I have a red notebook where I write down all the books I want to read. Inside it, I have stuffed pages ripped from magazines, post-it notes, and other various scraps of paper with book titles scrawled on them. I can't remember when I started this list, but I know I add to it constantly. I've always wanted to get it more organized, but never seem to actually get around to doing so. What better place than here?
As a disclaimer, I started this list many years ago. Some of these books, I might not actually read now. But I refuse to take them off the list. So here goes. The books that I have read are in bold. I have started and stopped probably half of these. I only put in bold the books that I have read from start to finish.
Also, the first 120 books (or so, I think I took a few out) are from a list I found when I started my own. They are the 100 (or so) greatest books of the 20th century according to someone. Seeing as how I haven't read them all, I don't know if I agree. Note: For the first 100 books, if the books are a series, they are listed together with an asterisk (*) after the author's name.
(1) Pale Fire Vladimir Nobokov
(2) Ulysses James Joyce
(3) Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon
(4) The Public Burning Robert Coover
(5) The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner
(6) Molloy Samuel Beckett*
(7) Malone Dies Samuel Beckett*
(8) The Unnamable Samuel Beckett*
(9) The Making of America Gertrude Stein
(10) The Soft Machine William S. Burroughs*
(11) Nova Express William S. Burroughs*
(12) The Ticket That Exploded William S. Burroughs*
(13) Lolita Vladimir Nobokov
(14) Finnegan's Wake James Joyce
(15) Take It or Leave It Raymond Federman
(16) Beloved Toni Morrison
(17) Going Native Stephen Wright
(18) Under the Volcano Malcom Lowery
(19) To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf
(20) In the Heart of the Heart of the Country William H. Gass
(21) JR William Gaddis
(22) Invisible Man Ralph Ellison
(23) Underworld Don DeLillo
(24) The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway
(25) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce
(26) The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
(27) The Ambassadors Henry James
(28) Women in Love D.H. Lawrence
(29) 60 Stories Donald Barthelme
(30) The Rifles William T. Vollman
(31) The Recognitions William Gaddis
(32) Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
(33) Catch-22 Joseph Heller
(34) 1984 George Orwell
(35) Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
(36) Absalom! Absalom! William Faulkner
(37) Dhalgren Samuel R. Delaney
(38) The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
(39) The Stain Rikki Ducornet*
(40) Entering Fire Rikki Ducornet*
(41) The Fountains of Neptune Rikki Ducornet*
(42) The Jade Cabinent Rikki Ducornet*
(43) Neuromancer William Gibson*
(44) Count Zero William Gibson*
(45) Mona Lisa Overdrive William Gibson*
(46) Tropic of Cancer Henry Miller
(47) On the Road Jank Kerouac
(48) Lookout Cartridge Joseph McElroy
(49) Crash JG Ballard
(50) Midnight's Children Salmon Rushdie
(51) The Sot-Weed Factor John Barth
(52) Genoa Paul Metcalf
(53) Brave New World Aldous Huxley
(54) A Passage to India EM Forster
(55) Double or Nothing Raymond Federman
(56) At Swim-Two-Birds Flann O'Brien
(57) Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy
(58) The Cannibal John Hawkes
(59) Native Son Richard Wright
(60) The Day of the Locust Nathaniel West
(61) Nightwood Djuna Barnes
(62) Housekeeping Marilynn Robinson
(63) Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut
(64) Libra Don DeLillo
(65) Wise Blood Flannery O'Connor
(66) Always Coming Home Ursula LeGuin
(67) The 42nd Parallel John Dos Passos*
(68) 1919 John Dos Passos*
(69) The Big Money John Dos Passos*
(70) The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
(71) The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
(72) Red Harvest Dashiell Hammett
(73) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver
(74) Dubliners James Joyce
(75) Cane Jean Toomer
(76) The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
(77) Ridley Walker Russell Hoban
(78) Go In Beauty William Eastlake*
(79) The Bronc People William Eastlake*
(80) Portrait of the Artist with 26 Horses William Eastlake*
(81) The Franchiser Stanley Elkin
(82) City of Glass Paul Auster*
(83) Ghosts Paul Auster*
(84) The Locked Room Paul Auster*
(85) Skinny Legs and All Tom Robbins
(86) Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
(87) The Age of Wire and String Ben Marcus
(88) Tlooth Harry Matthews
(89) Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover
(90) The Man in the High Castle Phillip Dick
(91) American Psycho Bret Easton Ellis
(92) The French Lieutenant's Wife John Fowles
(93) The Shadow of the Torturer Gene Wolfe*
(94) The Claw of the Conciliator Gene Wolfe*
(95) The Sword of Lictor Gene Wolfe*
(96) The Citadel of Autarch Gene Wolfe*
(97) A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
(98) Legs William Kennedy*
(99) Billy Phelan's Greatest Game William Kennedy*
(100) Ironweed William Kennedy*
(101) The Tunnel William Gass
