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Ultimate Best Books

List: 100 Greatest Novels of All Time by The Guardian

Don Quixote

Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes

4.89 (9)

Idle reader, you can believe without any oath of mine that I would wish this book, as the child of my brain, to be the most beautiful, the liveliest and the cleverest imaginable.Prologue: Idle reader: I don't have to swear any oaths to persuade you that I should like this book, since it is the son of my brain, to be the most beautiful and elegant and intelligent book imaginable.Chapter 1: In a village in La Mancha, the name of which I cannot quite recall, there lived not long ago one of those country gentlemen or hidalgos who keep a lance in a rack, an ancient leather shield, a scrawny hack and a greyhound for coursing.

#78
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9,969
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Wise Children

Wise Children

Angela Carter

3.5 (4)

Q. Why is London like Budapest? A. Because it is two cities divided by a river.

#532
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493
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Atonement

Atonement

Ian McEwan

4.1 (10)

The play – for which Briony had designed posters, programs and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper – was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.

#102
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7,989
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#63
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11,478
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Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable

Molloy; Malone Dies; The Unnamable

Samuel Beckett

4.0 (3)

I am in my mother's room.

#328
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1,710
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The Tin Drum

The Tin Drum

Günter Grass

4.2 (5)

Granted: I'm an inmate of a mental institution; my keeper watches me, scarcely lets me out of his sight; for there's a peephole in the door, and my keeper's eye is the shade of brown that can't see through blue-eyed types like me.

#215
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3,178
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Lanark

Lanark

Alasdair Gray

3.0 (1)

The Elite Cafe was entered by a staircase from the foyer of a cinema.

#585
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329
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Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

3.75 (32)

#22
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22,294
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Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy

4.67 (3)

The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry.

#233
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2,918
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Money

Money

Martin Amis

3.0 (4)

As my cab pulled of FDR Drive, somewhere in the early Hundreds, a low-slung Tomohawk full of black guys came sharking out of lane and slopped in fast right across our bows.

#471
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730
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