Dickens was my first literary love and I continue to find myself drawn to 19th- and early 20th-century British literature. When I’m not in the mood for the classics, I have a soft spot for historical fiction — favorites are Tracy Chevalier and Ken Follett — but enjoy reading other genres as well.
This list was begun in September 2010, when I started my Peace Corps service in Ukraine. The middle of the list is wacky because I took the Literature GRE in April 2012 and so spent eight months making my way, slowly and painfully, through as much of the canon as possible. I also did an MA in “Issues in Modern Culture” (aka 20th-century literature) and have recorded everything I read for that in a separate list below.
Feel free to contribute your thoughts and recommendations in the comments!
Currently Reading:
- Tamora Pierce, Song of the Lioness – Alanna: The First Adventure
- Walter Moers, Wilde Reise durch die Nacht
- Marc-Uwe Kling, Die Känguru-Chroniken
What I’ve read so far (most recent at the bottom; * = recommendation):
- *Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
- Milan Kundera, The Joke
- *Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
- *Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
- Matthew Gallaway, The Metropolis Case (reviewed for Full Stop)
- *Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (featured in my essay, “On Escapism: Nicholas Nickleby” for Full Stop)
- *Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
- *E.L. Doctorow, All the Time in the World (reviewed for Full Stop)
- *Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
- *E.M. Forster, Maurice
- *J.W. von Goethe, Faust (featured in my essay, “Goethe’s Faust in Music” for Full Stop)
- J.W. von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
- *Alice Walker, The Color Purple
- Joanne Harris, Chocolat
- Pete Hamill, Snow in August
- William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
- Myrlin A. Hermes, The Lunatic, the Lover, & the Poet
- E.L. Doctorow, The March
- *Beowulf
- *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (selections)
- *Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur (selections)
- Anonymous, Everyman
- Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
- *John Milton, Paradise Lost (not the full text, but a big chunk that was in the Norton Anthology)
- John Dryden, All For Love
- *Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
- *Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock
- *Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal
- [parts of] Samuel Johnson, The Preface to Shakespeare
- *Sarah Gruen, Water for Elephants
- Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure
- *George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan (not the full text, but a big chunk that was in the Norton Anthology)
- *Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Andriy Kurkov, The Case of the General’s Thumb (reviewed for Full Stop)
- *Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
- *Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
- *Amy Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter
- Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
- *Michelle Fillion, Difficult Rhythm: Music & the Word in E.M. Forster
- *Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
- D.H. Lawrence, Sons & Lovers
- Phyllis Weliver, The Musical Crowd in English Fiction, 1840-1910
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
- *Ken Follett, Fall of Giants
- Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
- *Wendy Moffat, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E.M. Forster
- *Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures
- *J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit (re-read before seeing the film)
- *Ken Follett, Winter of the World (sequel to Fall of Giants)
- Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching (for CELTA course)
- *Mark Forsyth (The Inky Fool), The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
- *Toni Morrison, Beloved
- *Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
- *Christopher Isherwood, The Berlin Stories
- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
- *Mark Forsyth (The Inky Fool), The Horologicon: A Day’s Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
- Robert Louis Stevenson, New Arabian Nights
- *John Adams, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life
- *Daniel Bergner, What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (every woman AND man should read this)
- *Tracy Chevalier, The Last Runaway
- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
- *André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name
- *Geraldine Brooks, March
- *George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones
- *Mary Sharratt, Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen
- *George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings
- *George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords
- George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows
- *Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- *George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire: A Dance with Dragons
- Andrew Ladd, What Ends (reviewed for Full Stop)
- *Ian McEwan, Atonement
- *Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess
- Nikolai Gogol, Diary of a Madman
- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
- *P.D. James, Death Comes to Pemberley
- *Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
- Laurie R. King, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice
- *Ken Follett, Edge of Eternity (Book 3 of the Century Trilogy)
- *Laurie R. King, A Monstrous Regiment of Women
- *Laurie R. King, A Letter of Mary
- Damon Galgut, Arctic Summer
- Chrissy Wellington, A Life Without Limits: A World Champion’s Journey
- *Elie Wiesel, Night
- *Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth
- Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
- Monica Ali, Brick Lane
- Alice Becker-Ho, The Essence of Jargon (reviewed for Full Stop)
- Jennifer Worth, Call the Midwife
- Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
- George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin
- *Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
- *Laurie R. King, The Moor
- *Paula McLain, Circling the Sun
- Laurie R. King, O Jerusalem
- *Diane Chandler, The Road to Donetsk (reviewed for Blackbird Digital Books)
- *Mona Eltahawy, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution
- *Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
- *Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
- *Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
- *Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
- *Anthony Doerr, All the Light you Cannot See
- Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
