Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Best new reads of 2008

I won't be finishing a book today (I'm barely into The Mists of Avalon), so I guess it's time to blog my best reads of last year. I chose my ten top reads from the books I gave five stars, and I'm not counting rereads. Here we go, in no particular order!


I Am Legend by Richard Matteson.


A well written, scientific look at what makes a vampire.








Hilarous and thought-provoking young adult book about teen pregnancy.




A beautiful love story about an old man remembering his travels with a circus during the depression.








Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden


A story so real it's hard to believe it's fiction.










Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

One of the best non-fiction books ever, a heart-breaking tale about a young man who tries to survive alone in nature.






America: The Book by Jon Stewart

This textbook parody was so funny!







The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

A masterpiece in style with a beautiful story, about a family of missionaries in Africa.









The Road by Cormac McCarthy

A stark and beautiful post-apocalyptic story of love and survival.








The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

A gothic tale of orphans, insanity, and ghosts haunting an estate.








The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

A brilliant and captivating story about a wealthy family's downfall during the depression, and the impact upon two sisters.







Honorable Mentions:

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Abarat by Clive Barker
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson


Great Rereads:

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Everybody needs goals...

So here are my goals for 2009.

1. Exercise every day!
2. Eat better!
3. Keep up with my reading lists.
4. Organize my house (and keep it clean)
5. Organize my classroom.
6. Budget my finances and pay off my debt.

For 2009, I'm going to try not to overschedule myself, but still manage to do the things I enjoy.

For 2009, I'm going to spend more time with Trevor, even when we aren't on vacation.

For 2009, I'm going to think about what goes into my body.

For 2009, I'm going to pay more attention to my spiritual side.

For 2009, I'm going to savor every moment, instead of flying through them!

2009 Blog Improvement Project



Now here's a project that I really need! Found here, and hosted by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness, this will consist of bi-monthly activities designed to improve your blog. Participation is not mandatory, so you can pick and choose which activities you want to partake in.

2009 Mini-Challenge



Hosted by Caribou's Mom here; this is what it consists of:

1. Read a collection of short stories and either blog about it, OR tell the group about what you read. (Out For More Blood)
2. Read a play. Blog about it, OR tell the group about your experience.
3. Read a nonfiction book; write a review on your blog or post it to the group.
4. Read an 2 essays from the same collection; write a review on your blog or tell the group about what you read.
5. Go to a book event; blog about it or tell the group about it.
6.Borrow a library book, read it and review it on your blog (or tell the group about it).
7. Read a book by a new to you author. Do a little research on the author…do they have a blog? How many books have they written? Have they won any prizes? Where do they live? etc… Blog about the book you read and the author OR tell the group about them.
8. Make a donation. You can either donate to an organization that supports reading OR make a physical donation of a book (or books) to ANYONE. Blog about it or tell the group what you did.
9. Promote literacy. This is wide open - use your imagination. You could give a child a book, or read a book to someone who cannot read, or volunteer at an event which promotes literacy, or donate to your local library, or write something on your blog with a link to a group which promotes literacy, or anything in between. The only rule with this one is that you must PROMOTE literacy in some way…
10. Participate in a buddy read or Group discussion. This can be a face to face group, an on-line group or a one on one discussion with a friend who read the same book. Either way, blog about your experience or share with the group. Did the discussion give you greater appreciation or insight into what you read?
11. Read a book outside your comfort level or from a genre you don’t normally read. Blog about it, or tell the group about it.
12. Read a classic (defined as anything published before 1970). Tell us why it fits the category of being a classic. Write a review or tell the group about the book.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

The Modern Library's 100 Best Challenge...

A perpetual challenge hosted by Sharon at Ex Libris which can be found here, where the goal is to read the novels from the Modern Library's 100 best novels--either the board's list, the reader's list (both of which can be found here), and/or the Radcliffe Publishing Course's list, which can be found here. I have read 12 from the board's list, 19 from the reader's list, and 26 from the Radcliffe's Rival list, but only a combined total of 34 since many of the books I read were on more than one list. The following books are books I am planning on reading in 2009 that are on one or more of those lists...

Animal Farm (1/10/09)
As I Lay Dying (11/28/09)
Beloved (1/3/09)
Blood Meridian
Fahrenheit 451
Gone With the Wind
Lord of the Rings (11/4/09)
On the Beach
On the Road (10/26/09)
The Sun Also Rises (12/14/09)
Their Eyes Were Watching God

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Series Challenge?

Due to the large amount of series that I would like to finish reading (or reread), I am considering joining one or more of these challenges: Serial Readers Challenge 2009, To Be Continued (Perpetual), or Series Challenge Season 3. The latter allows me to finish a series I've already begun (which is pretty much where I need to be), the middle one allows re-reads (which is another important place) and the first one is for a new series of which I've read none (and I do have two of those). I may sign up for all three. These are the series I would like to read (or reread) this year:

The Death Gate Cycle--Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I've only read the first book, Dragonwing.

The Dark Tower Series--Stephen King. This would be a complete reread for me, but I'd love to read them all one after the other.

The Harry Potter Series--J.K. Rowling. Read the first three years ago, then stopped. I'd like to read them all again except the first, The Chamber of Secrets, which I read last year.

The Chronicles of Narnia--C.S. Lewis. Definately a reread, but always worth reading again.

Dragonlance--Various Authors. No way could I read them all, but I'm considering rereading the Weis/Hickman Chronicles (FINISHED!!) and Legends series. I read the first one of Chronicles, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, this year. And then maybe add some new ones that I haven't read.
* Dragons of Winter Night--4/1/09
*Dragons of Spring Dawning--4/10/09

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy--Douglas Adams.--FINISHED!!!!!
There are five books in this "trilogy"; I'd like to read them all.
*The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy--4/11/09
*The Restaurant at the End of the Universe--4/27/09
*Life, the Universe, and Everything--5/2/09
*So Long and Thanks For All the Fish--7/16/09
*Mostly Harmless--7/25/09

Lord of the Rings Trilogy--J.R.R. Tolkein. Since it is three volumes, I consider this an actual triology. I haven't read any of these books yet.
* The Fellowship of the Ring--2/15/09
* The Two Towers--3/1/09

The Shannara Trilogy--Terry Brooks. Another standard, three book trilogy, of which I have read none. I started the Sword of Shannara this year but never made it past the first chapter or so.

The Chronicles of Prydain--Lloyd Alexander. Just bought this entire series for my son Trevor, and would really love to read it again. I haven't read them since childhood, save for The Book of Three, which I read this year.

The Geodyssey Series--Piers Anthony. This series is a mix of historical and science fiction, as Anthony takes characters and evolves them through time and places to grow as he envisions the human race did. Characters start at the dawn of human history and are carried into the future. This would be a reread for me.

The Foundation Series--Issac Asimov. I read the first Foundation this year and would like to read at least the next two in the original trilogy.

The Percy Jackson Series--Rick Riordan--FINISHED!!!!!
*The Lightning Thief (4/13/09)
*Sea of Monsters (5/16/09)
*The Titan's Curse (6/17/09)
*The Battle of the Labyrinth (7/5/09)
*The Last Olympian (7/18/09)

Crank--Ellen Hopkins

Crank Genre: Young Adult
Year Published: 2004
Pages: 544
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

What an intriguing title! Whatever could this book be about?

I had a lot of books donated to my classroom library this year, including the sequel to this book, Glass. I try to read as many of them as I can, so I can recommend them to and discuss them with my students, so I had to get Crank so I could read Glass. An interesting book, Crank. It is written as a series of poems which tell the story of a teenage girl who gets hooked on--you guessed it!--crank. (For those of you who aren't up on your street drug lingo, crank is a more concentrated form of crystal meth--aka speed). I figured it would be insufferable, but actually, it really isn't. The story flows remarkably fast, and most of the time you forget you're reading poetry (until something glaring hits you). The style is conversational, and sometimes annoyingly teenage, although that is the intended audience, and it only enters the world of pretentia part of the time.

My biggest issue with the book is the author's insistence upon calling the drug "the monster", which gets a little old by the end of the book. But most of the writing is just fine, and some of it is really nice, such as, "Hers is the face I wear/treading the riptide/fathomless oceans where/good girls drown." Or this, which really sums up the tentative teenage years to me: "I kept to the shadows,/observing the game/I hadn't dared play/absorbing the rules/with adhesive eyes." My second biggest issue is that it seems odd to me that the author is writing a story based on her daughter's struggles with drugs through her daughter's eyes. It weirds me out a little bit--I mean, isn't that sort of invasive? But the story is captivating, the writing is pretty good and sometimes really good, and it's a quick and easy read. I believe the author means it to be a cautionary tale, to stop kids from trying "the monster" aka drugs, but I'm not sure if it works as one. There is something decidedly alluring about Kristina's descent into debauchery; probably the same thing that draws kids to drug use in the first place. But the story rings mostly true and is thus better used as a warning than an embellished, outdated story like Go Ask Alice.

Challenges: None!
Book-a-Week #: 66
Date Read: 12/28/08

Wuthering Heights--Emily Bronte

Genre: Gothic Fiction
Year Published: 1847
Pages: 432
Rating: 3.5 out of 4

Wuthering Heights I vaguely remember reading this as a child, but I think it went mostly over my head. The most notable thing about this book is the complete lack of a sympathetic character. The most likable characters are self-centered, narcissistic liars; the worst are downright evil. In between are the sniveling wimps. Even the tenant-narrator strikes me as a smug little jerk.

That said, nothing makes for over-the-top drama like a bunch of narcissists. I enjoyed the passion and drama, the temptestous fits and tantrums, the plotting and brooding, and even the heavily-accented, self-righteous ranting sermons delivered by Joseph the handyman. And what do you expect from a bunch of people who think it's ok to marry their cousins?

Challenges: TBR
Book-a-Week # 65

Date Read: 12/26/2008

Abarat--Clive Barker

Abarat Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Year Published: 2002
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of all the young adult books I read this year, this one was by far my favorite. Barker has created an amazing world, with unimaginable creatures both good and evil, with roots in both mythology and modern fantasy. I was surprised both by the depth and clarity of the characters and the quality of the writing. The protagonist, Candy, is unsatisfied with her lonely, nondescript life in Chickentown Minnesota, when a sea rolls into the outskirts of her town and she finds herself sailing away to the islands of Abarat, which are arranged to reflect the hours of the day and include a 25th island of timelessness. Candy finds herself launched into a harrowing adventure, and begins to realize that she is somehow more than what she believed before arriving there. The world is described in detail in the appendix via an almanac created by one of the characters, which in itself is worth reading.

The only problem with this book is that it ends abruptly. I am looking forward to reading the sequel: Abarat--Days of Magic, Nights of War.

I just have to mention one of the coolest things about this book--on the cover, the title reads exactly the same upside-down as right-side up! How cool is that?

Challenges: Young Adult, Naming Conventions, States (MN)
Book-a-Week # 64
Date Read: 12/21/2008

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin Genre: Fiction
Pages: 641
Year Published: 2000
Rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a fabulous book. Atwood tells the tale of a wealthy family's plunge to disaster via three running stories: The daily life of the narrator, an octagenarian named Iris struggling to contend with the difficulties of aging and summoning her past for preserving; the narrator's memoir of her childhood and young adulthood; and a novel written by her younger sister Laura and published posthumously, after her sister's suicide.
The girls grow up wealthy in Toronto after the first world war, when their father inherits his father's button factory. But as the depression approaches and a series of tragedies strike the family, they are forced into roles they did not envision. Iris marries an older wealthy competitor of her father's. Laura remains fiery, creative, temptestous and more than a little odd. Their friendship with a Communist sympathizer sets off a series of events steeped in passion, intrigue, secrecy, and cruelty, which ultimately lead to Laura's untimely and tragic demise.

I will say no more so I don't ruin any of this book, except for this: Atwood's telling of the tale is nothing short of brilliant. She reveals just enough in each section of the three storylines to keep the reader's interest piqued, and to keep the flow of the saga even and smooth.

Challenges: 1% Well Read; Naming Conventions
Book-a-Week # 63
Date Read: 12/14/2008

The Zero Stone by Andre Norton

The Zero Stone Genre: Science Fiction
Year Published: 1968
Pages: 238
Rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I was in third grade my teacher told us to read a science fiction book and write a book report on it. I came home and asked my father what he thought I should read, and he gave me Andre Norton's The Zero Stone. So the last time I read this book was in 1981, when I was eight. (I don't know if I faked it or not, but I did get an A on the book report). All I could recall of this book from that time was a vision of someone floating in space in a space suit with a monkey-like creature as an accomplice, and Billy Squier's "In the Dark" playing in the background.

Turns out, the person WAS floating in a space suit in space, the creature was more cat-like than monkey-like, and Billy Squier wasn't even invented when this book was written, although that single probably came out right about the time I first read it, leading me to believe that I listened to the radio as I read when I was a kid.

The story is about Murdoc Jern, the son of a jeweler, who ends up space traveling with an associate of his father's. He carries with him a ring with a mysterious stone, which was obtained under mysterious circumstances and which his father always wanted to understand. After his partner is killed, Jern escapes by making a deal with a spaceship captain. But on the way he is forced to eject from the ship (in a space suit--Aha!) with an odd companion--the offspring of the ship's cat after it ate some weird stones on a planet they visited. No ordinary kitten, Eet is intelligent and psychic and helps Jern manuever to an abandoned ship--although the mysterious ring helps too.

The novel ended abruptly, leaving far more questions than answers, so I queried my father and discovered there is a sequel--Uncharted Stars, which I plan on reading this year. I was also stunned to find out that Andre Norton was a woman, publishing sci-fi novels from the 1930's until just before her death in 2005.

Challenges: Naming Conventions, Read it Again, Well Rounded
Book-a-Week # 62
Date Read: (1981 first reading) 12/6/2008

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Spiritually Speaking Challenge

Spirituality is one of my interests and passions, so this challenge, which can be found here, really spoke to me. I haven't decided on all of my books yet, but here are a few I am considering:

Eat, Pray, Love--Elizabeth Gilbert
The Life of Pi--Yann Martel
You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience--Bob Frissell

What's in a Name? challenge

COMPLETED AS OF 12/1/09!!!!!

