcher in the Rye

    #18

    The Catcher in the Rye

    by J. D. Salinger

    (44 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 7

    735 points

    "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they...

  • The Time Traveler's Wife

    #19

    The Time Traveler's Wife

    by Audrey Niffenegger

    (13 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 257

    82 points

    "PROLOGUE - Clare: It's hard being left behind.FIRST DATE, ONE Saturday, October 26, 1991 (Henry is 28, Clare is 20) Clare: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see..."

  • Middlemarch

    #20

    Middlemarch

    by George Eliot

    (11 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 21

    519 points

    "Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not..."