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Scribbled down on June 17th, 2008 by she
Posted in Reading Begets Enlightenment
Last year I signed up for the 52 books in 52 weeks reading challenge and found myself passing the 100 book mark half way through the year. Needless to say I gave up counting and listing the books I had read and just kept reading.
Today I dropped by Mare‘s place and found her reference to 2000 1001 books to read before you die. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll end up having read a number of them – and many more that never made the list – long before I’m 50. I’d say 30 but that bus left long ago. I have no life and few shiny pieces of university granted papers (just one so far) but I’d challenge anyone who’d suggest I wasn’t well read. We’ll just pretend that my current fixation with Military History and my on-going love affair with SciFi/Fantasy are equally valuable ways to spend my reading time.
I think I’m with Mare on the concept of creating my own list. There were a number of books I would have included that are missing from this list. Perhaps I’ve just spent too much time reading Canadian and Indian literature lately…or maybe I just have bad taste…
If you’re interested in the list it’s below the fold… * represents the books I’ve already read. I did have to refer to the books on my bookshelves to make sure I selected the correct ones. There’s a number of books with similar (or the same titles) that I’ve read. The double-check was to ensure I had the right books. The joys of “author matching”.
Upperdate for the curious: I’ve ready 374 of the 1001 books on this list (37%)
2000s
- Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Saturday – Ian McEwan *
- On Beauty – Zadie Smith
- Slow Man – J.M. Coetzee
- Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson
- The Sea – John Banville
- The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble *
- The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
- The Master – Colm Tóibín
- Vanishing Point – David Markson
- The Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd
- Dining on Stones – Iain Sinclair *
- Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
- Drop City – T. Coraghessan Boyle
- The Colour – Rose Tremain
- Thursbitch – Alan Garner
- The Light of Day – Graham Swift
- What I Loved – Siri Hustvedt
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon *
- Islands – Dan Sleigh
- Elizabeth Costello – J.M. Coetzee
- London Orbital – Iain Sinclair
- Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry *
- Fingersmith – Sarah Waters
- The Double – José Saramago
- Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
- Unless – Carol Shields *
- Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
- The Story of Lucy Gault – William Trevor
- That They May Face the Rising Sun – John McGahern
- In the Forest – Edna O’Brien
- Shroud – John Banville *
- Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
- Youth – J.M. Coetzee
- Dead Air – Iain Banks *
- Nowhere Man – Aleksandar Hemon
- The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
- Gabriel’s Gift – Hanif Kureishi *
- Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald
- Platform – Michael Houellebecq
- Schooling – Heather McGowan
- Atonement – Ian McEwan *
- The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
- Don’t Move – Margaret Mazzantini
- The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
- Fury – Salman Rushdie *
- At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O’Neill *
- Choke – Chuck Palahniuk
- Life of Pi – Yann Martel *
- The Feast of the Goat – Mario Vargos Llosa
- An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma
- The Devil and Miss Prym – Paulo Coelho *
- Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare
- White Teeth – Zadie Smith
- The Heart of Redness – Zakes Mda
- Under the Skin – Michel Faber
- Ignorance – Milan Kundera
- Nineteen Seventy Seven – David Peace
- Celestial Harmonies – Péter Esterházy
- City of God – E.L. Doctorow *
- How the Dead Live – Will Self
- The Human Stain – Philip Roth *
- The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood *
- After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
- Small Remedies – Shashi Deshpande *
- Super-Cannes – J.G. Ballard
- House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski *
- Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates *
- Pastoralia – George Saunders
1900s
- Timbuktu – Paul Auster
- The Romantics – Pankaj Mishra *
- Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson *
- As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakuli?
- Everything You Need – A.L. Kennedy
- Fear and Trembling – Amélie Nothomb *
- The Ground Beneath Her Feet – Salman Rushdie *
- Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee *
- Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami
- Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq
- Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi
- Amsterdam – Ian McEwan *
- Cloudsplitter – Russell Banks
- All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom
- The Talk of the Town – Ardal O’Hanlon
- Tipping the Velvet – Sarah Waters
- The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
- Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
- Another World – Pat Barker *
- The Hours – Michael Cunningham *
- Veronika Decides to Die – Paulo Coelho
- Mason & Dixon – Thomas Pynchon
- The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy *
- Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden *
- Great Apes – Will Self
- Enduring Love – Ian McEwan *
- Underworld – Don DeLillo *
- Jack Maggs – Peter Carey
- The Life of Insects – Victor Pelevin
- American Pastoral – Philip Roth
- The Untouchable – John Banville
- Silk – Alessandro Baricco *
- Cocaine Nights – J.G. Ballard
- Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
- Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels*
- The Ghost Road – Pat Barker *
- Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse
- Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace *
- The Clay Machine-Gun – Victor Pelevin
- Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood *
- The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Morvern Callar – Alan Warner
- The Information – Martin Amis
- The Moor’s Last Sigh – Salman Rushdie *
- Sabbath’s Theater – Philip Roth *
- The Rings of Saturn – W.G. Sebald
- The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
- A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry *
- Love’s Work – Gillian Rose
- The End of the Story – Lydia Davis
- Mr. Vertigo – Paul Auster
- The Folding Star – Alan Hollinghurst
- Whatever – Michel Houellebecq
- Land – Park Kyong-ni
- The Master of Petersburg – J.M. Coetzee
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
- Pereira Declares: A Testimony – Antonio Tabucchi
- City Sister Silver – Jàchym Topol
- How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres *
- Felicia’s Journey – William Trevor *
- Disappearance – David Dabydeen
- The Invention of Curried Sausage – Uwe Timm
- The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx *
- Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh *
- Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks *
- Looking for the Possible Dance – A.L. Kennedy
- Operation Shylock – Philip Roth *
- Complicity – Iain Banks *
- On Love – Alain de Botton
- What a Carve Up! – Jonathan Coe
- A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth *
- The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields *
- The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides *
- The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd
- The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood *
- The Emigrants – W.G. Sebald
- The Secret History – Donna Tartt
- Life is a Caravanserai – Emine Özdamar
- The Discovery of Heaven – Harry Mulisch
- A Heart So White – Javier Marias
- Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker *
- Indigo – Marina Warner
- The Crow Road – Iain Banks *
- Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
- Jazz – Toni Morrison
- The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje *
- Smilla’s Sense of Snow – Peter Høeg *
- The Butcher Boy – Patrick McCabe *
- Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates *
- The Heather Blazing – Colm Tóibín
- Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
- Black Dogs – Ian McEwan *
- Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
- Arcadia – Jim Crace
- Wild Swans – Jung Chang
- American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis *
- Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
- Mao II – Don DeLillo
- Typical – Padgett Powell
- Regeneration – Pat Barker
- Downriver – Iain Sinclair
- Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord – Louis de Bernieres
- Wise Children – Angela Carter
- Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard *
- Amongst Women – John McGahern
- Vineland – Thomas Pynchon
- Vertigo – W.G. Sebald
- Stone Junction – Jim Dodge
- The Music of Chance – Paul Auster
- The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
- A Home at the End of the World – Michael Cunningham *
- Like Life – Lorrie Moore
- Possession – A.S. Byatt *
- The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi
- The Midnight Examiner – William Kotzwinkle
- A Disaffection – James Kelman
- Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
- Moon Palace – Paul Auster
- Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow *
- Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro *
- The Melancholy of Resistance – László Krasznahorkai
- The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker *
- The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
- The History of the Siege of Lisbon – José Saramago
- Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel *
- A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving *
- London Fields – Martin Amis
- The Book of Evidence – John Banville
- Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood *
- Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco *
- The Beautiful Room is Empty – Edmund White
- Wittgenstein’s Mistress – David Markson
- The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie *
- The Swimming-Pool Library – Alan Hollinghurst
- Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey *
- Libra – Don DeLillo
- The Player of Games – Iain M. Banks *
- Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
- The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams *
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams *
- The Radiant Way – Margaret Drabble
- The Afternoon of a Writer – Peter Handke
- The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy *
- The Passion – Jeanette Winterson *
- The Pigeon – Patrick Süskind
- The Child in Time – Ian McEwan *
- Cigarettes – Harry Mathews
- The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe *
- The New York Trilogy – Paul Auster
- World’s End – T. Coraghessan Boyle
- Enigma of Arrival – V.S. Naipaul
- The Taebek Mountains – Jo Jung-rae
- Beloved – Toni Morrison *
- Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
- Matigari – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
- Marya – Joyce Carol Oates *
- Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons *
- The Old Devils – Kingsley Amis
- Lost Language of Cranes – David Leavitt
- An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Extinction – Thomas Bernhard
- Foe – J.M. Coetzee
- The Drowned and the Saved – Primo Levi
- Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
- The Parable of the Blind – Gert Hofmann
- Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez *
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
- The Cider House Rules – John Irving *
- A Maggot – John Fowles
- Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis *
- Contact – Carl Sagan *
- The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood *
- Perfume – Patrick Süskind
- Old Masters – Thomas Bernhard
- White Noise – Don DeLillo
- Queer – William Burroughs
- Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
- Legend – David Gemmell *
- Dictionary of the Khazars – Milorad Pavi?
- The Bus Conductor Hines – James Kelman
- The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis – José Saramago
- The Lover – Marguerite Duras
- Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard *
- The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks *
- Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera *
- Blood and Guts in High School – Kathy Acker
- Neuromancer – William Gibson *
- Flaubert’s Parrot – Julian Barnes
- Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
- Shame – Salman Rushdie *
- Worstward Ho – Samuel Beckett
- Fools of Fortune – William Trevor
- La Brava – Elmore Leonard
- Waterland – Graham Swift
- The Life and Times of Michael K – J.M. Coetzee
- The Diary of Jane Somers – Doris Lessing
- The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek
- The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus
- If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi *
- A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White *
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker *
- Wittgenstein’s Nephew – Thomas Bernhard
- A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
- Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally
- The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende *
- The Newton Letter – John Banville
- On the Black Hill – Bruce Chatwin
- Concrete – Thomas Bernhard
- The Names – Don DeLillo
- Rabbit is Rich – John Updike
- Lanark: A Life in Four Books – Alasdair Gray
- The Comfort of Strangers – Ian McEwan *
- July’s People – Nadine Gordimer
- Summer in Baden-Baden – Leonid Tsypkin
- Broken April – Ismail Kadare
- Waiting for the Barbarians – J.M. Coetzee
- Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie *
- Rites of Passage – William Golding *
- Rituals – Cees Nooteboom
- Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
- City Primeval – Elmore Leonard
- The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco *
- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera *
- Smiley’s People – John Le Carré
- Shikasta – Doris Lessing
- A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
- Burger’s Daughter – Nadine Gordimer
- The Safety Net – Heinrich Böll
- If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams *
- The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
- The World According to Garp – John Irving *
- Life: A User’s Manual – Georges Perec
- The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch
- The Singapore Grip – J.G. Farrell
- Yes – Thomas Bernhard
- The Virgin in the Garden – A.S. Byatt
- In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee
- The Passion of New Eve – Angela Carter
- Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin *
- The Shining – Stephen King *
- Dispatches – Michael Herr *
- Petals of Blood – Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
- Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison *
- The Hour of the Star – Clarice Lispector
- The Left-Handed Woman – Peter Handke
- Ratner’s Star – Don DeLillo
- The Public Burning – Robert Coover
- Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice *
- Cutter and Bone – Newton Thornburg
- Amateurs – Donald Barthelme
- Patterns of Childhood – Christa Wolf
- Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel García Márquez *
- W, or the Memory of Childhood – Georges Perec
- A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
- Grimus – Salman Rushdie
- The Dead Father – Donald Barthelme
- Fateless – Imre Kertész
- Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan
- High Rise – J.G. Ballard
- Humboldt’s Gift – Saul Bellow
- Dead Babies – Martin Amis
- Correction – Thomas Bernhard
- Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
- The Fan Man – William Kotzwinkle
- Dusklands – J.M. Coetzee
- The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum – Heinrich Böll
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré *
- Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. *
- Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
- A Question of Power – Bessie Head
- The Siege of Krishnapur – J.G. Farrell *
- The Castle of Crossed Destinies – Italo Calvino
- Crash – J.G. Ballard
- The Honorary Consul – Graham Greene *
- Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
- The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
- Sula – Toni Morrison
- Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino
- The Breast – Philip Roth
- The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
- G – John Berger
- Surfacing – Margaret Atwood *
- House Mother Normal – B.S. Johnson
- In A Free State – V.S. Naipaul
- The Book of Daniel – E.L. Doctorow *
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – Hunter S. Thompson *
- Group Portrait With Lady – Heinrich Böll
- The Wild Boys – William Burroughs *
- Rabbit Redux – John Updike *
- The Sea of Fertility – Yukio Mishima
- The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
- The Ogre – Michael Tournier
- The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
- Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou *
- Mercier et Camier – Samuel Beckett
- Troubles – J.G. Farrell
- Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson
- The Atrocity Exhibition – J.G. Ballard
- Tent of Miracles – Jorge Amado
- Pricksongs and Descants – Robert Coover
- Blind Man With a Pistol – Chester Hines
- Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. *
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman – John Fowles *
- The Green Man – Kingsley Amis
- Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth *
- The Godfather – Mario Puzo *
- Ada – Vladimir Nabokov
- Them – Joyce Carol Oates *
- A Void/Avoid – Georges Perec
- Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
- Myra Breckinridge – Gore Vidal *
- The Nice and the Good – Iris Murdoch
- Belle du Seigneur – Albert Cohen
- Cancer Ward – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn *
- The First Circle – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn *
- 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke *
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick *
- Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid – Malcolm Lowry
- The German Lesson – Siegfried Lenz
- In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan
- A Kestrel for a Knave – Barry Hines *
- The Quest for Christa T. – Christa Wolf
- Chocky – John Wyndham
- The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe *
- The Cubs and Other Stories – Mario Vargas Llosa
- One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez *
- The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
- Pilgrimage – Dorothy Richardson
- The Joke – Milan Kundera
- No Laughing Matter – Angus Wilson
- The Third Policeman – Flannery O’Brien *
- A Man Asleep – Georges Perec
- The Birds Fall Down – Rebecca West
- Trawl – B.S. Johnson
- In Cold Blood – Truman Capote *
- The Magus – John Fowles
- The Vice-Consul – Marguerite Duras
- Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys *
- Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth
- The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
- Things – Georges Perec
- The River Between – Ngugi wa Thiong’o
- August is a Wicked Month – Edna O’Brien
- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut *
- Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor *
- The Passion According to G.H. – Clarice Lispector
- Sometimes a Great Notion – Ken Kesey
- Come Back, Dr. Caligari – Donald Bartholme
- Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson
- Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe
- The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein – Marguerite Duras
- Herzog – Saul Bellow *
- V. – Thomas Pynchon
- Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut *
- The Graduate – Charles Webb *
- Manon des Sources – Marcel Pagnol
- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré *
- The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark
- Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess
- The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath *
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn *
- The Collector – John Fowles
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey *
- A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess *
- Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov *
- The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
- The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing *
- Labyrinths – Jorg Luis Borges
- Girl With Green Eyes – Edna O’Brien *
- The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
- Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein *
- Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger *
- A Severed Head – Iris Murdoch
- Faces in the Water – Janet Frame
- Solaris – Stanislaw Lem
- Cat and Mouse – Günter Grass
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark *
- Catch-22 – Joseph Heller *
- The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor *
- How It Is – Samuel Beckett
- Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
- The Country Girls – Edna O’Brien
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee *
- Rabbit, Run – John Updike
- Promise at Dawn – Romain Gary
- Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
- Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
- Naked Lunch – William Burroughs *
- The Tin Drum – Günter Grass
- Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes
- Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
- Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
- Billiards at Half-Past Nine – Heinrich Böll
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote *
- The Leopard – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring – Kenzaburo Oe
- A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
- The Bitter Glass – Eilís Dillon
- Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe *
- Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe
- Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris – Paul Gallico
- Borstal Boy – Brendan Behan
- The End of the Road – John Barth
- The Once and Future King – T.H. White *
- The Bell – Iris Murdoch
- Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet
- Voss – Patrick White
- The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
- Blue Noon – Georges Bataille
- Homo Faber – Max Frisch
- On the Road – Jack Kerouac *
- Pnin – Vladimir Nabokov
- Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak *
- The Wonderful “O” – James Thurber
- Justine – Lawrence Durrell
- Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin
- The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon
- The Roots of Heaven – Romain Gary
- Seize the Day – Saul Bellow *
- The Floating Opera – John Barth
- The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien *
- The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith *
- Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov *
- A World of Love – Elizabeth Bowen
- The Trusting and the Maimed – James Plunkett
- The Quiet American – Graham Greene *
- The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
- The Recognitions – William Gaddis
- The Ragazzi – Pier Paulo Pasolini
- Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
- I’m Not Stiller – Max Frisch
- Self Condemned – Wyndham Lewis
- The Story of O – Pauline Réage *
- A Ghost at Noon – Alberto Moravia *
- Lord of the Flies – William Golding *
- Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
- The Go-Between – L.P. Hartley
- The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler *
- The Unnamable – Samuel Beckett
- Watt – Samuel Beckett
- Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
- Junkie – William Burroughs
- The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
- Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin
- Casino Royale – Ian Fleming *
- The Judge and His Hangman – Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison *
- The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway *
- Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor *
- The Killer Inside Me – Jim Thompson
- Memoirs of Hadrian – Marguerite Yourcenar
- Malone Dies – Samuel Beckett
- Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham *
- Foundation – Isaac Asimov *
- The Opposing Shore – Julien Gracq
- The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger *
- The Rebel – Albert Camus *
- Molloy – Samuel Beckett
- The End of the Affair – Graham Greene *
- The Abbot C – Georges Bataille
- The Labyrinth of Solitude – Octavio Paz
- The Third Man – Graham Greene *
- The 13 Clocks – James Thurber
- Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake
- The Grass is Singing – Doris Lessing *
- I, Robot – Isaac Asimov *
- The Moon and the Bonfires – Cesare Pavese
- The Garden Where the Brass Band Played – Simon Vestdijk
- Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford *
- The Case of Comrade Tulayev – Victor Serge
- The Heat of the Day – Elizabeth Bowen
- Kingdom of This World – Alejo Carpentier
- The Man With the Golden Arm – Nelson Algren
- Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell *
- All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani
- Disobedience – Alberto Moravia
- Death Sentence – Maurice Blanchot
- The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene *
- Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton *
- Doctor Faustus – Thomas Mann *
- The Victim – Saul Bellow *
- Exercises in Style – Raymond Queneau
- If This Is a Man – Primo Levi
- Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
- The Path to the Nest of Spiders – Italo Calvino
- The Plague – Albert Camus *
- Back – Henry Green
- Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
- The Bridge on the Drina – Ivo Andri?
- Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh *
- Animal Farm – George Orwell *
- Cannery Row – John Steinbeck *
- The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
- Loving – Henry Green
- Arcanum 17 – André Breton
- Christ Stopped at Eboli – Carlo Levi
- The Razor’s Edge – William Somerset Maugham
- Transit – Anna Seghers
- Ficciones – Jorge Luis Borges
- Dangling Man – Saul Bellow *
- The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry *
- Caught – Henry Green
- The Glass Bead Game – Herman Hesse
- Embers – Sandor Marai
- Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner
- The Outsider – Albert Camus *
- In Sicily – Elio Vittorini
- The Poor Mouth – Flann O’Brien *
- The Living and the Dead – Patrick White *
- Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton
- Between the Acts – Virginia Woolf
- The Hamlet – William Faulkner *
- Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler *
- For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway *
- Native Son – Richard Wright
- The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene *
- The Tartar Steppe – Dino Buzzati
- Party Going – Henry Green
- The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck *
- Finnegans Wake – James Joyce *
- At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O’Brien *
- Coming Up for Air – George Orwell *
- Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
- Tropic of Capricorn – Henry Miller *
- Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys
- The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler *
- After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvie Townsend Warner
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson *
- Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre *
- Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier *
- Cause for Alarm – Eric Ambler
- Brighton Rock – Graham Greene *
- U.S.A. – John Dos Passos
- Murphy – Samuel Beckett
- Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck *
- Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
- The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien *
- The Years – Virginia Woolf
- In Parenthesis – David Jones *
- The Revenge for Love – Wyndham Lewis
- Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) *
- To Have and Have Not – Ernest Hemingway *
- Summer Will Show – Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Eyeless in Gaza – Aldous Huxley
- The Thinking Reed – Rebecca West
- Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell *
- Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell
- Wild Harbour – Ian MacPherson
- Absalom, Absalom! – William Faulkner *
- At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft *
- Nightwood – Djuna Barnes
- Independent People – Halldór Laxness
- Auto-da-Fé – Elias Canetti
- The Last of Mr. Norris – Christopher Isherwood
- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? – Horace McCoy *
- The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
- England Made Me – Graham Greene
- Burmese Days – George Orwell
- The Nine Tailors – Dorothy L. Sayers
- Threepenny Novel – Bertolt Brecht
- Novel With Cocaine – M. Ageyev
- The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain *
- Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller *
- A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
- Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald *
- Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
- Call it Sleep – Henry Roth
- Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West *
- Murder Must Advertise – Dorothy L. Sayers
- The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas – Gertrude Stein
- Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
- A Day Off – Storm Jameson
- The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
- A Scots Quair (Sunset Song) – Lewis Grassic Gibbon
- Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
- Brave New World – Aldous Huxley *
- Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons *
- To the North – Elizabeth Bowen
- The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett *
- The Radetzky March – Joseph Roth
- The Waves – Virginia Woolf
- The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett *
- Cakes and Ale – W. Somerset Maugham *
- The Apes of God – Wyndham Lewis
- Her Privates We – Frederic Manning
- Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
- The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett *
- Hebdomeros – Giorgio de Chirico
- Passing – Nella Larsen
- A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway *
- Red Harvest – Dashiell Hammett *
- Living – Henry Green
- The Time of Indifference – Alberto Moravia
- All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque *
- Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin
- The Last September – Elizabeth Bowen
- Harriet Hume – Rebecca West
- The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner *
- Les Enfants Terribles – Jean Cocteau *
- Look Homeward, Angel – Thomas Wolfe *
- Story of the Eye – Georges Bataille
- Orlando – Virginia Woolf
- Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence *
- The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall
- The Childermass – Wyndham Lewis
- Quartet – Jean Rhys
- Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
- Quicksand – Nella Larsen
- Parade’s End – Ford Madox Ford
- Nadja – André Breton *
- Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse *
- Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust *
- To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf *
- Tarka the Otter – Henry Williamson
- Amerika – Franz Kafka *
- The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway *
- Blindness – Henry Green
- The Castle – Franz Kafka *
- The Good Soldier Švejk – Jaroslav Hašek
- The Plumed Serpent – D.H. Lawrence
- One, None and a Hundred Thousand – Luigi Pirandello
- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie *
- The Making of Americans – Gertrude Stein
- Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos *
- Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
- The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald *
- The Counterfeiters – André Gide *
- The Trial – Franz Kafka *
- The Artamonov Business – Maxim Gorky
- The Professor’s House – Willa Cather
- Billy Budd, Foretopman – Herman Melville
- The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
- The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann
- We – Yevgeny Zamyatin *
- A Passage to India – E.M. Forster *
- The Devil in the Flesh – Raymond Radiguet
- Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo
- Cane – Jean Toomer
- Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
- Amok – Stefan Zweig
- The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
- The Enormous Room – E.E. Cummings *
- Jacob’s Room – Virginia Woolf
- Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
- The Glimpses of the Moon – Edith Wharton
- Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
- The Last Days of Humanity – Karl Kraus
- Aaron’s Rod – D.H. Lawrence
- Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis
- Ulysses – James Joyce *
- The Fox – D.H. Lawrence
- Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley
- The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton *
- Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
- Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence *
- Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
- Tarr – Wyndham Lewis
- The Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West
- The Shadow Line – Joseph Conrad
- Summer – Edith Wharton
- Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsen
- Bunner Sisters – Edith Wharton
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce *
- Under Fire – Henri Barbusse
- Rashomon – Akutagawa Ryunosuke
- The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
- The Voyage Out – Virginia Woolf
- Of Human Bondage – William Somerset Maugham *
- The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence *
- The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
- Kokoro – Natsume Soseki
- Locus Solus – Raymond Roussel
- Rosshalde – Herman Hesse
- Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs *
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists – Robert Tressell
- Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence *
- Death in Venice – Thomas Mann *
- The Charwoman’s Daughter – James Stephens *
- Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton *
- Fantômas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
- Howards End – E.M. Forster *
- Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel
- Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
- Martin Eden – Jack London *
- Strait is the Gate – André Gide
- Tono-Bungay – H.G. Wells
- The Inferno – Henri Barbusse
- A Room With a View – E.M. Forster *
- The Iron Heel – Jack London *
- The Old Wives’ Tale – Arnold Bennett
