List :: Books You Can't Live Without by The Guardian

  • Anna Karenina

    #31

    Anna Karenina

    by Leo Tolstoy

    (26 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 22

    505 points

    "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (C. Garnett, 1946) and (J. Carmichael, 1960)All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy..."

  • David Copperfield

    #32

    David Copperfield

    by Charles Dickens

    (14 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 55

    309 points

    "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I..."

  • The Chronicles of Narnia

    #33

    The Chronicles of Narnia

    by C. S. Lewis

    (28 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 27

    403 points

    "There is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (From The Magician's Nephew, first in chronological order)Once there were four children whose names were..."

  • Emma

    #34

    Emma

    by Jane Austen

    (17 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 54

    310 points

    "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the..."

  • Persuasion

    #35

    Persuasion

    by Jane Austen

    (15 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 157

    129 points

    "Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation..."

  • The Chronicles of Narnia

    #33

    The Chronicles of Narnia

    by C. S. Lewis

    (28 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 27

    403 points

    "There is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (From The Magician's Nephew, first in chronological order)Once there were four children whose names were..."

  • The Kite Runner

    #37

    The Kite Runner

    by Khaled Hosseini

    (12 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 342

    64 points

    "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975."

  • Captain Corelli's Mandolin

    #38

    Captain Corelli's Mandolin

    by Louis de Bernières

    (4 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 102

    183 points

    "Dr. Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse."

  • Memoirs of a Geisha

    #39

    Memoirs of a Geisha

    by Arthur Golden

    (13 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 189

    101 points

    "One evening in the spring of 1936, when I was a boy of fourteen, my father took me to a dance performance in Kyoto.Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting..."

  • Winnie-the-Pooh

    #40

    Winnie-the-Pooh

    by A. A. Milne

    (21 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 31

    383 points

    "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin."