Tuesday 24 December 2019

1,000 Books: How Many Have You Read?

Shall we lay off the politics for a little bit? I know it's hard for those of you who, like me, don't have much substance beyond the patina of movement building and Westminster watching but even freaks like us need a break. And this is how I'm doing it.

About 10 years ago the Graun published its list of a thousand books you simply have to read if you're ever to pass muster at a liberal dining table. I reproduced said list here. Forward to now, I found this list knocking about the internets. This one is from one of those Thousand books you must read before you die things that have gone through multiple iterations and, I believe, it dates from 2016. So while the commentariat marvel at Boris Johnson's ability to recite sections of The Iliad by heart, let's consider more recent literature.

According to my memory, I've read 260 novels on this (allegedly canonical) list and have marked them off in bold. Not bad going, but room for improvement.

How many have you read?

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Arrow of God - Chinua Achebe
Blood and Guts in High School - Kathy Acker
Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
In the Heart of the Seas - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
Rashomon and Other Stories - Ryunosuke Akutagawa
The Regent’s Wife - Clarin Leopoldo Alas
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
Broad and Alien is the World - Ciro Alegria
Fantomas - Marcel Allain
Of Love and Shadow - Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon - Jorge Amado
Tent of Miracles - Jorge Amado
Cause for Alarm - Eric Ambler
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis
Money: A Suicide Note - Martin Amis
London Fields - Martin Amis
I’m Not Scared - Niccolo Ammaniti
Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand
The Commandant - Jessica Anderson
The Bridge on the Drina - Ivo Andric
Bosnian Chronicle Pb - Ivo Andric
Ashes and Diamonds - Jerzy Andrzejewski
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Thousand And One Nights - Anonymous
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - Anonymous
Lazarillo de Tormes - Anonymous
Fado Alexandrino - Antonio Lobo Antunes
The Golden Ass: The Transformations of Lucius - Apuleius
The Bells of Basel - Louis Aragon
Before Night Falls: A Memoir - Reinaldo Arenas
Deep Rivers - Jose Maria Arguedas
The Twilight Years - Sawak Ariyoshi
The Green Hat - Michael Arlen
I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
Foundation - Isaac Asimov
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - Machado de Assis
Dom Casmurro - MacHado De Assis
Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
Obabakoak: Stories from a Village - Bernardo Atxaga
Emma - Jane Austen
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
Moon Palace - Paul Auster
The Underdogs - Mariano Azuela
So Long a Letter - Mariama Ba
Go Tell It on the Mountain - James Baldwin
Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin
Crash - JG Ballard
Empire of the Sun - JG Ballard
Eugenie Grandet - Honore De Balzac
Old Goriot - Honore De Balzac
Lost Illusions - Honore De Balzac
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
The Sea  - John Banville
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barber
The Inferno - Henri Barbusse
Under Fire: The Story of a Squad - Henri Barbusse
Silk - Alessandro Baricco
Regeneration - Pat Barker
Nightwood - Djuna Barnes
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes
Flaubert’s Parrot - Julian Barnes
The Floating Opera - John Barth
Giles Goat-Boy - John Barth
The Dead Father - Donald Barthelme
Alamut - Vladimir Bartol
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis - Giorgio Bassani
Story of the Eye - Georges Bataille
The Abbot C - Georges Bataille
Blue of Noon - Georges Bataille
The House of Ulloa - Emilia Pardo Bazan
The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir
Jakob the Liar - Jurek Becker
Murphy - Samuel Beckett
Molloy - Samuel Beckett
Malone Dies - Samuel Beckett
Vathek - William Beckford
Borstal Boy - Brendan Behan
Oroonoko - Aphra Behn
Dangling Man - Saul Bellow
Herzog - Saul Bellow
Humboldt’s Gift - Saul Bellow
The Old Wives’ Tale - Arnold Bennett
G - John Berger
Under Satan’s Sun - Georges Bernanos
Extinction - Thomas Bernhard
Wittgenstein’s Nephew - Thomas Bernhard
Correction - Thomas Bernhard
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Death Sentence - Maurice Blanchot
Out of Africa - Karen Blixen
The Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
2666 - Robert Bolano
Billiards at Half-Past Nine - Heinrich Boll
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum - Heinrich Boll
Group Portrait with Lady - Heinrich Boll
Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen - Tadeusz Borowski
On Love - Alain de Botton
To the North - Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day - Elizabeth Bowen
Eva Trout, or Changing Scenes - Elizabeth Bowen
World’s End - TC Boyle
In Watermelon Sugar - Richard Brautigan
Willard and His Bowling Trophies - Richard Brautigan
Nadja - Andre Breton
Arcanum 17 - Andre Breton
The Lonely Girl - Edna O’Brien