This is a unique and fun challenge, in which you pick books whose titles fall into some sort of theme. You can read all the details, and sign up if you wish, here. The themes for this year are a profession, a time of day, a relative, a body part, a building, and a medical condition. And the books I have chosen are:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter--Carson McCullers (profession) (11/20/09)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time--Mark Haddon (time of day) 12/1/09)
The Memory Keeper's Daughter--Kim Edwards (relative) (11/6/09)
Cat's Eye--Margaret Atwood (body part) (2/28/09)
House of Sand and Fog--Andre Dubus III (building) (11/9/09)
As I Lay Dying--William Faulkner (I assume dying is considered a medical condition!) (11/28/09)

Number's Challenge



This is a new one for me for this year. The idea is to pick five books that have numbers in the title--two of which are NOT in any other challenges. You can read all about it (and sign up) here.

(1/5)--DID NOT FINISH!!!!!!!!!!!!


Fahrenheit 451--Ray Bradbury
Four's Crossing--Nancy Garden
The Life of Pi--Yann Martel
The Once and Future King--T.H. White (3/27/09)
Sin in the Second City--Karen Abbot

Decades 2009!


So this year I plan on doing this challenge correctly--last year I read books that were SET in the different decades, rather than PUBLISHED in different decades. You can read all the rules and sign up here.

FINISHED AS OF 12/14/09!!! My favorite read was probably Beloved; my least favorite was On the Road.


1910s: Riders of the Purple Sage--Zane Grey (12/8/09)
1920s: The Sun Also Rises--Ernest Hemingway (12/14/09)
1930s: As I Lay Dying--William Faulkner (11/28/09)
1940s: Animal Farm--George Orwell (1/10/09)
1950s: On the Road--Jack Kerouac (10/26/09)
1960s: Uncharted Stars--Andre Norton (11/26/09)
1970s: The Bluest Eye--Toni Morrison
1980s: Beloved--Toni Morrison (1/3/09)
1990s: Into Thin Air--Jon Krakauer (1/2/09)

TBR 2009



Here we go! This is my list of books I have been meaning to read for some time, but haven't gotten around to yet, so I will read them during the course of the year 2009! You can find the challenge sign-up here, and you can find the books I read last year (one more to go in my main list!) and links to their reviews here.


FINISHED AS OF 11/6/09!!!!! (8 regular; 5 alternates). I am going to keep trying to read more, especially on my regular list, but it feels good to have a challenge behind me. My favorite book from these was probably House of the Scorpion, but many were really, really good--The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Paradise, Into Think Air, Duma Key, The Virgin Suicides, House of Sand and Fog. My least favorite was probably Ophelia Speaks--the adolescent voice got tiring after a while.


Main List:

On the Road--Jack Kerouac (10/26/09)
Lord of the Rings--J.R.R. Tolkein (11/4/09)
Into Thin Air--Jon Krakauer (1/2/09)
Fablehaven--Brandon Mull (3/14/09)
Searching For the Sound--Phil Lesh
A Brief History of Time--Stephen Hawking
House of Sand and Fog--Andre Dubus III (11/9/09)
Duma Key--Stephen King (6/27/09)
Blaze--Stephen King
The Virgin Suicides--Jeffrey Eugenides (1/13/09)
Animal Farm--George Orwell (1/10/09)
The Crossing--Cormac McCarthy

Alternate List:

The Memory Keeper's Daughter--Kim Edwards (11/6/09)
Ophelia Speaks--Sara Shandler (5/23/09)
Paradise--Toni Morrison (4/3/09)
The Wastelands, Love Songs...--T.S. Eliot
Cat's Eye--Margaret Atwood (2/28/09)
Danse Macabre--Stephen King
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon--Phillip K. Dick
Breaking Her Fall--
House of Scorpion--Nancy Farmer (5/9/09)
Your Writing Coach (didn't get to it this year!)
The Writer's Toolkit
I, Robot--Issac Asimov

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Young Adult Challenge 2009!

Here is my reading list for the 2009 Young Adult Reading Challenge, hosted by J.Kaye!
FINISHED AS OF 10/17/09!!!!

1. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull (3/14/09)
2. Ophelia Speaks by Sara Shandler (5/23/09)
3. The Forever King by Molly Cochran (1/30/09)
4. The Sword of the Rightful King by Jane Yolen (1/17/09)
5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 9/28/09)
6. The House of Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (5/9/09)
7. Speak by Laurie Hale Andersen (8/25/09)
8. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (2/8/09)
9. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (4/13/09)
10. Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (10/17/09)
11. Can't Get There From Here by Todd Strasser (1/23/09)
12. Glass by Ellen Hopkins (3/1/09)

(You can view last years list, and links to the reviews, here)

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Reading Challenges for 2009...

