The Greatest Books of All Time
How is this list generated?
This list is generated from 130 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust "best of all time" lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that's 100th. If you're interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to e-mail me.
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651
. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Peter Pan (Peter And Wendy) is the original fantasy story that takes you to Neverland and everlasting youth. This is the story the Disney movie is based on and it is still very popular today. Set y...
- Google
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-
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653
. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler set in Baltimore, Maryland. It is Anne Tyler's ninth novel. In 1983 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize,[1] the National Book Aw...
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-
-
654
. Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville (O'Hara's fictional...
-
-
-
655
. Kokoro by Sōseki Natsume
Haunted by tragic secrets, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt.
- Google
-
-
-
656
. Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the 'cancerous' Sovie...
- Google
-
-
-
657
. First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
At the height of Stalin's postwar terror, Innokenty, a young diplomat and scion of a corrupt ruling class, discovers an earlier and more spiritual tradition than that adopted by the October Revolut...
- Google
-
-
-
658
. The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley’s finest novel, encounters a world of ...
- Google
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-
-
659
. Platero by Juan Ramón Jiménez
Platero is the eponymous donkey of the 1914 story Platero y yo (Spanish for Platero and I). The book is one of the most popular works by Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, the recipient of the 1956 N...
-
-
-
660
. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ...
- Google
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-
-
661
. Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Guanzhong Luo
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is Lo Kuan-chung's retelling of the events attending the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 A.D., one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods in Chinese history...
- Google
-
-
-
662
. Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
Winner of the 2011 National Book Award A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard dri...
- Google
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-
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663
. Ironweed by William Kennedy
Ironweed is set during the Great Depression and tells the story of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic vagrant originally from Albany, New York, who left his family after accidentally killing his infant s...
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-
-
664
. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
A prophet has is about to board a ship home after 12 years in exile, when he is stopped by a group of people. His teachings to them, discussing love, marriage, crime, freedom and law among many oth...
- Google
-
-
-
665
. Lazarillo de Tormes by Unknown
The bastard son of a prostitute, Lazarillo goes to work for a blind beggar, who beats and starves him, while teaching him some very useful dirty tricks. The boy then drifts in and out of the servic...
- Google
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-
-
666
. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Shifting in time, the novel tells the story of Penelope Keeling, the daughter of unconventional parents (an artist father and his much-younger French wife), examining her past and her relationships...
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-
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667
. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the cover page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of ...
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-
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668
. The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
The story centers on Port and Kit Moresby, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner. The journey, initially an attempt by ...
-
-
-
669
. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of ...
- Google
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-
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670
. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it ...
- Google
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671
. Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire
Guiilaume Apollinaire, a leading figure amongst the young writers and artists in France until his death in 1918, published 'Alcools', his first book of poems, in 1913. With its wide range of verse ...
- Google
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-
-
672
. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of h...
- Google
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-
-
673
. At Swim Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish author Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated ex...
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-
-
674
. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The stirring saga of a man’s journey to free his sister—and himself—from a tragic family history Tom Wingo has lost his job, and is on the verge of losing his marriage, when he learns that his twin...
- Google
-
-
-
675
. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a wi...
- Google
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-
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676
. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol (originally, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is a novella by English author Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) about a curmudgeon and h...
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677
. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Considered by turns part-gothic novel, part-psychological mystery, part-metafiction, part-satire, part-case study of totalitarian thought, it can also be thought of as an early example of modern cr...
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-
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678
. The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
"My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost..."The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience t...
- Google
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-
-
679
. JR by William Gaddis
A great masterpiece by William Gaddis, with a new introduction by Rick Moody. Winner of the 1976 National Book Award, J R is a biting satire about the many ways in which capitalism twists the Ameri...
- Google
-
-
-
680
. There But For The by Ali Smith
When a dinner-party guest named Miles locks himself in an upstairs room and refuses to come out, he sets off a media frenzy. He also sets in motion a mesmerizing puzzle of a novel, one that harness...
- Google
-
-
-
-
682
. The Red Room by August Strindberg
The Red Room (Swedish: Röda rummet) is a Swedish novel by August Strindberg that was first published in 1879.[1] A satire of Stockholm society, it has frequently been described as the first modern ...
-
-
-
683
. Hemsöborna by August Strindberg
The People of Hemsö (Swedish: Hemsöborna) is an 1887 novel by August Strindberg about the life of people of the island Hemsö in the Stockholm archipelago. Hemsö is a fictional island, but it is bas...
-
-
-
684
. The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna
The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas) is author Väinö Linna's first major novel and his other major work besides Under the North Star. Published in 1954, it is a story about the Continuation War...
-
-
-
685
. The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström
The accidental death in the 1930s of Solveig Nordensson profoundly affects three generations of Nordensson men, until her grandson Victor finally finds redemption in a staging of Bach's "Christmas ...
- Google
-
-
-
686
. Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
Barabbas is the acquitted; the man whose life was exchanged for that of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified upon the hill of Golgotha. Barabbas is a man condemned to have no god. "Christos Iesus" is carve...
