Reading great books is at the heart of a liberal arts education!
by Charlie Leck
I hope you don't consider this useless information.
If you do, that's the nice thing about a blog. One little click and you are gone.
by Charlie Leck
I hope you don't consider this useless information.
If you do, that's the nice thing about a blog. One little click and you are gone.
Indeed, I hope that many of you will print out this blog and put it in a file that you can easily reach -- and that you pull this list out often, to look it over to see what you might like to read next.
This is an immensely long blog -- it is not meant to be read in a quick sitting. It is meant to be a very usual resource for you and, perhaps, for your children and grandchildren.
This is a foundation list for a spectacular liberal education -- a reading list that comes from several different and important sources.
This is an immensely long blog -- it is not meant to be read in a quick sitting. It is meant to be a very usual resource for you and, perhaps, for your children and grandchildren.
This is a foundation list for a spectacular liberal education -- a reading list that comes from several different and important sources.
First, there is the Modern Library list of the best English language novels of the last 100 years.
Second, I've reproduced Modern Library's list of the best nonfiction works of the last 100 years.
Third, I've printed for you Jane Smiley's reading list of 101 important novels -- books she read, or reread, in a period of one year. Her book, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, is an important and fascinating work.
Almost Finally, there is a Time Magazine list of the best novels since 1923.
Do you find this a strange blog? Do you ask porquoi? I can only say porquoi pas?
Do you find this a strange blog? Do you ask porquoi? I can only say porquoi pas?
Why not, indeed! If I met a young person who expressed an interest in a first-rate education and who wanted to develop a superb and open mind, I'd challenge him or her to read every book on these lists.
It is fun to look at these lists to examine one's own gaps in developing an educated mind. A few of you are also active in book clubs and these lists will be a good resource for you.
In concluding this blog, I will present my own list of important books -- a list of books that I have read that have had the most significant impact on me and definately affected my life. A friend argued with me about this list one time, and I had to remind him of the list's parameters; that is, these are books which had an impact on me and my life and not necessarily a list of the best books I've read.
In concluding this blog, I will present my own list of important books -- a list of books that I have read that have had the most significant impact on me and definately affected my life. A friend argued with me about this list one time, and I had to remind him of the list's parameters; that is, these are books which had an impact on me and my life and not necessarily a list of the best books I've read.
Modern Library’s List of 100 Best English Language Novels of the last 100 years.
1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
Modern Library’s 100 Best Nonfiction Books
1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
4. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas
12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner
13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright
14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster
15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote
16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman
17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin
18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr
19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin
20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White
22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal
23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould
25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams
26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar
27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson
28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls
29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich
30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson
31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois
32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore
33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey
34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D'Arcy Thompson
35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein
36. THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr.
37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes
38. BLACK LAMB and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats
40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham
41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves
42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain
44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles
45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee
46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith
47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson
48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough
49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson
50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate
51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe
53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
54. WORKING by Studs Terkel
55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron
56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling
57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill
58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone
60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams
61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner
62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow
63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling
64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper
65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates
66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney
67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann
68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence
69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn
70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward
71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill
72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann
74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith
75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell
76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford
77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson
78. WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr.
79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky
81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan
82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield
83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing
84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan
85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham
86. THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff
87. A MATHEMATICIAN'S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy
88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman
89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard
90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer
91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison
92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro
93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter
94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams
95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly
96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote
97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm
98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking
99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott
100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil
Time Magazine Poll (2005)
