aListofBooks

Ultimate Best Books

All :: Novels

    Fureur Et Mystere

    Fureur Et Mystere

    René Char

    3.0 (1)

    #622
    RANK
    233
    POINTS
    The Bostonians

    The Bostonians

    Henry James

    4.0 (1)

    "Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that."

    #481
    RANK
    688
    POINTS
    The Old Wives' Tale

    The Old Wives' Tale

    Arnold Bennett

    4.0 (2)

    Those two girls, Constance and Sopha Baines, paid no heed to the manifold interest of their situation, of which, indeed, they had never been conscious.

    #518
    RANK
    539
    POINTS
    Drown

    Drown

    Junot Diaz

    5.0 (1)

    #523
    RANK
    529
    POINTS
    The Education of Henry Adams

    The Education of Henry Adams

    Henry Adams

    5.0 (1)

    Under the shadow of Boston State House, turning its back on the house of John Hancock, the little passage called Hancock Avenue runs, or ran, from Beacon Street, skirting the State House grounds, to Mount Vernon Street, on the summit of Beacon Hill; and there, in the third house below Mount Vernon Place, February 16, 1838, a child was born, and christened later by his uncle, the minister of the First Church after the tenets of Boston Unitarianism, as Henry Brooks Adams.

    #542
    RANK
    468
    POINTS
    The Betrothed

    The Betrothed

    Alessandro Manzoni

    3.0 (3)

    Quel ramo del lago di Como, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene non interrotte di monti, tutto a seni e golfi, a seconda dello sporgere e del rientrare di quelli, vien quasi a un tratto, a ristringersi, e a prender corso e figura di fiume, tra un promontorio a destra, e un'ampia costiera dall'altra parte; e il ponte, che ivi congiunge le due rive, par che renda ancor più sensibile all'occhio questa trasformazione, e segni il punto in cui il lago cessa, e l'Adda ricomincia, per ripigliar poi il nome di lago dove le rive, allontanandosi di nuovo, lascian l'acqua distendersi e rallentarsi in nuovi golfi e nuovi seni.

    #567
    RANK
    389
    POINTS
    The Last of the Mohicans

    The Last of the Mohicans

    James Fenimore Cooper

    4.25 (4)

    It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness were to be encountered before the adverse hosts could meet. A wide and apparently an impervious boundary of forests severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of France and England. The hardy colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.

    #212
    RANK
    3,308
    POINTS
    The Five People You Meet in Heaven

    The Five People You Meet in Heaven

    Mitch Albom

    3.38 (8)

    This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.

    #136
    RANK
    5,637
    POINTS
    #490
    RANK
    652
    POINTS
    Eugene Onegin

    Eugene Onegin

    Alexander Pushkin

    4.0 (2)

    'My uncle, man of firm convictions... By falling gravely ill, he's won A due respect for his afflictions-- The only clever thing he's done. (James E. Falen translation)

    #424
    RANK
    1,023
    POINTS