- *Ken Follett, World Without End
- Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, tr. Louise and Aylmer Maude, Amy Mandelker
- *Leila Aboulela, The Kindness of Enemies
- Stephanie Burgis, Masks and Shadows
- *Laurie R. King, Justice Hall
- *Kristin Cashore, Graceling
- Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, tr. Mirra Ginsburg
- *Karen Kondazian, The Whip
- *Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
- *Alexander Chee, The Queen of the Night
- *Zadie Smith, White Teeth
- 2017 (or so):
- *Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue
- Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
- *Rose Tremain, The Gustav Sonata
- Jo Anne Normile, Saving Baby (recommended by Sarah)
- *Tracy Chevalier, At the Edge of the Orchard
- *Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
- Philippa Gregory, Changeling (I like an easy YA historical fiction novel once in a while)
- *Laurie R. King, The Game
- *Laurie R. King, Locked Rooms
- *Walter Moers, Die 13 1/2 Leben des Käpt’n Blaubär (F and I took 1.5 years to read this together, swapping paragraphs to improve my German)
- Dave Boling, Guernica
- *Jessie Burton, The Muse
- Elizabeth Chadwick, The Summer Queen
- *Zadie Smith, Swing Time
- *Robin Hobb, The Rain Wild Chronicles (4-book series)
- *Tracy Chevalier, New Boy
- *Danielle Steel, The Duchess
- *Rachel Sieffert, A Boy in Winter
- *Karen Köhler, Wir haben Raketen geangelt
- *Darragh McKeon, All that is Solid Melts into Air
- Toni Morrison, Jazz
- 2018:
- *Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach
- *Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing – for Now Read This: the inaugural PBS NewsHour-New York Times Book Club
- Alison Weir, Six Tudor Queens: Katherine of Aragon, The True Queen
- *Dave Eggers, The Monk of Mokha
- *Ken Follett, A Column of Fire
- *Philippe Sands, East West Street
MA “Issues in Modern Culture” reading:
- *Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, tr. Geoffrey Wall (re-read — liked it better the second time)
- Baudelaire, Paris Spleen (weird prose poems)
- *Baudelaire, Tableaux du Paris (verse poems about a day Paris)
- Henry James, In the Cage and The Turn of the Screw
- John Carlos Rowe, “Spectral Mechanics: Gender, Sexuality, and Work in In the Cage” (in The Other Henry James)
- 3 theory essays by Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, & Maurice Blanchot, for a seminar called “Epiphany & the Everyday”
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim (I didn’t really read the latter…)
- *Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”; “The Mystery of Marie Roget“; “The Purloined Letter”
- *Arthur Conan Doyle, Valley of Fear
- *Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”
- Selected poetry by Jules Laforgue and T.S. Eliot
- *Henry James, “London” from English Hours
- Henry James, New York chapters from The American Scene
- Ezra Pound: “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” + Cantos I, XIC, LXXIV, LXXX, LXVI
- J.G. Ballard, Crash
- *Tom McCarthy, Remainder
- Henry Green, Nothing
- Henry Green, Doting
- Walter Pater, excerpts from Studies in the History of the Renaissance
- Ford Madox Ford, The Soul of London
- *Ford Madox Ford, “On Impressionism”
- James Joyce, Ulysses
- *James Joyce, Dubliners
- *Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida
- *Susan Sontag, On Photography
- *Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
- *Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
- Film: Citizen Kane
- *Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
- Harold Rosenberg, “American Action Painters”
- *Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” (for Contexts essay)
- Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
- *Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
- *Music: selections by Bob Dylan & The Velvet Underground (for “Inventions of Rock” Contexts seminar)
- *Wallace Stevens, selected poems
- Sigmund Freud essays:
- *”‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality and Modern Nervous Illness” (1908)
- “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love” (1912)
- “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920)
- Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Metaphysics of Sexual Love”
- Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark
- Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight
- Opera (Music Drama): Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde
- Elizabeth Bowen, Death of the Heart
- Elizabeth Bowen, “Making Arrangements”
- Robert Browning, “Porphyria’s Lover”
- *D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
- *Vladimir Nabokov, (The Annotated) Lolita (fantastic seminar discussion made me want to read it again)
- *André Gide, The Immoralist (tr. David Watson)
- Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (tr. H.T. Lowe-Porter — not a good translation)
- *Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
- Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God
- Excerpts from modern gay fiction:
- *Gore Vidal, The City and the Pillar
- Andrew Holleran, Dancer from the Dance
- *Oscar Moore, A Matter of Life and Sex
- Edmund White, The Farewell Symphony
- *Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (possible “Modern Sex” essay text)
- *E.M. Forster, Maurice (possible “Modern Sex” essay text)
- *Selected poetry by Elizabeth Bishop
- Robert Lowell, most of the poems in Life Studies
- Selected poetry by Sylvia Plath
- *Selected poetry by Allen Ginsberg
Thomas Pynchon,Mason & Dixon(let’s be honest, I only read ~125 pages)- Selected poetry by Frank O’Hara
- *Tom Stoppard, Travesties
- *Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
- Selected poetry by Adrienne Rich
- J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace
- *Derek Walcott, Omeros Book I
- Herman Melville, Billy Budd
- *Willa Cather, My Àntonia
- *Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
- Re-read for “Authors” exam:
- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, tr. Geoffrey Wall
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
- Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark
- Benjamin Britten opera libretti:
- Death in Venice
- Billy Budd
- Billy Collins poetry, from The Trouble with Poetry and Sailing Alone Around the Room
- J.M. Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K.
- Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- *Toni Morrison, Beloved (re-read…it’s so good)
- *Dave Eggers, What Is the What
* = recommended reads
I loved “One Hundred Years of Solitude” when I read it, I’m glad its on your list to read eventually! And by the way, after seeing your reading list (and Michelle’s, and other PCVs) I made one of my own 🙂 Just wanted to give you credit for the idea I borrowed 🙂
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