100 Greatest Novels since 1923
The Complete ListIn Alphabetical Order
A - B
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
Read the Original Review
American Pastoral Philip Roth
Read the Original Review
An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm George Orwell
Read the Original Review
Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
Read the Original Review
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Assistant Bernard Malamud
Read the Original Review
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
Atonement Ian McEwan
Read the Original Review
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Read the Original Review
The Berlin Stories Christopher Isherwood
Read the Original Review
The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
Read the Original Review
The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
Read the Original Review
Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Read the Original Review
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Read the Original
C - D
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
Read the Original Review
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Read the Original Review
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Read the Original Review
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Read the Original Review
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
Read the Original Review
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Read the Original Review
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Read the Original Review
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Read the Original Review
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Read the Original Review
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
A Death in the Familyby James Agee
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Read the Original Review
Deliverance by James Dickey
the Original Review
1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington
Modern Library’s 100 Best Nonfiction Books
1. THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS by Henry Adams
2. THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE by William James
3. UP FROM SLAVERY by Booker T. Washington
4. A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN by Virginia Woolf
5. SILENT SPRING by Rachel Carson
6. SELECTED ESSAYS, 1917-1932 by T. S. Eliot
7. THE DOUBLE HELIX by James D. Watson
8. SPEAK, MEMORY by Vladimir Nabokov
9. THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE by H. L. Mencken
10. THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT, INTEREST, AND MONEY by John Maynard Keynes
11. THE LIVES OF A CELL by Lewis Thomas
12. THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY by Frederick Jackson Turner
13. BLACK BOY by Richard Wright
14. ASPECTS OF THE NOVEL by E. M. Forster
15. THE CIVIL WAR by Shelby Foote
16. THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Barbara Tuchman
17. THE PROPER STUDY OF MANKIND by Isaiah Berlin
18. THE NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN by Reinhold Niebuhr
19. NOTES OF A NATIVE SON by James Baldwin
20. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein
21. THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE by William Strunk and E. B. White
22. AN AMERICAN DILEMMA by Gunnar Myrdal
23. PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
24. THE MISMEASURE OF MAN by Stephen Jay Gould
25. THE MIRROR AND THE LAMP by Meyer Howard Abrams
26. THE ART OF THE SOLUBLE by Peter B. Medawar
27. THE ANTS by Bert Hoelldobler and Edward O. Wilson
28. A THEORY OF JUSTICE by John Rawls
29. ART AND ILLUSION by Ernest H. Gombrich
30. THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS by E. P. Thompson
31. THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK by W.E.B. Du Bois
32. PRINCIPIA ETHICA by G. E. Moore
33. PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION by John Dewey
34. ON GROWTH AND FORM by D'Arcy Thompson
35. IDEAS AND OPINIONS by Albert Einstein
36. THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur Schlesinger by Jr.
37. THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes
38. BLACK LAMB and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West
39. AUTOBIOGRAPHIES by W. B. Yeats
40. SCIENCE AND CIVILIZATION IN CHINA by Joseph Needham
41. GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves
42. HOMAGE TO CATALONIA by George Orwell
43. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK TWAIN by Mark Twain
44. CHILDREN OF CRISIS by Robert Coles
45. A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee
46. THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY by John Kenneth Galbraith
47. PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean Acheson
48. THE GREAT BRIDGE by David McCullough
49. PATRIOTIC GORE by Edmund Wilson
50. SAMUEL JOHNSON by Walter Jackson Bate
51. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
52. THE RIGHT STUFF by Tom Wolfe
53. EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
54. WORKING by Studs Terkel
55. DARKNESS VISIBLE by William Styron
56. THE LIBERAL IMAGINATION by Lionel Trilling
57. THE SECOND WORLD WAR by Winston Churchill
58. OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
59. JEFFERSON AND HIS TIME by Dumas Malone
60. IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN by William Carlos Williams
61. CADILLAC DESERT by Marc Reisner
62. THE HOUSE OF MORGAN by Ron Chernow
63. THE SWEET SCIENCE by A. J. Liebling
64. THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES by Karl Popper
65. THE ART OF MEMORY by Frances A. Yates
66. RELIGION AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM by R. H. Tawney
67. A PREFACE TO MORALS by Walter Lippmann
68. THE GATE OF HEAVENLY PEACE by Jonathan D. Spence
69. THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS by Thomas S. Kuhn
70. THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW by C. Vann Woodward
71. THE RISE OF THE WEST by William H. McNeill
72. THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels
73. JAMES JOYCE by Richard Ellmann
74. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE by Cecil Woodham-Smith
75. THE GREAT WAR AND MODERN MEMORY by Paul Fussell
76. THE CITY IN HISTORY by Lewis Mumford
77. BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson
78. WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King by Jr.
79. THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris
80. STUDIES IN ICONOLOGY by Erwin Panofsky
81. THE FACE OF BATTLE by John Keegan
82. THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND by George Dangerfield
83. VERMEER by Lawrence Gowing
84. A BRIGHT SHINING LIE by Neil Sheehan
85. WEST WITH THE NIGHT by Beryl Markham
86. THIS BOY'S LIFE by Tobias Wolff
87. A MATHEMATICIAN'S APOLOGY by G. H. Hardy
88. SIX EASY PIECES by Richard P. Feynman
89. PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK by Annie Dillard
90. THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James George Frazer
91. SHADOW AND ACT by Ralph Ellison
92. THE POWER BROKER by Robert A. Caro
93. THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION by Richard Hofstadter
94. THE CONTOURS OF AMERICAN HISTORY by William Appleman Williams
95. THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE by Herbert Croly
96. IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote
97. THE JOURNALIST AND THE MURDERER by Janet Malcolm
98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking
99. OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS by Anne Lamott
100. MELBOURNE by Lord David Cecil
Time Magazine Poll (2005)
100 Greatest Novels since 1923
The Complete ListIn Alphabetical Order
A - B
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
Read the Original Review
American Pastoral Philip Roth
Read the Original Review
An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm George Orwell
Read the Original Review
Appointment in Samarra John O'Hara
Read the Original Review
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
The Assistant Bernard Malamud
Read the Original Review
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
Atonement Ian McEwan
Read the Original Review
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Read the Original Review
The Berlin Stories Christopher Isherwood
Read the Original Review
The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
Read the Original Review
The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
Read the Original Review
Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Read the Original Review
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Read the Original
C - D
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
Read the Original Review
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Read the Original Review
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Read the Original Review
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Read the Original Review
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
Read the Original Review
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Read the Original Review
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Read the Original Review
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
Read the Original Review
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Read the Original Review
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
A Death in the Familyby James Agee
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
Read the Original Review
Deliverance by James Dickey
the Original Review
Dog Soldiers byRobert Stone
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F - G
Falconer by John Cheever
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The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
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The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
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Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
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Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
