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Ultimate Best Books

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    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.

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    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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    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
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    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
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    1,011
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    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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    Young Lonigan

    Young Lonigan

    James T. Farrell

    3.0 (2)

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    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
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    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
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    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.

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    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)

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