A Dry White Season - Andre Brink
Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
Death of Virgil - Hermann Broch
The Guiltless - Hermann Broch
The Tenant at Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The 39 Steps - John Buchan
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Inside Mr Enderby - Anthony Burgess
Evelina - Fanny Burney
Camilla - Fanny Burney
Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Junky - William S Burroughs
Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
Erewhon - Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
The Tartar Steppe - Dino Buzzati
The Virgin in the Garden - AS Byatt
The Children’s Book - AS Byatt
The Postman Always Rings Twice - James M Cain
A House in the Uplands - Erskine Caldwell
The Path to the Spiders’ Nests - Italo Calvino
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
The Lusiad - Luis de Camoens
The Stranger - Albert Camus
The Plague - Albert Camus
The Rebel - Albert Camus
Auto-da-Fe - Elias Canetti
The War with the Newts - Karel Capek
Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
The Kingdom of This World - Alejo Carpentier
The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carre
Smiley’s People - John le Carre
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Alice Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll
Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter
Bebo’s Girl - Carlo Cassola
The Conquest of New Spain - Bernal Diaz del Castillo
Solitude - Victor Catala
The Professor’s House - Willa Cather
All Soul’s Day - Nooteboom Cees
Journey to the Alcarria - Camilo Jose Cela
The Hive - Camilo Jose Cela
Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Soldiers of Salami - Javier Cercas
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes
The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda - Miguel de Cervantes
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
Monkey - Wu Ch’eng-en
The Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers
The Awakening - Kate Chopin
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
On the Heights of Despair - EM Cioran
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke
The Sorrow of Belgium - Hugo Claus
Fanny Hill - John Cleland
The Holy Terrors - Jean Cocteau
What a Carve Up! - Jonathan Coe
Veronika Decides to Die - Paulo Coehlo
The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation - Paulo Coehlo
Life and Times of Michael K - JM Coetzee
Disgrace - JM Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians - JM Coetzee
In the Heart of the Country - JM Coetzee
Dusklands - JM Coetzee
Belle du Seigneur - Albert Cohen
Claudine’s House - Colette
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
The Lion of Flanders - Hendrik Conscience
The Last of the Mohicans - James Fenimore Cooper
Pricksongs & Descants: Fictions - Robert Coover
Eline Vere - Louis Couperus
Arcadia - Jim Crace
The Enormous Room - EE Cummings
The Hours - Michael Cunningham
The Child of Pleasure - Gabriele D’Annunzio
Disappearance - David Dabydeen
Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga
Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
The End of the Story - Lydia Davis
The Twins - Tessa De Loo
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
The Heretic - Miguel Deliber
White Noise - Don DeLillo
Mao II - Don DeLillo
Underworld - Don DeLillo
The History of Thomas of Reading - Thomas Deloney
Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Deoblin
Clear Light of Day - Anita Desai
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
All About H Hatterr - GV Desani
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip Dick
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Jacques the Fatalist - Denis Diderot
The Nun - Denis Diderot
Rameau’s Nephew - Denis Diderot
Democracy - Joan Didion
Play It As It Lay - Joan Didion
The Bitter Glass - Eilis Dillon
Ragtime - EL Doctorow
The Book of Daniel - EL Doctorow
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
Asphodel - Hilda Doolittle
Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Possessed - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fool’s Gold - Maro Douka
Uncle Petros and Goldbach’s Conjecture - Apostolos Doxiadis
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Radiant Way - Margaret Drabble
S: A Novel about the Balkans - Slavenka Drakulic
Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Hallucinating Foucault - Patricia Duncker
The Ravishing of Lol V Stein - Marguerite Duras
The Vice-Consul - Marguerite Duras
The Lover - Marguerite Duras
Justine - Lawrence Durrell
The Judge and His Hangman - Friedrich Durrenmatt
A World for Julius - Alfredo Bryce Echenique
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Foucault’s Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Castle Rackrent - Maria Edgeworth
The Quest - Frederik van Eeden
A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan
Life of a Good-For-Nothing - Joseph Von Eichendorff
Adam Bede - George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
Silas Marner - George Eliot
Middlemarch - George Eliot
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy
Cheese - Willem Elsschot