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Read the Original Review
F - G
Falconer by John Cheever
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The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
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The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
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Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
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Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Read the Original Review
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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H - I
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
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The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
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The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
Herzog by Saul Bellow
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Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
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A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
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I, Claudius by Robert Graves
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Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
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Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
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L - N
Light in August by William Faulkner
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The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
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Loving by Henry Green
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Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
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The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
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Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Money by Martin Amis
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The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
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Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
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Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Read the Original Review
Loving by Henry Green
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Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
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The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
Read the Original Review
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Money by Martin Amis
Read the Original Review
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
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Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
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Native Son by Richard Wright
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Neuromancer by William Gibson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
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1984 by George Orwell
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O - R
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey
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The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
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A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Read the Original Review
Possession by A.S. Byatt
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The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
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Rabbit, Run by John Updike
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Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
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The Recognitions by William Gaddis
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Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
S - T
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
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Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
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The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
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Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
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U - W
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Under the Net
by Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Read the Original Review
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise by Don DeLillo
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White Teeth by Zadie Smith
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Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
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Neuromancer by William Gibson
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Read the Original Review
1984 by George Orwell
Read the Original Review
O - R
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Read the Original Review
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey
Read the Original Review
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Read the Original Review
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Read the Original Review
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Read the Original Review
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
Read the Original Review
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Read the Original Review
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Read the Original Review
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Read the Original Review
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
S - T
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
Read the Original Review
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Read the Original Review
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Read the Original Review
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Read the Original Review
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Read the Original Review
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Read the Original Review
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Read the Original Review
U - W
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Under the Net
by Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Read the Original Review
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Read the Original Review
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Read the Original Review
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jane Smiley’s list of 101 illuminating novels
(which she read or reread in a year’s time)
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
Author unknown, The Saga of the People of Laxardal
Snorri Sturluson, Egil's Saga
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron
Anonymous, Lazarillo de Tormes
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, vols. 1 and 2
Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Cleves
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Roxana
Samuel Richardson, Pamela
Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Voltaire, Candide
Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The Marquis de Sade, Justine
Sir Walter Scott, The Tale of Old Mortality, The Bride of the Lammermoor
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jane Austen, Persuasion
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Stendhal, The Red and the Black
Nicolai Gogol, Taras Bulba
Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Honore de Balzac, Cousin Pons and Cousin Bette
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or the Whale
Nathaniel Hawthorne,The House of the Seven Gables
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, The Moonstone
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
Emile Zola, Therese Raquin
Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset , The Eustace Diamonds
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady , The Awkward Age
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Bram Stoker, Dracula
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Max Beerbohm, The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson, or an Oxford Love Story
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, volume I, The Wreath
James Joyce, Ulysses
Italo Svevo, Zeno's Conscience
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities, volume 1
Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet flows the Don
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
P.G. Wodehouse, The Return of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster Sees it Through, Spring Fever, The Butler Did It
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children
Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Rebecca West, The Fountain Overflows
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Jetta Carleton, The Moonflower Vine
Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
John Gardner, Grendel
Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women
Naguib Mahfouz, The Harafish
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?
Muriel Spark, Loitering With Intent
Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
J.M. Coetzee, Foe
Toni Morrison, Beloved
A.S. Byatt, Possession
Nicholson Baker, Vox
Garrison Keillor, WLT: A Radio Romance
Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
Francine Prose, Guided Tours of Hell
Chang-rae Lee, A Gesture Life
Arnost Lustig, Lovely Green Eyes
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
John Updike, The Complete Henry Bech
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Jennifer Egan, Look at Me
Charlie's Lists
In 1994 I listed by 5 favorite books (below).
