100 Best Time Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best time books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

Featuring recommendations from Oprah Winfrey, Reid Hoffman, Walter Isaacson, and 275 other experts.
1

A Brief History of Time

In the ten years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking's classic work has become a landmark volume in scientific writing, with more than nine million copies in forty languages sold worldwide. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the intervening years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic worlds. These observations have confirmed many of Professor Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book, including the recent discoveries of... more

Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Dan HooperEverybody knows Hawking’s greatest contributions: understanding that black holes radiate light and other particles, that they contain entropy and all these things that no one imagined before him. Hawking and Roger Penrose also worked out the Big Bang singularity, the very moment of creation. To hear him describe some of these things with his own word choices, his own phrasing—not to mention his... (Source)

Adam Hart-DavisWhen Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time..his publisher told him that every equation he left in would halve the number of readers (Source)

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2

The Time Traveler's Wife

The beloved, mega bestselling first novel from Audrey Niffenegger, “a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time” (Chicago Tribune).

A MOST UNTRADITIONAL LOVE STORY, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.
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A.r. Moxon (Julius Goat)“A beautiful, harrowing, thrilling book....It’s a wild ride and a great read.” —Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife THE REVISIONARIES Published by Melville House Dec 03, 2019 | 608 Pages | Hardcover https://t.co/cKLZBnrQda (Source)

Gabriel CoarnaAudrey Niffenegger's "The Time Traveler's Wife" and Garth Stein's "The Art Of Racing In The Rain" made me cry. (Source)

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3
Fifty years ago, Madeleine L’Engle introduced the world to A Wrinkle in Time and the wonderful and unforgettable characters Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe. When the children learn that Mr. Murry has been captured by the Dark Thing, they time travel to Camazotz, where they must face the leader IT in the ultimate battle between good and evil—a journey that threatens their lives and our universe. A Newbery Award winner, A Wrinkle in Time is an iconic novel that continues to inspire millions of fans around the world. This special edition has been... more
Recommended by Sheryl Sandberg, and 1 others.

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4
"The Bible of business and personal productivity" —Lifehack

"A completely revised and updated edition of the blockbuster bestseller from 'the personal productivity guru'"Fast Company


Since it was first published almost fifteen years ago, David Allen’s Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. “GTD” is now shorthand for an entire way of approaching professional and personal tasks, and has spawned an entire culture of websites,...
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Dustin MoskovitzPut first things first. (Source)

Tony HsiehGetting Things Done by David Allen. He recently spoke at our Zappos all-hands meeting and gave me a signed copy of his book. (Source)

Eric RoseWhen I'm flat-out stressed about the volume and complexity of my work, I open this book and find immediate ways to gain a sense of control. That's really a critical need for decision making. David made me what I am today: headstrong and proud of it. (Source)

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5

Slaughterhouse-Five

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time, Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most. less

Carlos EireEven though he is no philosopher Vonnegut is still able to ask the questions that all of us think about – how time affects our lives. (Source)

Dan Christensen@MetaHumean Love that book. (Source)

Bernard TanI’m also a Murakami and Vonnegut fan, Kafka on the Shore, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. Now that I look at the books listed, they seem to carry an existential theme. I guess I like to understand humanity and human behaviour ultimately to better understand myself. I find reading a means to connect with people who may have lived before my time, or in a... (Source)

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6

The Time Machine

“I’ve had a most amazing time....”

So begins the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era—and the story that launched H.G. Wells’s successful career and earned him his reputation as the father of science fiction. With a speculative leap that still fires the imagination, Wells sends his brave explorer to face a future burdened with our greatest hopes...and our darkest fears. A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth.  There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the...
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Adam RobertsIt is a short novel, almost a novella, but it is smoothly and evocatively written, and it manages to open a chink in the reader’s mind that gives a her dizzying, thrilling glimpse down the vertiginous perspectives of long time. My favourite moment comes near the end, after the time traveller has left the Eloi and Morlocks behind him (as it were) and travelled more than 30 million years into the... (Source)

Adam RobertsIt is a short novel, almost a novella, but it is smoothly and evocatively written, and it manages to open a chink in the reader’s mind that gives a her dizzying, thrilling glimpse down the vertiginous perspectives of long time. My favourite moment comes near the end, after the time traveller has left the Eloi and Morlocks behind him (as it were) and travelled more than 30 million years into the... (Source)

Roger LuckhurstIt invents the idea of far-future visions that science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke have constantly tried to achieve. (Source)

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7

11/22/63

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping... more

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8

L'ordine del tempo

Come le "Sette brevi lezioni di fisica", che ha raggiunto un pubblico immenso in ogni parte del mondo, questo libro tratta di qualcosa della fisica che parla a chiunque e lo coinvolge, semplicemente perché è un mistero di cui ciascuno ha esperienza in ogni istante: il tempo. E un mistero non solo per ogni profano, ma anche per i fisici, che hanno visto il tempo trasformarsi in modo radicale, da Newton a Einstein, alla meccanica quantistica, infine alle teorie sulla gravità a loop, di cui Rovelli stesso è uno dei principali teorici.
Nelle equazioni di Newton era sempre presente, ma oggi...
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Recommended by Jim Al-Khalili, and 1 others.

Jim Al-KhaliliBecause they are translated from the original Italian, Rovelli’s books retain a beautiful poetry which, combined with his deep knowledge of fundamental physics, make for a wonderfully charming mix. (Source)

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9

Outlander (Outlander, #1)

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another...

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach an 'outlander' in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and...
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Recommended by Priscilla Pilon, and 1 others.

Priscilla PilonI just voted for Outlander (Series) #VOTEOutlander! https://t.co/MM628DhkE9 Because @Writer_DG is a flipping genius. I dare you to read the first book and not fall in love with the series. Be forewarned, you’ll lose sleep because you...can’t...stop...reading! (Source)

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10
When Stephen Covey first released The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the book became an instant rage because people suddenly got up and took notice that their lives were headed off in the wrong direction; and more than that, they realized that there were so many simple things they could do in order to navigate their life correctly. This book was wonderful education for people, education in how to live life effectively and get closer to the ideal of being a ‘success’ in life.

But not everyone understands Stephen Covey’s model fully well, or maybe there are some people who...
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Dustin Moskovitz[I] was surprised at how familiar the topics felt. (Source)

Dave Ramsey[Dave Ramsey recommended this book on his website.] (Source)

Kishore BiyaniImmensely helpful and influential during my early years, it explained some of the basic mindsets required to succeed in any profession. (Source)

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Don't have time to read the top Time books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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11

Einstein's Dreams

A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar.

Now...
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Walter IsaacsonThis is a work of fiction that weaves in the whimsy of Einstein’s days as a patent clerk in Switzerland and the types of dreams he may have had. They are little fables that come from his dreams. (Source)

Eric Weinstein[Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

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12

1984

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this hardcover edition.

“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”—The New Yorker
 
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave...
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Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Steve Jobscalled this book "one of his favorite" and recommended it to the hires. The book also inspired one the greatest TV ad (made by Jobs) (Source)

D J TaylorIn terms of how technology is working in our modern surveillance powers, it’s a terrifyingly prophetic book in some of its implications for 21st-century human life. Orwell would deny that it was prophecy; he said it was a warning. But in fact, distinguished Orwell scholar Professor Peter Davis once made a list of all the things that Orwell got right, and it was a couple of fairly long paragraphs,... (Source)

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13

Timeline

In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves... more

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14
More than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content.
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month...
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Eric Weinstein[Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

Tim DraperWith this kind of time management and focus on the important things in life, people should be able to get 15 times as much done in a normal work week. (Source)

Marvin LiaoSUCH a hard question to answer because there are so MANY favorite books of mine. For Business, i'd say either 80/20 Principle (Koch) or 4 Hour Work Week (Ferriss) for the principles it teaches on how to optimize work & life. (Source)

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15
From the author of Outlander... a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland...

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the...
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16

The Grouchy Ladybug

From Eric Carle, New York Times bestselling author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and From Head to Toe, comes the classic story of one very grouchy ladybug. Eric Carle's bright artwork and signature style will charm both ardent fans and new readers alike.

As children follow the Grouchy Ladybug on her journey, they will learn the important concepts of time, size, and shape, as well as the benefits of friendship and good manners.

For generations, The Grouchy Ladybug has delighted readers of all ages with the story of a...
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17
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins.

From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide. Sauron gathered...
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Recommended by Reid Hoffman, Elon Musk, Alan Lee, and 13 others.

Reid Hoffman[The book] that I’ve most often read. (Source)

Elon MuskAs a boy in Pretoria, Musk was un dersized and picked upon, a smart-aleck known as Muskrat. In his loneliness, he read a lot of fantasy and science fiction. “The heroes of the books I read, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and the ‘Foundation’ series, always felt a duty to save the world,” he told me. (Source)

Alan LeeHis alternative world and mythological system is totally coherent–it’s a fantastic gift that he has given us. (Source)

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18

To Kill a Mockingbird

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and...
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Eric BerkowitzThe case is about racism, but it’s also about white sexual fear of the black man, and the failed effort of white America to stop intermixing. I think the notion of the scary black man still permeates the American justice system today. I don’t think To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever, but it is a very good window into the ingrained sexual fear that permeated at... (Source)

Scott TurowIt’s dated in many ways; it’s extremely sentimental. But it’s beautifully done – you can’t take a thing away from it. (Source)

David Heinemeier HanssonReally liking this one so far. I’m sure a lot of people here probably read it in high school or whatever, but it wasn’t on the Danish curriculum, so here I am! (Source)

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19
When their village is attacked by trollocs, monsters thought to be only legends, three young men, Rand, Matt, and Perrin, flee in the company of the Lady Moiraine, a sinister visitor of unsuspected powers. Thus begins an epic adventure set in a world of wonders and horror, where what was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. less
Recommended by Malcolm Tan, Mike Benkovich, and 2 others.

Malcolm TanThe fiction series that got me hooked was The Wheel of Time series. Every time a new book was published in that LONG series, I immediately got hold of a copy from the bookstore and would spend the next few days reading the books since they were incredibly long. What appealed to me was the epic scale of the series, and how the various protagonists were very well characterised and captured my... (Source)

Mike BenkovichI'm cheating here (again) because this isn't a single book but a series. This is a 14 book fantasy epic written over DECADES! It took so long to complete and is so expansive the author died before he finished. The mantle was picked up by another author who finished the series in 2014. It's a story of massive scale featuring or launching any fantasy trope you can think of. If you think Game Of... (Source)

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20

The Catcher in the Rye

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this... more

Bill GatesOne of my favorite books ever. (Source)

Woody AllenIt was such a relief from the other books I was reading at the time, which all had a quality of homework to them. (Source)

Chigozie ObiomaHe sees everybody as phony because they take life too seriously. (Source)

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Don't have time to read the top Time books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
21
Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed.
And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater -- how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time.
But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time, for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone's problems.
Thief of Time comes complete with a full supporting cast of heroes and...
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22
'Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.'

For a policeman, there can be few things worse than a serial killer at loose in your city. Except, perhaps, a serial killer who targets coppers, and a city on the brink of bloody revolution. The people have found their voice at last, the flags and barricades are rising...And the question for a policeman, an officer of the law, a defender of the peace, is:

Are you with them, or are you against them?
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23
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.

But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin--barely of age...
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24

Voyager (Outlander, #3)

From the author of the breathtaking bestsellers Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, the extraordinary saga continues.

Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her... and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.

Then Claire discovers that Jamie...

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25

When You Reach Me

Miranda is an ordinary sixth grader, until she starts receiving mysterious messages from somebody who knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late. less

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26

Kindred

The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying... more

Nate Bowling (Is Thankful For A/c)I'm reading "Kindred" by Octavia Butler. I can't do it justice on this silly platform. The book is grim in its depiction of slavery, insightful about modern racial dynamics, and contains the best execution of time travel, as a plot device, you'll ever read. https://t.co/Z4J4jlQbwG (Source)

Denise Morris KipnisThis was a tough book for me, brought me to tears. Imagine having to save your slave master, because he’s your ancestor? A wonderful study in empathy, the nature of humanity, and how we’re all intertwined. After reading this book I refocused my practice from diversity to inclusion. (Source)

Alison AlvarezI have one friend who unfailingly recommends books that I love. She is a high school English teacher. She recommended Kindred by Octavia Butler, which is just an amazing work of science fiction. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but just trust me that it’s a good read. (Source)

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27

Animal Farm

Animal Farm is one of the most famous warnings ever written. Orwell's immortal satire - 'against Stalin' as he wrote to his French translator - can be read on many levels. With its piercing clarity and deceptively simple style it is no surprise that this novel is required reading for schoolchildren and politicians alike. This fable of the steadfast horses Boxer and Clover, the opportunistic pigs Snowball and Napoleon, and the deafening choir of sheep remains an unparalleled masterpiece.





One reviewer wrote 'In a hundred years' time perhaps Animal...
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Whitney Cummings[Whitney Cummings recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Vlad TenevWhen I was in sixth grade I remember being very upset by the ending of [this book]. (Source)

Sol OrwellQuestion: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path. Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 (though Huxley's Brave New World is a better reflection of today's society). (Source)

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28

Watchmen

This Hugo Award-winning graphic novel chronicles the fall from grace of a group of super-heroes plagued by all-too-human failings. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin.

One of the most influential graphic novels of all time and a perennial bestseller, WATCHMEN has been studied on college campuses across the nation and is considered a gateway title, leading readers to other graphic novels such as V FOR VENDETTA, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and THE SANDMAN series.
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Recommended by Will Brooker, Evan Goldberg, and 2 others.

Will BrookerWatchmen was originally released in 12 parts, one a month, over a year from 1985 to 1986. There was a film made of it in 2009. And now a controversial prequel series is coming out, done by new writers and artists, which goes back to earlier in the characters’ stories and which has been disavowed by Alan Moore, who created the original. (Source)

Evan GoldbergI often give [this book] to people. (Source)

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29

Catch-22

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction; critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos; and much more.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Now a Hulu limited series starring Christopher Abbott, George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, and Hugh Laurie.

Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the...
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Mark BittmanI used to buy [this book] for a lot of people because I just thought if you hadn’t read it, you had to but maybe that era is over. (Source)

William BoydThe most wonderful novel ever written, because of its absurdist sense of humour and the way it looked at war. (Source)

William BoydThe most wonderful novel ever written, because of its absurdist sense of humour and the way it looked at war. (Source)

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30

The Forever War

Private William Mandella is a reluctant hero in an interstellar war against an unknowable and unconquerable alien enemy, but his greatest test will come when he returns home. Relativity means that for every few months' tour of duty centuries have passed on earth, isolating the combatants ever more from the world for whose future they are fighting. less
Recommended by Peter Boghossian, Bertalan Meskó, and 2 others.

Peter Boghossian@krazyowl I don’t have one. The Forever War is probably my favorite fiction book. (I love sci fi.) (Source)

Bertalan MeskóEven William Gibson said it might be one of the best science fiction war novels ever. The far future of humanity, biology and warfare. Check out The Forever War and dive into the far future of human life while keeping the focus on long-term military tactics. #book https://t.co/h9fyE4KPHJ (Source)

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Don't have time to read the top Time books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
31

Replay

Jeff Winston was 43 and trapped in a tepid marriage and a dead-end job, waiting for that time when he could be truly happy, when he died.

And when he woke and he was 18 again, with all his memories of the next 25 years intact. He could live his life again, avoiding the mistakes, making money from his knowledge of the future, seeking happiness.

Until he dies at 43 and wakes up back in college again...
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Recommended by R. Balakrishnan, and 1 others.

R. BalakrishnanRead this v interesting book- "Replay" -Ken Grimwood. Of rebirth with memory-- carrying over several lives, but back to the same time line Imagine b 1966 died 2009 Reborn 1966 and so on... With memory intact! V interesting theme. (Source)

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32

The Great Gatsby

A young man, newly rich, tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married. less

Barack ObamaWhen he got to high school, the president said, his tastes changed and he learned to enjoy classics like “Of Mice and Men” and “The Great Gatsby.” (Source)

Bill GatesMelinda and I really like [this book]. When we were first dating, she had a green light that she would turn on when her office was empty and it made sense for me to come over. (Source)

Marvin LiaoFor Non-Business, I'd have to say Dune (Herbert), Emergency (Strauss), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) or Flint (L'Amour). I re-read these books every year because they are just so well written & great stories that I get new perspective & details every time I read them. (Source)

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33

The Time Keeper

In this fable, the first man on earth to count the hours becomes Father Time.

The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.

He returns to our world - now dominated by the...
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34

Gone with the Wind

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.

Gone with the Wind is a novel written by Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia, and Atlanta during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. It depicts the struggles of young Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner, who must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the...
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Ted TurnerI enjoyed "Gone with the Wind" and history books of all types. (Source)

Annie Parker@mariesornin @Twitter @goodreads @colinismyname @lonelyplanet @AmazonKindle @nytimestravel @TravelLeisure @Delta @BNBuzz Shantaram, The Beach, Round Ireland with a Fridge, and please read Gone with the Wind (not really a travel book but very awesome & needs a good chunk of time!) (Source)

Kris ReidI’m a hopeless romantic, Gone With the Wind is an epic love story based around a tale of an empowered woman struggling to success in a time of extreme adversity. There is a reason it’s a classic! (Source)

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35

Snow Crash

In the near future, Americans excel at only two things: writing software and delivering pizza in less than 30 minutes.

Franchises line the Los Angeles freeway as far as the eye can see: Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong, Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza, Incorporated. The only relief from the sea of logos is within the well-guarded borders of the autonomous city-states that law-abiding citizens are afraid to leave. Is it any wonder that most sane folks have chosen to live in a computer-generated universe? Here in virtual reality is a domain of pleasures...
more

Sergey BrinBrin said he is a big sci-fi fan, and Stephenson's acclaimed 1992 novel "Snow Crash" is one of his favorites. The book "was really 10 years ahead of its time," Brin said. "It kind of anticipated what's going to happen, and I find that really interesting." (Source)

Adam SavageIt's a tough call because I prefer other books of [this author]. But [this book] is so important within the history of science fiction. (Source)

Marvin LiaoMy list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make... (Source)

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36

The Grapes of Wrath

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic...
more

Elizabeth Tsurkov@Maysaloon great book! (Source)

Jonathan EvisonThis is the great American novel for me—the humanity, the landscapes, the progressive and political and social ethos of the novel, not to mention the amazing characters. Steinbeck is the American Dickens, at least in terms of social consciousness. (Source)

John KerryWhile there is a story that takes place between characters, the hardship and unfairness is a central element of the book. It shows how fiction can create progressive change as well. (Source)

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37
Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9781594744761

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the...
more

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38

Lolita

When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause célèbre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness.

Awe and exhilaration–along with heartbreak and mordant wit–abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's...
more

Richard CohenIt’s more imbued with references to the sun and using the sun as symbol or metaphor – almost a kind of character in the novel – than any other work in literature. (Source)

Bryan CallenSo here are my three must read books. I've been reading a lot of great books like: Outsmart Your Instincts, The Culture Code, and Antonio Damasio’s The Strange Order, and sometimes when you read a lot of nonfiction it’s very enriching, sometimes you need a novel. I really believe you should take a minute and read something beautiful. Listen, listen to Lolita by Nabokov. But also listen to Blood... (Source)

Steven AmsterdamWhat’s spectacular for me is the triumph of the humour over his loathsomeness. (Source)

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39

Many Waters (Time Quintet, #4)

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Sandy and Dennys have always been the normal, run-of-the-mill ones in the extraodinary Murry family. They garden, make an occasional A in school, and play baseball. Nothing especially interesting has happened to the twins until they accidentally interrupt their father's experiment.

Then the two boys are thrown across time and space. They find themselves alone in the desert, where, if they believe in unicorns, they can find unicorns, and whether they believe or not, mammoths and manticores will find them.

The...
more

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40

Drums of Autumn (Outlander, #4)

In this breathtaking novel, rich in history and adventure, #1 New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that started with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Gabaldon has created a work of sheer brilliance.

What if you knew someone you loved was going to die? What if you thought you could save them? How much would you risk to try?

Claire Randall has gone to find Jamie Fraser, the man...
more

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41

Invisible Man

First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be.

As he journeys from the Deep South to the streets and basements of Harlem, from a horrifying "battle royal" where black men are reduced to fighting animals, to a Communist...
more

Barack ObamaAs a devoted reader, the president has been linked to a lengthy list of novels and poetry collections over the years — he admits he enjoys a thriller. (Source)

Jacqueline NovogratzI read it as a 22-year-old, and it made me think deeply about how society doesn’t “see” so many of its members. (Source)

Dan BarreiroRiveting time capsule material. Literary giant Ellison on the blues, on race, on his powerful book, Invisible Man. https://t.co/iS6xQ7ojE8 (Source)

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42
The Dragon Reborn—the leader long prophesied who will save the world, but in the saving destroy it; the savior who will run mad and kill all those dearest to him—is on the run from his destiny.

Able to touch the One Power, but unable to control it, and with no one to teach him how—for no man has done it in three thousand years—Rand al'Thor knows only that he must face the Dark One. But how?

Winter has stopped the war—almost—yet men are dying, calling out for the Dragon. But where is he?

Perrin Aybara is in pursuit with Moiraine Sedai, her Warder Lan,...
more

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43
Every time a star goes out, another Echthros has won a battle.

Just before Meg Murry's little brother, Charles Wallace, falls deathly ill, he sees dragons in the vegetable garden. The dragons turn out to be Proginoskes, a cherubim composed out wings and eyes, wind and flame. It is up to Meg and Proginoskes, along with Meg's friend Calvin, to save Charles Wallace's life. To do so, they must travel deep within Charles Wallace to attempt to defeat the Echthroi—those who hate—and restore brilliant harmony and joy to the rhythm of creation, the song of the universe.
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44

Lord of the Flies

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political... more

Scott Belsky[Scott Belsky recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Chigozie ObiomaWilliam Golding imbues some of these children with wisdom that would read, in the hands of a lesser author, as implausibly knowing (Source)

Disco Donnie@JoshRHernandez1 I love the book “Lord of the Flies” so just started watching The Society (Source)

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45
Manchmal ist es ein echtes Kreuz, in einer Familie zu leben, die jede Menge Geheimnisse hat. Der Überzeugung ist zumindest die 16-jährige Gwendolyn.

Bis sie sich eines Tages aus heiterem Himmel im London um die letzte Jahrhundertwende wiederfindet. Und ihr klar wird, dass ausgerechnet sie das allergrößte Geheimnis ihrer Familie ist. Was ihr dagegen nicht klar ist: Dass man sich zwischen den Zeiten möglichst nicht verlieben sollte. Denn das macht die Sache erst recht kompliziert!
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46
Connie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

When too many jumps back to 1940 leave 21st century Oxford history student Ned Henry exhausted, a relaxing trip to Victorian England seems the perfect solution. But complexities like recalcitrant rowboats, missing cats, and love at first sight...
more

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47

Beloved

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Her new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement...
more

Esi EdugyanI was shocked by the blunt force of its subject matter and its exquisitely torqued prose. It remains one of my most adored novels. (Source)

Bianca Belair@ylc130 I went to the library when I was in the 3rd grade and read Beloved... I remember being so confused and my Mama having to explain it to me... I later read it as an adult and it hit me completely different. GREAT BOOK! (Source)

Farah Jasmine GriffinBeloved was Morrison’s fifth novel. It’s a gripping story, inspired by a famous abolitionist case, the true story of a woman who runs away from slavery with her children, but when the slave catchers catch up with her, she kills one of her own and tries to kill the others, rather than returning them to slavery. (Source)

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48

A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court

One of the greatest satires in American literature, Mark Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' begins when Hank Morgan, a skilled mechanic in a nineteenth-century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel and awakens to find himself among the knights and magicians of King Arthur's Camelot. The 'Yankee' vows brashly to "boss the whole country inside of three weeks" and embarks on an ambitious plan to modernize Camelot with 19th c. industrial inventions like electricity and gunfire. It isn't long before all hell breaks loose!

Written in 1889,...
more

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49

A Swiftly Tilting Planet (Time Quintet, #3)

In this companion volume to A Wrinkle In Time (Newbery Award winner) and A Wind In The Door fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace and the unicorn Gaudior undertake a perilous journey through time in a desperate attempt to stop the destruction of the world by the mad dictator Madog Branzillo. They are not alone in their quest. Charles Wallace's sister, Meg - grown and expecting her first child, but still able to enter her brother's thoughts and emotions by "kything" - goes with him in spirit. less

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50
What do a dead cat, a computer whiz-kid, an Electric Monk who believes the world is pink, quantum mechanics, a Chronologist over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (poet), and pizza have in common? Apparently not much; until Dirk Gently, self-styled private investigator, sets out to prove the fundamental interconnectedness of all things by solving a mysterious murder, assisting a mysterious professor, unravelling a mysterious mystery, and eating a lot of pizza – not to mention saving the entire human race from extinction along the way (at no extra charge). To find out more, read this book... more

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51

Neuromancer

A deluxe hardcover edition of the pioneering cyberpunk novel that predicted our obsession with the Internet—part of Penguin Galaxy, a collectible series of six sci-fi/fantasy classics, featuring a series introduction by Neil Gaiman.

Before the Internet was commonplace, William Gibson showed us the Matrix—a world within the world, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace. Henry Dorsett Case was the sharpest data-thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably...
more

Adam Savage[This series] changed my life. (Source)

Mark Pitcavage@jamesjhare Neuromancer is a fascinating book--but it was especially fascinating when it was first published; it was mind-blowing. (Source)

Pia Mancini@Fede_Bada amazing book (Source)

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52
For Twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts...he's at Hogwarts."

Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. because on...
more
Recommended by Maude Garrett, and 1 others.

Maude Garrett@GeekBomb Best use of time travel in a book or series to date (Source)

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53
A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world...
more

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54

Mrs. Dalloway

In this vivid portrait of one day in a woman's life, Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with far-away remembrances. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices she has made, hesitantly looking ahead to growing old. Undeniably triumphant, this is the inspired novelistic outline of human consciousness. less
Recommended by Charles Fernyhough, Maria Sveland, and 2 others.

Charles FernyhoughWoolf is interested in the intersections between minds. She’s trying to show how minds bleed into each other. (Source)

Maria SvelandIt’s one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. I could really identify with Clarissa, this empty, poor person who is going out to find some flowers for a party. At the same moment, we are following her out into the beautiful morning as the story starts. It’s clear very soon that Clarissa is a woman who has lost her soul among all the duties and conventions of a boring marriage. That loss is so... (Source)

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55
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
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56

Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest is the name of a movie said to be so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch. People die happily, viewing it in endless repetition. The novel Infinite Jest is the story of this addictive entertainment, and in particular how it affects a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts and a nearby tennis academy, whose students have many budding addictions of their own. As the novel unfolds, various individuals, organisations, and governments vie to obtain the master copy of Infinite Jest for their own ends, and the denizens of... more
Recommended by Chad Harbach, Rebecca Goldstein, and 2 others.

Chad HarbachI think Infinite Jest is the major American novel of the past 25 years…It’s the book on which his reputation will rest, and I think people are going to read it for a long time. (Source)

Rebecca GoldsteinIt’s an extraordinary book…One of the things that he is examining in the novel is the various games that we play, many of them recursive. (Source)

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57

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her...
more

Adam RobertsI love this novel. It is wonderfully written, brilliantly imaginative and engaging, funny and sad and smart. I also love it because of what it says about SF. That in a genre often caricatured (by those who don’t know it very well) as being about the wish-fulfillment fantasies of adolescent boys – huge space weapons, scantily clad astro-girls and so on – some of the very best work is being written... (Source)

Adam RobertsI love this novel. It is wonderfully written, brilliantly imaginative and engaging, funny and sad and smart. I also love it because of what it says about SF. That in a genre often caricatured (by those who don’t know it very well) as being about the wish-fulfillment fantasies of adolescent boys – huge space weapons, scantily clad astro-girls and so on – some of the very best work is being written... (Source)

Lee Pace@Egangoonsquad @EW I loved this book. Great pick. (Source)

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58
The seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.

In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen...
more

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59

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)

Narnia...the land beyond the wardrobe door, a secret place frozen in eternal winter, a magical country waiting to be set free.

Lucy is the first to find the secret of the wardrobe in the professor's mysterious old house. At first her brothers and sister don't believe her when she tells of her visit to the land of Narnia. But soon Edmund, then Peter and Susan step through the wardrobe themselves. In Narnia they find a country buried under the evil enchantment of the White Witch. When they meet the Lion Aslan, they realize they've been called to a great adventure and bravely join the...
more

Chris AndersonAs a child, they exploded my imagination. (Source)

Lev GrossmanYou win some Turkish delight. Everyone knows Lewis’s Narnia books are a foundational work of the modern fantastic. But I don’t think Lewis gets enough credit for his craft as a writer. Those books are deceptively simple. Look at the way he constructed the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. He puts the shadows of the war in the background, the excitement of a new house in the country... (Source)

Chris AndersonAs a child, they exploded my imagination. (Source)

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60
Some stories cannot be told in just one lifetime. Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message." This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a... more

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61

Leadership

In Turbulent Times

Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?

In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled...
more

Scott Belsky[Scott Belsky recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

David Novak3 great strategies to use when marketing to Millennials from @guicostin, author of the book "Millennials Are Not Aliens" on my latest @oGoLead Leadership Podcast -> https://t.co/vjNDbmY9Ll https://t.co/76iGmkIXno (Source)

Fola AinaLiterally just finished reading one of the BEST books out there on leadership: ‘Leadership In Turbulent Times’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin. If you are serious about leading yourself and preparing yourself to take on leadership roles this book is a MUST read. Now on to the next! (Source)

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62

A Clockwork Orange

In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.” less

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63
THINGS FALL APART tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first of these stories traces Okonkwo's fall from grace with the tribal world in which he lives, and in its classical purity of line and economical beauty it provides us with a powerful fable about the immemorial conflict between the individual and society.

The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world...
more

Barack ObamaAs 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018... (Source)

Jacqueline NovogratzThe first book I read by an African author. Achebe is unflinching in his portrayal of the challenges of change, the relationships of colonialism, and power/powerlessness. (Source)

Sam KileyI think what’s so fantastic about it is that it’s sort of portentous, if that’s the right word, in that it captures that moment between the end of colonisation and independence, and the inevitable crushing of Africa’s dreams. I can’t remember exactly when it was written, but it was very early on in the process. It sounds really pessimistic – I mean, it’s a beautifully written book, but it’s the... (Source)

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64

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned.... more

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65
A rising star in theoretical physics offers his awesome vision of our universe and beyond, all beginning with a simple question: Why does time move forward?

Time moves forward, not backward, everyone knows you can’t unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today’s hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other universes, too. In From Eternity to Here, Sean Carroll argues that the arrow of time, pointing resolutely from the past to the future, owes its existence to conditions...
more

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66

The End of Eternity

Andrew Harlan is an Eternal, a man whose job it is to range through past and present Centuries, monitoring and, where necessary, altering Time's myriad cause-and-effect relationships. But when Harlan meets and falls for a non-Eternal woman, he seeks to use the awesome powers and techniques of the Eternals to twist time for his own purposes, so that he and his love can survive together. less

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67
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

Publisher's Note: The 25th Anniversary Edition has been reset, causing the text to reflow. Page references...
more

Jocko WillinkThe other book that I've read multiple times is Blood Meridian [by Cormac McCarthy]. (Source)

Esi EdugyanA difficult read that I savour for its wondrous prose and stark vision of humanity. (Source)

Robert MacfarlaneIt’s wild in the astonishing indifference of the desert landscape to human practice – McCarthy evokes this more purely than any other writer. (Source)

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68

All the King's Men

Restored Edition

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this classic book is generally regarded as the finest novel ever written on american politics. It describes the career of Willie Stark, a back-country lawyer whose idealism is overcome by his lust for power. New Foreword by Joseph Blotner for this fiftieth anniversary edition.
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Matthew T. Hall@Gattobellocat I love that book. (Source)

Bill EarnerMy favorites [novels] are 100 Years of Solitude, All the King's Men, The Last Samurai, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (Source)

Heather BrookeThis is a great mix of politics and journalism. It shows the way the two work together in a symbiotic relationship where they both need and hate each other. The newspaper guy is Jack Burden and he goes to work for Willie Stark – who starts off as a fresh-faced, incredibly idealistic and very ambitious man-of-the-people politician. (Source)

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69
In this classic, John le Carre's third novel and the first to earn him international acclaim, he created a world unlike any previously experienced in suspense fiction. With unsurpassed knowledge culled from his years in British Intelligence, le Carre brings to light the shadowy dealings of international espionage in the tale of a British agent who longs to end his career but undertakes one final, bone-chilling assignment. When the last agent under his command is killed and Alec Leamas is called back to London, he hopes to come in from the cold for good. His spymaster, Control, however, has... more
Recommended by Ben Macintyre, Keith Jeffery, and 2 others.

Ben MacintyreI think it sets the standard for all spy literature. It’s very hard to improve on The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. It’s the classic le Carré recipe of compromised individuals trying to find their way through a labyrinth of deception and self-deception (Source)

Keith JefferyThis is at the far end of the spectrum from James Bond, but it also says a lot about the bureaucracy of the Service. (Source)

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70
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and go. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
less

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71

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots. less
Recommended by Farah Jasmine Griffin, and 1 others.

Farah Jasmine GriffinHurston gives us one of the first true love stories in African American writing. (Source)

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72
Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

In 1976, a uniquely seductive world of vampires was unveiled in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire . . . in 1985, a wild and voluptous voice spoke to us, telling the story of The Vampire Lestat.  In The Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice continues her extraordinary "Vampire Chronicles" in a feat of mesmeric storytelling, a chillingly hypnotic entertainment in which the oldest and most powerful...
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73

I, Claudius (Claudius, #1)

Into the 'autobiography' of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiful stammerer who was destined to become Emperor in spite of himself, Graves packs the everlasting intrigues, the depravity, the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, soon to culminate in the deified insanity of Caligula.

I, Claudius and its sequel, Claudius the God, are among the most celebrated, as well the most gripping historical novels ever written.

Cover illustration: Brian Pike
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74

To the Lighthouse

For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever; but as the First World War looms, the integrity of family and society will be fatally challenged.
To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionist depiction of a family holiday, and a meditation on a marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. Its use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence and shifting perspectives, gives the novel an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an...
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Recommended by Hermione Lee, Deborah Levy, and 2 others.

Hermione LeeWhen all is said and done, I think it is her greatest novel. (Source)

Deborah LevyAristotle tells us that all politics starts in the family, and you really do see that in To the Lighthouse. Woolf always said that there is no symbolism in the lighthouse at all, and I think we should believe her. All the same, I do think that the lighthouse, in a way, is Mrs Ramsay because the lighthouse is there to protect us from harm and from hazards, and Mrs Ramsay is a self-sacrificing,... (Source)

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75

Never Let Me Go

From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, comes an unforgettable edge-of-your-seat mystery that is at once heartbreakingly tender and morally courageous about what it means to be human.

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it.
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76

The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.

This is the Code of the Private Eye as defined by Raymond Chandler in his 1944 essay 'The Simple Act of Murder.' Such a man was Philip Marlowe, private eye, an educated, heroic, streetwise, rugged individualist and the hero of Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep. This work established Chandler as the master of the 'hard-boiled' detective novel, and his articulate...
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Recommended by Simon Brett, and 1 others.

Simon BrettI think the writing is just so beautiful. Raymond Chandler’s hopeless at plots, as we know. He said himself, if he couldn’t think of what to do, he brought in a man with a gun. But the language… I remember some years ago an American publisher got the rights to do a book called Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and got various contemporary crime writers to write a Philip Marlowe story. I was asked... (Source)

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77

Children of Time

An alternative cover edition can be found here.

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home. Following their ancestors' star maps, they discovered the greatest treasure of a past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's...
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Recommended by Seb Leedelisle, and 1 others.

Seb Leedelisle@rem Oh that’s the spider one huh? Love that book, so unusual (Source)

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78
The Seventh Outlander novel from #1 National Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon.

Jamie Fraser, erstwhile Jacobite and reluctant rebel, knows three things about the American rebellion: the Americans will win, unlikely as that seems in 1778; being on the winning side is no guarantee of survival; and he’d rather die than face his illegitimate son — a young lieutenant in the British Army — across the barrel of a gun. Fraser’s time-travelling wife, Claire, also knows a couple of things: that the Americans will win, but that the ultimate price of victory is a mystery. What she does...
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79

Time and Again

Science fiction, mystery, a passionate love story, and a detailed history of Old New York blend together in Jack Finney's spellbinding story of a young man enlisted in a secret Government experiment.
Transported from the mid-twentieth century to New York City in the year 1882, Si Morley walks the fashionable "Ladies' Mile" of Broadway, is enchanted by the jingling sleigh bells in Central Park, and solves a 20th-century mystery by discovering its 19th-century roots. Falling in love with a beautiful young woman, he ultimately finds himself forced to choose between his lives in the present...
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Recommended by Karen Pfaff Manganillo, and 1 others.

Karen Pfaff ManganilloI’ve always had an obsession with New York past and present. I’ve probably read this book 10 times. (Source)

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80

Pale Fire

The American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the 'Great Beaver', Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he also mad, bad - and even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal and the fantastical, Kinbote reveals perhaps more than he should be.

Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious...
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81
Discover the transformative power of leisure to recapture your calm and creativity.We live in a time where busyness is often seen as a badge of honor. But are your busiest days really the ones that make you feel the most accomplished? If all of your hard work isn't working, it might be time to question the common assumption that "busy" = "productive." After reaching breaking points in their careers, business coach John Fitch and AI researcher Max Frenzel both learned the critical importance of taking time off. Now these former workaholics are here to help you revolutionize the way you get... more

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82

The Fiery Cross (Outlander, #5)

The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge. Claire’s unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes. less

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83

Brideshead Revisited

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them. less

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84

The Dark Highlander (Highlander, #5)

Journey to a world of ancient magic, breathtaking sensuality, thrilling time-travel.... Journey to the world of The Dark Highlander. Crisscrossing the continents and the centuries, here is a novel as gripping as it is sensual—an electrifying adventure that will leave you breathless....

I am Dageus MacKeltar, a man with one good conscience and thirteen bad ones, driven to sate my darkest desires…

From his penthouse lair high above Manhattan, Dageus looks out over a glittering city that calls to the darkness within him. A sixteenth-century Scot trapped between worlds, he...
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85

Cloud Atlas

A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.

Cloud...
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Robert EaglestoneIn this novel, you find stories that interlock like Russian dolls…an obvious example of a writer learning clever postmodern tricks, but domesticating them. (Source)

The Centre for the Study of Existential RiskThis is the perfect book if you want to read about human extinction but you still need to be ‘seduced’ into it. (Source)

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86

The Blind Assassin

The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a... more
Recommended by Leo Babauta, and 1 others.

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87

The Fire Next Time

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times... more
Recommended by Barack Obama, and 1 others.

Barack ObamaFact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads: Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Evan Osnos Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Moral Man And Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr A Kind And Just Parent, William Ayers The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria Lessons in Disaster, Gordon Goldstein Sapiens: A Brief History of... (Source)

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88
The fifth book in Robert Jordan's internationally bestselling epic fantasy series, THE WHEEL OF TIME, now reissued with a stunning new cover design.

The bonds and wards that hold the Great Lord of the Dark are slowly failing, but still his fragile prison holds. The Forsaken, immortal servants of the shadow, weave their snares and tighten their grip upon the realms of men, sure in the knowledge that their master will soon break free...

Rand al' Thor, the Dragon Reborn, knows that he must strike at the Enemy, but his forces are divided by treachery and by ambition. Even...
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89

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

'The way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear'

Making its twenty-three-year-old author an overnight literary sensation, this story of isolated, lost lives intersecting in a small town in the American South is a masterpiece of humane sensitivity.

Ten new titles in the colourful, small-format, portable new Pocket Penguins series
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Recommended by Oprah Winfrey, Bryony Gordon, and 2 others.

Oprah WinfreyI love this book! I had heard about this book for years and then my dear friend Julia Roberts did an interview in O, The Oprah Magazine and she listed this as one of her favorite books of all times. The book I love so much—recommended to me by Julia—is The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It's a great, great read and not hard at all. (Source)

Bryony GordonShe wrote about what it was to be an outcast, a misfit, to be depressed, to be lonely. (Source)

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90
In this sequel to the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Fires of Heaven, we plunge again into Robert Jordan's extraordinarily rich, totally unforgettable world:

On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, and the sky is not the sky of this world ...

In Salidar the White Tower in exile prepares an embassy to Caemlyn, where Rand Al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, holds the throne -- and where an unexpected visitor may change the world ...

In Emond's Field, Perrin Goldeneyes, Lord of the Two Rivers, feels the pull of ta'veren to ta'veren and...
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91
For more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and dozens more—and made them greater. Now, for the first time in paperback, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire.

Fore more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and dozens more—and made them greater. Now, for the first time ever, he reveals what it takes to get those results, showing you how to be relentless and...
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Recommended by Ryan Switzer, and 1 others.

Ryan SwitzerNever forget my FR year at Carolina, @CoachFedora handed me the book “Relentless” by Tim Grover. Inside look on the mindset that drove Dwade, MJ, KOBE. Gave me an idea of what it was going to take to live my dream. Relentless became my favorite word. My passion. My everything. (Source)

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92

Atonement

Ian McEwan’s symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and...
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Recommended by Patricia Reed, and 1 others.

Patricia ReedThe portrayal of vastly different interpretations and outcomes from a single moment was thorough, unvarnished, and raw. I agonized and worried about the main character, and turned pages as fast as I could, hoping for resolution. (Source)

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93

Native Son

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.
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94

Momo

Eine gespenstische Gesellschaft "grauer Herren" ist am Werk und veranlasst immer mehr Menschen, Zeit zu sparen. Aber in Wirklichkeit betrügen sie die Menschen um diese ersparte Zeit. Als die Not am größten ist und die Welt ihnen schon endgültig zu gehören scheint, entschließt sich Meister Hora, der geheimnisvolle "Verwalter der Zeit", zum Eingreifen. Doch dazu braucht er die Hilfe eines Menschenkindes. Die Welt steht still und Momo, die struppige kleine Heldin der Geschichte, kämpft ganz allein, mit nichts als einer Blume in der Hand und einer Schildkröte unter dem Arm, gegen das riesige Heer... more

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95

Go Tell It on the Mountain

Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention... more

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96

An Acceptable Time (Time Quintet, #5)

A flash of lightning, a quiver in the ground, and, instead of her grandparents' farm, Polly sees mist and jagged mountains—and coming toward her, a group of young men carrying spears.

Why has a time gate opened and dropped Polly into a world that existed three thousand years ago? Will she find her way back to the present before the time gate closes—and leaves her to face a group of people who believe in human sacrifice?

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97
As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father's glove factory, and move into a stone house in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him.

For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a...
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Recommended by Lawrence Kaplan, and 1 others.

Lawrence KaplanIt’s a beautifully written book and I would suggest it for anyone interested in why American foreign policy matters. (Source)

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98

The Corrections

Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award
An American Library Association Notable Book

Jonathan Franzen's third novel, The Corrections, is a great work of art and a grandly entertaining overture to our new century: a bold, comic, tragic, deeply moving family drama that stretches from the Midwest at mid-century to Wall Street and Eastern Europe in the age of greed and globalism. Franzen brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty, of Cub Scouts and Christmas cookies...
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Recommended by Oprah Winfrey, Ev Williams, and 2 others.

Oprah WinfreyThe Correctionsis a grandly entertaining novel for the new century —a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious and deeply humane, it confirms that Jonathan Franzen is one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and American soul (Source)

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99
An elegant, witty, and engaging exploration of the riddle of time, which examines the consequences of Einstein's theory of relativity and offers startling suggestions about what recent research may reveal.
The eternal questions of science and religion were profoundly recast by Einstein's theory of relativity and its implications that time can be warped by motion and gravitation, and that it cannot be meaningfully divided into past, present, and future.
In About Time, Paul Davies discusses the big bang theory, chaos theory, and the recent discovery that the universe...
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100

The Enigma Cube

A riveting near-future thriller. From the NY Times bestselling author whose books have sold over a million copies.

An alien object with breathtaking capabilities. And a life-and-death struggle for the future of humanity. 

Dr. Kelly Connolly is part of a top-secret team studying the most important find in human history, the Enigma Cube, an alien artifact of incomprehensible power. A cube whose technology can catapult civilization to dizzying heights--or destroy it entirely.

After years of failed attempts to unlock the cube's secrets, all hell suddenly...
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Don't have time to read the top Time books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

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