Silence - Shusaku Endo
Deep River - Shusaku Endo
The Book About Blance and Marie - Per Olov Enquist
The Gathering - Anne Enright
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equian - Olaudah Equiano
Love Medicine - Louise Erdrich
Like Water for Chocolate - Laura Esquivel
Celestial Harmonies - Peter Esterhazy
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
Under the Skin - Michael Faber
Astradeni - Eugenia Fakinou
The Singapore Grip - JG Farrell
The Siege of Krishnapur - JG Farrell
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Troubling Love - Elena Ferrante
Joseph Andrews - Henry Fielding
Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
The Wars - Timothy Findley
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Sentimental Education - Gustave Flaubert
Bouvard and Pecuchet - Gustave Flaubert
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
Effi Briest - Theodor Fontane
Der Stechlin - Theodor Fontane
The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
Parade’s End - Ford Madox Ford
A Room with a View - EM Forster
Howards End - EM Forster
A Passage to India - EM Forster
The Magus - John Fowles
The French Lieutenant’s Woman - John Fowles
Faces in the Water - Janet Frame
Thais - Anatole France
Blind Side of the Heart - Julia Franck
Freedom - Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
Simon and the Oaks - Marianne Fredriksson
Hideous Kinky - Esther Freud
I’m Not Stiller - Max Frisch
Homo Faber: A Report - Max Frisch
The Description of the Life of a Strange Vagabond Named - Melchoir Sternfels von Fuchshaim
The Death of Artemio Cruz - Carlos Fuentes
The Recognitions - William Gaddis
The Back Room - Carmen Martin Gaite
Compassion - Benito Perez Galdos
Memory of Fire - Eduardo Galeano
The Trick is to Keep Breathing - Janice Galloway
The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy
Eclipse of the Crescent Moon - Geza Garbonyi
The Roots of Heaven - Romain Gary
Promise at Dawn - Romain Gary
Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
Legend - David Gemmell
Triple Mirror of the Self - Zulfikar Ghose
The Shadow Lines - Amitav Ghosh
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Neuromancer - William Gibson
The Fruits of the Earth - Andre Gide
The Immoralist - Andre Gide
Strait is the Gate - Andre Gide
The Counterfeiters - Andre Gide
New Grub Street - George Gissing
Caleb Williams - William Godwin
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Elective Affinities - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Nose - Nikolai Gogol
Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Vicar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith
Ferdydurke - Witold Gombrowicz
Oblomov - Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov
July’s People - Nadine Gordimer
Mother - Maxim Gorky
The Artamonov Business - Maxim Gorky
Burger’s Daughter - Nadine Gorminder
Marks of Identity - Juan Goytisolo
The Opposing Shore - Julien Gracq
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
Cat and Mouse - Gunter Grass
Dog Years - Gunter Grass
Lanark - Alasdair Gray
Blindness - Henry Green
Living - Henry Green
Loving - Henry Green
Back - Henry Green
Brighton Rock - Graham Greene
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
The Honorary Consul - Graham Greene
The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
Three Kingdoms - Luo Guanzhong
Memories of Rain - Sunetra Gupta
Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Gutierrez
Forever a Stranger and Other Stories - Hella S Haasse
King Solomon’s Mines - H Rider Haggard
The Well of Loneliness - Radclyffe Hall
The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man - Dashiell Hammett
Hunger - Knut Hamsun
Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
The Afternoon of a Writer - Peter Handke
The Left-Handed Woman - Peter Handke
Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach
Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
The Go-Between - LP Hartley
The Good Soldier Svejk - Jaroslav Hasek
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Love in Excess; or, The Fatal Enquiry - Eliza Fowler Haywood
A Question of Power - Bessie Head
The First Garden - Anne Hebert
The Blind Owl - Sadegh Hedayat
Ancestral Voices - Etienne Van Heerden
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Margot and the Angels - Kristien Hemmerechts
Nowhere Man - Aleksander Hemon
Reasons to Live - Amy Hempel
Martin Fierro - Jose Hernandez
Dispatches - Michael Herr
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse
The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
Camera Obscura - Hildebrand
Blind Man with a Pistol - Chester Himes
Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines
The House on the Borderland - William Hope Hodgson
Smilla’s Sense of Snow ~ Peter Høeg
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr - ETA Hoffmann
The Parable of the Blind - Gert Hofmann
Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg
Hyperion - Friedrich Holderlin
The Swimming-Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
The Cathedral - Oles Honchar
Whatever - Michel Houellebecq
The Elementary Particles - Michel Houellebecq
Platform - Michel Houellebecq