(102) Omensetter's Luck William Gass
(103) The Sheltering Sky Paul Bowles
(104) Darconville's Cat Alexander Theroux
(105) Up Ronald Sukenick
(106) Yellow Back Radio Broke Down Ishmael Reed
(107) Winesburg, Ohio Sherwood Anderson
(108) You Bright and Risen Angels William T. Vollman
(109) The Naked and the Dead Norman Mailer
(110) The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop. Robert Coover
(111) Creamy and Delicious Steve Katz
(112) Waiting for the Barbarians JM Coetzee
(113) More Than Human Theodore Sturgeon
(114) Mulligan Stew Gilbert Sorrentino
(115) Look Homeward, Angel Thomas Wolfe
(116) An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser
(117) Easy Travels to Other Planets Ted Mooney
(118) Tours of the Black Clock Steve Erickson
(119) In Memorium to Identity Kathy Acker
(120) Hogg Samuel R. Delaney
(121) The Divine Comedy Dante
(122) The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer
(123) The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli
(124) Doctor Faustus Christopher Marlowe
(125) Don Quixote Cervantes
(126) The Taming of the Shrew William Shakespeare
(127) The Merchant of Venice W. Shakespeare
(128) Romeo and Juliet W. Shakespeare
(129) Julius Caesar W. Shakespeare
(130) A Midsummer Night's Dream W. Shakespeare
(131) As You Like It W. Shakespeare
(132) Twelfth Night W. Shakespeare
(133) Othello W. Shakespeare
(134) Hamlet W. Shakespeare
(135) Macbeth W. Shakespeare
(136) King Lear W. Shakespeare
(137) The Tempest W. Shakespeare
(138) Much Ado About Nothing W. Shakespeare
(139) Antony and Cleopatra W. Shakespeare
(140) Henry VI, Part I W. Shakespeare
(141) Henry VI, Part II W. Shakespeare
(142) Henry VI, Part III W. Shakespeare
(143) Richard II W. Shakespeare
(144) Richard III W. Shakespeare
(145) Henry IV, Part I W. Shakespeare
(146) Henry IV, Part II W. Shakespeare
(147) Henry V W. Shakespeare
(148) King John W. Shakespeare
(149) Titus Andronicus W. Shakespeare
(150) The Merry Wives of Windsor W. Shakespeare
(151) Two Gentlemen of Verona W. Shakespeare
(152) Love's Labours Lost W. Shakespeare
(153) The Winter's Tale W. Shakespeare
(154) Measure for Measure W. Shakespeare
(155) A Comedy of Errors W. Shakespeare
(156) All's Well That Ends Well W. Shakespeare
(157) Timon of Athens W. Shakespeare
(158) Paradise Lost John Milton
(159) Gulliver's Travels Jonathon Swift
(160) Tom Jones Henry Fielding
(161) Candide Voltaire
(162) Faust: Part I and II Johann von Goethe
(163) Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
(164) Hard Times Charles Dickens
(165) Typee Hermann Melville
(166) Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
(167) Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
(168) The Hobbitt JRR Tolkien
(169) Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
(170) Our Town Thronton Wilder
(171) For Whom the Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
(172) The Stranger Albert Camus
(173) The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams
(174) Animal Farm George Orwell
(175) Black Boy Richard Wright
(176) All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren
(177) A Streetcar Named Desire Tennessee Williams
(178) The Pearl John Steinbeck
(179) Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller
(180) Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton
(181) The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
(182) The Crucible Arthur Miller
(183) Lord of the Flies William Golding
(184) To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
(185) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey
(186) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee
(187) Lord Jim Joseph conrad
(188) David Copperfield Charles Dickens
(189) The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
(190) The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne
(191) Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
(192) Moby Dick Herman Melville
(193) The Jungle Upton Sinclair
(194) Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
(195) The Secret Sharer Joseph Conrad
(196) Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence
(197) My Antonia Willa Cather
(198) Siddhartha Herman Hesse
(199) Babbitt Sinclair Lewis
(200) Steppenwolf Herman Hesse
(201) Billy Budd Herman Melville
(202) All Quiet on the Western Front Erich Maria Remarque
(203) A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway
(204) As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
(205) The Good Earth Pearl Buck
(206) Light in August William Faulkner
(207) Walden Henry David Thoreau
(208) Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
(209) A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
(210) Silas Marner Geroge Eliot
(211) Great Expectations Charles Dickens
(212) Crime and Punishment Fyoder Dostoevsky
(214) Tom Sawyer Mark Twain
(215) Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
(216) Daisy Miller Henry James
(217) The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy
(218) A Doll's House Henrick Ibsen
(219) Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
(220) The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy
(221) Hedda Gabler Henrick Ibsen
(222) Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
(223) The Red Badge of Courage Stephen Crane
(224) The Turn of the Screw Henry James
(225) Man with the Golden Arm Nelson Algren
(227) The Awakening Kate Chopin
(228) Persuasion Jane Austen
(229) East of Eden John Steinbeck
(230) Hound of the Baskervilles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(231) Design of Everyday Things Donald Norman
(232) The Picture of Dorian Gray Oscar Wilde
(233) The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
(234) Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
(235) Emma Jane Austen
(236) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Tennessee Williams
(237) Breakfast at Tiffany's Truman Capote
(238) In Cold Blood Truman Capote
(239) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll
(240) Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll
(241) This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald
(242) Portrait of a Lady Henry James
(243) The Raven Peter Landesman
(245) Stop-Time Frank Conroy
(246) A Separate Peace John Knowles
(247) Beowulf Unknown
(248) The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(249) The Water is Wide Pat Conroy
(250) The Illiad Homer
(251) Hiroshima John Hersey
(252) Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls
(253) Alas, Babylon Pat Frank
(254) Idylls of the King Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(255) The Chosen Chiam Potak
(256) The Odyssey Homer
(257) Utopia Thomas More
(258) The Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu
(259) The Waning of the Middle Ages Huizinga
(260) The Golden Ass Lucius Apuleius
(261) Long Day's Journey Into Night Eugene O'Neill
(262) The Iceman Cometh Eugene O'Neill
(263) The Once and Future King TH White
(264) A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry
(265) Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell
(266) Scarlett Alexandra Ripley
(267) Rhett Butler's People Donald McCaig
(268) Everyman Unknown
(269) Oedipus the King Sophocles
(270) Antigone Sophocles
(271) Tartuffe Moliere
(272) Translations Brian Friel
(273) True West Sam Shepard
(274) The Unseen Hand Sam Shepard
(275) Shaved Splits Sam Shepard
(276) Operation Sidewinder Sam Shepard
(277) Incident at Vichy Arthur Miller
(278) Venus Suzan-Lori Parks
(279) A Room with a View EM Forster
(280) Where Angels Fear to Tread EM Forster
(281) Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf
(282) The Last of the Savages Jay McInerney
(283) Red Dragon Thomas Harris
(284) Hannibal Thomas Harris
(285) Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris
(286) Charlotte's Web EB White
(287) A Lesson Before Dying Ernest Gaines
(288) Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
(289) Frankenstein Mary Shelley
(290) And Then There Were None Agatha Christie
(291) Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie
(292) Anthem Ayn Rand
(293) Night Elie Wiesel
(294) Inherit the Wind Jerome Lawrence
(295) Giovanni's Room James Baldwin
(296) The Plague Albert Camus
(297) The End of the Affair Graham Greene
(298) One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(299) Of Human Bondage Somerset Maugham
(300) Goodbye, Columbus Phillip Roth
(301) Contact Carl Sagan
(302) Cancer Ward Alexander Solzheintsyn
(303) Death in the Family James Agee
(304) Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
(305) The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
(306) Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett
(307) Ficciones Jorge Luis Borges
(308) Baron in the Trees Halo Calvino
(309) Death Comes to the Archbishop Willa Cather
(310) The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler
(311) Three Sisters Anton Chekov
(312) Hopscotch Julio Cortazar
(313) White Noise Don DeLillo
(314) Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser
(315) Rebecca Daphne du Maurier
(316) Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
(317) Love Medicine Louise Erdrich
(318) Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Richard Farina
(319) No Place to Be Somebody Charles Gordone
(320) Tin Drum Gunter Grass
(321) Stranger in a Strangeland Robert Heinlein
(322) Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson
(323) Thin Red Line James Jones
(324) Tripmaster Monkey Maxine Hong Kingston
(325) Darkness at Noon Arthur Koestler
(326) The Unbearable Lightness of Being Milan Kundera
(327) Angels in America Tony Kushner
(328) Iron Heel Jack London
(329) All the Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy
(330) Spring Snow Yukio Mishima
(331) Song of Soloman Toni Morrison
(332) Wind Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
(333) Despair Vladimir Nabokov
(334) A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor
(335) The Famished Road Ben Okri
(336) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert Pirsig
(337) Operation Wandering Soul Richard Powers
(338) Remembrance of Things Past Marcel Proust
(339) The Charioteer Mary Renault
(340) Jealousy Alan Robbe-Grillet
(341) Maus Art Speigelman
(342) Sophie's Choice William Styron
