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

  • Animal Farm

    #41

    Animal Farm

    by George Orwell

    (46 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 23

    495 points

    "Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes."

  • The Da Vinci Code

    #42

    The Da Vinci Code

    by Dan Brown

    (20 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 357

    59 points

    "Robert Langdon awoke slowly."

  • One Hundred Years of Solitude

    #43

    One Hundred Years of Solitude

    by Gabriel García Márquez

    (25 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 12

    667 points

    "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de..."

  • A Prayer for Owen Meany

    #44

    A Prayer for Owen Meany

    by John Irving

    (8 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 53

    311 points

    "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but..."

  • The Woman in White

    #45

    The Woman in White

    by Wilkie Collins

    (6 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 118

    164 points

    "This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."

  • Anne of Green Gables

    #46

    Anne of Green Gables

    by L. M. Montgomery

    (12 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 173

    115 points

    "Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the..."

  • Far from the Madding Crowd

    #47

    Far from the Madding Crowd

    by Thomas Hardy

    (8 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 182

    107 points

    "When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them,..."

  • The Handmaid’s Tale

    #48

    The Handmaid’s Tale

    by Margaret Atwood

    (14 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 50

    316 points

    "We slept in what had once been the gymnasium."

  • Lord of the Flies

    #49

    Lord of the Flies

    by William Golding

    (45 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 20

    537 points

    "The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon."

  • Atonement

    #50

    Atonement

    by Ian McEwan

    (10 Reviews)

    Overall Rank: 111

    176 points

    "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..."