![]() | A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice
Buy new: $10.40 / Used from: $0.01 Quite possibly my favorite book ever written. I've read it four times and I love it more each time I read it. I haven't met anyone who hasn't read this book and instantly listed it as one of their favorite books! Be careful, though; Once you start it, you won't be able to put it down!
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![]() | Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition)
Buy new: $10.04 / Used from: $1.25 I thought I was going to hate reading this, but Heaney's translation was painless and easy to understand. I read this for a class, so dissecting it was fun.
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![]() | The Canterbury Tales (Oxford World's Classics) by Geoffrey Chaucer
Buy used from: $0.04 I love this version of "The Canterbury Tales"... It is easy to read and understand and is actually quite entertaining.
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![]() | Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Signet Classics) by Anonymous
Buy used from: $0.87 Quite possibly my favorite book I read in a British Literary course. I loved it! Irony in its best form.
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![]() | The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics) by Edmund Spenser
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $5.06 Spenser is awesome. It's a little hard to understand so Spark Notes help a lot, but this wasn't too painful to get through and was actually an entertaining read and discussion topic in class.
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![]() | Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics) by John Milton
Buy new: $8.64 / Used from: $4.00 I had to read this for the same British Literature course. And it was painful. I get that it's a "classic" but it was just so awful.
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![]() | King Lear (Oxford School Shakespeare) by William Shakespeare
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $1.59 I love "King Lear" for so many reasons. It's a good play to read before college because I've had a lot of English professors who reference it. I finally got to read it for a class and discussing the symbolism Shakespeare used in this play made me appreciate it even more. This is quite possibly my favorite Shakespearean play.
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![]() | On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.01 I had heard such wonderful things about Zadie Smith, but this book took me forever to get through. I felt it was much longer than it needed to be and the plot just kind of droned on and on. Not my favorite book, but I liked the second half much better than the first.
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![]() | Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Buy new: $16.50 / Used from: $0.76 This book definitely makes it onto my list of favorites. It's easy to read and really makes you appreciate your own life and really think about what your purpose really is.
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![]() | Saturday by Ian McEwan
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $0.01 Another one of my favorites. I love Ian McEwan and I loved reading this book. The neuroscience topics sparked my interest because I love the subject and was taking a basic neuroscience class while I read this book for fun, which made it a lot more entertaining for me.
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![]() | The Sea by John Banville
Buy new: $10.04 / Used from: $0.40 Boo. I wanted to read this book for so long and once I finally started it, all I could think about was finishing it. It bored me to tears.
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![]() | Old Man And The Sea (Scribner Classics) by Ernest Hemingway
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $2.69 Easy to understand, quick read, with an extremely important lesson. Love this novel by Hemingway.
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![]() | The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Buy new: $11.20 / Used from: $0.01 I heard bad things about this book, but I actually enjoyed it. The plot was kind of far fetched, but that's what fiction is for.
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![]() | The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $0.01 I learned a lot about post-WWII America from this fictional "what if" book. It's Roth at his finest and was definitely a page turner. It made me thankful that this was fiction instead of non-fiction!
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![]() | The Light of Day: A Novel by Graham Swift
Buy new: $11.05 / Used from: $1.19 Riveting. I'd never heard of this book, but it was on my "1,001 Books to Read Before You Die" list by Peter Boxall (a lot of these books are on there), and I really enjoyed reading it. It's a small book and I flew through it in just a couple of days.
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![]() | The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation (P.S.) by Paulo Coelho
Buy new: $10.04 / Used from: $2.10 "Life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it." - excellent quote from an excellent book. I actually took a lot out of this story and used it in an essay and my teacher loved it! I can't wait to read more of his books.
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![]() | The Cider House Rules: A Novel (Modern Library) by John Irving
Buy new: $16.47 / Used from: $6.95 I LOVE this book! John Irving is brilliant and he proves he's capable of writing "classics" with this novel. It's written so well. The length may seem a bit daunting, but I almost wanted it to be longer by the time I finished the book.
