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Ultimate Best Books

All :: Novels

    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
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    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
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    Animal Farm

    Animal Farm

    George Orwell

    4.17 (46)

    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
    33,712
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    A Passage to India

    A Passage to India

    E. M. Forster

    3.88 (8)

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

    #125
    RANK
    6,408
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    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
    3,294
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    Wuthering Heights

    Wuthering Heights

    Emily Brontë

    3.75 (32)

    #22
    RANK
    22,294
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    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
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    26,611
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    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
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    13,596
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    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
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    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
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