- Google
-
-
-
687
. The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
A composer, fleeing an empty existence in New York City, takes a journey with his mistress to one of the few remaining areas of the world not yet touched by civilization the upper reaches of a grea...
- Google
-
-
-
688
. Simon and the Oaks by Marianne Fredriksson
The friendship of two Swedish boys and the way they are influenced by each other's families. One boy descends from wealthy Jewish intellectuals, the other is the son of a craftsman working with his...
- Google
-
-
-
689
. The Alberta Trilogy by Cora Sandel
Imaginative and intelligent, Alberta is a misfit trapped in a stiflingly provincial town in the far north of Norway whose only affinity is for her extrovert brother Jacob.
- Google
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-
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690
. Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
Zuleika Dobson is a highly accomplished and superbly written book whose spirit is farcical," said E. M. Forster. "It is a great work--the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time . . . so...
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691
. The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
A writer comes one summer to Dunnet Landing, a Maine seacoast town, where she follows the lonely inhabitants of once-prosperous coastal towns. Here, lives are molded by the long Maine winters, rock...
- Google
-
-
-
692
. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
This lyrical tragedy of two star-crossed lovers and their feuding families is one of the world's most famous love stories.
- Google
-
-
-
693
. Gimpel the Fool by Isaac B Singer
"Gimpel the Fool" (1953) is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his...
-
-
-
694
. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.
Set in Baltimore, Maryland, the plot rev...
-
-
-
695
. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III returns home to the desert only to find his beloved canyons and rivers now threatened by industrial development. Joining forces with Bronx exile and fe...
- Google
-
-
-
696
. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov
Uncle Vanya (Russian: Дядя Ваня – Dyadya Vanya) is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin...
-
-
-
697
. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. It is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period.
-
-
-
698
. Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
Manon Lescaut (L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures...
-
-
-
699
. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ chronicles the journey of Judah Ben-Hur and the life of Jesus, from Ben-Hur's quest for vengeance against the Romans and his search for his imprisoned family to the bi...
- Google
-
-
-
700
. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
High Fidelity is a 1995 British novel by Nick Hornby. It was adapted into a 2000 film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Cusack. It also served as the basis for a 2006 Broadway musical of...
-
-
This list is generated from 130 "best of" book lists from a variety of great sources. An algorithm is used to create a master list based on how many lists a particular book appears on. Some lists count more than others. I generally trust "best of all time" lists voted by authors and experts over user-generated lists. On the lists that are actually ranked, the book that is 1st counts a lot more than the book that's 100th. If you're interested in the details about how the rankings are generated and which lists are the most important(in my eyes) please check out the list details page.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to e-mail me.
-
651 . Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Peter Pan (Peter And Wendy) is the original fantasy story that takes you to Neverland and everlasting youth. This is the story the Disney movie is based on and it is still very popular today. Set y...
- Google -
653 . Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is a 1982 novel by Anne Tyler set in Baltimore, Maryland. It is Anne Tyler's ninth novel. In 1983 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize,[1] the National Book Aw...
-
654 . Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara
Appointment in Samarra, published in 1934, is the first novel by John O'Hara. It concerns the self-destruction of Julian English, once a member of the social elite of Gibbsville (O'Hara's fictional...
-
655 . Kokoro by Sōseki Natsume
Haunted by tragic secrets, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt.
- Google -
656 . Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One of the great allegorical masterpieces of world literature, Cancer Ward is both a deeply compassionate study of people facing terminal illness and a brilliant dissection of the 'cancerous' Sovie...
- Google -
657 . First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
At the height of Stalin's postwar terror, Innokenty, a young diplomat and scion of a corrupt ruling class, discovers an earlier and more spiritual tradition than that adopted by the October Revolut...
- Google -
658 . The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley’s finest novel, encounters a world of ...
- Google -
659 . Platero by Juan Ramón Jiménez
Platero is the eponymous donkey of the 1914 story Platero y yo (Spanish for Platero and I). The book is one of the most popular works by Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, the recipient of the 1956 N...
-
660 . Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ...
- Google -
661 . Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Guanzhong Luo
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is Lo Kuan-chung's retelling of the events attending the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 A.D., one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods in Chinese history...
- Google -
662 . Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
Winner of the 2011 National Book Award A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard dri...
- Google -
663 . Ironweed by William Kennedy
Ironweed is set during the Great Depression and tells the story of Francis Phelan, an alcoholic vagrant originally from Albany, New York, who left his family after accidentally killing his infant s...
-
664 . The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
A prophet has is about to board a ship home after 12 years in exile, when he is stopped by a group of people. His teachings to them, discussing love, marriage, crime, freedom and law among many oth...
- Google -
665 . Lazarillo de Tormes by Unknown
The bastard son of a prostitute, Lazarillo goes to work for a blind beggar, who beats and starves him, while teaching him some very useful dirty tricks. The boy then drifts in and out of the servic...
- Google -
666 . The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Shifting in time, the novel tells the story of Penelope Keeling, the daughter of unconventional parents (an artist father and his much-younger French wife), examining her past and her relationships...
-
667 . Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility is a novel by Jane Austen, published in 1811. It was published anonymously; By A Lady appears on the cover page where the author's name might have been. It tells the story of ...
-
668 . The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
The story centers on Port and Kit Moresby, a married couple originally from New York who travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner. The journey, initially an attempt by ...
-
669 . Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The number one bestseller in Mexico and America for almost two years, and subsequently a bestseller around the world, Like Water For Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with moments of ...
- Google -
670 . East of Eden by John Steinbeck
A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it ...
- Google -
671 . Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire
Guiilaume Apollinaire, a leading figure amongst the young writers and artists in France until his death in 1918, published 'Alcools', his first book of poems, in 1913. With its wide range of verse ...
- Google -
672 . Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of h...
- Google -
673 . At Swim Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish author Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated ex...
-
674 . The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The stirring saga of a man’s journey to free his sister—and himself—from a tragic family history Tom Wingo has lost his job, and is on the verge of losing his marriage, when he learns that his twin...
- Google -
675 . Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a wi...
- Google -
676 . A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol (originally, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is a novella by English author Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) about a curmudgeon and h...
-
677 . The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Considered by turns part-gothic novel, part-psychological mystery, part-metafiction, part-satire, part-case study of totalitarian thought, it can also be thought of as an early example of modern cr...
-
678 . The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
"My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost..."The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience t...
- Google -
679 . JR by William Gaddis
A great masterpiece by William Gaddis, with a new introduction by Rick Moody. Winner of the 1976 National Book Award, J R is a biting satire about the many ways in which capitalism twists the Ameri...
- Google -
680 . There But For The by Ali Smith
When a dinner-party guest named Miles locks himself in an upstairs room and refuses to come out, he sets off a media frenzy. He also sets in motion a mesmerizing puzzle of a novel, one that harness...
- Google -
682 . The Red Room by August Strindberg
The Red Room (Swedish: Röda rummet) is a Swedish novel by August Strindberg that was first published in 1879.[1] A satire of Stockholm society, it has frequently been described as the first modern ...
-
683 . Hemsöborna by August Strindberg
The People of Hemsö (Swedish: Hemsöborna) is an 1887 novel by August Strindberg about the life of people of the island Hemsö in the Stockholm archipelago. Hemsö is a fictional island, but it is bas...
-
684 . The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna
The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas) is author Väinö Linna's first major novel and his other major work besides Under the North Star. Published in 1954, it is a story about the Continuation War...
-
685 . The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström
The accidental death in the 1930s of Solveig Nordensson profoundly affects three generations of Nordensson men, until her grandson Victor finally finds redemption in a staging of Bach's "Christmas ...
- Google -
686 . Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
Barabbas is the acquitted; the man whose life was exchanged for that of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified upon the hill of Golgotha. Barabbas is a man condemned to have no god. "Christos Iesus" is carve...
- Google -
687 . The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
A composer, fleeing an empty existence in New York City, takes a journey with his mistress to one of the few remaining areas of the world not yet touched by civilization the upper reaches of a grea...
- Google -
688 . Simon and the Oaks by Marianne Fredriksson
The friendship of two Swedish boys and the way they are influenced by each other's families. One boy descends from wealthy Jewish intellectuals, the other is the son of a craftsman working with his...
- Google -
689 . The Alberta Trilogy by Cora Sandel
Imaginative and intelligent, Alberta is a misfit trapped in a stiflingly provincial town in the far north of Norway whose only affinity is for her extrovert brother Jacob.
- Google -
690 . Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
Zuleika Dobson is a highly accomplished and superbly written book whose spirit is farcical," said E. M. Forster. "It is a great work--the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time . . . so...
-
691 . The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
A writer comes one summer to Dunnet Landing, a Maine seacoast town, where she follows the lonely inhabitants of once-prosperous coastal towns. Here, lives are molded by the long Maine winters, rock...
- Google -
692 . Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
This lyrical tragedy of two star-crossed lovers and their feuding families is one of the world's most famous love stories.
- Google -
693 . Gimpel the Fool by Isaac B Singer
"Gimpel the Fool" (1953) is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his...
-
694 . The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist is a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Set in Baltimore, Maryland, the plot rev...
-
695 . The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III returns home to the desert only to find his beloved canyons and rivers now threatened by industrial development. Joining forces with Bronx exile and fe...
- Google -
696 . Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov
Uncle Vanya (Russian: Дядя Ваня – Dyadya Vanya) is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin...
-
697 . Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
Little Dorrit is a serial novel by Charles Dickens published originally between 1855 and 1857. It is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period.
-
698 . Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
Manon Lescaut (L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut) is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures...
-
699 . Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ chronicles the journey of Judah Ben-Hur and the life of Jesus, from Ben-Hur's quest for vengeance against the Romans and his search for his imprisoned family to the bi...
- Google -
700 . High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
High Fidelity is a 1995 British novel by Nick Hornby. It was adapted into a 2000 film directed by Stephen Frears and starring John Cusack. It also served as the basis for a 2006 Broadway musical of...