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Want to increase your literary hipster cred at the local coffeehouse?
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Here is a list to get you started.
Conversely, do you suspect a close friend is an insufferable book snob?
Catch them reading the following in public and your suspicions are confirmed!
If you've read most of the books on this list, you may be a book snob... but don't panic! Wear the title with pride, you deserve it.
Score
A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.
| 1 |
|
Ulysses
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3.76 avg rating — 137,022 ratings
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| 2 |
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Infinite Jest
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4.25 avg rating — 100,442 ratings
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| 3 |
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War and Peace
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4.17 avg rating — 362,415 ratings
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| 4 |
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Swann's Way
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4.16 avg rating — 67,679 ratings
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| 5 |
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Crime and Punishment
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4.28 avg rating — 1,059,258 ratings
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| 6 |
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Being and Time
by
4.05 avg rating — 27,549 ratings
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| 7 |
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The Brothers Karamazov
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4.39 avg rating — 380,677 ratings
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| 8 |
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Gravity’s Rainbow
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4.01 avg rating — 47,716 ratings
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| 9 |
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Finnegans Wake
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3.68 avg rating — 13,558 ratings
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| 10 |
|
Anna Karenina
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4.10 avg rating — 921,515 ratings
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| 11 |
|
The Man Without Qualities
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4.19 avg rating — 7,319 ratings
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| 12 |
|
The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
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4.08 avg rating — 170,425 ratings
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| 13 |
|
Critique of Pure Reason
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3.96 avg rating — 41,874 ratings
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| 14 |
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The Catcher in the Rye
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3.80 avg rating — 3,856,014 ratings
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| 15 |
|
Waiting for Godot
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3.84 avg rating — 220,369 ratings
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| 16 |
|
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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4.07 avg rating — 173,919 ratings
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| 17 |
|
The Republic
by
3.97 avg rating — 223,910 ratings
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| 18 |
|
The Trial
by
3.94 avg rating — 388,337 ratings
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| 19 |
|
Pride and Prejudice
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4.29 avg rating — 4,736,395 ratings
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| 20 |
|
Jane Eyre
by
4.16 avg rating — 2,297,853 ratings
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| 21 |
|
Don Quixote
by
3.91 avg rating — 302,469 ratings
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| 22 |
|
Les Misérables
by
4.21 avg rating — 839,000 ratings
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| 23 |
|
Moby-Dick or, The Whale
by
3.56 avg rating — 611,075 ratings
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| 24 |
|
Madame Bovary
by
3.71 avg rating — 371,046 ratings
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| 25 |
|
Bleak House
by
4.02 avg rating — 113,471 ratings
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| 26 |
|
The Sound and the Fury
by
3.86 avg rating — 194,740 ratings
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| 27 |
|
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by
3.64 avg rating — 163,036 ratings
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| 28 |
|
Atlas Shrugged
by
3.69 avg rating — 405,503 ratings
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| 29 |
|
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge
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3.93 avg rating — 9,856 ratings
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| 30 |
|
The Odyssey
by
3.83 avg rating — 1,177,746 ratings
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| 31 |
|
Faust, and the Urfaust
by
4.01 avg rating — 1,429 ratings
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| 32 |
|
Time Regained
by
4.51 avg rating — 8,225 ratings
score: 855,
and
9 people voted
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| 33 |
|
Das Kapital
by
3.90 avg rating — 12,086 ratings
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| 34 |
|
Foucault's Pendulum
by
3.91 avg rating — 74,512 ratings
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| 35 |
|
The God Delusion
by
Richard Dawkins (Goodreads Author)
3.90 avg rating — 281,757 ratings
score: 826,
and
9 people voted
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| 36 |
|
A Clockwork Orange
