Steven Wright - “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where’s the self-help section?' She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose.”

Monday, December 06, 2004

A "Classic" Case of Procrastination

The list below contains the most "famous" and most often studied literary works ever (according to data taken from college polls and literature examinations). I would like to be able to say that I have read each of these literary masterpieces sometime before I drop dead. (The ones I have read are in red...no pun intended). However, I know that realistically I probably won't accomplish that goal. There are simply too many books that I want to read to limit myself to the "classics" although I will certainly attempt to pick up one now and then.

*** Note: Some of these works are not novels. They may be plays, or narratives that are more likely to be found in an anthology or compilation of works. ***
  1. A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
  2. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
  3. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
  4. All My Sons - Arthur Miller
  5. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
  6. America is in the Heart -
  7. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
  8. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
  9. Another Country - James Baldwin
  10. Antigone
  11. Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare
  12. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
  13. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
  14. As You Like It - William Shakespeare
  15. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
  16. The Bear
  17. Beloved - Toni Morrison
  18. Benito Cereno -
  19. Billy Budd - Herman Melville
  20. The Birthday Party
  21. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
  22. Bless Me, Ultima
  23. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
  24. The Bluest Eyes
  25. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  26. Candide - Voltaire
  27. The Caretaker
  28. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
  29. Cat's Eye - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
  30. Ceremony
  31. The Centaur -
  32. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
  33. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  34. The Crucible - Arthur Miller
  35. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
  36. Daisy Miller - Henry James
  37. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
  38. The Dead -
  39. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
  40. The Death of Ivan Ilyich -
  41. Delta Wedding -
  42. Desire Under the Elms -
  43. The Deviners -
  44. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant -
  45. Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe
  46. The Dollmaker -
  47. A Doll's House - Ibsen
  48. Don Quixote - Cervantes
  49. Emma - Jane Austen
  50. An Enemy of the People -
  51. Equus -
  52. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
  53. The Eumenides -
  54. The Fall -
  55. A Farewell to Arms - Earnest Hemingway
  56. Fathers and Sons - Turgenev
  57. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
  58. Go Tell It On the Mountain - James Baldwin
  59. The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams
  60. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
  61. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
  62. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  63. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
  64. The Hairy Ape - Eugene O'Neill
  65. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
  66. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Eleanor Atwood
  67. Hard Times - Charles Dickens
  68. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
  69. Hedda Gabler - Ibsen
  70. Henry IV - William Shakespeare
  71. The Homecoming
  72. House Made of Dawn
  73. The House of Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
  74. Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
  75. J.B.
  76. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
  77. Joseph Andrews
  78. The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
  79. Jude the Obscure
  80. Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
  81. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
  82. King Lear - William Shakespeare
  83. Light in August - William Faulkner
  84. The Little Foxes
  85. Long Day's Journey into Night - Eugene O'Neill
  86. Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
  87. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
  88. Love Medicine
  89. "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock"
  90. The Loved One
  91. Lysistrata
  92. M. Butterfly
  93. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
  94. Macbeth - William Shakespeare
  95. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
  96. Major Barbara
  97. Man and Superman - George Bernard Shaw
  98. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
  99. The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
  100. Medea
  101. The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers
  102. The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare
  103. The Metamorphosis -
  104. Middlemarch - George Eliot
  105. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
  106. The Misanthrope - Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere
  107. Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
  108. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
  109. Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
  110. Mother Courage
  111. Mrs. Dalloway
  112. Mrs. Warren's Profession
  113. Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
  114. Murder in the Cathedral - T.S. Eliot
  115. "My Last Duchess"
  116. Native Son
  117. Nineteen Eighty-Four
  118. No Exit
  119. No-No Boy
  120. Notes from the Underground
  121. Obasan
  122. The Odyssey
  123. Oedipus Rex
  124. The Old Man and the Sea
  125. One Hundred Years of Solitude
  126. The Optimist's Daughter
  127. The Oresteia
  128. Othello - William Shakespeare
  129. Our Mutual Friend
  130. Our Town
  131. Pamela
  132. Paradise Lost
  133. A Passage to India
  134. Persuasion
  135. Phedre
  136. The Piano Lesson
  137. Pnin
  138. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  139. The Portrait of a Lady
  140. Praisesong for the Widow
  141. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
  142. Pygmalion
  143. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  144. A Raisin in the Sun
  145. Redburn
  146. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
  147. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
  148. The Rape of the Lock
  149. Saint Joan
  150. The Scarlet Letter
  151. A Separate Peace
  152. The Shipping News
  153. Sister Carrie
  154. Slaughterhouse Five
  155. Song of Solomon
  156. Sons and Lovers
  157. The Sound and the Fury
  158. The Stone Angel
  159. The Stranger
  160. A Streetcar Named Desire
  161. Sula
  162. The Sun Also Rises
  163. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
  164. Tartuffe
  165. The Tempest
  166. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  167. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neal Hurston
  168. Things Fall Apart
  169. To the Lighthouse
  170. Tom Jones
  171. The Trial
  172. Tristam Shandy
  173. The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
  174. Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
  175. Uncle Tom's Cabin
  176. Victory
  177. Volpone
  178. Waiting for Godot
  179. The Warden
  180. Washington Square
  181. The Waste Land
  182. Watch on the Rhine
  183. The Watch that Ends the Night
  184. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
  185. Wide Sargasso Sea
  186. The Winter's Tale
  187. Winter in the Blood
  188. Wise Blood
  189. The Woman Warrior
  190. Wuthering Heights - Charlotte Bronte
  191. The Zoo Story
  192. Zoot Suit

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