Closely Watched Trains - Bohumil Hrabal
Paradise of the Blind - Duong Thu Huong
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt
Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Eyeless in Gaza - Aldous Huxley
Against the Grain - JK Huysmans
La’Bas~Joris - Karl Huysmans
Carry Me Down - MJ Hyland
Three Trapped Tigers - Guillermo Cabrera Infante
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Cider House Rules - John Irving
The Last of Mr Norris - Christopher Isherwood
Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro
An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro
A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
What Maisie Knew - Henry James
The Wings of the Dove - Henry James
The Ambassadors - Henry James
A Day Off - Storm Jameson
The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
The Piano Teacher - Elfriede Jelinek
Platero and I - Juan Ramon Jimenez
House Mother Normal: A Geriatric Comedy - BS Johnson
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia - Samuel Johnson
Jahrestage - Uwe Johnson
In Parenthesis - David Jones
Fear of Flying - Erica Jong
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
Ulysses - James Joyce
Finnegans Wake - James Joyce
The Taebek Mountains - Jo Jung-Rae
Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger
The Glass Bees - Ernst Junger
The Successor - Ismail Kadare
Broken April - Ismail Kadare
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost - Ismail Kadare
The Trial - Franz Kafka
The Castle - Franz Kafka
Amerika - Franz Kafka
Thousand Cranes - Yasunari Kawabata
Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann
Green Henry - Gottfried Keller
Kieron Smith, Boy - James Kelman
How Late It Was, How Late - James Kelman
The Busconductor Hines - James Kelman
Schindler’s List - Thomas Keneally
Looking for the Possible Dance - AL Kennedy
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Fateless - Imre Kertesz
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Ken Kesey
Sometimes a Great Notion - Ken Kesey
Annie John - Jamaica Kincaid
The Shining - Stephen King
The Water-Babies - Charles Kingsley
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Kim - Rudyard Kipling
Garden, Ashes - Danilo Kis
Michael Kohlhaas - Heinrich von Kleist
Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light - Ivan Klima
The Hot House - Wolfgang Koeppen
Death in Rome - Wolfgang Koeppen
The Case Worker - Gyorgy Konrad
A Day in Spring - Ciril Kosmac
Smell of Sadness - Alfred Kossman
The Midnight Examiner - William Kotzwinkle
The Fan Man - William Kotzwinkle
The Melancholy of Resistance - Laszlo Krasznahorkai
The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
The Return of Philip Latinowicz - Miroslav Krleza
On the Edge of Reason - Miroslav Krleza
Professor Marten’s Departure - Jaan Kross
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera
The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
Land - Park Kyong-ni
Dangerous Liaisons - Pierre-Ambrois-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
The Princess of Cleves - Madame de Lafayette
Andrea - Carmen Laforet
Barabbas - Par Lagerkvist
The Saga of Gosta Berling - Selma Lagerlof
The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
The Leopard - Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
Rickshaw Boy - She Lao
Quicksand - Nella Larsen
Passing - Nella Larsen
The Diviners - Margaret Laurence
Maldoror and Poems - Lautreamont
Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence
The Rainbow - DH Lawrence
Women in Love - DH Lawrence
Lady Chatterley’s Lover - DH Lawrence
Independent People - Halldor Laxness
The Dark Child: The Autobiography of an African Boy - Camara Laye
The Dispossessed - Ursula K Le Guin
The Lost Language of Cranes - David Leavitt
Uncle Silas - Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
In a Glass Darkly - Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
Solaris - Stansilaw Lem
The Female Quixote or the Adventures of Arabella - Charlotte Lennox
The German Lesson - Siegried Lenz
Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard
LaBrava - Elmore Leonard
A Hero of Our Time - Mikhail Lermontov
The Enchanted Wanderer - Nicolai Leskov
The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
Christ Stopped at Eboli - Carlo Levi
If This is a Man - Primo Levi
If Not Now, When? - Primo Levi
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
The Monk, A Romance - MG Lewis
Monica - Saunders Lewis
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
Babbit - Sinclair Lewis
Tarr - Wyndham Lewis
The Apes of God - Wyndham Lewis
Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren
The Unknown Soldier - Vaino Linna
The Passion According to GH - Clarice Lispector
The House of the Star - Clarice Lispector
The Time of the Hero - Mario Vargas Llosa
The Feast of the Goat - Mario Vargas Llosa
The War of the End of the World - Mario Vargas Llosa
Armadis of Gaul - Vasco de Lobeira
The Call of the Wild - Jack London
At the Mountains of Madness And Other Tales of Terror - HP Lovecraft
Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
Fall On Your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonald
Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes
The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? - Horace McCoy
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Amongst Women - John McGahern
The Man of Feeling - Henry Mackenzie
Midaq Alley - Naguib Mahfouz
Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz
Remembering Babylon - David Malouf
Man’s Fate - Andre Malraux
Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell
Professor Unrat - Heinrich Mann
Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
Death in Venice and Other Stories - Thomas Mann
The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
Joseph and His Brothers - Thomas Mann
Doctor Faustus - Thomas Mann
Her Privates We - Frederic Manning
The Betrothed - Alessandro Manzoni
Embers - Sandor Marai
Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear - Javier Marias
All Souls - Javier Marias
Late-Night News - Petros Markaris
Wittgenstein’s Mistress - David Markson
Pavel’s Letters - Monika Maron
No One Writes to the Colonel - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Time of Silence - Luis Martin-Santos
Santa Evita - Tomas Eloy Martinez
Tirant lo Black II - Joanot Martorell
The Daughter - Pavlos Matesis
Cigarettes - Harry Mathews
Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Robert Maturin
Of Human Bondage - W Somerset Maugham
The Razor’s Edge - W Somerset Maugham
A Woman’s Life - Guy de Maupassant
Bel-Ami - Guy de Maupassant
Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant
Viper’s Tangle - Francois Mauriac
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
A Light Comedy - Eduardo Mendoza
The Manila Rope - Veijo Meri
The Day of the Dolphin - Robert Merle
American Rust - Philip Meyer
Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
The Sound of Waves - Yukio Mishima
The Sea of Fertility - Yukio Mishima
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Love in a Cold Climate - Nancy Mitford
Crossfire - Miyuki Miyabe
Chaka - Thomas Mofolo
Southern Seas - Manuel Vazquez Montalban
Watchmen - Alan Moore
A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore
Anagrams - Lorrie Moore
Like Life - Lorrie Moore
The Time of Indifference - Alberto Moravia
Disobedience - Alberto Moravia
Ghost at Noon - Alberto Moravia
Anton Reiser - Karl Philipp Moritz
News from Nowhere - William Morris
The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
Down Second Avenue - Ezekiel Mphahlele
The Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee
The Discovery of Heaven - Harry Mulisch
Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company - Multatuli
Lives of Girls and Women - Alice Munro
The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose - Alice Munro
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
Almost Transparent Blue - Ryu Murakami
Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
The Bell - Iris Murdoch
A Severed Head - Iris Murdoch
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch
Inland - Gerald Murnane
Young Torless - Robert Musil
Man Without Qualities - Robert Musil
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll - Alvaro Mutis
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle - Vladimir Nabokov
The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh - Shi Naian
In a Free State - VS Naipaul
A Bend in the River - VS Naipaul
The Enigma of Arrival - VS Naipaul
The Guide - RK Narayan
The Unfortunate Traveller and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
Henry Von Ofterdingen - Novalis
Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
Rituals - Cees Nooteboom
Fear and Trembling - Amelie Nothomb
The Country Girls - Edna O’Brien
At Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O’Brien
The Third Policeman - Flann O’Brien
The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien
Wise Blood - Flannery O’Connor
Everything That Rises Must Converge - Flannery O’Connor
Them - Joyce Carol Oates
Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring - Kenzaburo Oe
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
The Shipyard - Juan Carlos Onetti
Keep the Aspidistra Flying - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
Cataract - Mykhaylo Osadchyi
God’s Bits of Wood - Sembene Ousmane
A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz
Black Box - Amos Oz
Life is a Caravanserai - Emine Sevgi Ozdamar
The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasilinna
Manon des Sources - Marcel Pagnol
The Laws - Connie Palmen
Snow - Orhan Pamuk
Life of Christ - Giovanni Papini
Ballad of Georg Henig - Viktor Paskov
The Ragazzi - Pier Paolo Pasolini
USA - John Dos Passos
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
The Harvesters - Cesare Pavese
The Moon and the Bonfires - Cesare Pavese
Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavic
The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings - Octavio Paz
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
Life of Insects - Victor Pelevin
Clay Machine-Gun - Victor Pelevin
Things - Georges Perec
A Void - Georges Perec
W, or the Memory of Childhood - Georges Perec
Life: A User’s Manual - Georges Perec
The Club Dumas - Arturo Perez-Reverte