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![]() | The Shining by Stephen King
Buy new: $11.70 / Used from: $2.50 I've been to the Stanley Hotel, which was King's inspiration for this book. It's a creepy place and inspired a creepy novel. LOVE this book.
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![]() | Breakfast at Tiffany's: A Short Novel and Three Stories (Modern Library) by Truman Capote
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $5.86 Quick, pleasant read.
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![]() | Things Fall Apart (Modern Critical Interpretations Series) by Chinua Achebe
Buy used from: $7.99 I loved this book. Definitely has some useful things you can take from it and apply to life or college courses.
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![]() | Lord of the Flies (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century) by William Golding
Buy new: $9.75 / Used from: $1.89 I read this in middle school and hated it. I read it again and enjoyed it the second time around. I think you appreciate this book more the older you get.
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![]() | Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck Centennial Edition) by John Steinbeck
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $4.00 I read this book in an hour. I was supposed to read it in high school, but I never did. I love it.
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![]() | The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $9.05 One of the greatest "horror" stories of all time. It gave me nightmares, but I love this book! And it's short so it's easy to read.
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![]() | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics) by Lewis Carroll
Buy new: $3.95 / Used from: $0.37 LOVE both.
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![]() | The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Buy used from: $2.00 This book almost killed me. It's so long. And so repetitive. I get that it's written about drugs and supposedly like you're taking LSD, but I never have and it just confused me almost the entire way through. But I do love Ken Kesey so the fact that it's based on him and his Merry Pranksters got me through it. Oh, and the fact that Tom Wolfe is a genius.
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![]() | Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) by Stephenie Meyer
Buy new: $6.59 / Used from: $2.40 My favorite out of the saga. Wonderful love story.
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![]() | New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) by Stephenie Meyer
Buy new: $11.69 / Used from: $6.00 I didn't like this book nearly as much as I liked "Twilight" which was kind of a let down. It starts to ruin the wonderful love story that was started in the original.
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![]() | The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
Buy new: $11.89 / Used from: $0.01 This book is brilliant. I realize it's fiction based on the real death of Elizabeth Short, but it was so riveting and entertaining I couldn't put it down! The movie is terrible and doesn't do the book justice at all.
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![]() | Eclipse Special Edition (The Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
Buy used from: $3.98 Meyer redeemed herself from "New Moon" in this book, though not completely.
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![]() | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $3.73 Shoot me, but I really didn't care for this book. At all. It was painful just to finish it. I just had to keep picturing Johnny Depp.
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![]() | The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Buy used from: $0.01 I read this for a second time because I was so young the first time I read it. I definitely understood it better the second time around and followed the story much better.
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![]() | I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Buy used from: $0.01 I read this in 8th grade and loved it so I thought I would read it again now that I'm older.
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![]() | The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Buy used from: $0.01 Good book, horrible movie.
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![]() | American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $2.96 This book was so vulgar and creepy. I literally still have nightmares from reading it and am too terrified to see the movie, but I loved the book in all of it's gory details.
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![]() | Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
Buy new: $9.32 / Used from: $4.74 Modern day "Catcher in the Rye" but not nearly as good.
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![]() | The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Buy new: $9.83 / Used from: $0.99 I was in AP English, but ended up having to switch to regular in high school right before they read this book. It was definitely not as bad as I imagined it would be, but I don't think it's as wonderful as some people do. But it's good to read before college.
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![]() | 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 I read this while I was taking Astronomy and really enjoyed it.
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![]() | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 Another book I read while I was taking Astronomy and I also liked this book.
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![]() | Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) by Stephenie Meyer
Buy new: $13.44 / Used from: $10.00 WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?! I wanted to throw up every time I turned the page. What a horrible way to end the saga. The book was absolutely revolting.
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![]() | The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Buy new: $3.95 / Used from: $0.15 Definitely another good book to read BEFORE college. Which I didn't do. But I've had a lot of English professors reference it.
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