A few people have asked me for recommendations of read-worthy novels. In response, I’ve created this list of life-changing literature. The top 25 are necessary reads: each one has allowed me a step out of my worldview. The remaining novels also have my stamp of approval and are listed in no particular order. Let me know if I’m missing anything worthwhile.
Top 25
1. The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
2. 1984, Orwell
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce
4. The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger
5. The Road, McCarthy
6. Atlas Shrugged, Rand
7. The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas
8. Great Expectations, Dickens
9. The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
10. Far from the Madding Crowd, Harding
11. To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee
12. Heart of Darkness, Conrad
13. Dandelion Wine, Bradbury
14. All the King’s Men, Warren
15. The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck
16. Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut
17. Brave New World, Huxley
18. A Farewell to Arms, Hemmingway
19. Blood Meridian, McCarthy
20. Goodnight Mister Tom, Magorian
21. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
22. Ana Karenina, Tolstoy
23. Watership Down, Adams
24. Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck
25. The Things We Carried, O’Brien
An American Tragedy, Dreiser
Dune, Herbert
Animal Farm, Orwell
A Passage to India, Forster
Lord of the Flies, Golding
The Crossing, McCarthy
All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy
The Fountainhead, Rand
Ceremony, Silko
Mamma Day, Naylor
Poisonwood Bible, Kingsolver
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams
The Sun Also Rises, Hemmingway
The Old Man and the Sea, Hemmingway
The Sheltering Sky, Bowles
The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
A Separate Peace, Knowles
Things Fall Apart, Achebe
The War of the Worlds, Wells
The Bell Jar, Plath
The Giver, Lowry
Les Miserables, Hugo
The Hobbit, Tolkien
All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque
The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
The Red Badge of Courage, Crane
The Shipping News, Proulx
Pride and Prejudice, Austen
Emma, Austen
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain
Tom Sawyer, Twain
The Stranger, Camus
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Harding
Robinson Crusoe, Defoe
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl
The Alchemist, Coelho
Frankenstein, Shelley
James and the Giant Peach, Dahl
Charlotte’s Web, White
Jane Eyre, Bronte
Candide, Voltaire
The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper
The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury
The English Patient, Ondaatje
Ender’s Game, Card
Go Down, Moses, Faulkner
Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury
The BFG, Dahl
The Time Machine, Wells
My Antonia, Cather
The Call of the Wild, London
Gulliver’s Travels, Swift
Tom Jones, Fielding
Middlemarch, Eliot
Krik Krak, Danticat
Paradise Lost, Milton
Next novel I’m intending to read (probably in 3 years): Ulysses, Joyce
4 comments:
that's quite an impressive list. you can add about 25 books to your list after this year, too! we just finished orientation and i'm glad. i'm ready to dive in and get down to the dirty work. have you been called on yet? how did it go? i'm nervous, but excited...except about the part of having 160 pages read by monday. lame. miss you guys!
nice list. i really wish i could read.
jen and i went and bought two of the books on the list! 1984 & The Road. I am going to try my hardest to read this (1984)!!!!
I didn't see The DaVinci code on your list--#26? Kidding
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