"We're the majority, they protest. We must be listened to. I hear the word petition. I could tell them, had they not decided to be deaf to me, that numbers amount to nothing in such matters. Dissent is never counted; it is weighed. The master always weighs the most. Besides, they can't draw up a petition and fix it to the doorway of the church as other places do. It only takes a piece of paper and a nail, that's true. But, even if they had a doorway to a church, none of them has a signature." 

This from the novel Harvest by Jim Crace (2013), which I just completed. It's one of only two books on the shortlist for this year's Man Booker Prize that I was interested in reading (the other, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, won't be published in the States for another two weeks). Crace's book, the first I've read of his work, is as dark -- no, darker -- than most horror novels, though it's by no means a horror novel. While I urge you to read it, I hope you won't read much about it. Watching its nightmarish (and deeply metaphorical) scenario unfold, all told in beautifully evocative language, is a disquieting pleasure. Watch the smoke from the two fires rise and see where they take you.

I read Harvest as a ebook, which I think is the best way to go, as Crace peppers the prose with antiquated words that an ereader will happily illuminate and thus allow you to befuddle your friends with later.