King Lear
1607 · 316 pages
An old king divides his kingdom by asking his daughters how much they love him, and the truthful one says least. Shakespeare wrote nothing bleaker, and the last scene is unbearable.
★ 9.8
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.
Macbeth
1606 · 223 pages
Witches promise a soldier the crown, and he and his wife murder their way to it. Shakespeare's shortest tragedy moves like a nightmare, and the guilt arrives before the blood dries.
★ 9.4
Julius Caesar
1599 · 288 pages
Brutus is persuaded that killing his friend will save the republic. Antony stands over the body, says he comes to bury Caesar and not to praise him, and turns Rome around.
★ 6.8
Darkness at Noon
1940 · 288 pages
Arrested by the revolution he helped build, Rubashov confesses to crimes he never committed. The novel sold half a million copies in France and pulled a generation of Western leftists away from Moscow.
★ 6.8
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
1966 · 128 pages
Two minor courtiers from Hamlet wait in the wings of a play they cannot follow, flipping a coin that lands heads ninety two times running. Stoppard wrings comedy and dread from their helplessness.
★ 6.4
Ubik
1969 · 227 pages
Dick's most vertiginous novel. After a bomb on the Moon, Joe Chip's world rots and slides back toward 1939, and nobody can say who died. An aerosol called Ubik holds it off.
★ 5.8
Double Indemnity
1936 · 115 pages
Walter Huff sells insurance, and the wife who wants a policy on her husband starts him on the clause that pays double. Cain tells it as a confession and never slows down.
★ 5.2