So in the next few days I'm going to begin posting my reading lists for the 2009 challenges. The challenges I'm thinking of joining are:

The A-Z challenge (Read books with titles beginning A-Z)
100 + Reading challenge (call me crazy--read 100 or more books in 2009)
Decades '09 (this time I'll do it correctly, by publication date)
TBR '09 (same rules apply, though there are new variations this year)
Young Adult '09 (ditto)
Casual Classics Challenge (4 classics)
Numbers Challenge (5 books with numbers in the title)
Themed Reading (read 4-6 books linked by a particular theme)
What's in a Name? (read 6 books with particular items named in the title)
Spiritually Seeking Challenge (6 books that have to do with spirituality)

I'll decide on book lists soon!

Blue Light--Walter Mosely

Year Published: 1999
Pages: 400
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 3/5

This was a really weird book. I really disliked the first two-thirds of it, but by the end I was sort of captivated. Until the very end, which was sort of like a cold bucket of water.

I'm not sure that I can really explain the plot of this book. I'm not sure that I understand it. Basically, one day blue light comes down and infuses several people from earth--from San Francisco in the late 60s, to be more specific. The people whom the light has touched become sort of demigods, and they spread their word and recruit more followers through blood and sex. This rouses the interest of an evil being, known as "death" to the blue light people (or "Blues" as they are referred to in the book), and he comes to kill them in very horrific and gory detail. Many of them die, but those that are left flee and are called to a "safe zone" in the redwood forests of California, where they are led by a strange forestkeeper (sort of an archetypical "green man" figure) to help seed the world with "blue" trees. Here they live a peaceful, innocent existence, where they are among others like themselves and grapple with their true natures. Then the bad guy comes.

The battle that ensues is not what disappointed me about the ending, and I won't spoil it by explaining what did. (If anyone has actually read this book and wants to discuss it, feel free to email me!) I liked the part of the book that took place in the forest; I found myself sucked into their carefree, primal and feral world. And I like the premise, though I can't exactly enunciate it--that humans are pods waiting to be seeded and sprout into evolution. But a lot of the book had a dark seedy feel to it, and it created a lot of unanswered questions.

Challenge/s: TBR
Book-a-week # 61

Dragonwing--Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Year Published: 1990
Pages: 480
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5

Finally I read this book (which has been floating around my bookshelf for years), and now I want to read the series.

I don't know why it took me so long to read it--I loved the Dragonlance series by the same authors. Maybe I was worried it would be too different than those books, which I adored. Or maybe time got in the way. Whatever it was, I'm glad I read it now. It sets the scene for a struggle between two races of demigods, the Patryns and the Sartans. Other races featured in this book are elves, dwarves (Gegs), and humans. All races are divided and mistrustful of one another; it appears that some sort of apocalypse separated them. The world is divided into three realms--the low realm, which is closest to land and on which resides the dwarves, the mid-realm, which is floating in air and occupied by elves and humans, and the high realm, which is above a crust of ice where the highest order of human magicians live. There is also an underrealm which contains a labyrinth where the Patryn were imprisoned--and forgotten--by the Sartans, causing the current conflict.

The book begins with a hired assassin (Hugh the Hand) given the task of killing a king's son--a bright, cheerful boy of about nine. He and the boy, Prince Bane, leave under the pretext that he is protecting the boy from enemies, and Bane's servant, Alfred, follows them. As they journey, Hugh begins to realize there is more to both of them than he bargained for. They end up stranded in low realm, where the dwarves are undergoing a revolution, where they meet Haplo, a mysterious figure from the underworld, and his remarkable dog. The journey takes them up to the High Realm where they must confront one of the more powerful magi--and where the true battle begins.

I loved this book. I loved the complexity of the worlds and races involved (how they create cultures, history, language, terrain!), I loved how bits and pieces were revealed as I read on, I loved the multi-faceted characters. (Who is good in this book? Who is evil? This is not so black and white!) I am definately planning on reading the next book in the series.

Challenge/s: TBR
Book-a-Week # 60

The Sound and the Fury--William Faulkner

Year Published: 1929
Pages: 378
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4/5

When I first began reading this book, I had no idea what was going on. Why were events streaming from one to the next, and where the heck was the punctuation? Welcome to the wonderful world of Faulkner, whom I had never read before. I will try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, but pieces of the story will probably leak out. I'm not sure that that would've ruined my experience--it probably would've made it easier for me to grasp the storyline.

