All Novels

Explore rankings, reviews, and reader lists for every book in the catalog.

Trainspotting

3.2 (5)

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

#213

RANK

3,250

POINTS

The Moviegoer

Walker Percy

3.67 (3)

This morning I got a note from my aunt asking me to come for lunch.

#373

RANK

1,361

POINTS

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer

4.0 (11)

When the sweet showers of April have pierced/ The drought of March, and pierced it to the root,/ And every vein is bathed in that moisture/ Whose quickening force will engender the flower;/ And when the west wind too with its sweet breath/ Has given life in every wood and field/ To tender shoots, and when the stripling sun/ Has run his half-course in Aries, the Ram,/ And when small birds are making melodies,/ That sleep all the night long with open eyes,/ (Nature so prompts them, and encourages);/ Then people long to go on pilgrimages,/ And palmers to take ship for foreign shores,/ And distant shrines, famous in different lands;/ And most especially, from all the shires/ Of England, to Canterbury they come,/ The holy blessed martyr there to seek,/ Who gave his help to them when they were sick.When in April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower, When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath Exhales an air in every grove and heath Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run, And the small fowl are making melody That sleep away the night with open eye (So nature pricks them and their heart engages) Then people long to go on pilgrimages And palmers long to seek the stranger strands Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands, And specially, from every shire's end Of England, down to Canterbury they wend To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick To give his help to them when they were sick. (translated by Nevill Coghill, 1951)Once upon a time, as old stories tell us, there was a duke named Theseus; Of Athens he was a lord and governor, And in his time such a conqueror, That greater was there none under the sum.

#75

RANK

10,256

POINTS

Main Street

Sinclair Lewis

5.0 (1)

Chapter 1: On a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago, a girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky.

#288

RANK

1,986

POINTS

Take It or Leave It

Raymond Federman

4.0 (1)

#556

RANK

429

POINTS

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China

Jung Chang

4.0 (4)

At the age of fifteen my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general, the police chief of a tenuous national government of China.

#279

RANK

2,102

POINTS

Nightmare Abbey

Thomas Love Peacock

3.75 (4)

Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln, had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire.