aListofBooks

Ultimate Best Books

All Novels

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

Middlemarch

Middlemarch

George Eliot

4.08 (12)

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 smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl waling forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? (Prelude)Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

#132
RANK
5,747
POINTS
Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

4.31 (26)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (C. Garnett, 1946) and (J. Carmichael, 1960)All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.All happy families resemble one another, every unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion. (N. H. Dole, 1886)All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (Pevear, Volokhonsky, 2000)

#50
RANK
13,095
POINTS
Animal Farm

Animal Farm

George Orwell

4.19 (47)

Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.

#6
RANK
33,743
POINTS
A Passage to India

A Passage to India

E. M. Forster

3.78 (9)

Except for the Marabar caves--and they are twenty miles off--the city of Chrandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.

#125
RANK
6,418
POINTS
In Search of Lost Time

In Search of Lost Time

Marcel Proust

4.0 (7)

For a long time, I would go to bed early. [Fr., Longtemps, je me suis couche de bonne heure.]

#209
RANK
3,298
POINTS
Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

3.75 (32)

#22
RANK
22,295
POINTS
The Chronicles of Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia

C. S. Lewis

4.11 (28)

There is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (From <i>The Magician's Nephew</i>, first in chronological order)Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. (From <i>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</i>, first in publication order)

#12
RANK
26,548
POINTS
The Color Purple

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

4.07 (15)

You better not never tell nobody but God. It'd kill your mammy.

#44
RANK
13,600
POINTS
Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie

4.22 (9)

I was born in the city of Bombay . . . once upon a time.

#150
RANK
4,902
POINTS
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce

3.33 (9)

Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo....

#107
RANK
7,686
POINTS