I’ve seen it on a couple different blogs. I got it here. If you want to play, just post the list on your own site, putting the titles you have read in bold.
Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua – Things Fall Apart
Agee, James – A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James – Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel – Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul – The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily – Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert – The Stranger
Cather, Willa – Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey – The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton – The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate – The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore – The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage
Dante – Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel – Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles – A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor – Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick – Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore – An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre – The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George – The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo – Selected Essays
Faulkner, William – As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry – Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott – The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox – The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von – Faust
Golding, William – Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph – Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest – A Farewell to Arms
Homer – The Iliad
Homer – The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous – Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik – A Doll’s House
James, Henry – The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry – The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz – The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong – The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper – To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair – Babbitt
London, Jack – The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas – The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman – Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur – The Crucible
Morrison, Toni – Beloved
O’Connor, Flannery – A Good Man is Hard to Find
O’Neill, Eugene – Long Day’s Journey into Night
Orwell, George – Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris – Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia – The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan – Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel – Swann’s Way
Pynchon, Thomas – The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria – All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond – Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry – Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. – The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William – Hamlet
Shakespeare, William – Macbeth
Shakespeare, William – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William – Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard – Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon – Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles – Antigone
Sophocles – Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John – The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis – Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher – Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
Thackeray, William – Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David – Walden
Tolstoy, Leo – War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan – Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire – Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. – Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice – The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith – The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora – Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt – Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee – The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia – To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard – Native Son
I thought I would be embarrassed, but it turns out I’ve read many. A couple of blanks in my reading list I need to rectify:
Eudora Welty. My dad gave me her collected stories for Christmas one year, and she was highly influential on many of my favorite writers (Nancy Lemann being one of them) – so I need to check it out.
I need to read War and Peace, but quite frankly, the time-commitment is daunting.
I’ve never read Faulkner. Go ahead. Heap scorn upon my brow.
I’ve also never read any George Eliot, although I am sure I would absolutely fall in LOVE with that woman. How could I not?
Questions to those of you who have read some of my un-bolded books:
— What is the big deal with “Tom Jones”? I mean, honestly: tell me. What is the big deal. Should I read it? Can you recommend it?
— Who the hell is Chinua Achebe?
— I can tell you right now that I will probably never read The Last of the Mohicans and Don Quixote. Is this really bad?
— Please talk to me about Ford Madox Ford. His name comes up all the time. Never read a word. Any good?
Update: And here is Dan’s list. He adds his own spin to it: Which of these books do you Never plan to read?
You know what? I bought an abridged copy of War and Peace and read it. I generally despise abridged versions, but I talked to Pejman after he read the whole thing and he said that Tolstoy bogged the thing down in a lot of unnecessary detail, to the point where you’re not missing much of the story to skip over chunks of it.
Then again, you’d have to trust the judgement of the person who was charged with *which* parts to chop. Really, who am I to categorically decide what part of an author’s work is relevant to the overall story?
There is no substitute for reading the entire War and Peace. Along with Crime and Punishment and The Possessed, it’s the best indictment of relativism and the moral detachment of the enlightenment ever written. Abridging it would be like leaving out Mark, Luke and John because Matthew covered all the key talking points in the Gospel.
As to Don Quixote – Cervantes is an acquired taste, but it’s worth it. Love that book. There’s a new translation out that’s supposed to be incredible.
I read the un-abridged version of Les Miserables – and although so much of it has nothing to do with the PLOT, per se – I would never have wanted to miss it. The analysis of the sewage system in Paris at that time, etc. It all kind of added up to this monumentally specific landscape and feel.
I will definitely read War and Peace at some point. I just need to decide to do it, and then plow on through.
And Mitch, hmmm. Will have to think about picking up Don Quixote. I suppose knowing the musical Man of La Mancha by heart doesn’t count?
The only advice I can offer is to skip “Babbitt” at all costs. Terribly boring book. “Ivan Denisovich” is worth a read.
I am embarrassed about my results on that list. It does, however, give me a good list of the greats to work my way through.
The Last of the Mohicans is not a great book. It may be a classic tale, but the writing is mediocre. I don’t usually say this…but watch the movie instead. –scott
Dearest: some scorn heaping–the first books you must read are Faulkner’s [I prefer his Hamlet/Town/Mansion trilogy, over the two mentioned], and George Eliot’s Adam Bede. Life is too short for les Miz [I saw the musical–Regina was in it so long she went from Fantine to Madame Tarnadier]. Only unemployed English professors read The Good Soldier. love, dad
Dad: I have no idea how I missed Faulkner. I own them all. Just never read a damn word. Okay. So this is a good place to start.
Additionally: Only unemployed English professors read The Good Soldier. That is a hilarious statement.
Also, about Regina: HAHA
Hoity-Toity Literary Thread
Woo Hoo! A book thread!
I preferred the peace bits of War & Peace. I was going to say that you could just read those, and skip the war bits, but that is probably quite a subversive and philistine-ish suggestion.
Anne, actually it strikes me as rather amusing. You could come out with your own abridged edition. And just call it “Peace.” Plain and simple. “Peace.”
Dear Sheila:
I agree with Dan that “Ivan Denisovich” is a must-read – short; elegaic; to the point. Good call!