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
Marius The Epicurean, His Sensations and Ideas - Walter Pater
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand - Luigi Pirandello
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Trusting and the Maimed - James Plunkett
The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe
The Pit and the Pendulum - Edgar Allen Poe
Here’s to You, Jesusa! - Elena Poniatowska
Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus - Alexander Pope
A Dance to the Music of Time (series) - Anthony Powell
Typical - Padgett Powell
The Shipping News - E Annie Proulx
Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust
Pharaoh - Boleslaw Prus
Heartbreak Tango - Manuel Puig
Kiss of the Spider Woman - Manuel Puig
Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym
V - Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon
Exercises in Style - Raymond Queneau
The Crime of Father Amaro - Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Gargantua and Pantagruel - Francoise Rabelais
The Mysteries of Udolpho - Ann Radcliffe
The Devil in the Flesh - Raymond Radiguet
The Last World - Christoph Ransmayr
Story of O - Pauline Reage
The Forest of the Hanged - Liviu Rebreanu
All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
Good Morning, Midnight - Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice
Pilgrimage (13 Volumes) - Dorothy Richardson
Pamela - Samuel Richardson
Clarissa - Samuel Richardson
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Rainer Maria Rilke
Larva: A Midsummer Night’s Babel - Julian Rios
Jealousy - Alain Robbe-Grillet
The Viceroys - Federico De Roberto
Home - Marilynne Robinson
Cost - Roxana Robinson
Celestina - Fernando de Rojas
Hadrian the Seventh - Fr Rolfe
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands - Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Love’s Work: A Reckoning with Life - Gillian Rose
Call It Sleep - Henry Roth
The Radetzky March - Joseph Roth
Portnoy’s Complaint - Philip Roth
The Human Stain - Philip Roth
Nemesis - Philip Roth
Julie; Or, the New Eloise - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Emile - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Reveries of the Solitary Walker - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Confessions - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Impressions of Africa - Raymond Roussel
Locus Solus - Raymond Roussel
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
The Tin Flute - Gabrielle Roy
The Burning Plain and Other Stories - Juan Rulfo
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
Shame - Salman Rushdie
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Deadbeats - Ward Ruyslinck
Woman at Point Zero - Nawal El Saadawi
The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis de Sade
Justine - Marquis de Sade
The Witness - Juan Jose Saer
Contact - Carl Sagan
Bonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem - Emilio Salgari
Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger
The Devil’s Pool - George Sand
Alberta and Jacob - Cora Sandel
Cain - Jose Saramago
The History of the Siege of Lisbon - Jose Saramago
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - Jose Saramago
Baltasar and Blimunda - Jose Saramago
Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism - Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre
Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers
The Nine Tailors - Dorothy Sayers
The Swarm - Frank Schatzing
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
None but the Brave - Arthur Schnitzler
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness - Daniel Paul Schreber
The Street of Crocodiles - Bruno Schulz
To Each His Own - Leonard Sciascia
Rob Roy - Walter Scott
Ivanhoe - Walter Scott
Austerlitz - WG Sebald
Vertigo - WG Sebald
Transit - Anna Seghers
Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby Jr.
Dead and the Dervish - Mesa Selimovic
The Lonely Londoners - Samuel Selvon
The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Retreat Without Song - Shahan Shahnur
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields
The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Sillitoe
Life and Death of Harriett Frean - May Sinclair
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
The Magician of Lublin - Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Manor - Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Engineer of Human Souls - Josef Skvorecky
The Forbidden Realm - JJ Slauerhoff
There But For The - Ali Smith
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Peregrine Pickle - Tobias Smollett
Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollett
The Port - Antun Soljan
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Cancer Ward - Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
The First Circle - Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Some Experiences of an Irish RM - Edith Somerville
The Number Thirteen Lady - Jose Carlos Somoza
Kokoro - Natsume Soseki
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
The Girls of Slender Means - Muriel Spark
The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
The Making of Americans - Gertrude Stein
The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas - Gertrude Stein
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Red and the Black - Stendhal
The Charterhouse of Parma - Stendhal
The Charwoman’s Daughter - James Stephens
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Sterne
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy - Laurence Sterne
Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Indian Summer - Adalbert Stifter
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Uncle Tom’s Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Young Man - Botho Strauss
Couples, Passersby - Botho Strauss
The Red Room - August Strindberg
The People of Hemso - August Strindberg
By the Open Sea - August Strindberg
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Pigeon - Patrick Suskind
As a Man Grows Older - Italo Svevo
Zeno’s Conscience - Italo Svevo
Waterland - Graham Swift
Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift
A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift
The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman - Andrze Szczypiorski
Periera Declares: A Testimony - Antonio Tabucchi
The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore
The Third Wedding Wreath - Costas Taktsis
Some Prefer Nettles - Junichiro Tanizaki
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor
The River Between - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Matigari - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Cutter and Bone - Newton Thornburg
The 13 Clocks - James Thurber
The Invention of Curried Sausage - Uwe Timm
Pallieter - Felix Timmermans
The Master - Colm Toibin
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
City Sister Silver - Jachym Topol
Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
Phineas Finn - Anthony Trollope
Summer in Baden-Baden - Leonid Tsypkin
The Christmas Oratorio - Goran Tunstrom
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
King Lear of the Steppes - Ivan Turgenev
Spring Torrents - Ivan Turgenev
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Museum of Unconditional Surrender - Dubravka Ugresic
Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset
Rabbit, Run - John Updike
Rabbit is Rich - John Updike
Rabbit Redux - John Updike
Pepita Jimenez - Juan Valera
Our Lady of the Assassins - Fernardo Vallejo
Under the Yoke: A Romance of Bulgarian Liberty - Ivan Minchov Vazov
Z - Vassilis Vassilikos
I Malavoglia - Giovanni Verga
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
The Birds - Tarjel Vesaas
The Garden Where the Brass Band Played - Simon Vestdijk
Froth on the Daydream - Boris Vian
Myra Breckinridge/Myron - Gore Vidal
Bartleby & Co - Enrique Vila-Matas
Memoirs of a Peasant Boy - Xose Neira Vilas
Conversations in Sicily - Elio Vittorini
In Search of Klingsor - Jorge Volpi
Candide - Voltaire
Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The New World - Heruy Walda-Selasse
The Color Purple - Alice Walker
Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Ben Hur - Lew Wallace
The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole
Halftime - Martin Walser
Morvern Callar - Alan Warner
Indigo - Marina Warner
Summer Will Show - Sylvia Townsend Warner
The House with the Blind Glass Windows - Herbjorg Wassmo
Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
Decline and Fall - Evelyn Waugh
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
The Graduate - Charles Webb
The Island of Dr. Moreau - HG Wells
The Time Machine - HG Wells
The War of the Worlds - HG Wells
Optimist’s Daughter - Eudora Welty
Miss Lonelyhearts - Nathanael West
The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
The Thinking Reed - Rebecca West
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
A Boy’s Own Story - Edmund White
The Living and the Dead - Patrick White
The Tree of Man - Patrick White
Voss - Patrick White
The Once and Future King - TH White
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
Tarka the Otter - Henry Williamson
No Laughing Matter - Angus Wilson
I Thought of Daisy - Edmund Wilson
Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson
Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson
Insatiability - Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz
Thank You, Jeeves - PG Wodehouse
The Quest for Christa T - Christa Wolf
Patterns of Childhood - Christa Wolf
Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
Back to Oegstgeest - Jan Wolkers
Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Orlando - Virginia Woolf
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
Native Son - Richard Wright
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham
Half of Man is Woman - Zhang Xianliang
The Dream of the Red Chamber - Cao Xueqin
Moscow Stations - Venedikt Yerofeev
Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
Leaden Wings - Jie Zhang
Therese Raquin - Emile Zola
Drunkard - Emile Zola
Nana - Emile Zola
Germinal - Emile Zola
La bete Humaine - Emile Zola
Gimmick! - Joost Zwagerman
The Case of Sergeant Grischa - Arnold Zweig
Amok and Other Stories - Stefan Zweig
Chess Story - Stefan Zweig