- The House on the Borderland – William Hope Hodgson
- Mother – Maxim Gorky
- The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad *
- The Jungle – Upton Sinclair
- Young Törless – Robert Musil
- The Forsyte Saga – John Galsworthy *
- The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton *
- Professor Unrat – Heinrich Mann
- Where Angels Fear to Tread – E.M. Forster *
- Nostromo – Joseph Conrad *
- Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe
- The Golden Bowl – Henry James
- The Ambassadors – Henry James
- The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers
- The Immoralist – André Gide *
- The Wings of the Dove – Henry James *
- Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad *
- The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *
- Buddenbrooks – Thomas Mann
- Kim – Rudyard Kipling *
- Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
- Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad *
1800s
- Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. – Somerville and Ross
- The Stechlin – Theodore Fontane
- The Awakening – Kate Chopin
- The Turn of the Screw – Henry James *
- The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells *
- The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells *
- What Maisie Knew – Henry James
- Fruits of the Earth – André Gide
- Dracula – Bram Stoker *
- Quo Vadis – Henryk Sienkiewicz
- The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells *
- The Time Machine – H.G. Wells *
- Effi Briest – Theodore Fontane
- Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
- The Real Charlotte – Somerville and Ross
- The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman *
- Born in Exile – George Gissing
- Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *
- News from Nowhere – William Morris *
- New Grub Street – George Gissing *
- Gösta Berling’s Saga – Selma Lagerlöf
- Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy *
- The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde *
- The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
- La Bête Humaine – Émile Zola
- By the Open Sea – August Strindberg
- Hunger – Knut Hamsun
- The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
- Pierre and Jean – Guy de Maupassant
- Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdés
- The People of Hemsö – August Strindberg
- The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
- She – H. Rider Haggard
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson *
- The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy *
- Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson *
- King Solomon’s Mines – H. Rider Haggard *
- Germinal – Émile Zola
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain *
- Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant
- Marius the Epicurean – Walter Pater
- Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy *
- A Woman’s Life – Guy de Maupassant
- Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson *
- The House by the Medlar Tree – Giovanni Verga
- The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James *
- Bouvard and Pécuchet – Gustave Flaubert
- Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace *
- Nana – Émile Zola
- The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky *
- The Red Room – August Strindberg
- Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy *
- Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy *
- Drunkard – Émile Zola
- Virgin Soil – Ivan Turgenev
- Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
- The Hand of Ethelberta – Thomas Hardy
- The Temptation of Saint Anthony – Gustave Flaubert
- Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
- The Enchanted Wanderer – Nicolai Leskov
- Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne *
- In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu *
- The Devils – Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Erewhon – Samuel Butler
- Spring Torrents – Ivan Turgenev
- Middlemarch – George Eliot *
- Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll *
- King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev
- He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
- War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy *
- Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
- Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope *
- Maldoror – Comte de Lautréaumont
- The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky *
- The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins *
- Little Women – Louisa May Alcott *
- Thérèse Raquin – Émile Zola
- The Last Chronicle of Barset – Anthony Trollope
- Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne *
- Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky *
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll *
- Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens *
- Uncle Silas – Sheridan Le Fanu *
- Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky *
- The Water-Babies – Charles Kingsley
- Les Misérables – Victor Hugo *
- Fathers and Sons – Ivan Turgenev *
- Silas Marner – George Eliot *
- Great Expectations – Charles Dickens *
- On the Eve – Ivan Turgenev
- Castle Richmond – Anthony Trollope
- The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot *
- The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins *
- The Marble Faun – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Max Havelaar – Multatuli
- A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens *
- Oblomovka – Ivan Goncharov
- Adam Bede – George Eliot
- Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert *
- North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell *
- Hard Times – Charles Dickens *
- Walden – Henry David Thoreau *
- Bleak House – Charles Dickens *
- Villette – Charlotte Brontë
- Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe *
- The Blithedale Romance – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne *
- Moby-Dick – Herman Melville *
- The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne *
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens *
- Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
- Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë *
- Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë *
- Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë *
- Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë *
- Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray *
- The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas *
- La Reine Margot – Alexandre Dumas
- The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas *
- The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe *
- Martin Chuzzlewit – Charles Dickens *
- The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe *
- Lost Illusions – Honoré de Balzac
- A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens *
- Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol
- The Charterhouse of Parma – Stendhal
- The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe *
- The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens *
- Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens *
- The Nose – Nikolay Gogol
- Le Père Goriot – Honoré de Balzac
- Eugénie Grandet – Honoré de Balzac
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo *
- The Red and the Black – Stendhal
- The Betrothed – Alessandro Manzoni
- Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper *
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner – James Hogg
- The Albigenses – Charles Robert Maturin
- Melmoth the Wanderer – Charles Robert Maturin
- The Monastery – Sir Walter Scott
- Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott *
- Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley *
- Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen *
- Persuasion – Jane Austen *
- Ormond – Maria Edgeworth
- Rob Roy – Sir Walter Scott *
- Emma – Jane Austen *
- Mansfield Park – Jane Austen *
- Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen *
- The Absentee – Maria Edgeworth
- Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen *
- Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth
1700s
- Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin
- The Nun – Denis Diderot
- Camilla – Fanny Burney *
- The Monk – M.G. Lewis
- Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- The Mysteries of Udolpho – Ann Radcliffe
- The Interesting Narrative – Olaudah Equiano
- The Adventures of Caleb Williams – William Godwin
- Justine – Marquis de Sade *
- Vathek – William Beckford
- The 120 Days of Sodom – Marquis de Sade *
- Cecilia – Fanny Burney
- Confessions – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Dangerous Liaisons – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos *
- Reveries of a Solitary Walker – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Evelina – Fanny Burney
- The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
- The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie
- A Sentimental Journey – Laurence Sterne *
- Tristram Shandy – Laurence Sterne *
- The Vicar of Wakefield – Oliver Goldsmith
- The Castle of Otranto – Horace Walpole
- Émile; or, On Education – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rameau’s Nephew – Denis Diderot
- Julie; or, the New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
- Candide – Voltaire *
- The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
- Amelia – Henry Fielding
- Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett
- Fanny Hill – John Cleland
- Tom Jones – Henry Fielding *
- Roderick Random – Tobias George Smollett
- Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
- Pamela – Samuel Richardson
- Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot
- Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus – J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
- Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding *
- A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift *
- Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift *
- Roxana – Daniel Defoe
- Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe *
- Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
- Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe *
- A Tale of a Tub – Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700
- Oroonoko – Aphra Behn
- The Princess of Clèves – Marie-Madelaine Pioche de Lavergne, Comtesse de La Fayette
- The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyan *
- Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra *
- The Unfortunate Traveller – Thomas Nashe
- Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit – John Lyly
- Gargantua and Pantagruel – Françoise Rabelais
- The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous *
- The Golden Ass – Lucius Apuleius *
- Aithiopika – Heliodorus
- Chaireas and Kallirhoe – Chariton
- Metamorphoses – Ovid *
- Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus *
You can get a spreadsheet to track your progress at Arukiyomi‘s place. Say it with me – spreadsheets are fun!
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June 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Try reading Kadare. He is a great author.
June 19th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I’m totally going to make my own list. I just don’t know when. This summer, I guess…