Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Author unknown
1375 · 198 pages
At Arthur's Christmas court a huge green man offers his neck to anyone willing to take the same blow a year later. Gawain swings, and the real test waits in a bedroom.
★ 7.4
The Books canon
Sourced and shelved.
Every book chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
Browse all 1,178 books or filter by subject, era, place, and author.
The Persian Expedition (Anabasis)
370 BC · 375 pages
Ten thousand Greek mercenaries, stranded in Persia with their prince dead and their generals murdered, elect Xenophon and march north through snow until the men in front shout that they see the sea.
★ 7.0
The Charterhouse of Parma
1839 · 520 pages
Seventeen years old, Fabrice del Dongo wanders onto the field at Waterloo and cannot tell whether he fought there. What follows is court intrigue, a prison tower, and love signaled through a window.
★ 7.0
The Adventures of Augie March
1953 · 608 pages
"I am an American, Chicago born," Augie announces, and the novel loosened its collar. He takes every job and every mentor the Depression offers him and refuses to be claimed by any.
★ 7.0
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
1950 · 171 pages
Four children evacuated from wartime London find a wardrobe opening onto snow, a lamppost, and a land where a witch has made it always winter. Lewis buried the Christian story inside an adventure.
★ 6.9
Where the Wild Things Are
1963 · 48 pages
Sent to bed without supper, Max sails to an island of monsters, tames them by staring, and is crowned their king. Sendak gave children's books permission to take a child's rage seriously.
★ 6.9
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
1876 · 184 pages
Tom cons the neighborhood boys into whitewashing his aunt's fence, then witnesses a graveyard murder and attends his own funeral. Twain gave America the childhood it has claimed to remember ever since.
★ 6.7
The Travels of Marco Polo
1290 · 379 pages
Seventeen years at Kublai Khan's court, and Polo comes back describing paper money, black stones that burn, and cities richer than anything in Europe. Columbus annotated his copy and went looking for them.
★ 6.7
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
1901 · 80 pages
Peter's father went into Mr. McGregor's garden and came out as a pie. Peter goes anyway. Potter sized her book to a child's hands and painted every radish and watering can herself.
★ 5.0
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
1958 · 260 pages
Quitting the London fashion trade with almost no climbing behind him, Newby set out for an unclimbed Afghan peak. The funniest travel book in English comes out of that mismatch.
★ 5.0