The novel is a story of a prominent southern family's downfall, but it is not told in a straightforward manner. The first part is told from Benjie's point of view. Benjie is a grown man who suffers from mental retardation, and his concept of time is nonexistent. Therefore his memories lapse from today to twenty years ago to five years ago to this morning. They are all centered around his sister Caddie (who begins the family's shame) and the family's pasture (which is sold to pay for his brother Quentin's Harvard education, and becomes a golf course).

The next section is Quentin's, and is eighteen years previous. This is where we learn of Caddie's discrepancies. Quentin is so shamed by his sister's indecency--and by his thoughts and stirrings for her--that he loses his mind, and this section is stream-of-consciousness rambling as he wanders the streets of Boston. He ultimately drowns himself.

Next we hear from Jason, one of the most unlikeable characters ever created. Jason's story is told straightforward, but his sexism, racism, and contempt for his family make this section almost as difficult to read as the others. He is now the head of the family, where he makes life difficult for the servants and his sister Caddie's illegitimate daughter, who lives with them.

The last section is third person narration, and follows Dilsey, the long-time family servant. After this section an appendix tells some of the ancestral family history, clears up some of the confusion, and affirms some of what we have guessed.

As difficult as this book was to read, I really liked it. The writing can be hauntingly beautiful, and the family becomes more and more vivid as one reads. I plan on reading more Faulkner--perhaps As I Lay Dying?

Challenge/s: TBR (alt), Decades, Naming Conventions, 1% Well Read, States (MS)
Book-a-Week # 59

That Was Then, This is Now--S.E. Hinton

Year Published: 1971
Pages: 160
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 4/5

All of Hinton's books for teens were favorites of mine since grammar school. This one deals with issues of drugs and morality. Bryon and Mark are best friends and have lived together like brothers since Mark's parents fatally shot each other in a drunken argument when Mark was young. But their friendship is tested by issues of morality. Grappling with immense emotional changes and struggling to come to terms with the death of a friend, Bryon is forced to make a decision between his friend and what he feels is right.

Simple writing, an easy read, and slightly dated. But still worth reading.

Challenge/s: Read it Again, States (OK)
Book-a-Week # 58

Dolores Claiborne--Stephen King

Year Published: 1993
Pages:
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4/5

Good ol' King, never disappoints. At least not much. This book, for one, wasn't disappointing in the least. Dolores Claiborne has been charged with the murder of her boss, an older, disagreeable, lonely rich widow. So she gives her confession--but not for the crime they are expecting to hear about.

The entire book is told in Dolores' voice, as a transcript of her confession at the police station (with the exception of a few newspaper clippings at the end). And her voice is gritty and real. King is a master at characterization, and this is no exception. It is amazing how much he is able to tell through the eyes of only one character. Dolores' story is instantly captivating, and her life is filled with sadness, pain and strength. And I even liked the ending.

Challenge/s: Decades, Naming Conventions
Book-a-Week # 57

Tortilla Flat--John Steinbeck

Year Published: 1935
Pages: 244
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4/5

I really enjoyed this book. It is meant to be an analogy of the King Arthur saga, but set in southern California in the depression, and characterized with paisonos--several-generation Mexican Americans with a distinct culture and way of life. I adored the paisanos, whose main concerns were to find ways to obtain more liquor and who spent much time rationalizing their actions against their moral code--and always finding amusing ways to do so. The story was passionate and humorous. I didn't really get the Arthurian thing, but I'm not too well-versed in Arthurian lore to begin with. I will say that I read the story before the foreward (to avoid spoilers), and after reading the foreward was the first time it occurred to me that Steinbeck's portrayal of his characters was offensive to Mexican-Americans. Afterwards it certainly made sense, but as I was reading it seemed to me that he was referring to specific individuals who formed their own cultural group, rather than an entire ethnic group who adhered to a different set of standards. An interesting controversy, either way.

Challenge/s: Decades, Naming Conventions
Book-a-Week # 56

Sundog--Jim Harrison

Year Published: 1991
Pages: 244
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4/5

I have no idea where this book came from; it's been on my bookshelf for ages and I finally decided to read it. At first I thought I was going to hate it. It seemed colorless and boring, narrated in first-person by a self-centered author sent to write a biography on an engineer. But as characters were introduced and the subject's story began to be revealed, I realized this book was far more than I expected. Strang, the engineer, is suffering from a nerve disorder brought on by ingesting an herb in a foreign land (a common treatment for the natives there, but too much for him). Confined to a wheelchair and attended by a beautiful Costa Rican dancer, he tries to bring back the use of his damaged legs. His work had led him all over the world, and the story he tells is honest, raw, sexual and strong. The ending of this book is a sort of beautiful yet obscure triumph.

Challenge/s: TBR
Book-a-Week # 55

Foundation--Issac Asimov

Year Published: 1951
Pages: 256
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5

I'm not the hugest sci-fi fan, but I thought it was high time I read some Asimov. Pretty amazing stuff, actually, considering where technology was at the time it was written. In this series (of which I have only read this one), a foundation of scientists (psychohistorians, who are sort of statisticians who predict human behavior based on mathematical probability) realize the end of the world is imminent and come up with a way to preserve society. They pick people to send to different ends of the universe, and set into motion a plan, one that is wholly dependent upon the lead psychohistorian's predictions. And then we get to watch it unfold. It was an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, if somewhat dry and, well, scientific. I do plan on finishing the series next year.

Challenge/s: Naming Conventions; 1% Well Read
Book-a-Week # 54

Saturday, November 15, 2008

A to Z 2009 Challenge


And while we're adding next year's challenges, here's another one I'm in for:
The A to Z Reading Challenge. I am choosing option B, which is to read 26 books with titles beginning with all 26 letters of the alphabet.

The 2009 100+ Reading Challenge


Why not? Even though I have only read 58 books thus far in 2008, I'm feeling gutsy. So I have signed up for the 100+ Reading Challenge. Since I met my Book-a-Week goal, I might as well strive for higher, right?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

The Bean Trees--Barbara Kingsolver

Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 1992
Pages:
Rating: 4/5

Another really good read this year. In this novel the protagonist, Taylor, leaves her small town in Tennessee and travels west. Stopping on the way at an Indian reservation, she acquires an abandoned and abused baby. Spunky and vibrant, Taylor is a true heroine as she manages to find a place for herself and Turtle, the baby, in Arizona. There she creates friendships with a newly-single mother, two old-fashioned spinsters (one of whom is blind), and a woman who runs an auto body shop when she is not aiding refugees from Central America. The book is about friendship and belonging, about helping others, and about realizing that life is bigger than oneself. While I wouldn't say this book was as good as The Poisonwood Bible, it is still a worthy read.

Book-a-week # 52!!!! I made it!!!!!
Challenge/s: Decades--1980s

The Thirteenth Tale--Diane Setterfield

Genre: Gothic Fiction
Year Published: 2006
Pages: 406
Rating: 5/5

Oh how I loved this book! I was swept away by Setterfield's version of gothic fiction. For days my vision was clouded by dank moors and hidden children, and a dark, doomed, looming house. This was one of those books that you wish would never end even as you zoom toward the finish to find out what happens.

The book is a story within a story. A biographer named Margaret Lea who lives above her father's bookstore and grapples with the fact that she is a single twin whose sister died at birth is contacted by a well-known author, Vida Winter. Ms. Winter is known not only for her books, but for the fact that she has never disclosed the truth about herself to any biographer. Now, she wants that truth told, and Margaret is the person she wishes to tell it to.

Margaret moves into Ms. Winter's house on the moors, and becomes immersed in her story. I will give away nothing, but I will tell you that the story includes insanity, twins, abandoned children, incest, a house falling into disrepair, a governess, a fire, an asylum, and many, many references to the novel Jane Eyre.

I didn't think I would like this book, but it was one of my favorite reads of the year. So even if you think it doesn't sound like your thing, I'd advise you to give it a shot.

Book-a-week # 51
Challenge/s: RIP III

I Am Mordred--Nancy Springer

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Year Published: 2002
Pages: 192
Rating: 4/5

I really, really liked this book. Granted, I love the Arthurian mythology, and it is hard for me to not enjoy ANY retelling of that story. But I think what I really enjoyed about this book was the deeper theme of predestination--is it possible for us to avoid what we are meant to become?

In this novel, no. Destiny wins in the end, despite all of Mordred's better efforts. The reader is privy to his feelings of love and hate for Arthur, the father whom he is destined to destroy. We watch as he tries to let goodness overcome fate. We see Arthur's struggle as well, for he too knows that the son he loves but cannot acknowledge as his own will one day kill him. And in the end, it comes down to an effort between the two to save poor Mordred's soul.

The story is sad and captivating, simple and complex, and I recommend it to anyone, especially those with an interest in Arthurian retellings.

P.S. Does anyone else have an odd feeling that that is Brad Pitt under the helmet on the cover?

Book-a-week # 50
Challenge/s: Young Adult, Arthurian, Naming Conventions

You Don't Know Me--David Klass

Genre: Young Adult
Year Published: 2002
Pages: 352
Rating: 4/5

This is another good young adult novel. The narrator is telling the story to his mother, by whom he feels abandoned since she has taken up with a man who abuses him. The story is sad and funny, as he outlines his adventures in classes, in the mall as his friend is arrested for stealing an eggroll, in his date's basement trying to avoid her angry father, and various other scenarios. Perhaps not very realistic (the character certainly is unlike any fifteen year old I've ever encountered) the book is still entertaining and viable, especially considering the difficult subject matter the author is tackling.

