501 Books – A Reading List

Since 2010 I use this list to broaden my reading. The ones I’ve read are in bold. Looking for some of the out-of-copyright ones as ebooks? Try iBooks and Open Culture.

So far, I have read 157 of these books.

“Above the Dark Circus”, Hugh Walpole
“The Accidental Tourist”, Anne Tyler
“The Accursed Kings”, Druon
“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, Mark Twain
“The Age of Cathedrals”, Georges Duby
“The Alexandria Quartet”, Lawerence Durrell
“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Lewis Carroll
“Among the Believers: an Islamic Journey”, VS Naipaul
“And to think That I saw it on Mulberry Street”, Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Theodor Seuss Geisel)
“Andre, Journals”, Gide
“An Angel at my Table”, Frame
“Annals of Imperial Rome”, Tacitus (in my to be read pile as an ebook)
“Anne of Green Gables”, L.M. Montgomery
“Arctic Dreams”, Lopez
“At the Back of the North Wind”, MacDonald
“Austerlitz”, W.G. Sebald
“Autobiographies”, Yeats
“Autobiography of a Yogi”, Yogananda
“The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini”, Cellini
“Auto-da-Fe”, Canetti
“Barchester Towers” Anthony Trollope
“Barney’s Version” Richler
“The Beast Must Die”, Blake
“Beloved”, Toni Morrison
“Berlin – the Downfall”, Beevor
“Berlin Alexanderplatz”, Doblin
“Berlin Stories”, Isherwoord
“The Big Clock”, Fearing
“Birdsong”, Sebastien Faulks
“Black Beauty”, Anna Sewell
“Black Like Me”, Griffin
“The Blind Owl”, Hedayat
“Bliss and Other Stories”, Mansfield
“Blood Sport”, Francis
“The Bloody Chamber”, Carter
“The Blue Flower”, Penelope Fitzgerald
“Bones and Silence”, Hill
“Bonjour Tristesse”, Sagan
“The Book of Margary Kempe”, Kempe
“Born Victim”, Waugh
“Borrowed Time”, Monette
“Boy:Tales of the Childhood”, Roald Dahl
“Brain Wave”, Anderson
“Brave New World”, Adlous Huxley
“The Bride War Black”, Woolrich
“Brideshead Revisisted”, Waugh
“Brief Lives”, Aubrey
“Cairo Trilogy”, Mahfouz
“Cakes and Ale” Maugham
“Candide or Optimism”, Voltaire
“The Canterbury Tales”, Geoffrey Chaucer
“A Canticle for Liebowitz”, Miller
“Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”, Louis de Bernieres
“The Castle of Otranto”, Walpole
“Catcher in the Rye”, JD Salinger
“Changing Places”, David Lodge
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, Roald Dahl
“Charlotte’s Web” EB White
“Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life”, Anderson
“The Cheese and The Worms”, Ginsberg
“Cheri”, Colette
“Childhood, Youth and Exile”, Herzen
“Children’s and Household Tales”, Brothers Grimm
“The Chinese Orange Mystery”, Ellery Queen
“Chinese Shadows”, Leys
“A Christmas Carol”, Charles Dickens
“Citizens – A Chronicle of the French Revolution”, Schama
“City”, Sheckley
“The Civilization of tte Rennaissance in Italy”, Burckhardt
“Clarrissa”, Richardson
“A Clockwork Orange”, Burgess
“Cold Heaven”, Moore
“The Collected Stories”, Chekhov
“Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire”, Ferguson
“The Colour of Magic”, Terry Pratchett
“The Complete Nonsense Book”, Edward Lear
“Confessions”, Saint Augustine
“Confessions”, Jean Jacques Rousseau
“The Conscience of Zeno”, Svevo
“The Corrections”, Franzen
“Cosmiconmics”, Calvino
“Couples”, John Updike
“Crime and Punishment”, Dostoyevsky
“The Cruise of the Snark”, Jack London
“The Crusades through Arab Eyes”, Maalouf
“The Crystal World”, Ballard
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, Haddon
“Daily Life in Ancient Rome”, Carcopino
“The Danube”, Magris
“The Daughter of Time”, Tey
“The Day of the Triffids”, Wyndham
“De Profundis”, Oscar Wilde
“Dead Man’s Chest: Travels after Robert Louis Stevenson”, Nicholas Rankin
“Deadlock”, Sara Paretsky