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 763,645 ratings
score: 822,
and
9 people voted
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| 37 |
|
Mrs Dalloway
by
3.78 avg rating — 351,779 ratings
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| 38 |
|
Middlemarch
by
4.04 avg rating — 177,781 ratings
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| 39 |
|
The Sorrows of Young Werther
by
3.69 avg rating — 152,951 ratings
score: 734,
and
9 people voted
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| 40 |
|
Beyond Good and Evil
by
4.03 avg rating — 112,380 ratings
score: 712,
and
9 people voted
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| 41 |
|
The Art of War
by
3.95 avg rating — 563,046 ratings
score: 701,
and
9 people voted
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| 42 |
|
Phenomenology of Spirit
by
3.96 avg rating — 20,324 ratings
score: 695,
and
8 people voted
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| 43 |
|
Journey to the End of the Night
by
4.18 avg rating — 47,315 ratings
score: 637,
and
7 people voted
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| 44 |
|
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
by
4.29 avg rating — 52,185 ratings
score: 623,
and
7 people voted
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| 45 |
|
The Glass Bead Game
by
4.10 avg rating — 42,044 ratings
score: 618,
and
7 people voted
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| 46 |
|
The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time, #3)
by
4.27 avg rating — 11,750 ratings
score: 606,
and
7 people voted
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| 47 |
|
Walden or, Life in the Woods
by
3.77 avg rating — 203,065 ratings
score: 601,
and
7 people voted
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| 48 |
|
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I
by
4.17 avg rating — 3,449 ratings
score: 591,
and
7 people voted
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| 49 |
|
Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table
by
3.92 avg rating — 39,303 ratings
score: 578,
and
7 people voted
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| 50 |
|
The Decline of the West
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4.06 avg rating — 2,212 ratings
score: 567,
and
6 people voted
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| 51 |
|
The Will to Power
by
4.07 avg rating — 11,170 ratings
score: 565,
and
7 people voted
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| 52 |
|
Our Mutual Friend
by
4.09 avg rating — 31,206 ratings
score: 553,
and
7 people voted
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| 52 |
|
A Confederacy of Dunces
by
3.89 avg rating — 295,726 ratings
score: 553,
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7 people voted
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| 54 |
|
Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead
by
4.19 avg rating — 78,346 ratings
score: 544,
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6 people voted
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| 55 |
|
The Plague
by
4.02 avg rating — 309,793 ratings
score: 543,
and
7 people voted
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| 56 |
|
Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time, #4)
by
4.32 avg rating — 9,772 ratings
score: 529,
and
6 people voted
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| 57 |
|
The Canterbury Tales
by
3.53 avg rating — 236,683 ratings
score: 525,
and
6 people voted
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| 58 |
|
Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time, #2)
by
4.39 avg rating — 17,592 ratings
score: 519,
and
6 people voted
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| 59 |
|
House of Leaves
by
Mark Z. Danielewski (Goodreads Author)
4.09 avg rating — 197,242 ratings
score: 505,
and
6 people voted
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| 60 |
|
The Road
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1,023,280 ratings
score: 498,
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6 people voted
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| 61 |
|
Ethics
by
4.10 avg rating — 20,950 ratings
score: 493,
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6 people voted
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| 62 |
|
Existentialism is a Humanism
by
3.98 avg rating — 45,575 ratings
score: 471,
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6 people voted
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| 63 |
|
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by
3.96 avg rating — 112,093 ratings
score: 462,
and
5 people voted
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| 64 |
|
2001: A Space Odyssey (Space Odyssey, #1)
by
4.18 avg rating — 334,126 ratings
score: 461,
and
6 people voted
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| 65 |
|
The Sheltering Sky
by
3.89 avg rating — 30,540 ratings
score: 460,
and
6 people voted
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| 66 |
|
Of Grammatology
by
3.97 avg rating — 5,329 ratings
score: 446,
and
5 people voted
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| 67 |
|
The Fountainhead
by
3.89 avg rating — 336,096 ratings
score: 417,
and
5 people voted
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| 68 |
|
History of the Peloponnesian War
by
3.94 avg rating — 40,339 ratings
score: 388,
and
5 people voted
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| 69 |
|
Paradise Lost
by
3.85 avg rating — 180,702 ratings
score: 375,
and
5 people voted
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| 70 |
|
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
by
3.89 avg rating — 34,767 ratings
score: 366,
and
5 people voted
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| 71 |
|
Henderson the Rain King
by
3.76 avg rating — 16,041 ratings
score: 361,
and
5 people voted
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| 72 |
|
Nausea
by
3.93 avg rating — 137,606 ratings
score: 359,
and
5 people voted
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| 73 |
|
What Is Philosophy?
by
4.15 avg rating — 2,332 ratings
score: 353,
and
4 people voted
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| 74 |
|
The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
by
3.87 avg rating — 3,587 ratings
score: 352,
and
4 people voted
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| 75 |
|
Mythology
by
4.03 avg rating — 59,622 ratings
score: 350,
and
4 people voted
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| 76 |
|
The Captive / The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time, #5-6)
by
4.38 avg rating — 3,357 ratings
score: 340,
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4 people voted
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| 77 |
|
The Corrections
by
3.84 avg rating — 196,780 ratings
score: 331,
and
4 people voted
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| 78 |
|
Twilight of the Idols / The Anti-Christ
by
4.15 avg rating — 9,681 ratings
score: 330,
and
4 people voted
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| 79 |
|
Ivanhoe
by
3.76 avg rating — 98,704 ratings
score: 320,
and
4 people voted
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| 79 |
|
The Society of the Spectacle
by
4.03 avg rating — 23,157 ratings
score: 320,
and
4 people voted
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| 81 |
|
Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil
by
3.87 avg rating — 1,760 ratings
score: 317,
and
4 people voted
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| 82 |
|
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
by
4.19 avg rating — 13,076 ratings
score: 291,
and
4 people voted
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| 83 |
|
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume II
by
4.24 avg rating — 1,233 ratings
score: 290,
and
4 people voted
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| 84 |
|
Poetry, Language, Thought
by
4.11 avg rating — 3,661 ratings
score: 275,
and
4 people voted
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| 85 |
|
Under the Net
by
3.78 avg rating — 16,243 ratings
score: 272,
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4 people voted
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| 86 |
|
Man and His Symbols
by
4.19 avg rating — 33,212 ratings
score: 262,
and
3 people voted
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| 87 |
|
To the Lighthouse
by
3.81 avg rating — 212,319 ratings
score: 261,
and
4 people voted
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| 88 |
|
Little Dorrit
by
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 49,677 ratings
score: 260,
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4 people voted
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| 89 |
|
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
by
4.48 avg rating — 57,654 ratings
score: 258,
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3 people voted
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| 90 |
|
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
by
4.04 avg rating — 92,602 ratings
score: 252,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
VALIS
by
3.91 avg rating — 32,527 ratings
score: 250,
and
3 people voted
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| 91 |
|
Confessions
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3.59 avg rating — 9,290 ratings
score: 250,
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3 people voted
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| 93 |
|
The Trial and Death of Socrates
by
4.12 avg rating — 45,597 ratings
score: 249,
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3 people voted
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| 94 |
|
The Prague Cemetery
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3.51 avg rating — 29,944 ratings
score: 247,
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3 people voted
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| 95 |
|
The Iliad
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3.93 avg rating — 504,238 ratings
score: 242,
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3 people voted
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| 96 |
|
The Prince
by
3.84 avg rating — 378,910 ratings
score: 238,
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4 people voted
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| 97 |
|
A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
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4.32 avg rating — 9,631 ratings
score: 236,
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3 people voted
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| 98 |
|
The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction
by
4.02 avg rating — 25,387 ratings
score: 231,
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3 people voted
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| 99 |
|
Utopia
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3.55 avg rating — 82,129 ratings
score: 230,
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4 people voted
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| 100 |
|
The Nibelungenlied
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3.82 avg rating — 8,842 ratings
score: 223,
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3 people voted
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307 books ·
153 voters ·
list created March 15th, 2012
by Holly Lindquist (votes) .
Holly
1716 books
61 friends
61 friends
Karen
1868 books
69 friends
69 friends
A
1710 books
1 friend
1 friend
Matthew
1285 books
25 friends
25 friends
Read Between The Lines
6212 books
62 friends
62 friends
buppyspek
402 books
13 friends
13 friends
Samuel
1106 books
74 friends
74 friends
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads
3386 books
852 friends
852 friends
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Comments Showing 1-20 of 20 (20 new)
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message 1:
by
Limey
(new)
Nov 08, 2013 05:40PM
Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's, non-hipster, pompless, friendly-neighborhood, genuinely readable, unpretentious, happybrow, fun, top-entertainment books inside it, so that people think you're ultra-hip and highbrow and can actually make sense of that wacko shit.
reply
|
flag
Read Ulysses today at the Social Security office (it's just what I happened to be reading!), so where do I pick up my pompous card?
Only two women in this list! A little bit unbalanced...
I count 5 female authors in the top hundred, but that's still a very masculine list.
I'm personally thankful that so few female authors have to resort to being overbearingly pompous in order to write quality literature. If they don't make the list, I think that's a success, not a failure...because face it, this list is obnoxious! Pew! PS: Although.. after some reflection I realize Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia belongs on the list. Very much so.
Perhaps a list for Genuinely Thought-Provoking Books or Deeply Intelligent Reading would have better diversity. I know several female authors that could wipe the floor with the competition in that case.
Um. Why is the "The Road" on this list? Its an easy-to-read page turner that was turned into a blockbuster movie, and by far Cormac McCarthy's most accessible mass audience genre novel...
ah yes, glenn beck, the most pompous of them all. riiiight...
must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses.
Grant wrote: "must we be ironic and postmodern about good literature? perhaps you just want to read a good book when you read Ulysses."Well, we are still in the "postmodern" era, so... yes.
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."this has to be satire
But 'Ulysses' is flat out brilliant. It's one of a handful of books that make me laugh out loud, and yes several times in coffee shops. "Atlas Shrugged" is brilliant entertainment, but basically a pretentious soap opera! Proust is a magnificent writer!
Mark wrote: "Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's..."Mark, well, in the 1st grade I had Agatha Christie books hidden within those silly readers like "See Jane Run." I had no other choice but to hide what I really wanted to read.
I'm glad to see Jacques Barzun on a list of pompous people. My only qualm is that he doesn't deserve to be on a list with writers of real ability and insight.
Anyone can add books to this list.
How to Vote
To vote on existing books from the list, beside each book there is a link vote for this book clicking it will add that book to your votes.
To vote on books not in the list or books you couldn't find in the list, you can click on the tab add books to this list and then choose from your books, or simply search.