Book-a-week # 49
Challenge/s: Young Adult





Scorpions--Walter Dean Myers

Genre: Young Adult
Year Published: 1996
Pages: 224
Rating: 3/5

I liked this book, although it was rather simplistic compared to the other Myers book I read this year, Fallen Angels. The story is about a young man who is drawn into a gang by his criminalized brother and his intense hatred of the school bully. It is hard to review without spoiling, but suffice to say that there is a lesson to be learned here, not only about the choices we make, but about how friendships are affected by said choices. My students really like this book, and I often recommend it to them.

Book-a-Week # 48
Challenge/s: Young Adult

Friday, November 7, 2008

Yes We DID!!!!! (link to Obama book giveaway)


I am still reeling from the election Tuesday. What an exciting and inspiring night! Watching the rally in Grant Park on TV (I know, I should've been there) I was struck by the unification and diversity of the crowd. I think this bodes very well for our nation.

A fellow book lover, Teddy Rose is sponsoring an Obama book giveaway. Here is the link for more info: http://teddyrose.blogspot.com/2008/11/in-celebration-of-44th-us-president.html
Visit so that you can win Life Magazine's The American Journey of Barack Obama!

There is a long road ahead of us, but a little hope goes a long way. Our country has awakened, and the whole world is watching.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

The full 1001 list...

Here is the full list from Peter Boxall's 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. Books I have already read (which are few and far between) are in bold type. Books I plan on reading in the near future (or have already started) are in italics. This is the list that my books for the 1% Well Read Challenge have come from.

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 TĂłibĂ­n
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 – JosĂ© 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 – PĂ©ter 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 Saunder

1990s
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 – AmĂ©lie 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 – JĂ chym 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 Ă–zdamar
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 TĂłibĂ­n
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

1980’s
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 – LászlĂł Krasznahorkai
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
The Trick is to Keep Breathing – Janice Galloway
The History of the Siege of Lisbon – JosĂ© 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 SĂĽskind
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 GarcĂ­a 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 SĂĽskind
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 – JosĂ© 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

1970s
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
Smiley’s People – John Le CarrĂ©
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 – AnaĂŻs 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 GarcĂ­a 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 KertĂ©sz
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 CarrĂ©
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

1960s
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 – Flann 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 CarrĂ©
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 – GĂĽnter 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



1950s
Cider With Rosie – Laurie Lee
Billy Liar – Keith Waterhouse
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
The Tin Drum – GĂĽnter 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 – EilĂ­s 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 RĂ©age
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 DĂĽrrenmatt
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--Issac 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

1940s
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 – AndrĂ© 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-ExupĂ©ry
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

1930s
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 – HalldĂłr Laxness
Auto-da-FĂ© – 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 CĂ©line
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

1920s
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 – AndrĂ© 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 Ĺ vejk – 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 – AndrĂ© 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

1910s
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
FantĂ´mas – Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
Howards End – E.M. Forster
Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel

1900s
Three Lives – Gertrude Stein
Martin Eden – Jack London
Strait is the Gate – AndrĂ© 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 Sage – 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 – AndrĂ© 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

1890s
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 – AndrĂ© 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

1880s
The Kreutzer Sonata – Leo Tolstoy
La BĂŞte 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 PĂ©rez GaldĂ©s
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 PĂ©cuchet – Gustave Flaubert
Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace
Nana – Émile Zola
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky

1870s
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

1860s
He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Sentimental Education – Gustave Flaubert
Phineas Finn – Anthony Trollope
Maldoror – Comte de LautrĂ©aumont
The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
ThĂ©rèse 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 MisĂ©rables – 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

1850s
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 BrontĂ«
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – 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

1840s
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte BrontĂ«
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne BrontĂ«
Wuthering Heights – Emily BrontĂ«
Agnes Grey – Anne BrontĂ«
Jane Eyre – Charlotte BrontĂ«
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 – HonorĂ© de Balzac
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Dead Souls – Nikolay Gogol

1830s
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 – HonorĂ© de Balzac
EugĂ©nie Grandet – HonorĂ© de Balzac
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
The Red and the Black – Stendhal

1820s
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

1810s
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

1800s
Elective Affinities – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Castle Rackrent – Maria Edgeworth

1790s
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

1780s
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

1770s
Evelina – Fanny Burney
The Sorrows of Young Werther – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Humphrey Clinker – Tobias George Smollett
The Man of Feeling – Henry Mackenzie

1760s
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

1750s
Rasselas – Samuel Johnson
Candide – Voltaire
The Female Quixote – Charlotte Lennox
Amelia – Henry Fielding
Peregrine Pickle – Tobias George Smollett

1740s
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

1720s
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
Roxana – Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
1710s
Love in Excess – Eliza Haywood
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

1700s
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