“Death in the Wrong Room”, Gilbert
“Death of my Aunt”, Kitchin
“Declares Pereira”, Tabucchi
“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Edward Gibbon
“The Decline of the West”, Spengler
“Defeat of the Spanish Armada”, Mattingly
“The Demolished Man”, Bester
“Destinations: Esaays from Rolling Stone”, Morris
“Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly”, Bardin
“Diaries 1919-23″, Kafka
“Diary”, Samuel Pepys
“The Diary of Alice James”, James
“The Diary of a Young Girl”, Anne Frank
“Disgrace”, J.M. Coetzee
“A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, Tuchman
“The Diviners”, Laurence
“Dr. Dolittle”, Lofting
“Dona Flor and her Two Husbands”, Amado
“Donovan’s Brain”, Siodmak
“Double Indemnity”, James M. Cain
“Dover One”, Porter
“Down and Out in Paris and London”, George Orwell
“Dracula”, Bram Stoker
“Dune”, Frank Herbert
“Dwellers in the Mirage”, Merritt
“84 Charing Cross Road”, Helene Hanff
“Embers”, Marai
“Emil and the Detectives”, Koostner
“The End of History and the Last Man”, Fukuyama
“Enduring Love”, McEwan
“The Engineer of Human Souls”, Skvorecky
“The English Patient”, Ondaatje
“Eothan”, Kinglake
“The Epic of Gilgamesh”, Anon
“Erewhon”, Samuel Butler
“The Executioner’s Song”, Mailer
“Fairy Tales”, Hans Christian Andersen
“Fairy Tales”, Charles Perrault
“Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure”, John Cleland
“Farewell, my Lovely”, Chandler
“The Fatal Shore”, Hughes
“Father and Son, a Study of Two Temperaments”, Edmund Gosse
“Felicia’s Journey”, William Trevor
“The Fellowship of the Ring”, JRR Tolkien
“FerdyDurke”, Gombrowicz
“Ficciones”, Borges
“Fifth Business”, Davies
“The File on H”, Kadare
“Final Curtain”, Ngaio Marsh
“A Fine Balance”, Mistry
“Five Children and It”, E Nesbit
“Flesh in the Age of Reason”, Porter
“Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus”, Mary Shelley
“From the Fifteenth District”, Gallant
“Frozen Desire: The Meaning of Money”, Buchan
“Gaudy Night”, Sayers
“Giovanni’s Room”, Baldwin
“The Glass Bead Game”, Hesse
“The Glass-sided Ants’ Nest”, Dickinson
“God’s First Love”, Heer
“God’s Grace”, Malamud
“Golden Earth: Travels in Burma”, Lewis
“The Golden Notebook”, Doris Lessing
“The Golem”, Singer
“A Good Man is Hard to Find”, O’Connor
“The Good Soldier”, Ford Madox Ford
“The Gormenghast Trilogy”, Mervyn Peake
“The Grapes of Wrath”, John Steinbeck
“The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald
“The Great Railway Bazaar”, Paul Theroux
“The Green Child”, Reed
“A Grief Observed”, CS Lewis
“The Group”, McCarthy
“Gulliver’s Travels”, Jonathon Swift
“Hadrian the Seventh”, Rolfe
“Hamlet, Revenge!”, Innes
“The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood
“The Happy Prince and Other Tales”, Oscar Wilde
“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, JK Rowling (note: it’s Sorcerer’s Stone in America)
“The Haunted Man”, Charles Dickens
“He Who Whispers”, Carr
“The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”, McCullers
“Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad
“Heidi”, Spyri
“Herzog”, Bellow
“A High Wind in Jamaica”, Hughes
“Hiroshima”, Hersey
“Histories”, Heredotus
“The History of Tom Jones”, Fielding
“A History of Warfare”, Keegan
“The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Douglas Adams
“Hitler and Stalin – Parallel Lives”, Bullock
“The Holocaust – a Jewish Tradegy”, Gilbert
“The Horse’s Mouth”, Carey
“Hothouse”, Aldiss
“The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“The Hour of Our Death”, Aries
“A House and its Head”, Compton-Burnett
“House for Mr Biswas”, Naipaul
“The House of Mirth”, Edith Wharton (in TBR pile)
“How Like an Angel”, Millar
“Howard’s End”, EM Forster (I may have read this? check)
