Classics

When you're talking about literature, classic is a relative term.  I attempt to read at least one what-I-consider-classic per month.  Sometimes that works...sometimes it doesn't.  In case you're curious about my reading in this arena, I've listed below all the classics I have read, along with the corresponding review link (if there is one).  Also listed are the ones I have yet to read...be prepared, this is a looooong list.

You might be wondering how I came up with this list.  It is composed of my research in various instances regarding different listings of classical, controversial (previously banned or burned books), books every woman should read and/or books everyone should read before they die.  My resources include the American Library Association, Wikipedia and Easton Press' listings just to name a few.  Some books on this list are recent publications, but the vast majority are older than 50-100 years of age.  This list is ever-changing because I'm adding to it at all times. 

If you think of a "classic" that you really feel should be included on this list, feel free to email me or comment on my blog!  I'm always happy to add to this list!  There might also be ones you don't agree with as a "classic" per se.  I understand that everyone won't agree with my all-encompassing umbrella...and that's OK, that's your prerogative.  This is just my list and I've thrown it together for my own reading purposes and decided to share it here on my blog.

Books are listed in alphabetical order via their title within each list.

Read

1984 - George Orwell (Review: 6/10/2013)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne (Review: 1/27/2010)  

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

The Aeneid - Virgil

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton (Review: 1/22/2013)

Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Review: 12/9/2010)

Atonement - Ian McEwan

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin

Blubber - Judy Blume (Review: 10/9/2013)

The Call of the Wild - Jack London

Charlotte's Web - E.B. White

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (Review: 6/14/2013)

Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (Review: 12/14/2009)

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Emma - Jane Austen

Ethan Frome
- Edith Wharton (Review: 1/22/2013)

A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley

The Giver - Lois Lowry (Review: 4/22/2013)

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell 

Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Harry Potter
(series) - J.K. Rowling
(Review: 4/3/2013)

The House of Mirth
- Edith Wharton (Review: 2/5/2013)

In Cold Blood
-
Truman Capote (Review: 5/1/2013)

Ivanhoe
- Sir Walter Scott

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (Review: 2/10/2011)

The Jungle
- Upton Sinclair
(Review: 2/27/2013)

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (Review: 4/5/2010)

Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence  

The Legend of Sleep Hollow - Washington Irving

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo (Review: 11/6/2012)

Life of Pi
- Yann Martel (Review: 3/7/2013)


Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (Review: 3/29/2010)

The Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (Review: 10/9/2013)

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen (Review: 5/6/2010)

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 

Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf  

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth - Sojourner Truth (Review: 11/13/2012)


The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

On the Origin of Species
- Charles Darwin (Review: 1/25/2013)


The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

Persuasion - Jane Austen

The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet   

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane 

The Scarlett Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (Review: 12/15/2010)

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy (Review: 12/12/2012)

Tiger Eyes - Judy Blume

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum   

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë


To Read

Absalom, Absalom!
- William Faulkner

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain

Aesop's Fables - Aesop

All the King's Men
- Robert Penn Warren

Always Running - Luis J Rodriguez

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser 

The Analects of Confucious - Confucious 

Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

Annie on my Mind - Nancy Garden

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume 

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner 

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
- Gertrude Stein

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis

The Beautiful and the Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Beloved - Toni Morrison

Beowolf - Unknown

Bill Budd - Herman Melville

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

Black Boy - Richard Wright

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

Bless Me, Ultima -  Rudolfo A. Anaya

The Bluest Eye
- Toni Morrison

Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe

The Bostonians - Henry James

The Boy Who Lost His Face - Louis Sachar 

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson

Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding 

The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Candide - Voltaire

The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

The Chocolate War - Robert Cormier

Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Cold Comfort Farm
- Stella Gibbons

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 

The Confessions of St. Augustine - St. Augustine of Hippo

Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat - Alvin Schwartz

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

Curses, Hexes and Spells - Daniel Cohen

Cut - Patricia McCormick

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

A Day No Pigs Would Die - Robert Newton Peck

Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather

The Decameron
- Giovanni Boccaccio

Detour for Emmy
- Marilyn Reynolds

Don Quixote
- Miguel de Cervantes

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Robert Louis Stevenson

Dune - Frank Herbert

Earth's Children (series), Jean M Auel

The Exorcist
- William Peter Blatty 

Fade - Robert Cormier 

Family Secrets - Norma Klein

Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 

Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev

A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 

The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

Forever - Judy Blume

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand  

The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles

Germinal - Émile Zola

Go Ask Alice
- Anonymous

Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin 

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 

Grimm's Fairy Tales - Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm 

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift 

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien 

Howard's End - E.M. Forster

The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou 

In Our Time
- Ernest Hemingway 

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison 

James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl

Jazz - Toni Morrison 

Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy  

Jumper - Steven Gould 

The Jungle Books - Rudyard Kipling

Kaffir Boy - Mark Mathabane 

Kim - Rudyard Kipling 

The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper 

A Light in the Attic
- Shel Silverstein 


Light in August - William Faulkner 

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis 

The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe

Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad 

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien 

Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Main Street
- Sinclair Lewis


The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett 

Middlemarch - George Elliot

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Moby Dick - Herman Melville  

My Antonia - Willa Cather

My Brother Sam Is Dead - James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs

The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer

Native Son - Richard Wright  

O Pioneers! - Willa Cather 

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

On the Road
- Jack Kerouac 


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

One Thousand and One Nights (or Tales from the Arabian Nights) - Richard Francis Burton

Ordinary People - Judith Guest 

Orlando - Virginia Woolf 

Paradise Lost - John Milton

A Passage to India - E.M. Forster  

The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde

The Pilgrim's Progress
- John Bunyan 


Portrait of a Lady - Henry James 

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce 

Possession - A.S. Byatt 

Rebecca
- Daphne Du Maurier

The Red and the Black - Stendhal

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

A Room with a View - E.M. Forster 

Schindler's List - Thomas Keneally

The Sea Wolf - Jack London

The Secret History - Donna Tart

A Separate Peace - John Knowles

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 

Silas Marner - George Eliot  

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut  

Sleeping Beauty Trilogy - A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)

Sons and Lovers - D.H. Lawrence

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

Sophie's Choice - William Styron

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner 

A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

Summer of My German Soldier - Bette Greene

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway 

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe

The Talisman - Sir Walter Scott

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Their Eyes are Watching God
- Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

The Time Machine
- H.G. Wells

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf  

Tom Jones - Henry Fielding

A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 

Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller  

Ulysses - James Joyce  

Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery

The Wasp Factory
- Iain Banks 

Watership Down - Richard Adams

The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler

We All Fall Down - Robert Cormier  

What My Mother Doesn't Know - Sonya Sones

Where Angels Fear to Tread - E.M. Forster 

White Noise - Don DeLillo 

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys  

The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

The Wings of the Dove - Henry James  

The Wish Giver - Bill Brittain

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence 

The World According to Garp - John Irving

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle

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