If
one were looking to craft a list of classic books to read, how would he or she
go about putting it together?
The
Internet reflects many recommendations, from NetGalley and GoodReads to Amazon
and BN.com, not to mention school reading lists, best-seller lists,
recommendations from friends, family and book clubs. There are also a variety of lists posted
online and in magazines or newspapers.
Which ones should we choose from?
The
GreatestBooks.org posts lists from the Learning Channel, English PEN, National
Book Awards, and other reputable sources.
You will often see the same titles appear on all of these lists. If one
somehow could agree with the experts on the 10 best books of each year, one would
be left with the task of reading 4,000 books if they go back to 1618 and Shakespeare’s
time. If you even read two books a week
– a brisk pace for the person with a full life – you would need 40 years to get
through them. If you slip to a book a
week, we’re looking at 80 years. If one
started at age 15, they’d be 95 upon completing this list. We may need a better way to target a more
compact lists of prized books.
The
other problem here is should one only read those books that are deemed by critics,
academicians, or even fans as worthy of one’s time – or should we read experimental fiction, poetry, a book by an unknown author, or a book
on an obscure topic?
If
you compare life itself to reading books, we don’t just go on vacation or have amazing moments. Most of our days are
spent on ordinary, if not simple activities – work, commuting, eating,
exercise, chores, chats with friends, researching something, shopping,
etc. We don’t fill our time merely by
doing the extraordinary in life – and perhaps we can’t overload on the greats
when reading books. I don’t know.
But,
if you were to invest some time into reading books deemed by many in the know
as great or significant, consider any or all of these:
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
The
Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
The
Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri
Moby
Dick Herman Melville
Walden Henry David Thoreau
Uncle
Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
War
and Peace Leo Tolstoy
On
Liberty John Stuart Mill
Communist
Manifesto Karl Marx and Friederich
Engels
The
Republic Plato
The
Odyssey Homer
The
Art of War Sun Zj
Paradise
Lost John Milton
Meditations Marcus Aurelius
1984 George Orwell
Pride
and Prejudice Jane Austen
Les
Miserables Victor Hugo
A
Tale of Two Cities Charles
Dickens
Crime
and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark
Twain
The
Raven Edgar
Allan Poe
Catch-22 Joseph
Heller
Where
the Wild Things Are Maurice
Sendak
Charlie
and The Chocolate Factory Roald
Dahl
The
World According to Garp John
Irving
The
Right Stuff Tom
Wolfe
The
Poems of John Keats John
Keats
The
Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy
Bysshe Shelley
The
Book Thief Markus
Zusak
The
Aeneid Virgil
The
Handmaid’s Tale Margaret
Atwood
A
Doll’s House Henrik
Ibsen
Candide Voltaire
The
History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides
Oedipus
the King Sophocles
The
Metamorphosis Franz
Kafka
Siddhartha
Hermann
Hesse
Waiting
for Godot Samuel
Beckett
The
Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund
Freud
On
the Origin of Species Charles
Darwin
The
Wealth of Nations Adam
Smith
King
Lear William
Shakespeare
The
Tale of Genji Murasaki
Shikibu
Confessions
Augustine
A
Clockwork Orange Anthony
Burgess
Breakfast
at Tiffany’s Truman
Capote
One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken
Kesey
Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof Tennessee
Williams
Death
of a Salesman Arthur
Miller
The
Stranger Albert
Camus
Lady
Chatterley’s Lover D.H.
Lawrence
The
Turn of the Screw Henry
James
The
Complete Sherlock Holmes Arthur
Conan Doyle
Madame
Bovary Gustave
Flaubert
Don
Juan: A Poem Lord Byron
The
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
The
Shining Stephen
King
Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt
Vonnegut
Lolita Vladimir
Nabokov
Invisible
Man Ralph
Ellison
All
the King’s Men Robert
Penn Warren
The
Postman Always Rings Twice James
M. Cain
Tropic
of Cancer Henry
Miller
Harry
Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone J.K.
Rowling
The
Color Purple Alice
Walker
To
Kill a Mockingbird Harper
Lee
One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken
Kesey
The
Lord of the Rings J.R.R.
Tolkien
Lord
of the Flies William
Golding
The
Grapes of Wrath John
Steinbeck
The Diary
of a Young Girl Anne
Frank
The
Catcher in the Rye J.D.
Salinger
War
of the Worlds H.G.
Wells
The
Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre
Dumas
Wuthering
Heights Emily
Bronte
Jane
Eyre Charlotte
Bronte
Robinson
Crusoe Daniel
Defoe
Gulliver’s
Travels Jonathan
Swift
Frankenstein Mary
Shelley
The
Canterbury Tales Geoffrey
Chaucer
Hamlet William
Shakespeare
The
Poems of Walt Whitman Walt
Whitman
In
Search of Lost Time Marcel
Proust
Kama
Sutra Vatsyayana
The
Ouran Various
Authors
The
Canterbury Tales Geoffrey
Chaucer
A
Dictionary of the English Language Samuel
Johnson
Common
Sense Thomas
Paine
A
Christmas Carol Charles
Dickens
The
Age of Innocence Edith
Wharton
Out
of Africa Isak
Dinesen
Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland Lewis
Carroll
Ulysses James
Joyce
The
Great Gatsby F.
Scott Fitzgerald
The
Sun Also Rises Ernest
Hemingway
Charlotte’s
Web E.B.
White
On
the Road Jack
Kerouac
The
Waste Land and Other Poems T.S. Eliot
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