“The Human Comedy”, Saroyan
“The Human Stain”, Roth
“One Hundred Years of Solitude”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“Hunger”, Hamsun
“I am Legend”, Richard Matheson
“I, Robot”, Issac Asimov
“I will bear Witness”, Klemperer
“If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller”, Calvino
“Illiad”, Homer
“An Imaginary Life”, Malouf
“In the Castle of my Skin”, Lamming
“In the Last Analysis”, Cross
“In Patagonia”, Chatwin
“In Praise of Older Women”, Vizinczey
“In Search of Lost Time”, Proust
“Interview with a Vampire”, Anne Rice
“Into the Heart of Borneo”, O’Hanlon
“The Invention of More!”, Casares
“The Inverted World”, Priest
“Islam in History”, Bernard Lewis
“The Island of Dr. Moreau”, HG Wells
“Islandia”, Austen Tappan Wright (utopia novel)
“It”, Stephen King (in TBR pile)
“Jacob Two – Two Meets the Hooded Fang”, Richler
“Jane Eyre”, Charlotte Bronte
“Journal Intime”, Henri-Frédéric Amiel (Gutenberg Project – https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8545/8545-h/8545-h.htm)
“Journal of a Solitude”, Sarton
“Journal of Katherine Mansfield”, Mansfield
“Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile”, Speke
“Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, Jules Verne
“Journey to the End of the Night”, Celine
“Journey to the Hebrides”, Johnson and Boswell
“Jude the Obscure”, Thomas Hardy
“A Judgement in Stone”, Ruth Rendell
“July’s People”, Gordimer
“Just So Stories”, Rudyard Kipling
“Kim”, Rudyard Kipling
“The King of the Golden River”, Ruskin
“King Solomon’s Mines”, H. Rider Haggard
“The Kingdom of this World”, Carpentier
“Kon Tiki”, Heyerdahl
“La Bete Humaine”, Zola (“The Human Beast”)
“La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West”, Parkman
“Lady Audley’s Secret”, Braddon
“L’Amant”, Durse (“The Lover”)
“The Last Detective”, Lovesey
“Last Exit to Brooklyn”, Selby
“Last and First Men”, Stapledon
“The Last Place on Earth”, Huntford
“The Last Unicorn”, Beagle
“The Laughing Policeman”, Sjowall and Wahloo
“The Laxian Key”, Simak
“Le Grand Meaulnes”, Alain-Fournien
“Left Hand of Darkness”, Ursula K. LeGuin
“The Leopard”, Tomasi di Lampedusa
“Les Miserables”, Victor Hugo
“Lest Darkness Fall”, Campo
“Letters”, Pliny the Younger
“Leviathan and the Air Pump”, Shapin
“Life of Pi”, Martel
“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, C.S. Lewis
“The Little Prince”, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“Little Women”, Louisa May Alcott
“Lolita”, Nabokov
“London – The Biography”, Peter Ackroyd
“Lord of the Flies”, William Golding
“Lost Horizon”, Hilton
“Madam Bovary”, Flaubert
“The Magic Mountain”, Mann
“The Magician of Lublin”, Singer
“Malice Aforethought”, Iles
“The Man in the Net”, Quentin
“The Man who Killed Himself”, Symons
“The Man who Loved Children”, Stead
“The Man who was Thursday”, G.K. Chesterton
“The Martian Chronicles”, Ray Bradbury
“Mary Poppins”, P.L. Travers
“The Master and Margarita”, Bulgakov
“The Master”, Toibin
“Medieval Cities: Their Origin and the Revival of Trade”, Pirenne
“The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Reign of Phillip II”, Braudel
“Memoirs”, Neruda
“Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter”, De Beauvoir
“Memoirs of Hadrian”, Yourcenar
“Memories, Dreams, Reflections”, Jung
“The Messiah of Stockholm”, Ozick
“Middlemarch: A study in Provincial Life”, Eliot
“Millennium”, Ferdinandez-Armesto
“The Misfortunes of Sophie”, Segur
“Miss Smilla Feeling for Snow”, Peter Hoeg
“Mr Hire’s Engagement”, Simenon
“Mr Weston’s Good Wine”, Powys
“Moby-Dick or The Whale”, Herman Melville
“The Moonstone”, Wilkie Collins
“More than Human”, Theodore Sturgeon
“More work for the Undertaker”, Allingham
“The Moving Toyshop”, Edmund Crispin
“The Murder of Roger Ackyroyd”, Agatha Christie
“The Murder Room”, James
“My Family and Other Animals”, Laurence Durrell
“My Journey to Lhasa”, David-Neel
“My Left Foot”, Christie Brown
“My Place”, Morgan
“The Mystery of the Yellow Room”, Leroux
“Nadja”, Breton
“The Naked Heart”, Gay
“The Naked Lunch”, Burroughs
“The Name of the Rose”, Umberto Eco
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”, Edgar Allan Poe
“The Nephew”, Purdy
“Neuromancer”, Gibson
“Never Cry Wolf”, Mowat
“Neverending Story”, Ende
“The New York Trilogy”, Auster
“1984”, George Orwell
“No orchids for Miss Blandish”, Chase
“Nobody’s Boy”, Malot
“North and South”, Elizabeth Gaskell
“Northern Lights”, Philip Pullman
“Old Goriot”, Honoré de Balzac
“The Old Man and the Sea”, Ernest Hemingway
“On Fiji Islands”, Wright
“On the Narrow Road to the Deep North”, Downer
“Once were Warriors”, Duff
“Oranges are not the Only Fruit”, Winterson
“The Origins of the Second World War”, Taylor
“The Ornament of the World”, Menocal
“Oscar and Lucinda”, Carey
“Our Lady of the Flowers”, Genet
“Our Mutual Friend”, Charles Dickens
“Out of the Silent Planet”, Lewis
“The Outsider”, Camus
“An Oxford Tragedy”, Masterman
“Pagans and Christians”, Fox
“The Palm-Wine Drinkard”, Tutuola
“Pandemonium”, Jennings
“Parallel Lives”, Plutarch
“Passage to India”, E.M. Forester
“Paula”, Allende
“Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire”, Morris
“Pedro Paramo”, Rulfo
“Pentimento”, Hellman
“A People’s History of the United States”, Zinn
“Perfume”, Suskind
“The Periodic Table”, Primo Levi
“Peter Pan”, J.M. Barrie
“The Picture of Dorian Gray”, Oscar Wilde
“The Pilgrim’s Progress”, Bunyan (in my ebook TBR pile)
“A Pin to See the Peep-Show”, Jesse
“Pinocchio”, Collodi
“Pippi Longstocking”, Lindgren
“Planet of the Apes”, Boulle
“The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century”, Brewer
“Poetry and Truth: From my Own Life”, Goethe
“The Poisoned Chocolates Case”, Berkeley
“The Portrait of a Lady”, Henry James
“Possession”, A.S. Byatt
“Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas”, Machado
“The Power and the Glory”, Greene
“Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”, Muriel Spark
“The Progress of Love”, Munro
“Psycho”, Bloch
“The Purple Land”, Hudson
“The Pursuit of Love”, Nancy Mitford
“Quiet as a Nun”, Fraser
“The Radetzky March”, Roth
“A Rage in Harlem”, Himes
“Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books”, Nafisi
“Rebecca”, Daphe Du Maurier
“Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm”, Wiggin
“The Red and the Black”, Stendhal
“The Red Box”, Stout
“A Red Death”, Mosley
“Red Harvest”, Hammett
“The Red House Mystery”, A.A. Milne
“Regeneration Trilogy”, Barker
“The Remains of the Day”, Ishiguro
“Ringworld”, Niven
“Rites of Spring”, Eksteins
“The Road to Oxiana”, Byron
“Roads to Santiago”, Nooteboom
“Robinson Crusoe”, Daniel Defoe
“Rose at Ten”, Denevi
“A Rose for Winter”, Lee
“Running in the Family”, Ondaatje
“Sailing Alone Around the World”, Joshua Slocum
“The Satanic Verses”, Salman Rushdie
“The Scarlet Letter”, Nathanial Hawthorne
“The Scorpion Fish”, Bouvier
“The Sea of Fertility”, Mishima
“The Sea, The Sea”, Murdoch
“The Seasick Whale”, Kishon
“The Secret Garden”, Elisaabeth Burnett
“Sense and Sensibility”, Jane Austen
“Seven Gothic Tales”, Dinesen
“The Seven Per Cent Solution”, Meyer
“Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, T.E. Lawrence (in TBR pile)
“The Seven Storey Mountain”, Merton
“Seven Years in Tibet”, Heinrick Harrer
“The Sheep Look Up”, Brunner
“Shikasta”, Lessing
“A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies”, Casas
“Short Stories”, Saki
