aListofBooks

Ultimate Best Books

All :: Novels

    Little, Big

    Little, Big

    John Crowley

    3.5 (4)

    On a certain day in June, 19--, a young man was making his way on foot northward from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood, that he had been told of but had never visited.

    #526
    RANK
    518
    POINTS
    Manhattan Transfer

    Manhattan Transfer

    John Dos Passos

    3.5 (2)

    Three gulls wheel above the broken boxes, orangerinds, spoiled cabbage heads that heave between the splintered plank walls, the green waves spume under the round bow as the ferry, skidding on the tide, crashes, gulps the broken water, slides, settles slowly into the slip.

    #524
    RANK
    528
    POINTS
    A Brief History of Time

    A Brief History of Time

    Stephen Hawking

    4.0 (3)

    A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy.

    #240
    RANK
    2,776
    POINTS
    Candide

    Candide

    Voltaire

    4.13 (8)

    There lived in Westphalia, at the country seat of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, a young lad blessed by Nature with the most agreeable manners.In the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh in Westphalia there lived a youth, endowed by Nature with the most gentle character.

    #177
    RANK
    4,259
    POINTS
    The Sheltering Sky

    The Sheltering Sky

    Paul Bowles

    4.0 (4)

    He awoke, opened his eyes.Si svegliò, aprì gli occhi. La stanza gli diceva poco o niente, profondamente immerso com'era nel non-essere da cui era appena affiorato. Se l'energia di accertare la propria collocazione nel tempo e nello spazio gli mancava, gliene mancava anche il desiderio. Sapeva soltanto di esistere, d'avere attraversato vaste regioni per ritornare dal nulla; c'era, al centro della sua coscienza, la certezza di una tristezza infinita e al tempo stesso rassicurante, perché era la sola ad essergli familiare.

    #452
    RANK
    855
    POINTS
    Popol Vuh

    Popol Vuh

    Anonymous

    4.0 (2)

    #534
    RANK
    493
    POINTS
    Time and Again

    Time and Again

    Jack Finney

    4.0 (2)

    In shirt-sleeves, the I generally worked, I sat sketching a bar of soap taped to an upper corner of my drawing board.

    #466
    RANK
    770
    POINTS
    Moravagine

    Moravagine

    Blaise Cendrars

    3.0 (1)

    In 1900 I completed my medical studies.

    #595
    RANK
    309
    POINTS
    The Left Hand of Darkness

    The Left Hand of Darkness

    Ursula K. Le Guin

    4.0 (4)

    I’ll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.

    #352
    RANK
    1,548
    POINTS
    Double Act

    Double Act

    Jacqueline Wilson

    3.25 (4)

    #364
    RANK
    1,440
    POINTS