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Ultimate Best Books

All Novels

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

The Recognitions

The Recognitions

William Gaddis

3.33 (3)

Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the safe sort where the mask may be dropped at the critical moment it presumes itself as reality.

#522
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531
POINTS
On the Origin of Species

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

3.25 (4)

When on board HMS <i>Beagle</i>, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent.

#219
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3,115
POINTS
Sula

Sula

Toni Morrison

5.0 (3)

In that place, where they tore the nightshade and blackberry patches from the roots to make room for the Medallion City Golf Course, there was once a neighborhood.

#330
RANK
1,705
POINTS
Daniel Deronda

Daniel Deronda

George Eliot

4.0 (2)

Was she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or expression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance?

#427
RANK
1,005
POINTS
The Tartar Steppe

The Tartar Steppe

Dino Buzzati

4.0 (1)

One September morning, Giovanni Drogo, being newly commissioned, set out from the city for Fort Bastiani; it was his first posting.

#520
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533
POINTS
Young Lonigan

Young Lonigan

James T. Farrell

3.0 (2)

#527
RANK
505
POINTS
On the Social Contract

On the Social Contract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

4.0 (3)

My purpose is to consider if, in political society, there can be any legitimate and sure principle of government, taking men as they are and laws as they might be.

#290
RANK
1,999
POINTS
Sea of Poppies

Sea of Poppies

Amitav Ghosh

5.0 (1)

The vision of a tall-masted ship, at sail on the ocean, came to Deeti on an otherwise ordinary day, but she knew instantly that the apparition was a sign of destiny for she had never seen such a vessel before, not even in a dream: how could she have, living as she did in northern Bihar, four hundred miles from the coast?

#484
RANK
677
POINTS
Portnoy's Complaint

Portnoy's Complaint

Philip Roth

2.5 (4)

She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seemed to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise.

#239
RANK
2,775
POINTS
Shadow of the Torturer

Shadow of the Torturer

Gene Wolfe

4.0 (4)

It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future.To those who have preceded me in the study of the posthistoric world, and particularly to those collectors - too numerous to name here - who have permitted me to examine artifacts surviving so many centuries of futurity, and most especially to those who have allowed me to visit and photograph the era's few extant buildings, I am truly grateful. G.W. (Appendix)

#485
RANK
674
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