Great Books List 2011-2012
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"Read the best books first, or you may not
have a chance to read them at all" -- Thoreau
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1.
Biblical Authors |
(c.900 b.c.– c.100 a.d.) |
The Bible |
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2.
Homer |
(8th century b.c.) |
The Iliad (Lattimore trans., U. of Chicago) |
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3.
Homer |
(8th century b.c.) |
The Odyssey (Fitzgerald trans., Vintage) |
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4.
Lao Tzu |
(6th century b.c.) |
Tao Te Ching |
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5.
Aeschylus |
(c.525-456 b.c.) |
Greek Tragedies (3 vols, U. of Chicago ed.) |
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6.
Sophocles |
(c.496-406 b.c.) |
(see Aeschulus) |
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7.
Euripides |
(c.485-406 b.c.) |
(see Aeschulus) |
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8.
Thucydides |
(c.460-c.400) |
The Peloponnesian War |
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9.
Plato |
(c.429-347 b.c.) |
The Republic (Larson trans., Harlan Davidson) |
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10.
Aristotle |
(384-322 b.c.) |
Nicomachean Ethics |
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11.
Virgil |
(70-19 b.c.) |
The Aeneid (Knox/Fagles trans.) |
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12.
Ovid |
(43 b.c.-17 a.d.) |
Metamorphoses (Mandelbaum trans.) |
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13.
Augustine |
(354-430) |
Confessions |
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14.
(anonymous) |
(13th cent.) |
Njal’s Saga |
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15.
Jelaluddin Rumi |
(1207- 1273) |
The Essential Rumi |
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16.
Dante |
(1265-1321) |
The Divine Comedy
(3 vols., Everyman’s Lib. 3-in-1) |
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17.
Giovanni Boccaccio |
(1313-1375) |
The Decameron |
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18.
Geoffrey Chaucer |
(c.1343-1400) |
The Canterbury Tales (Penguin,
Cogill trans.) |
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19.
Niccolò Machiavelli |
(1469-1527) |
The Prince |
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20.
Thomas More |
(1478-1535) |
Utopia |
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21.
François Rabelais |
(c.1495-1553) |
Gargantua and Pantagruel |
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22.
Miguel de Cervantes |
(1547-1616) |
Don Quixote (Harper,
Grossman trans.) |
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23.
William Shakespeare |
(1564-1616) |
The Riverside Shakespeare |
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24.
John Milton |
(1608-1674) |
Paradise Lost |
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25.
Jonathan Swift |
(1667-1745) |
Gulliver’s Travels |
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26.
Voltaire |
(1694-1778) |
Candide |
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27.
Henry Fielding |
(1707-1754) |
Tom Jones |
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28.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
(1712-1778) |
The Confessions |
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29.
Laurence Sterne |
(1713-1768) |
Tristram Shandy |
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30.
Johann von Goethe |
(1749-1832) |
Faust (Part I) (Oxford World's Classic) |
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31.
Mary Wollstonecraft |
(1759-1797) |
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman |
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32.
Jane Austen |
(1775-1817) |
Pride and Prejudice |
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33.
Stendhal |
(1783-1842) |
The Red and the Black |
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34.
Mary Shelley |
(1797-1851) |
Frankenstein |
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35.
John Stuart Mill |
(1806-1873) |
On Liberty |
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36.
Charles Dickens |
(1812-1870) |
David Copperfield |
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37.
Charles Dickens |
(1812-1870) |
Bleak House |
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38.
Charlotte Brontë |
(1816-1855) |
Jane Eyre |
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39.
Henry David Thoreau |
(1817-1862) |
Walden |
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40.
Emily Brontë |
(1818-1848) |
Wuthering Heights |
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41.
Ivan Turgenev |
(1818-1883) |
Fathers and Sons |
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42.
George Eliot |
(1819-1880) |
Middlemarch |
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43.
Herman Melville |
(1819-1891) |
Moby Dick |
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44.
Walt Whitman |
(1819-1892) |
Leaves of Grass |
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45.
Gustave Flaubert |
(1821-1880) |
Madame Bovary |
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46.
Fyodor Dostoevsky |
(1821-1881) |
Crime and Punishment ** |
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47.
Fyodor Dostoevsky |
(1821-1881) |
The Brothers Karamazov
** |
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48.
Henrik Ibsen |
(1828-1906) |
Four Major Plays (Vol. 1, Signet) |
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49.
