"We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees," Mohsin Hamid writes in his novel How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. "Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes, that those who have gone are gone, and those who will go, which is to say every one of us, will go. For there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create."
I’ve just started my 29th year of teaching literature at UCONN in Storrs, CT. Over the nearly three decades in the classroom, teaching both undergraduates and graduate students, I've developed a long list of novels I consider essential. Friends, especially Facebook friends, often ask for suggestions about what to read next.
Okay, you asked for it.
I decided to take a deep breath and put my reading lists together, limiting my choices by the following factors: 1. I admire this work so much that I've taught it in a course, have notes on it, and believe that it's a terrific accomplishment as a work of literature; 2. These works have all (to my knowledge) been written in English and not translated from other languages (otherwise Madame Bovary would be on there, as well as dozens of others); 2. These books are NOT in any particular order except in my own spiderweb mind, so if you can see the patterns, I'd love to know what you think (can you find the Waldo of my imagination in the sets of five?). The patterns exist, but they are subtle and eccentric.
So here's your reading list, folks. Let me know what books you love and let me know, too, what you think I should have included.
How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia Mohsin Hamid
Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
Great Expectations Charles Dickens
Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch George Eliot
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Alan Sillitoe
Nights at the Circus Angela Carter
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil Fay Weldon
Underworld Don De Lillo
The Death of the Heart Elizabeth Bowen
The Good Soldier Ford Maddox Ford
Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
Alias Grace Margaret Atwood
Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison
Frost in May Antonia White
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
Tom Jones Henry Fielding
Pamela Samuel Richardson
Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
Dubliners James Joyce
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
A Child’s Christmas in Wales Dylan Thomas
White Teeth Zadie Smith
Orlando Virginia Woolf
The Odd Women George Gissing
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
The Collected Stories of Flannery O’Connor
The Collected Stories of Dorothy Parker
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Anita Loos
Babbitt Sinclair Lewis
Three Men In a Boat Jerome K. Jerome
The Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
Fanny Hill John Cleland
BU-tterfield 8 John O’Hara
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
Beloved Toni Morrison
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
Frankenstein Mary Shelley
Dracula Bram Stoker
Wolf Hall Hillary Mantel
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez
The Country Girls Trilogy Edna O’Brien
The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
She’s Come Undone Wally Lamb
The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984 George Orwell
Catch 22 Joseph Heller
The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court Mark Twain
The Shipping News Annie Proulx
Asylum Patrick McGrath
The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston
The Female Quixote Charlotte Lennox
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café Fanny Flagg
The Princess Bride William Goldman
The Portrait of a Lady Henry James
The Jungle Upton Sinclair
City Boy Herman Wouk
Red Shift Alan Garner
Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
The Loved One Evelyn Waugh
The House of Sand and Fog Andre Dubus III
My Year of Meats Ruth Ozeki
Election Tom Perrotta
The Three Sisters May Sinclair
McTeague Frank Norris
Peyton Place Grace Metalious
Carrie Stephen King
Porterhouse Blue Tom Sharpe
The Waterfall Margaret Drabble
The Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
No Country For Old Men Cormac McCarthy
The Godfather Mario Puzo
The Odd Woman Gail Godwin
Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout
Final Payments Mary Gordon
The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett
Property Valerie Martin
Possession A.S. Byatt
The Quiet American Graham Greene
The Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe
Blue Angel Francine Prose
Small World David Lodge
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
The Shape of Things to Come H.G. Wells
Howard’s End E.M. Forster
Straight Man Richard Russo
The Ice Storm Rick Moody
Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
The Group Mary McCarthy
# # #
Originally published on PsychologyToday.com.