“A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush”, Eric Newby
“A Sicilian Romance”, Ann Radcliffe
“Stan”, Van Vogt
“Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children’s Crusade”, Kurt Vonnegut
“The Sleeping-Car Murders”, Sébastien Japrisot
“The Snow Leopard”, Peter Matthiessen
“Solaris”, Lem
“Soldiers of Salamis”, Cercas
“Sophie’s Choice”, Styron
“Sophie’s World”, Jostein Gaarder
“The Sorrows of Young Werther”, Goethe
“The Sound and the Fury”, Faulkner
“Southern Cross to Pole Star”, Tschiffely
“Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited”, Nabokov
“The Spy who Came in from the Cold”, Le Carre
“Staying On”, Scott
“The Steam Pig”, McClure
“The Stepford Wives”, Levin
“The Stories of John Cheever”, Cheever
“The Story of English”, McCrum
“The Story of My Life”, Helen Keller
“Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, Stevenson
“Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder”, De Mille
“Stranger in a Strange Land”, Heinlein
“The Stripping of the Altars”, Duffy
“Suicide Excepted”, Hare
“The Sunday Woman”, Fruttero
“Surfacing”, Atwood
“Swallows and Amazons”, Ransome
“The Sweet Heather”, Banks
“The Sword in the Stone”, White
“Take a Girl Like You”, Amis
“The Tale of Peter Rabbit”, Beatrix Potter
“Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque”, Poe
“Tales of Odessa”, Babel
“Things Fall Apart”, Achebe
“The Third Policeman”, Flann O’Brian
“The Thousand and One Nights”, anonymous
“Three Men in a Boat”, Jerome K Jerome
“The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich”, Dick
“Thus was Adonis Murdered”, Caudwell
“The Time of the Hero”, Llosa
“The Time Traders”, Norton
“The Tin Drum”, Grass
“To the Lighthouse”, Virgina Wolfe
“To Your Scattered Bodies Go”, Farmer
“Tom’s Midnight Garden”, Pearce
“The Towars of Trebizond”, Macauley
“A Tramp Abroad”, Mark Twain
“The Traveller’s Tree”, Fermor
“Travels”, Battuta
“The Travels”, Marco Polo
“Travels with Charley”, Steinbeck
“Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes”, Robert Louis Stevenson
“Treasure Island”, Stevenson
“Trent’s Last Case”, Bentley
“The Trial”, Kafka
“Trial and Error”, Berkeley
“The Trial of Socrates”, Stone
“Two Planets”, Lasswitz
“2001: A Space Odyssey”, Arthur C. Clarke
“Ulysses”, James Joyce
“The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, Kundera
“Underworld”, Delillo
“Unless”, Shields
“Unnatural Exposure”, Patricia Cornwell
“Unquiet Grave: A World Cycle by Palinurus”, Connolly
“Utopia”, More
“The Valley of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels”, Stark
“Vanity Fair”, William Makepeace Thackeray
“Vathek: An Arabian Tale”, Beckford
“Vendetta”, Michael Dibdin
“The Vicar of Wakefield”, Oliver Goldsmith
“Victory”, Conrad
“Video Night in Kathmandu”, Iyer
“Voss”, White
“Voyage on HMS Beagle”, Charles Darwin
“Walden; or Life in the Woods”, Henry David Thoreau
“The War of the Buttons”, Pergaud
“War and Peace” Leo Tolstoy
“The Wars”, Findley
“Waverley”, Walter Scott
“Ways of Escape”, Greene
“The Weirdstone of Brisingamen”, Garner
“What we Talk About when we Talk about Love”, Carver
“Where the Jackals Howl”, Oz
“Where the Wild Things Are”, Sendak
“The White Hotel”, Thomas
“Who Goes There”, Campbell
“Wildlife”, Ford
“The Wind in the Willows”, Kenneth Grahame
“Winesburg, Ohio”, Anderson
“Winnie-the-Pooh”, A.A. Milne
“The Woman in White”, Wilkie Collins
“Women in Love”, D.H. Lawrence
“The Women’s History of the World”, Miles
“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, Baum (in to be read pile on ipad)
“Words”, Sartre
“The World According to Garp”, John Irving
“The Wretched of the Earth”, Fanon
“A Wrinkle in Time”, L’Engle
“Wuthering Heights”, Emily Bronte