Leo Tolstoy |
(1828-1910) |
War and Peace ** |
** for all four
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy books :
get the Pevear
and Volokhonsky translations |
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50.
Leo Tolstoy |
(1828-1910) |
Anna Karenina ** |
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51.
Mark Twain |
(1835-1910) |
Huckleberry Finn |
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52.
Thomas Hardy |
(1840-1928) |
Tess of the D’Urbervilles |
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53.
William James |
(1842-1910) |
Varieties of Religious Experience |
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54.
Henry James |
(1843-1916) |
The Portrait of a Lady |
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55.
Friedrich Nietzsche |
(1844-1900) |
The Basic Writings of Nietzsche
(RH Modern Lib) |
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56.
Sigmund Freud |
(1856-1939) |
Civilization and Its Discontents |
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57.
Joseph Conrad |
(1857-1924) |
Heart of Darkness |
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58.
Knut Hamsun |
(1859-1952) |
Hunger |
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59.
Anton Chekhov |
(1860-1904) |
Plays |
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60.
André Gide |
(1869-1951) |
The Immoralist |
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61.
Marcel Proust |
(1871-1922) |
Swann’s Way |
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62.
Rainer Maria Rilke |
(1875-1926) |
Letters to a Young Poet |
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63.
Thomas Mann |
(1875-1955) |
Death in Venice |
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64.
Thomas Mann |
(1875-1955) |
The Magic Mountain |
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65.
E.M. Forster |
(1879-1970) |
Howard's End |
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66.
James Joyce |
(1882-1941) |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man |
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67.
James Joyce |
(1882-1941) |
Ulysses |
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68.
Virginia Woolf |
(1882-1941) |
To the Lighthouse |
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69.
Franz Kafka |
(1883-1924) |
The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics ed.) |
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70.
Isak Dinesen |
(1885-1962) |
Seven Gothic Tales |
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71.
D.H. Lawrence |
(1885-1930) |
Women in Love |
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72.
Mikhail Bulgakov |
(1891-1940) |
The Master and Margarita
(** Pevear and Vol trans) |
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73.
F. Scott Fitzgerald |
(1896-1940) |
The Great Gatsby |
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74.
William Faulkner |
(1897-1962) |
Light in August |
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75.
Ernest Hemingway |
(1899-1961) |
For Whom the Bell Tolls |
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76.
Vladimir Nabokov |
(1899-1977) |
Lolita |
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77.
Jorge Luis Borges |
(1899-1986) |
Collected Fictions |
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78.
Marguerite Yourcenar |
(1903-1987) |
Memoirs of Hadrian |
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79.
Samuel Beckett |
(1906-1989) |
Endgame |
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80.
Albert Camus |
(1913-1960) |
The Plague |
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81.
Robertson Davies |
(1913-1995) |
The Cornish Trilogy |
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82.
Ralph Ellison |
(1914-1994) |
Invisible Man |
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83.
Iris Murdoch |
(1919-1999) |
The Sea, the Sea |
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84.
Jose Saramago |
(1922-2010) |
Blindness |
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85.
Italo Calvino |
(1923-1985) |
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler |
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86.
Nadine Gordimer |
(1923- ) |
Jump (Short Stories) |
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87.
Flannery O’Connor |
(1925-1964) |
The Complete Stories |
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88.
John Fowles |
(1926- ) |
The Magus |
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89.
Gabriel García Márquez |
(1928- ) |
One Hundred Years of Solitude |
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90.
Milan Kundera |
(1929- ) |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being |
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91.
Chinua Achebe |
(1930- ) |
Things Fall Apart |
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92.
Toni Morrison |
(1931- ) |
The Bluest Eye |
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93.
Tom Stoppard |
(1937- ) |
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead |
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94.
Margaret Atwood |
(1939- ) |
The Blind Assassin |
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| Isabel Allende | (1942- | The House of the Spirits (rec matt reeve) | |
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95.
Salman Rushdie |
(1947- ) |
Midnight’s Children |
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96.
Ian
McEwan |
(1948- ) |
Atonement |
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97.
Louise Erdrich |
(1954- ) |
Love Medicine |
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98.
Kazuo Ishiguro |
(1954- ) |
The Remains of the Day |
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99.
Czeslaw Milosz, ed. |
(1911- ) |
A Book of Luminous things |
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100.
Bly, Hillman and
Meade, eds. |
(1926- ) |
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart |
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