I’m noticing that no one has mentioned Ayn Rand. One word here: “Anthem”.
Best,
-Will
My only experience of Solzhenitsyn was of reading all the volumes of his Gulag Archipelago. What was I thinking?? I mean, they’re phenomenal and all…but I can’t believe I made it through all the volumes.
I will check out “Ivan Denisovich” – enough people have mentioned it as a must-read.
The cool thing about Ivan Denisovich is that you can finish it in a middlin’ sized sitting. For most Russian literature (which I looove), you’re in for the long haul; with Ivan, it’s a nice evening or so.
Except for the “nice” bit, of course. Pretty harrowing.
Leaving out the “War” in “WAP”? Why not just read back issues of “Rosskiya Vogue” for 1815 and save the time? The whole book leads up to Borodino, and it’s there that the main point is made!
(Must…calm…down…)
Mitch –
Breathe, man. Breathe.
We all have our tastes, and our inclinations.
I have to remind myself not to have an apoplectic fit when someone admits they haven’t read Catch-22 or Jane Eyre (wink).
Gee, I guess I’d better not be in the same room with you when I tell you that I *hated* Jane Eyre.
Emily –
I suppose any friendship has hurdles such as these. Probably best not to talk about it at all.
ive read 27 out of the list..pathetic! Ive read other selections by the same authors but still a poor showing on my part…i feel such shame.
Well, you slogged through the 30 pages of French in Magic Mountain. I applaud you. I read it in translation.
I’m Well Un-Read
Mitch Berg, pointed me to this list of books I have and have not yet read. Time to hit the books, methinks….
Mitchell- I only counted 30 on my list. And I am pretty sure that more than a few were actually “Cliffs Notes” versions of them. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was one hundred years of shit, IMHO. It made me quit my snobby book club. I need to find one that reads cool stuff.
Chinua Achebe is an amazing author! I read “Things Fall Apart” in an African literature class in college and was just blown away. A truly underrated talent, in my opinion.
Also, I really dislike Faulkner in general, but “Sound and Fury” garners my greatest enmity. Time never passed as slowly in college as it did during that section of my “Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway” seminar.
Doh!
I DID read Catch22, too. Blah!
Gotta go back and edit now.
OK, OK – so Jane Eyre is this weekend.
Happy now?
*g*
Lists o’ Lit
Little inspiration at the moment, so here’s a list I pulled from Lux’s place. How many of these classics have you read? And because I’m contrary, which of the titles below do you intend never to read?
Mitch …
Oh, only the Jane Eyre part of my dig was directed at you. Did not mean to imply you hadn’t read it!!
Catch-22 is my favorite book, so it just … I don’t know. I refer to it a lot.
Denise –
Jeez. So many authors, so little time! I really don’t know much about African literature – I’ll check it out. Thanks!
I really like As I Lay Dying. Grotesque, and very southern. It’s very funny, once you let yourself fall into it.
I like Faulkner. But I had to overcome the Sound and the Fury as my introduction. Benjy’s section coulda killed me.
I love Light in August by Faulkner..and Hundred Years of Solitude is awesome!!!!! I did get thru the frnch in Thomas Mann..it was worth it. But if i ever even see Beowulf again..i’ll pluck out my eyes with an oyster fork!!
Very impressive!
Here’s what I said at Heather’s {http://www.thelooking-glass.com/blog/archives/000343.html} about Tom Jones:
Tom Jones… 725 pages, Penguin edition, tiny print… I had to read it for a class and could have gotten away with skimming, but the fact that the author had the cajones to write 725 pages of crap made me that much more determined to finish it. And I did. I conquered that mofo.
Did I mention it was 725 pages?
However, it was The Sound and the Fury that did me in.
And I *am* Jane Eyre. :D
hey sheila, do you remember that woody allen riff on “war and peace”? it might have been in “annie hall” but i’m not sure. he talks about having taken an evelyn wood speed reading course and he can now read REAL fast. in fact, he read “war and peace” in 42 minutes (pause) “it’s about russia…”
Reading List
Via Sheila O’Malley, we have a long list of books read. I forget if I have done this one already or not, so here we go again. Below the fold is a list of books and authors. The way the…
Beth wrote:
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” was one hundred years of shit
Despite the fact I loved One Hundred Years of Solitude, this made me laugh my ass off. Some titles just scream for a bad review.
Sheila,
You’ve never read the Sound and the Fury? I had to read that book at least 10 times back in college. At first I hated every word, but, after like the 3rd reading, I came to grow quite fond of it.
Sheila – I CANNOT believe there is actually a book on this list that I have read and you have not. The world is turning upside-down. chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is an great book. The title is from yeats poem, which was why I picked it up in walden’s at the wakefield mall in the first place. I never told you the story of my revelation in the wakefield mall over chinua achebe? its a long story, i’ll tell you later. anyhow, you can borrow it when we go to sunapee. I also can’t believe that you haven’t read more of the russians – don’t you and dad talk about them all the time? :)
Okay, I did the list and I’ve read only 24, plus a double handful that I’ve started and not finished. War and Peace tops the must-finish list.
I have also read La Morte d’Arthur.
Every. Last. Freaking. Word.