(343) Black List Section H Francis Stuart
(344) A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
(345) Rabbit Run John Updike
(346) The Color Purple Alice Walker
(347) Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
(348) Miss Lonelyhearts Nathanie West
(349) Return of the Soldier Rebecca West
(350) Bonfire of the Vanities Tom Wolfe
(351) Into the Wild Jon Krakauer
(352) Gem of the Ocean August Wilson
(353) Joe Turner's Come and Gone August Wilson
(354) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom August Wilson
(355) The Piano Lesson August Wilson
(356) Seven Guitars August Wilson
(357) Fences August Wilson
(358) Two Trains Running August Wilson
(359) Jitney August Wilson
(360) King Hedley II August Wilson
(361) Radio Golf August Wilson
(362) The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
(363) The Laramie Project Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project
(364) We the Living Ayn Rand
(365) Lady Chatterley's Lover D.H. Lawrence
(366) Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
(367) The Beautiful and Damned F.Scott Fitzgerald
(368) Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman
(369) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers
(370) Life is a Dream Pedro Calderon de la Barca
(371) Mourning Becomes Electra Eugene O'Neill
(372) The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison
(373) The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
(374) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard
(375) When We Dead Awaken Henrick Ibsen
(376) The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien
(377) Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
(378) Use and Abuse of History Nietzsche
(379) Decameron Boccaccio
(380) In Praise of Folly Erasmus
(381) You Shall Know Our Velocity Dave Eggers
(382) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
(383) Topdog/Underdog Suzan-Lori Parks
(384) The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekov
(385) The Stuff of Life Karen Karbo
(386) The Seagull Anton Chekov
(387) Uncle Vanya Anton Chekov
(388) Slouching Towards Bethlehem Joan Didion
(389) Raveling Peter Moore Smith
(390) Tender is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
(391) A Writer's Diary Virginia Woolf
(392) Dracula Bram Stoker
(393) Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
(394) Everything That Rises Must Converge Flannery O'Connor
(395) Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut
(396) Lost Souls Nikolai Gogol
(397) Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev
(398) Diary of a Superfluous Man Ivan Turgenev
(399) Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak
(400) A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov
(401) The Voyeur Alberto Moravia
(402) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon
(403) Middlemarch George Eliot
(404) Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert
(405) Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer
(406) Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela
(407) The Coast of Chicago Stuart Dybeck
(408) Mythology Edith Hamilton
(409) Pnin Vladimir Nabokov
(410) Brief Interviews with Hideous Men David Foster Wallace
(411) The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire
(412) Cathedral Raymond Chandler
(413) Naked David Sedaris
(414) When You Are Engulfed in Flames David Sedaris
(415) Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke
(415) Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Alice Munro
(416) A Simple Heart Gustave Flaubert
(417) The Pursuit of Love Nancy Mitford
(418) Gaudy Night Dorothy L. Sayers
(419) Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
(420) The Way to Freedom his Holiness, The Dalai Lama of Tibet
(421) The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories Leo Tolstoy
(422) Our Man in Havana Graham Greene
(423) The Inferno Dante Alighieri
(424) Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs
(425) Don't Die on My Shift William F. Sayers
(426) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
(427) The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir
(428) The Vagabond Colette
(430) The Good Soldier Ford Maddox Ford
(431) The Human Stain Phillip Roth
(432) Plays It As It Lays Joan Didion
(433) A Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers
(434) American Food Writing Molly O'Neill
(435) Like You'd Understand, Anyway Jim Shepard
(436) What We Knew Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband
(437) Lies My Teacher Told Me James W. Loewen
(438) The Reef Edith Wharton
(439) The Years Virginia Woolf
(440) World According to Garp John Irving
(441) Nine Stories JD Salinger
(442) Believers Charles Baxter
(443) Atonement Ian McEwen
(444) Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides
(445) Bel Canto Ann Patchett
(446) Like Life Lorrie Moore
(447) The Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe
(448) The Reader Bernhard Schlink
(449) Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell
(450) Will in the World Stephen Greenblatt
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