(which she read or reread in a year’s time)
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
Author unknown, The Saga of the People of Laxardal
Snorri Sturluson, Egil's Saga
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
Marguerite de Navarre, The Heptameron
Anonymous, Lazarillo de Tormes
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, vols. 1 and 2
Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Cleves
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, Roxana
Samuel Richardson, Pamela
Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Voltaire, Candide
Tobias Smollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The Marquis de Sade, Justine
Sir Walter Scott, The Tale of Old Mortality, The Bride of the Lammermoor
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jane Austen, Persuasion
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Stendhal, The Red and the Black
Nicolai Gogol, Taras Bulba
Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time
Honore de Balzac, Cousin Pons and Cousin Bette
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, or the Whale
Nathaniel Hawthorne,The House of the Seven Gables
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, The Moonstone
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
Emile Zola, Therese Raquin
Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset , The Eustace Diamonds
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady , The Awkward Age
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Bram Stoker, Dracula
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Max Beerbohm, The Illustrated Zuleika Dobson, or an Oxford Love Story
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter, volume I, The Wreath
James Joyce, Ulysses
Italo Svevo, Zeno's Conscience
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
Virginia Woolf, Orlando
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities, volume 1
Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet flows the Don
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
P.G. Wodehouse, The Return of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster Sees it Through, Spring Fever, The Butler Did It
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children
Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Rebecca West, The Fountain Overflows
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate and Don't Tell Alfred
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Jetta Carleton, The Moonflower Vine
Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
John Gardner, Grendel
Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women
Naguib Mahfouz, The Harafish
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea
David Lodge, How Far Can You Go?
Muriel Spark, Loitering With Intent
Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
J.M. Coetzee, Foe
Toni Morrison, Beloved
A.S. Byatt, Possession
Nicholson Baker, Vox
Garrison Keillor, WLT: A Radio Romance
Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
Francine Prose, Guided Tours of Hell
Chang-rae Lee, A Gesture Life
Arnost Lustig, Lovely Green Eyes
Zadie Smith, White Teeth
John Updike, The Complete Henry Bech
Ian McEwan, Atonement
Jennifer Egan, Look at Me
Charlie's Lists
In 1994 I listed by 5 favorite books (below).
The Brothers Karemozov, Fedor Dostoevsky
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
I don't have any idea why I listed those five books. I wouldn't pick the same books today (when I am much wiser and more sage). I'd have to go with Hardy book for sure -- maybe my all time favorite novel. And, I'd leave Old Man and the Sea where it is. Incredible! Wonderful! And, I'd leave Vonnegut's book. Blew me away. I'd list 4 or 5 of Vonnegut's books among my all time favorites.
Favorite author? It has to be Hardy. I've never read a single one of his books that didn't blow me away. Thomas Hardy! Yes. Vonnegut is probably in second place. Breakfast of Champions -- wonderful!
Here, though, is a list of books that had an immense impact on me -- on the way I think and live and view the world.... this is not a list of great books... it is a list of books that changed me mightly.... in no specific order.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins
Humbolt's Gift by Saul Bellow
Humbolt's Gift by Saul Bellow
Herzog by Saul Bellow
The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Five Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
God With Us by Joseph Harotunian (Oh, my!)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Five Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
God With Us by Joseph Harotunian (Oh, my!)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
God Bless You, Elliot Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovitch by Alexander Solzennitzen
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (Gracious, what a powerful book!)
God Bless You, Elliot Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Fathers and Sons, by Ivan Turgenev
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
One Day in the Life of Ivan Dennisovitch by Alexander Solzennitzen
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (Gracious, what a powerful book!)
The Wall by John Hersey
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
A Separate Peace by John Knowles (oh, my, how this book affected me)
The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (drama)
Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphey (Oh, my!)
Appointment in Samara by John O'Hara
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternach
The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (drama)
Golf in the Kingdom by Michael Murphey (Oh, my!)
Appointment in Samara by John O'Hara
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternach
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Payton
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowrey (Oh, my!)
Deliverance by James Dickey
Invisable Man by Ralph Ellison
Letters and Papers from Prison by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
We Are Not Afraid by Seth Gagin and Philip Dray
Straight Man by Richard Russo
1984 by George Orwell
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
Roots by Alex Haley
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Passages by Gail Sheehy
Hard Times by Studs Terkel
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forestor
13 Ways to Look at the Novel, by Jane Smiley
Team of Rivals by Doris Goodwin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Under the Volcano by Malcom Lowrey (Oh, my!)
Deliverance by James Dickey
Invisable Man by Ralph Ellison
Letters and Papers from Prison by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr.
We Are Not Afraid by Seth Gagin and Philip Dray
Straight Man by Richard Russo
1984 by George Orwell
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
Roots by Alex Haley
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Passages by Gail Sheehy
Hard Times by Studs Terkel
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forestor
13 Ways to Look at the Novel, by Jane Smiley
Team of Rivals by Doris Goodwin
Enough, though I could go on and on!
A dear 'old' friend, after reading this blog, sent me this reading list from the oldest book club in America. I thought you might like to take a look at it. A really nice web site.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ciweb.org/clsc-book-club
Chas Leck