12 comments:

SimonB said...

Allegedly. The Guardian is now so despised in my household I’m inclined to reject all of those titles. The risk of becoming Jonathan Freedland is just too great.

Also, they missed Biochemistry by Lehninger, which has been formative for so many people. They’ll know what I mean.

Phil said...

A mere 112, although not by any means a subset of yours. I strongly recommend What A Carve-Up!.

Tasker Dunham said...

Oh dear! Only 55 - which surprises me because I didn't read a lot of novels until recently. What about non-fiction?

asquith said...

Ony 33 though I hope to get this addressed.

Jekyll & Hyde and Justified Sinner go with me on my yearly trips to Edinburgh along with James Boswell's diary of his life in that city, and others.

I'd urge a reading of Arnold Bennett as he is not only the bard of our city, but as Sathnam Sanghera and many other can tell you, is of worldwide application. I am far better at dealing with my granddad's dementia because Bennett, in a masterpiece of imagine & empathy, created Darius Clayhanger who went the same way. My advice is to waste no time in seeking him out!

Anonymous said...

My name is Dan "compelling backstory" Jarvis and I can confirm that I have not read *any* of the books. But I do want to be Labour leader.

Jenny said...

The.city & the city China mieville. A wizard of earthsea leguin...

mikenotts said...

I guess this is a xmas eve "little bit of fun" but I'm sure you'd agree both lists are absurd. They both contain many authors I'd put on my personal list of authors-life-is-too-short-to-read (I'm 67, a life-long reader and still reading strong, although more internet/mags than books these days - just taken out a 3 year tribune sub and monthly novara media sub).

As an example - you've read lucky jim, which is worth reading once (parts are very very funny, thanks to P. larkin), the rest of Amis's output is pretty worthless. I've read it all, over many decades, trust me, its shite.

Two recent acquisitions (and revelations) are Eric Hobsbawm's 3 volumes and "Marx's Kapital for beginners" - David Smith & Phil Evans. An owen hatherley recommendation - not to me personally, but I lurk in his twitter feed. I'm late to leftist lit, as you will gather; but now I'm retired, and have time to read and reflect, I'm wallowing in it.

This blog has been a major crash course for me in condensed political science. I'll be buying your book on the Tory party as soon as it comes out - if you had a patreon, I'd happily contribute.

Happy Xmas and don't let the bastards get you down!

Dialectician1 said...

I know it's a long list already but I'd add:

Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor
Disaffected by James Kelman
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder

Lidl_Janus said...

1. @SimonB - you'll only turn into Jonathan Freedland if you read and agree with everything he says, and Freedland is hardly the most compelling writer. Personally, I can't believe (assuming we both read the Guardian over most of the 2010s) either of us exposed ourselves to that much Giles Fraser.

2. Re: this list, probably about 6. That the flabby, outdated but thoroughly-canonised Neuromancer is on this list and the vastly superior Snow Crash isn't tells me that bothering with the other 994 or so is strictly optional and discretionary.

WillORNG said...

62...why no Periodic Table by Primo Levi?

Welsh Ian said...

No way I would recommend Heinlein, very much an author of his time and has not aged well. Hyperion by Dan Simmons is a far superior SF novel.
Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow should be on any list as a thought provoking blend of SF and religion.

And fantasy is almost completely ignored. Off the top of my head there are
China Mieville, Perdido Street Station
Joe Abercrombie, The blade itself
Stephen Donaldson, First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant
Scott Lynch, Lies of Locke Lamora
GRR Martin, Game of Thrones
Mary Gentle, Ash- a secret history

Kriss said...

Patricia Dunker - Hallucinating Foucault was so good I went out and bought as many of her others as I could find. It's a kind of gay 90s Bonjour Tristesse (an astonishing debut for 17-year-old Francoise Sagan which I read when I was the same age as when she wrote it). It's short, as well, if you don't feel like a long read.

It's missing Woman on the edge of time, by Marge Piercey and In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif. Would happily sacrifice some of the repeat authors for a wider selection.