READING LIST
Reading List
Books you should read by poets you should know about. I’ll expand and elaborate on this list at some point but for now, here’s a starting point. If you can’t find the specific title listed, try to find and read something by these poets.
In future posts I will try to provide you with examples of each of these poets’ work as I did with Stephen Dunn’s wonderful poem “On the Death of a Colleague” in my “Why Bother?” post of a month or so ago.
Picnic, Lightning Billy Collins
Collected Poems Philip Larkin
Beowulf tr. Seamus Heaney
Refusing Heaven Jack Gilbert
Without End Adam Zagajewski
Gilgamesh tr. Stephen Mitchell
New & Selected Poems Stephen Dunn
Ovid’s Metamorphoses tr. Charles Martin
Delights & Shadows Ted Kooser
Sir Gawain & the Green Knight W.S. Merwin
Collected Poems Donald Justice
New & Collected Poems Richard Wilbur
Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop
Search Party William Matthews
Collected Earlier Poems Anthony Hecht
Collected Poems Kenneth Koch
The Modern Library’s top 100 novels
| 1. | ULYSSES by James Joyce |
| 2. | THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| 3. | A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce |
| 4. | LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov |
| 5. | BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley |
| 6. | THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner |
| 7. | CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller |
| 8. | DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler |
| 9. | SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence |
| 10. | THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck |
| 11. | UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry |
| 12. | THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler |
| 13. | 1984 by George Orwell |
| 14. | I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves |
| 15. | TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf |
| 16. | AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser |
| 17. | THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers |
| 18. | SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut |
| 19. | INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison |
| 20. | NATIVE SON by Richard Wright |
| 21. | HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow |
| 22. | APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O’Hara |
| 23. | U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos |
| 24. | WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson |
| 25. | A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster |
| 26. | THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James |
| 27. | THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James |
| 28. | TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| 29. | THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell |
| 30. | THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford |
| 31. | ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell |
| 32. | THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James |
| 33. | SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser |
| 34. | A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh |
| 35. | AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner |
| 36. | ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Penn Warren |
| 37. | THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder |
| 38. | HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster |
| 39. | GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin |
| 40. | THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene |
| 41. | LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding |
| 42. | DELIVERANCE by James Dickey |
| 43. | A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell |
| 44. | POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley |
| 45. | THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway |
| 46. | THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad |
| 47. | NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad |
| 48. | THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence |
| 49. | WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence |
| 50. | TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller |
| 51. | THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer |
| 52. | PORTNOY’S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth |
| 53. | PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov |
| 54. | LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner |
| 55. | ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac |
| 56. | THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett |
| 57. | PARADE’S END by Ford Madox Ford |
| 58. | THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton |
| 59. | ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm |
| 60. | THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy |
| 61. | DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather |
| 62. | FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones |
| 63. | THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever |
| 64. | THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger |
| 65. | A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess |
| 66. | OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham |
| 67. | HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad |
| 68. | MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis |
| 69. | THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton |
| 70. | THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell |
| 71. | A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes |
| 72. | A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul |
| 73. | THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West |
| 74. | A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway |
| 75. | SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh |
| 76. | THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark |
| 77. | FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce |
| 78. | KIM by Rudyard Kipling |
| 79. | A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster |
| 80. | BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh |
| 81. | THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow |
| 82. | ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner |
| 83. | A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul |
| 84. | THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen |
| 85. | LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad |
| 86. | RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow |
| 87. | THE OLD WIVES’ TALE by Arnold Bennett |
| 88. | THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London |
| 89. | LOVING by Henry Green |
| 90. | MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie |
| 91. | TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell |
| 92. | IRONWEED by William Kennedy |
| 93. | THE MAGUS by John Fowles |
| 94. | WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys |
| 95. | UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch |
| 96. | SOPHIE’S CHOICE by William Styron |
| 97. | THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles |
| 98. | THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain |
| 99. | THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy |
| 100. | THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington |
