Friday, June 13, 2014

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson

Title: Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Author: Jon Lee Anderson
Original Publication Date: March 1997
Pages: 832






“Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”
     -Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s last words* (Anderson, 1991:735)


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Those words make me shudder. And one will wonder, who this man is, that in his irrepressible idealism enlivened in clandestine activities and political conspiracies, dare deprive death of his satisfaction, for indeed decades later, Comandante Che, is now heroically revered.

Born Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, Che Guevara, was, unlike the ideology he died for, born in an affluent family of landed Argentinean elites, albeit a family on a sole route certain to lead them to modest living later on.  Ernestito, as he was fondly called, was born with asthma, and throughout his life, this will limit and define him.

At 7, barred by his recurring and debilitating asthma attacks from engaging in strenuous activities reinforced by a concrete mother-son relationship, Ernesto developed a love for literature. He was, in most instances in his life, a voracious reader.

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The Young Che groomed in an elite society

At 16, “Everything began with literature for him” (89). At this age he has quoted Freud and Nietzsche in his journal. He read Jack London, Bertrand Russell, Faulkner, Kafka, Camus, and Sartre. Most often, he said, Neruda was his favorite.

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At 25, While in Medical School, Ernesto has traveled a sizeable part of South America first through his bicycle later outfitted with a motor and later with a motorbike. The travels are of monumental importance, in this austere travels characterized by the occasional begging of food and hitch-hiking rides, Che met the people of South America and for the first time saw the world through their forgotten faces and unheard voices. Indeed he writes, “The person who wrote these notes died upon stepping once again onto Argentine soil. The person who edits and polishes them, me, is no longer. At least, I am not the person I was before. The vagabonding through ‘America’ has changed me more than I thought.” (167)

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Che with his faithful bicycle he used for travelling

At 27, He meets Fidel and Raul Castro, who will later on invite him in, to which he giddily joined, the July 26 Movement for the liberation of Cuba from Batista. This critical step launches Ernesto away from his paradoxical behavior of complete apathy and radical declamations that characterized his earlier years. “I will be with the people, and i know it because I see it etched in the night that I, the eclectic dissector of doctrines and psychoanalyst of dogmas, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or trenches, will bathe my weapon in blood and, mad with fury, will slit the throat of any enemy who falls into my hands." (201)

At 32, The July 26 Movement finds daylight, Batista flees the country, and a newly established revolutionary government with Fidel Castro as the head pronounced Che Guevara as a Cuban Citizen by birth. Che helps implement land reforms and literacy improvement projects in the liberated Cuba.

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Che with Castro

At 36, He left his ministerial position, commander’s rank, and family to spark off new revolutions.

At 39, Che Guevara was caught in Bolivia, while tied down and kept as a prisoner, he was shot to death, his hands were cut-off, and buried in an unmarked mass grave. The remains were exhumed and later found through a confession of a retired Bolivian General who came clean to this book’s author.
__________


Jon Lee Anderson made a splendid job writing this biography. He was an international investigative reporter, war correspondent and staff writer for The New Yorker. His fastidiousness and training as an investigative writer was thoroughly employed in an outstanding manner. This is a well researched work grounded on extensive and exclusive primary sources that were given to Anderson when he approached Che Guevara’s widow, Aleida March, a distinction other written biographies lack that inevitably strips them of some semblance of true portrayal of Che’s life if not sheer outright veracity that led to biographies that have often resulted to sanctimonious and romanticized accounts.

Anderson’s narrative is fluid and light. He presents the social milieu operative in Che’s environment and in so doing, the reader is made to understand how this helped shape the man. Anderson intermittently interjects his intuitive comments on the narrative which are always rational if not factual. What I have come to appreciate the most was Anderson’s tone in writing which was, if not totally objective, was not defined by a ‘western’ bias in the least.

This is a great piece of work not only because of Anderson’s capacity and technical aspects in writing but more so in what it has substantially achieved. He was able to peel layers and layers of laudatory accounts and legends on this icon and revealed the man within.

Did I enjoy reading this biography? Definitely, yes!

Did I come to know Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara? Yes!

Will I recommend this? This is the book one must read to know Che Guevara.





________
*Accounts vary on this, and the incident itself has attained an exalted position, sometimes mythologized. Other accounts point that this is Che’s  last written word as contained in his Bolivian diary.

The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda

Title: The Book of Questions
Author: Pablo Neruda
Original Publication Date: 1974
Pages: 96


You don’t want to answer me.
But the questions do not die.
-(Neruda, 1924)


The Book of Questions is a collection of 316 questions that compose the 74 poems. 316 questions which no rational answers exists, says the introductory part of my copy. No rational answers may exist for these questions, but the rational mind will strive beyond conventions to grasp its meanings. If you will ruminate on this 74 poems, one will find that some answers do exist, albeit spiritual and mercurial answers validated by allusive affinities.

Neruda’s recurring style, his use of nature, and things from nature are indispensable aspects of his, but the only correspondence one will find between the poems is that they are questions, for various thematic characteristics are at play here.

There are some poems one must simply take in visually and revel in the imagery they invoke discarding their literariness.

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?
(Poem V)

For whom do the pistils of the sun burn in the shadow of the eclipse?
How many bees are there in a day?
(Poem XXI)

Some are consummately surrealistic.

What happens to swallows who are late for school?
Is it true they scatter
transparent letters across the sky?
(Poem VII)

Others would seem to be derived from pure sadness.

Do tears yet spilled
wait in small lakes?

Or are they invisible rivers
that run towards sadness?
(Poem LX)

Some are allusions and undeniably metaphors for diurnal activities.

Why does agriculture laugh at the pale tears of the sky?
(Poem XXX)

Some unequivocally express Neruda’s political beliefs.

And to position sad Nixon
with his buttocks over the brazier?
Roasting him on low
with North American napalm?
(Poem XV)

What forced labor does Hitler do in hell?
Does he paint walls or cadavers? Does he sniff the fumes of the dead?
Do they feed him the ashes of so many burnt children?
Or, since his death, have they given him blood to drink from a funnel?
Or do they hammer into his mouth the pulled gold teeth?
(Poem LXX)


And a handful refers to his personal thoughts on the reception of his poetry by the posterity.

What will they say about my poetry who never touched my blood?
(Poem X)

Some too were infused with wit.

And why did cheese decide
to perform heroic deeds in France?
(Poem XX)


The book of questions may just have something for everyone.




Other work by Pablo Neruda:
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (3 Stars

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Attachments
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Original Publication Date: April 14, 2011
Pages: 336

A sweet and funny read with all the awkwardness of the situation beaming at the reader.

Rowell provides witty characters with just the right amount of quirkiness enough to make the reader identify, if not love them. The pop culture references, especially the sci-fi ones are delightful, and doesn't seem to be forced and out of context.

The setting and the character dilemmas of the story would provide a good rapport especially to late-bloomers.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Title: Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories
Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
Original Publication Date:2003
Pages: 42

Short and sweet, like life and death!

Life and Death and Other Legends and Stories is a compilation of short stories and musings of Henryk Sienkiewicz (pronounced SYEN-KYE-VITCH)*.

Life and Death: A Hindu Legend.
An allegory on how Brahma divided the world between the Plain of Life and the Plain of Death, respectively leaving its governance to Vishnu and Siva. There is wonderful philosophy at play here when Sienkiewicz crafted this story especially when he forwards that death is the proverbial rest our souls long for and that we need only to see beyond the veil of fear and pain. A veil which opens up to the Plain of Death.
Is He the Dearest One?
Tells us of motherly love for a fallen son.
A Legend of the Sea.
Recounts the voyage of the ship, Purple, and its prideful and indolent crew, who through pride and conceit loss the very thing they treasure.
The Cranes.
Talks about the travels Sienkiewicz went through and his dilemma of homesickness that lead him to compose a certain work entitled "Charcoal Sketches".
The Judgement of Peter and Paul on Olympus.
Is an allegory which presents St. Peter and St. Paul's judgement on Greek gods residing in Olympus. I personally enjoyed this one.

This is one of Sienkiewicz' minor works. He is well known for his historical epic With Fire and Sword.





This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

Title: Chess Story
Author: Stefan Zweig
Original Publication Date: 1941
Pages: 84

I never won a single chess match against my father. He was kind like that, subtly teaching a victory unearned is a success undeserved. No truer words could have been said nor as easily forgotten, for after all those years, whether by natural imprint of innumerable defeats that leaves a sad ennui on the human  soul or by my inherent lackadaisical treatment of this royal game of chess, with its defined sixty-four squares faithfully clinging to white and black, black and white, bored me, until now.

Enlivened by an immaculate narration, this powerful novella brought me to the deepest recesses of the mind, through a ruthless frightful void where terror pure and uncompromising breathe, where black and white means a lot more than a chequered board, a struggle of the human mind in timeless nothingness, to find one self, or, to lose it. Zweig too breathe life to chess, black and white, white and black, the infinite permutations contained in this fixed 64 squares with 32 pieces. To say that Zweig and this novella has challenge my own conceptions of the human psyche is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core!

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

Title: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
Author: Pablo Neruda
Original Publication Date: 1924
Pages: 70

Neruda does not play with the intangible. He does not waste words with the abstract. One simply needs to read and take in the pure and stark versification of the sensualities of life, both in love and lust.

Neruda’s distinct style in poetry is easily distinguishable.

First, his work is intuitive of the austere beauty of nature and his Chilean roots. The verses are reflective of the uncompromising beauty of the environment that he has witnessed in his formative years. The poems allude to the vastness of the pines, the heart of summer, sweet blue hyacinths, still ponds, barren lands, and white bees.


“I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, 
bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic basket of kisses.”
(74, Poem XIV)

Second, Neruda also leads us to enjoy the sweetness existing in realm of the senses. He fearlessly incorporates love and lust in his verses.

“My somber heart searches for you, nevertheless,

And I love your joyful body, your slender and flowing voice.”
 (75, Poem XIX)

“Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”
(77, Poem XX)

But to read and consume these two aspects of his poetry in a compartmentalized manner would be an affront to why Gabriel Garcia Marquez called Neruda “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language."* Neruda combines the sensual experience of the individual with the beauty of the natural and the reader is treated to a union unlike any other.

“Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs

You look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant’s body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.”
(3 Poem I)

“I go so far a to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains,
bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic basket of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”
(74, Poem XIV)


notes:
* The fragrance of guava: Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez.

I did not give a short introduction on Neruda reserving most of my comments later on for a review on his memoirs.

My copy is bilingual, a Spanish-English translation by W.S. Wermin, which definitely polished my rusting Spanish speaking skills.

The same copy is infused with Pablo Picasso’s works like this,
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You get the idea that it seeks to perhaps contribute to the general them of the book, but I have no sound knowledge if this was sanctioned or approved by Neruda in its first translated printing in 1969, five years before he died, or whether the same pictures accompanied the first print in Chile in 1924, or if it appeared only in this copy published by Penguin Books.





This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

The Red Lily by Anatole France

Title: The Red Lily
Author: Anatole France
Original Publication Date: 1894
Pages: 276

"I need love"

"I need love"
says the title of the first chapter. So basic a need that will define this book's essence.

"I need love"
says Mdm. Therese, and inevitably a love that cannot be found in the arms of his husband leads to adultery and fornication, not just in an isolated occurrence. This is a recurring aspect of France's in his novels, characters which seemed to be designed with the canonical belief to engage in adultery. France's own life inevitably trickles in these instances as he too was known for this kind of passionate indecencies.

"I need love"
says the art. For France's talks about the myriad facets of arts, of passion, of styles, of inspiration for passion for art, of the differences in style, of art itself.

"I need love"
says France's impeccable prose, to that, love need not be asked twice!





Other works by Anatole France:
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard(4 Stars)
Revolt of the Angels(4 Stars)
Penguin Island (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Awardees

Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Crescent Moon by Rabindranath Tagore

Title: The Crescent Moon
Author: Rabindranath Tagore
Original Publication Date: 1913
Pages: 124



Of the seemingly governing heavenly bodies that grace our diurnal lives, it is, in innumerable instances, the Moon that stands as the epitome of womanhood, and by necessary operation, motherhood. Father Sun and Mother Moon and Children Stars, so it would go. The raison d’etre for such association is conspicuous. The moonlight always seemed so intuitive, warm, subtle and welcoming, as warm as a mother’s embrace, as welcome as a mother’s love.

The crescent moon, which follows a new moon, would suggest new beginnings. But in the cyclic fabric of the Lunar phases, everything may, inevitably, stand for beginnings and endings.

This is what The Crescent Moon contains, poems and rhapsodies about motherhood and their children in varying degrees of this supreme bond. Verses talk about a baby’s heavenly birth, a child’s charming precociousness, a mother’s concern, and the inevitable bittersweet sadness over the emotional transition of a child growing up, the beginnings and endings of the mother and child relationship. This explores the beauty of the child’s world and the boundless nature of a mother’s love. These are the pervasive themes in this book.


“I wish I could travel by the road that crosses baby's mind, and out beyond all bounds;

Where messengers run errands for no cause between the kingdoms of kings of no history;

Where Reason makes kites of her laws and flies them, and Truth sets Fact free from its fetters.” (18)


The 4 star rating should suffice to validate that beyond Gitanjali, Tagore’s sublime touch and masterful grace is still present.

This is my most favored among the lot.



THE BEGINNING

"WHERE have I come from, where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother.

She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast,-- "You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling.

You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then.

You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshipped you.

In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived.

In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages.

When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it.

Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise.

Heaven's first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life, and at last you have stranded on my heart.

As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine.

“For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these slender arms of mine?”




Other works by Rabindranath Tagore:
The Gardener (4 Stars)
Gitanjali (4 Stars)
Nationalism (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

Title: Stranger in a Strange Land
Author:  Robert Heinlein
Original Publication Date: 1961
Pages: 528 (Abridged); 756 (Original)



“Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s at least partly her own fault.” (511)

Perhaps this is the single most quoted statement from this work, and also the statement by which Heinlein is critiqued and berated, the same statement by which this philosophically charged work is sullied by 1-star ratings. Whether by inadvertent straying into a faulty conception and erroneous application of intentional fallacy or the failure to recognize that Heinlein sought this work to stand as historicization of the prevailing attitudes at the time of writing juxtaposed with those of the future, as represented by the Man from Mars, the loss of substance predicated upon such mistakes are saddening.

Most reviews needlessly nitpick this book by implacably quoting sexist remarks offered to us by a cantankerous Jubal, who symbolized the attitude of a bigoted past, but that is missing the big picture, and missing the very idea this book seeks to impart. That is the point, to present homophobic, sexist, resistant-to-change personas that stand for the past, because in the end, we see that Jubal, is opened up to a new philosophy, divested of all improprieties and finds himself realigning his beliefs, a belief which is open to change.

By doing so, Heinlein, through Jubal and the Man from Mars, asks the reader, by extension, to reexamine beliefs and conventions. To disregard this by literally focusing on the sexism is to lose the quintessential aspect of the book.

See beyond the literal. Challenge the conventions.

A Happy Boy by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Title: A Happy Boy
Author: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Original Publication Date: 1857
Pages: 112


“That poverty hemmed him in on every side, he felt, but for that reason his whole mind was bent on breaking through it.”(43)

A Happy Boy, the second Peasant tale of Bjørnson that I have read, the third (1860) in writing of his four Peasant Tales , the first being Synnøve Solbakken, (1857) followed by Arne (1858). Sadly, it would seem that the first two do not exist except in the original Norwegian texts and completion of his Peasant Tales dictates reading it in the original, nothing less.

A Happy Boy, tells us of Oyvind, the son of a houseman, who happens to meet the love of his life in Marit, the granddaughter of a gard (farm) owner. By their stations in life, the inevitable schism arises. This quandary is solely predicated in Oyvind’s lowly station in life. “I will tell you why I have been so happy before: It was because I did not really love anyone; from the day we love someone we cease to be happy.”(34) Our happy boy is not so happy after all. Oyvind struggles to break free from the familial shackles that fate has imposed, and we are taken through his rise from being the son of a houseman to the pride of the town.

This story is a lot sweeter and simpler than The Fisher Girl| (3 Stars). Again, Bjørnson plays the same card in the Fisher Girl with love as the mechanism by which the story is set in motion. The same peasant struggles and desire within the story exist.

What is more prevalent however is how Bjørnson incorporated the Norwegian faith in the story, more than he did in the The Fisher Girl. This led me to read up on a little bit of Norwegian religious history and find that Norway has always been labeled as a Christian country and that at numerous times in history, Norway sent more missionaries per capita than any other country. What is more interesting is that this Christianity is not under the Holy See but is an entirely new animal. The Church of Norway it is called, with the King of Norway as it head, and professes a Lutheran belief. Interesting isn't it, a union of the church and the state that, it would seem, hasn't screwed the people over. This is probably why the depiction in one scene of the story was like this.

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Other work by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson:
The Fisher Girl (3 Stars)

This book forms part of my remarkably extensive reading list on Nobel Prize for Literature Laureates

Friday, June 6, 2014

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
current progress:
  • books read  - 48

2000s
  1. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro (3 Stars)
  2. Saturday, Ian McEwan
  3. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
  4. Slow Man, J.M. Coetzee
  5. Adjunct: An Undigest, Peter Manson
  6. The Sea, John Banville
  7. The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
  8. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
  9. The Master, Colm Tóibín
  10. Vanishing Point, David Markson
  11. The Lambs Of London, Peter Ackroyd
  12. Dining On Stones, Iain Sinclair
  13. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (3 Stars)
  14. Drop City, T. Coraghessan Boyle
  15. The Colour, Rose Tremain
  16. Thursbitch, Alan Garner
  17. The Light Of Day, Graham Swift
  18. What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
  19. The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Mark Haddon (3 Stars)
  20. Islands, Dan Sleigh
  21. Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee
  22. London Orbital, Iain Sinclair
  23. Family Matters, Rohinton Mistry
  24. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
  25. The Double, José Saramago
  26. Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
  27. Unless, Carol Shields
  28. Kafka On The Shore, Haruki Murakami (4 Stars - Reviewed)
  29. The Story Of Lucy Gault, William Trevor
  30. That They May Face the Rising Sun, John McGahern
  31. In The Forest, Edna O’Brien
  32. Shroud, John Banville
  33. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
  34. Youth, J.M. Coetzee
  35. Dead Air, Iain Banks
  36. Nowhere Man, Aleksandar Hemon
  37. The Book Of Illusions, Paul Auster
  38. Gabriel’s Gift, Hanif Kureishi
  39. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
  40. Platform, Michael Houellebecq
  41. Schooling, Heather McGowan
  42. Atonement, Ian McEwan (4 Stars)
  43. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
  44. Don’t Move, Margaret Mazzantini
  45. The Body Artist, Don DeLillo
  46. Fury, Salman Rushdie
  47. At Swim, Two Boys, Jamie O’Neill
  48. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
  49. Life Of Pi, Yann Martel (4 Stars)
  50. The Feast Of The Goat, Mario Vargos Llosa
  51. An Obedient Father, Akhil Sharma
  52. The Devil And Miss Prym, Paulo Coelho
  53. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, Ismail Kadare
  54. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
  55. The Heart Of Redness, Zakes Mda
  56. Under The Skin, Michel Faber
  57. Ignorance, Milan Kundera
  58. Nineteen Seventy Seven, David Peace
  59. Celestial Harmonies, Péter Esterházy
  60. City Of God, E.L. Doctorow
  61. How The Dead Live, Will Self
  62. The Human Stain, Philip Roth
  63. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
  64. After The Quake, Haruki Murakami
  65. Small Remedies, Shashi Deshpande
  66. Super-Cannes, J.G. Ballard
  67. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
  68. Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates
  69. Pastoralia, George Saunders
1900s
  1. Timbuktu, Paul Auster
  2. The Romantics, Pankaj Mishra
  3. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
  4. As If I Am Not There, Slavenka Drakulic
  5. Everything You Need, A.L. Kennedy
  6. Fear And Trembling, Amélie Nothomb
  7. The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie
  8. Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
  9. Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami
  10. Atomised, Michel Houellebecq
  11. Intimacy, Hanif Kureishi
  12. Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
  13. Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks
  14. All Souls Day, Cees Nooteboom
  15. The Talk Of The Town, Ardal O’Hanlon
  16. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
  17. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
  18. Glamorama, Bret Easton Ellis
  19. Another World, Pat Barker
  20. The Hours, Michael Cunningham
  21. Veronika Decides To Die, Paulo Coelho
  22. Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon
  23. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy (4 Stars - Bullet Review)
  24. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
  25. Great Apes, Will Self
  26. Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
  27. Underworld, Don DeLillo
  28. Jack Maggs, Peter Carey
  29. The Life Of Insects, Victor Pelevin
  30. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
  31. The Untouchable, John Banville
  32. Silk, Alessandro Baricco
  33. Cocaine Nights, J.G. Ballard
  34. Hallucinating Foucault, Patricia Duncker
  35. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
  36. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker
  37. Forever a Stranger, Hella Haasse
  38. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
  39. The Clay Machine-Gun, Victor Pelevin
  40. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
  41. The Unconsoled, Kazuo Ishiguro
  42. Morvern Callar, Alan Warner
  43. The Information, Martin Amis
  44. The Moor’s Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
  45. Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth
  46. The Rings Of Saturn, W.G. Sebald
  47. The Reader, Bernhard Schlink (3 Stars)
  48. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
  49. Love’s Work, Gillian Rose
  50. The End Of The Story, Lydia Davis
  51. Mr. Vertigo, Paul Auster
  52. The Folding Star, Alan Hollinghurst
  53. Whatever, Michel Houellebecq
  54. Land, Park Kyong-ni
  55. The Master Of Petersburg, J.M. Coetzee
  56. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (2 Stars - Reviewed)
  57. Pereira Declares: A Testimony, Antonio Tabucchi
  58. City Sister Silve, Jàchym Topol
  59. How Late It Was, How Late, James Kelman
  60. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
  61. Felicia’s Journey, William Trevor
  62. Disappearance, David Dabydeen
  63. The Invention Of Curried Sausage, Uwe Timm
  64. The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
  65. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
  66. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
  67. Looking For The Possible Dance, A.L. Kennedy
  68. Operation Shylock, Philip Roth
  69. Complicity, Iain Banks
  70. On Love, Alain de Botton (4 Stars - Reviewed)
  71. What A Carve Up!, Jonathan Coe
  72. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
  73. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
  74. The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides
  75. The House Of Doctor Dee, Peter Ackroyd
  76. The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood
  77. The Emigrants, W.G. Sebald
  78. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
  79. Life Is A Caravanserai, Emine Özdamar
  80. The Discovery Of Heaven, Harry Mulisch
  81. A Heart So White, Javier Marias
  82. Possessing The Secret Of Joy, Alice Walker
  83. Indigo, Marina Warner
  84. The Crow Road, Iain Banks
  85. Written On The Body, Jeanette Winterson
  86. Jazz, Toni Morrison
  87. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
  88. Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow, Peter Høeg
  89. The Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe
  90. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates
  91. The Heather Blazing, Colm Tóibín
  92. Asphodel, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
  93. Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
  94. Hideous Kinky, Esther Freud
  95. Arcadia, Jim Crace
  96. Wild Swans, Jung Chang
  97. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
  98. Time’s Arrow, Martin Amis
  99. Mao II, Don DeLillo
  100. Typical, Padgett Powell
  101. Regeneration, Pat Barker
  102. Downriver, Iain Sinclair
  103. Señor Vivo And The Coca Lord, Louis de Bernieres
  104. Wise Children, Angela Carter
  105. Get Shorty, Elmore Leonard
  106. Amongst Women, John McGahern
  107. Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
  108. Vertigo, W.G. Sebald
  109. Stone Junction, Jim Dodge
  110. The Music Of Chance, Paul Auster
  111. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
  112. A Home At The End Of The World, Michael Cunningham
  113. Like Life, Lorrie Moore
  114. Possession, A.S. Byatt
  115. The Buddha Of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi
  116. The Midnight Examiner, William Kotzwinkle
  117. A Disaffection, James Kelman
  118. Sexing The Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
  119. Moon Palace, Paul Auster
  120. Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
  121. The Remains Of The Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
  122. The Melancholy Of Resistance, László Krasznahorkai
  123. The Temple Of My Familiar, Alice Walker
  124. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, Janice Galloway
  125. The History Of The Siege Of Lisbon, José Saramago
  126. Like Water For Chocolate, Laura Esquivel
  127. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
  128. London Fields, Martin Amis
  129. The Book Of Evidence, John Banville
  130. Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood
  131. Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
  132. The Beautiful Room Is Empty, Edmund White
  133. Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson
  134. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
  135. The Swimming-Pool Library, Alan Hollinghurst
  136. Oscar And Lucinda, Peter Carey
  137. Libra, Don DeLillo
  138. The Player Of Games, Iain M. Banks
  139. Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
  140. The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul, Douglas Adams
  141. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams
  142. The Radiant Way, Margaret Drabble
  143. The Afternoon Of A Writer, Peter Handke
  144. The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy
  145. The Passion, Jeanette Winterson
  146. The Pigeon, Patrick Süskind
  147. The Child In Time, Ian McEwan
  148. Cigarettes, Harry Mathews
  149. The Bonfire Of The Vanities, Tom Wolfe
  150. The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster
  151. World’s End, T. Coraghessan Boyle
  152. Enigma Of Arrival, V.S. Naipaul
  153. The Taebek Mountains, Jo Jung-rae
  154. Beloved, Toni Morrison
  155. Anagrams, Lorrie Moore
  156. Matigari, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
  157. Marya, Joyce Carol Oates
  158. Watchmen, Alan Moore & David Gibbons (3 Stars)
  159. The Old Devils, Kingsley Amis
  160. Lost Language Of Cranes, David Leavitt
  161. An Artist Of The Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro
  162. Extinction, Thomas Bernhard
  163. Foe, J.M. Coetzee
  164. The Drowned And The Saved, Primo Levi
  165. Reasons To Live, Amy Hempel
  166. The Parable Of The Blind, Gert Hofmann
  167. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (3 Stars)
  168. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
  169. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
  170. A Maggot, John Fowles
  171. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
  172. Contact, Carl Sagan
  173. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
  174. Perfume, Patrick Süskind (4 Stars)
  175. Old Masters, Thomas Bernhard
  176. White Noise, Don DeLillo
  177. Queer, William Burroughs
  178. Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd
  179. Legend, David Gemmell
  180. Dictionary Of The Khazars, Milorad Pavic
  181. The Bus Conductor Hines, James Kelman
  182. The Year Of The Death Of Ricardo Reis, José Saramago
  183. The Lover, Marguerite Duras
  184. Empire Of The Sun, J.G. Ballard
  185. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
  186. Nights At The Circus, Angela Carter
  187. The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, Milan Kundera (3 Stars - Bullet Review)
  188. Blood And Guts In High School, Kathy Acker
  189. Neuromancer, William Gibson
  190. Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes
  191. Money: A Suicide Note, Martin Amis
  192. Shame, Salman Rushdie
  193. Worstward Ho, Samuel Beckett
  194. Fools Of Fortune, William Trevor
  195. La Brava, Elmore Leonard
  196. Waterland, Graham Swift
  197. The Life And Times Of Michael K, J.M. Coetzee
  198. The Diary Of Jane Somers, Doris Lessing
  199. The Piano Teacher, Elfriede Jelinek
  200. The Sorrow Of Belgium, Hugo Claus
  201. If Not Now, When?, Primo Levi
  202. A Boy’s Own Story, Edmund White
  203. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
  204. Wittgenstein’s Nephew, Thomas Bernhard
  205. A Pale View Of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro
  206. Schindler’s Ark, Thomas Keneally
  207. The House Of The Spirits, Isabel Allende
  208. The Newton Letter, John Banville
  209. On The Black Hill, Bruce Chatwin
  210. Concrete, Thomas Bernhard
  211. The Names, Don DeLillo
  212. Rabbit Is Rich, John Updike
  213. Lanark: A Life in Four Books, Alasdair Gray
  214. The Comfort Of Strangers, Ian McEwan
  215. July’s People, Nadine Gordimer
  216. Summer In Baden-Baden, Leonid Tsypkin
  217. Broken April, Ismail Kadare
  218. Waiting For The Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee
  219. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
  220. Rites Of Passage, William Golding
  221. Rituals, Cees Nooteboom
  222. A Confederacy Of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
  223. City Primeval, Elmore Leonard
  224. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
  225. The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting, Milan Kundera
  226. Smiley’s People, John Le Carré
  227. Shikasta, Doris Lessing
  228. A Bend In The River, V.S. Naipaul
  229. Burger’s Daughter, Nadine Gordimer
  230. The Safety Net, Heinrich Böll
  231. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, Italo Calvino (4 Stars)
  232. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams (5 Stars -  Bullet Review)
  233. The Cement Garden, Ian McEwan
  234. The World According To Garp, John Irving
  235. Life: A User’s Manual, Georges Perec
  236. The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
  237. The Singapore Grip, J.G. Farrell
  238. Yes, Thomas Bernhard
  239. The Virgin In The Garden, A.S. Byatt
  240. In The Heart Of The Country, J.M. Coetzee
  241. The Passion Of New Eve, Angela Carter
  242. Delta Of Venus, Anaïs Nin
  243. The Shining, Stephen King
  244. Dispatches, Michael Herr
  245. Petals Of Blood, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
  246. Song Of Solomon, Toni Morrison
  247. The Hour Of The Star, Clarice Lispector
  248. The Left-Handed Woman, Peter Handke
  249. Ratner’s Star, Don DeLillo
  250. The Public Burning, Robert Coover
  251. Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice
  252. Cutter and Bone, Newton Thornburg
  253. Amateurs, Donald Barthelme
  254. Patterns Of Childhood, Christa Wolf
  255. The Autumn Of The Patriarch, Gabriel García Márquez
  256. W, Or The Memory Of Childhood, Georges Perec
  257. A Dance To The Music of Time, Anthony Powell
  258. Grimus, Salman Rushdie
  259. The Dead Father, Donald Barthelme
  260. Fateless, Imre Kertész
  261. Willard And His Bowling Trophies, Richard Brautigan
  262. High Rise, J.G. Ballard
  263. Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow
  264. Dead Babies, Martin Amis
  265. Correction, Thomas Bernhard
  266. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
  267. The Fan Man, William Kotzwinkle
  268. Dusklands, J.M. Coetzee
  269. The Lost Honor Of Katharina Blum, Heinrich Böll
  270. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, John Le Carré
  271. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  272. Fear Of Flying, Erica Jong
  273. A Question Of Power, Bessie Head
  274. The Siege Of Krishnapur, J.G. Farrell
  275. The Castle Of Crossed Destinies, Italo Calvino
  276. Crash, J.G. Ballard
  277. The Honorary Consul, Graham Greene
  278. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
  279. The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch
  280. Sula, Toni Morrison
  281. Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (3 Stars)
  282. The Breast, Philip Roth
  283. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
  284. G, John Berger
  285. Surfacing, Margaret Atwood
  286. House Mother Normal, B.S. Johnson
  287. In A Free State, V.S. Naipaul
  288. The Book Of Daniel, E.L. Doctorow
  289. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
  290. Group Portrait With Lady, Heinrich Böll
  291. The Wild Boys, William Burroughs
  292. Rabbit Redux, John Updike
  293. The Sea Of Fertility, Yukio Mishima
  294. The Driver’s Seat, Muriel Spark
  295. The Ogre, Michael Tournier
  296. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
  297. Goalie’s Anxiety At The Penalty Kick, Peter Handke
  298. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
  299. Mercier Et Camier, Samuel Beckett
  300. Troubles, J.G. Farrell
  301. Jahrestage, Uwe Johnson
  302. The Atrocity Exhibition, J.G. Ballard
  303. Tent Of Miracles, Jorge Amado
  304. Pricksongs And Descants, Robert Coover
  305. Blind Man With A Pistolm, Chester Hines
  306. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
  307. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
  308. The Green Man, Kingsley Amis
  309. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
  310. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
  311. Ada Or Ardor, Vladimir Nabokov
  312. Them, Joyce Carol Oates
  313. A Void, Georges Perec
  314. Eva Trout, Elizabeth Bowen
  315. Myra Breckinridge, Gore Vidal
  316. The Nice And The Good, Iris Murdoch
  317. Belle Du Seigneur, Albert Cohen
  318. Cancer Ward, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  319. The First Circle, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  320. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke (3 Stars - Reviewed)
  321. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick ( 3 Stars)
  322. Dark As The Grave Wherein My Friend Is Laid, Malcolm Lowry
  323. The German Lesson, Siegfried Lenz
  324. In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan
  325. A Kestrel For A Knave, Barry Hines
  326. The Quest For Christa T., Christa Wolf
  327. Chocky, John Wyndham
  328. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe
  329. The Cubs And Other Stories, Mario Vargas Llosa
  330. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
  331. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
  332. Pilgrimage, Dorothy Richardson
  333. The Joke, Milan Kundera
  334. No Laughing Matter, Angus Wilson
  335. The Third Policeman, Flann O’Brien
  336. A Man Asleep, Georges Perec
  337. The Birds Fall Down, Rebecca West
  338. Trawl, B.S. Johnson
  339. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  340. The Magus, John Fowles
  341. The Vice-Consul, Marguerite Duras
  342. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
  343. Giles Goat-Boy, John Barth
  344. The Crying Of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
  345. Things, Georges Perec
  346. The River Between, Ngugi wa Thiong’o
  347. August Is A Wicked Month, Edna O’Brien
  348. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut
  349. Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor
  350. The Passion According to G.H., Clarice Lispector
  351. Sometimes A Great Notion, Ken Kesey
  352. Come Back, Dr. Caligari, Donald Bartholme
  353. Albert Angelo, B.S. Johnson
  354. Arrow Of God, Chinua Achebe
  355. The Ravishing of Lol V. Stein, Marguerite Duras
  356. Herzog, Saul Bellow
  357. V., Thomas Pynchon
  358. Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
  359. The Graduate, Charles Webb
  360. Manon Des Sources, Marcel Pagnol
  361. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, John Le Carré
  362. The Girls Of Slender Means, Muriel Spark
  363. Inside Mr. Enderby, Anthony Burgess
  364. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
  365. One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  366. The Collector, John Fowles
  367. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey (4 Stars)
  368. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
  369. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
  370. The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard
  371. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
  372. Labyrinths, Jorg Luis Borges
  373. Girl With Green Eyes, Edna O’Brien
  374. The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis, Giorgio Bassani
  375. Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert Heinlein (4 Stars - Reviewed)
  376. Franny And Zooey, J.D. Salinger
  377. A Severed Head, Iris Murdoch
  378. Faces In The Water, Janet Frame
  379. Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
  380. Cat And Mouse, Günter Grass
  381. The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
  382. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
  383. The Violent Bear It Away, Flannery O’Connor
  384. How It Is, Samuel Beckett
  385. Our Ancestors, Italo Calvino
  386. The Country Girls, Edna O’Brien
  387. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (5 Stars)
  388. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
  389. Promise At Dawn, Romain Gary
  390. Cider With Rosie, Laurie Lee
  391. Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse
  392. Naked Lunch, William Burroughs
  393. The Tin Drum, Günter Grass
  394. Absolute Beginners, Colin MacInnes
  395. Henderson The Rain King, Saul Bellow
  396. Memento Mori, Muriel Spark
  397. Billiards At Half-Past Nine, Heinrich Böll
  398. Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Truman Capote
  399. The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
  400. Pluck The Bud And Destroy The Offspring, Kenzaburo Oe
  401. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
  402. The Bitter Glass, Eilís Dillon
  403. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (4 Stars)
  404. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe
  405. Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris, Paul Gallico
  406. Borstal Boy, Brendan Behan
  407. The End Of The Road, John Barth
  408. The Once And Future King, T.H. White
  409. The Bell, Iris Murdoch
  410. Jealousy, Alain Robbe-Grillet
  411. Voss, Patrick White
  412. The Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham
  413. Blue Noon, Georges Bataille
  414. Homo Faber, Max Frisch
  415. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
  416. Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
  417. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
  418. The Wonderful “O”, James Thurber
  419. Justine, Lawrence Durrell
  420. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
  421. The Lonely Londoners, Sam Selvon
  422. The Roots of Heaven, Romain Gary
  423. Seize The Day, Saul Bellow
  424. The Floating Opera, John Barth
  425. The Lord Of The Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (5 Stars)
  426. The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith
  427. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
  428. A World Of Love, Elizabeth Bowen
  429. The Trusting And The Maimed, James Plunkett
  430. The Quiet American, Graham Greene
  431. The Last Temptation Of Christ, Nikos Kazantzákis
  432. The Recognitions, William Gaddis
  433. The Ragazzi, Pier Paulo Pasolini
  434. Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan
  435. I’m Not Stiller, Max Frisch
  436. Self Condemned, Wyndham Lewis
  437. The Story Of O, Pauline Réage
  438. A Ghost At Noon, Alberto Moravia
  439. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding (4 Stars - Bullet Review)
  440. Under The Net, Iris Murdoch
  441. The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley
  442. The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
  443. The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett
  444. Watt, Samuel Beckett
  445. Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
  446. Junkie, William Burroughs
  447. The Adventures Of Augie March, Saul Bellow
  448. Go Tell It On the Mountain, James Baldwin
  449. Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
  450. The Judge And His Hangman, Friedrich Dürrenmatt
  451. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
  452. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway (4 Stars)
  453. Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor
  454. The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson
  455. Memoirs Of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar
  456. Malone Dies, Samuel Beckett
  457. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
  458. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
  459. The Opposing Shore, Julien Gracq
  460. The Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger (2 Stars - Reviewed)
  461. The Rebel, Albert Camus
  462. Molloy, Samuel Beckett
  463. The End Of The Affair, Graham Greene
  464. The Abbot C, Georges Bataille
  465. The Labyrinth Of Solitude, Octavio Paz
  466. The Third Man, Graham Greene
  467. The 13 Clocks, James Thurber
  468. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
  469. The Grass Is Singing, Doris Lessing
  470. I, Robot, Isaac Asimov (4 Stars)
  471. The Moon And The Bonfires, Cesare Pavese
  472. The Garden Where The Brass Band Played, Simon Vestdijk
  473. Love In A Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
  474. The Case Of Comrade Tulayev, Victor Serge
  475. The Heat Of The Day, Elizabeth Bowen
  476. Kingdom Of This World, Alejo Carpentier
  477. The Man With The Golden Arm, Nelson Algren
  478. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
  479. All About H. Hatterr, G.V. Desani
  480. Disobedience, Alberto Moravia
  481. Death Sentence, Maurice Blanchot
  482. The Heart Of The Matter, Graham Greene
  483. Cry, The Beloved Country, Alan Paton
  484. Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann
  485. The Victim, Saul Bellow
  486. Exercises In Style, Raymond Queneau
  487. If This Is A Man, Primo Levi
  488. Under The Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
  489. The Path To The Spider’s Nest, Italo Calvino
  490. The Plague, Albert Camus
  491. Back, Henry Green
  492. Titus Groan, Mervyn Peake
  493. The Bridge On The Drina, Ivo Andric
  494. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
  495. Animal Farm, George Orwell (4 Stars)
  496. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
  497. The Pursuit Of Love, Nancy Mitford
  498. Loving, Henry Green
  499. Arcanum 17, André Breton
  500. Christ Stopped At Eboli, Carlo Levi
  501. The Razor’s Edge, William Somerset Maugham
  502. Transit, Anna Seghers
  503. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges
  504. Dangling Man, Saul Bellow
  505. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (5 Stars - Bullet Review)
  506. Caught, Henry Green
  507. The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse
  508. Embers, Sandor Marai
  509. Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner
  510. The Outsider, Albert Camus
  511. Conversations In Sicily, Elio Vittorini
  512. The Poor Mouth, Flann O’Brien
  513. The Living And The Dead, Patrick White
  514. Hangover Square, Patrick Hamilton
  515. Between The Acts, Virginia Woolf
  516. The Hamlet, William Faulkner
  517. Farewell My Lovely, Raymond Chandler
  518. For Whom The Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (4 Stars)
  519. Native Son, Richard Wright
  520. The Power And The Glory, Graham Greene
  521. The Tartar Steppe, Dino Buzzati
  522. Party Going, Henry Green
  523. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
  524. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
  525. At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O’Brien
  526. Coming Up For Air, George Orwell
  527. Goodbye To Berlin, Christopher Isherwood
  528. Tropic Of Capricorn, Henry Miller
  529. Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys
  530. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
  531. After The Death Of Don Juan, Sylvie Townsend Warner
  532. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson
  533. Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre
  534. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
  535. Cause For Alarm, Eric Ambler
  536. Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
  537. U.S.A., John Dos Passos
  538. Murphy, Samuel Beckett
  539. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
  540. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
  541. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (5 Stars)
  542. The Years, Virginia Woolf
  543. In Parenthesis, David Jones
  544. The Revenge For Love, Wyndham Lewis
  545. Out of Africa, Isak Dineson
  546. To Have And Have Not, Ernest Hemingway
  547. Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner
  548. Eyeless In Gaza, Aldous Huxley
  549. The Thinking Reed, Rebecca West
  550. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell (4 Stars)
  551. Keep The Aspidistra Flying, George Orwell
  552. Wild Harbour, Ian MacPherson
  553. Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
  554. At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
  555. Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
  556. Independent People, Halldór Laxness
  557. Auto-da-Fé, Elias Canetti
  558. The Last Of Mr. Norris, Christopher Isherwood
  559. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Horace McCoy
  560. The House In Paris, Elizabeth Bowen
  561. England Made Me, Graham Greene
  562. Burmese Days, George Orwell
  563. The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers
  564. Threepenny Novel, Bertolt Brecht
  565. Novel With Cocaine, M. Ageyev
  566. The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain
  567. Tropic Of Cancer, Henry Miller
  568. A Handful Of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
  569. Tender Is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
  570. Thank You, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
  571. Call It Sleep, Henry Roth
  572. Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathanael West
  573. Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy L. Sayers
  574. The Autobiography Of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
  575. Testament Of Youth, Vera Brittain
  576. A Day Off, Storm Jameson
  577. The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil
  578. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
  579. Journey To The End Of The Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
  580. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (4 Stars)
  581. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
  582. To The North, Elizabeth Bowen
  583. The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
  584. The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth
  585. The Waves, Virginia Woolf
  586. The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett
  587. Cakes And Ale, W. Somerset Maugham
  588. The Apes Of God, Wyndham Lewis
  589. Her Privates We, Frederic Manning
  590. Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh
  591. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
  592. Hebdomeros, Giorgio de Chirico
  593. Passing, Nella Larsen
  594. A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway (3 Stars)
  595. Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett
  596. Living, Henry Green
  597. The Time Of Indifference, Alberto Moravia
  598. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
  599. Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Döblin
  600. The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen
  601. Harriet Hume, Rebecca West
  602. The Sound And The Fury, William Faulkner
  603. Les Enfants Terribles, Jean Cocteau
  604. Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
  605. Story Of The Eye, Georges Bataille
  606. Orlando, Virginia Woolf
  607. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence
  608. The Well Of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
  609. The Childermass, Wyndham Lewis
  610. Quartet, Jean Rhys
  611. Decline And Fall, Evelyn Waugh
  612. Quicksand, Nella Larsen
  613. Parade’s End, Ford Madox Ford
  614. Nadja, André Breton
  615. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
  616. Remembrance Of Things Past, Marcel Proust
  617. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
  618. Tarka The Otter, Henry Williamson
  619. Amerika, Franz Kafka
  620. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (2 Stars)
  621. Blindness, Henry Green
  622. The Castle, Franz Kafka
  623. The Good Soldier Švejk, Jaroslav Hašek
  624. The Plumed Serpent, D.H. Lawrence
  625. One, None And A Hundred Thousand, Luigi Pirandello
  626. The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
  627. The Making Of Americans, Gertrude Stein
  628. Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos
  629. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
  630. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (4 Stars)
  631. The Counterfeiters, André Gide
  632. The Trial, Franz Kafka
  633. The Artamonov Business, Maxim Gorky
  634. The Professor’s House, Willa Cather
  635. Billy Budd, Foretopman, Herman Melville
  636. The Green Hat, Michael Arlen
  637. The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann
  638. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin
  639. A Passage To India, E.M. Forster
  640. The Devil In The Flesh, Raymond Radiguet
  641. Zeno’s Conscience, Italo Svevo
  642. Cane, Jean Toomer
  643. Antic Hay, Aldous Huxley
  644. Amok, Stefan Zweig
  645. The Garden Party, Katherine Mansfield
  646. The Enormous Room, E.E. Cummings
  647. Jacob’s Room, Virginia Woolf
  648. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse (5 Stars)
  649. The Glimpses Of The Moon, Edith Wharton
  650. Life And Death Of Harriett Frean, May Sinclair
  651. The Last Days Of Humanity, Karl Kraus
  652. Aaron’s Rod, D.H. Lawrence
  653. Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
  654. Ulysses, James Joyce
  655. The Fox, D.H. Lawrence
  656. Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley
  657. The Age Of Innocence, Edith Wharton
  658. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
  659. Women In Love, D.H. Lawrence
  660. Night And Day, Virginia Woolf
  661. Tarr, Wyndham Lewis
  662. The Return Of The Soldier, Rebecca West
  663. The Shadow Line, Joseph Conrad
  664. Summer, Edith Wharton
  665. Growth Of The Soil, Knut Hamsen
  666. Bunner Sisters, Edith Wharton
  667. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce
  668. Under Fire, Henri Barbusse
  669. Rashōmon, Akutagawa Ryunosuke
  670. The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
  671. The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
  672. Of Human Bondage, William Somerset Maugham
  673. The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence
  674. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
  675. Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
  676. Locus Solus, Raymond Roussel
  677. Rosshalde, Herman Hesse
  678. Tarzan Of The Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs
  679. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
  680. Sons And Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
  681. Death In Venice, Thomas Mann
  682. The Charwoman’s Daughter, James Stephens
  683. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
  684. Fantômas, Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
  685. Howards End, E.M. Forster
  686. Impressions Of Africa, Raymond Roussel
  687. Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
  688. Martin Eden, Jack London
  689. Strait Is The Gate, André Gide
  690. Tono-Bungay, H.G. Wells
  691. The Inferno, Henri Barbusse
  692. A Room With A View, E.M. Forster
  693. The Iron Heel, Jack London
  694. The Old Wives’ Tale, Arnold Bennett
  695. The House On The Borderland, William Hope Hodgson
  696. Mother, Maxim Gorky
  697. The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
  698. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
  699. Young Törless, Robert Musil
  700. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
  701. The House Of Mirth, Edith Wharton
  702. Professor Unrat, Heinrich Mann
  703. Where Angels Fear To Tread, E.M. Forster
  704. Nostromo, Joseph Conrad
  705. Hadrian The Seventh, Frederick Rolfe
  706. The Golden Bowl, Henry James
  707. The Ambassadors, Henry James
  708. The Riddle Of The Sands, Erskine Childers
  709. The Immoralist, André Gide
  710. The Wings Of The Dove, Henry James
  711. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
  712. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  713. Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann
  714. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
  715. Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
  716. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
1800s
  1. Some Experiences Of An Irish R.M., Somerville and Ross
  2. The Stechlin, Theodore Fontane
  3. The Awakening, Kate Chopin
  4. The Turn Of The Screw, Henry James
  5. The War Of The Worlds, H.G. Wells (3 Stars)
  6. The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells
  7. What Maisie Knew, Henry James
  8. Fruits Of The Earth, André Gide
  9. Dracula, Bram Stoker
  10. Quo Vadis, Henryk Sienkiewicz
  11. The Island Of Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells
  12. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells (4 Stars)
  13. Effi Briest, Theodore Fontane
  14. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
  15. The Real Charlotte, Somerville and Ross
  16. The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  17. Born In Exile, George Gissing
  18. Diary Of A Nobody, George & Weedon Grossmith
  19. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  20. News From Nowhere, William Morris
  21. New Grub Street, George Gissing
  22. Gösta Berling’s Saga, Selma Lagerlöf
  23. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
  24. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (3 Stars)
  25. The Kreutzer Sonata, Leo Tolstoy
  26. La Bête Humaine, Émile Zola
  27. By the Open Sea, August Strindberg
  28. Hunger, Knut Hamsun
  29. The Master Of Ballantrae, Robert Louis Stevenson
  30. Pierre And Jean, Guy de Maupassant
  31. Fortunata And Jacinta, Benito Pérez Galdés
  32. The People Of Hemsö, August Strindberg
  33. The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy
  34. She, H. Rider Haggard
  35. The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
  36. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
  37. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
  38. King Solomon’s Mines, H. Rider Haggard
  39. Germinal, Émile Zola
  40. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (4 Stars)
  41. Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant
  42. Marius The Epicurean, Walter Pater
  43. Against The Grain, Joris-Karl Huysmans
  44. The Death Of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy
  45. A Woman’s Life, Guy de Maupassant
  46. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
  47. The House By The Medlar Tree, Giovanni Verga
  48. The Portrait Of A Lady, Henry James
  49. Bouvard And Pécuchet, Gustave Flaubert
  50. Ben-Hur, Lew Wallace
  51. Nana, Émile Zola
  52. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  53. The Red Room, August Strindberg
  54. Return Of The Native, Thomas Hardy
  55. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (3 Stars)
  56. Drunkard, Émile Zola
  57. Virgin Soil, Ivan Turgenev
  58. Daniel Deronda, George Eliot
  59. The Hand Of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy
  60. The Temptation Of Saint Anthony, Gustave Flaubert
  61. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
  62. The Enchanted Wanderer, Nicolai Leskov
  63. Around The World In Eighty Days, Jules Verne
  64. In A Glass Darkly, Sheridan Le Fanu
  65. The Devils, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  66. Erewhon, Samuel Butler
  67. Spring Torrents, Ivan Turgenev
  68. Middlemarch, George Eliot
  69. Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll
  70. King Lear Of The Steppes, Ivan Turgenev
  71. He Knew He Was Right, Anthony Trollope
  72. War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy (unrated-unfinished)
  73. Sentimental Education, Gustave Flaubert
  74. Phineas Finn, Anthony Trollope
  75. Maldoror, Comte de Lautréaumont
  76. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  77. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
  78. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
  79. Thérèse Raquin, Émile Zola
  80. The Last Chronicle Of Barset, Anthony Trollope
  81. Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, Jules Verne
  82. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  83. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
  84. Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
  85. Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu
  86. Notes From The Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky
  87. The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley
  88. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
  89. Fathers And Sons, Ivan Turgenev
  90. Silas Marner, George Eliot
  91. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
  92. On The Eve, Ivan Turgenev
  93. Castle Richmond, Anthony Trollope
  94. The Mill On The Floss, George Eliot
  95. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
  96. The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  97. Max Havelaar, Multatuli
  98. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (3 Stars)
  99. Oblomovka, Ivan Goncharov
  100. Adam Bede, George Eliot
  101. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
  102. North And South, Elizabeth Gaskell
  103. Hard Times, Charles Dickens
  104. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
  105. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
  106. Villette, Charlotte Brontë
  107. Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell
  108. Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Or, Life Among The Lonely, Harriet Beecher Stowe
  109. The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  110. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  111. Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
  112. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
  113. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
  114. Shirley, Charlotte Brontë
  115. Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell
  116. The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë
  117. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
  118. Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë
  119. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (4 Stars)
  120. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
  121. The Count Of Monte-Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
  122. La Reine Margot, Alexandre Dumas
  123. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
  124. The Purloined Letter, Edgar Allan Poe
  125. Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens
  126. The Pit And The Pendulum, Edgar Allan Poe
  127. Lost Illusions, Honoré de Balzac
  128. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
  129. Dead Souls, Nikolay Gogol
  130. The Charterhouse Of Parma, Stendhal
  131. The Fall Of The House Of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
  132. The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
  133. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (3 Stars)
  134. The Nose, Nikolay Gogol
  135. Le Père Goriot, Honoré de Balzac
  136. Eugénie Grandet, Honoré de Balzac
  137. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
  138. The Red And The Black, Stendhal
  139. The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni
  140. Last Of The Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper
  141. The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner, James Hogg
  142. The Albigenses, Charles Robert Maturin
  143. Melmoth The Wanderer, Charles Robert Maturin
  144. The Monastery, Sir Walter Scott
  145. Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
  146. Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  147. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
  148. Persuasion, Jane Austen
  149. Ormond, Maria Edgeworth
  150. Rob Roy, Sir Walter Scott
  151. Emma, Jane Austen
  152. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
  153. Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
  154. The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth
  155. Sense And Sensibility, Jane Austen
  156. Elective Affinities, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  157. Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth
1700s
  1. Hyperion, Friedrich Hölderlin
  2. The Nun, Denis Diderot
  3. Camilla, Fanny Burney
  4. The Monk, M.G. Lewis
  5. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  6. The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe
  7. The Interesting Narrative, Olaudah Equiano
  8. The Adventures Of Caleb Williams, William Godwin
  9. Justine, Marquis de Sade
  10. Vathek, William Beckford
  11. The 120 Days Of Sodom, Marquis de Sade
  12. Cecilia, Fanny Burney
  13. Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  14. Dangerous Liaisons, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
  15. Reveries Of A Solitary Walker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  16. Evelina, Fanny Burney
  17. The Sorrows Of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  18. Humphrey Clinker, Tobias George Smollett
  19. The Man Of Feeling, Henry Mackenzie
  20. A Sentimental Journey, Laurence Sterne
  21. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
  22. The Vicar Of Wakefield, Oliver Goldsmith
  23. The Castle Of Otranto, Horace Walpole
  24. Émile; Or, On Education, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  25. Rameau’s Nephew, Denis Diderot
  26. Julie; Or, the New Eloise, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  27. Rasselas, Samuel Johnson
  28. Candide, Voltaire
  29. The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox
  30. Amelia, Henry Fielding
  31. Peregrine Pickle, Tobias George Smollett
  32. Fanny Hill, John Cleland
  33. Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
  34. Roderick Random, Tobias George Smollett
  35. Clarissa, Samuel Richardson
  36. Pamela, Samuel Richardson
  37. Jacques The Fatalist, Denis Diderot
  38. Memoirs Of Martinus Scriblerus, J. Arbuthnot, J. Gay, T. Parnell, A. Pope, J. Swift
  39. Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding
  40. A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift
  41. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
  42. Roxana, Daniel Defoe
  43. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
  44. Love In Excess, Eliza Haywood
  45. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
  46. A Tale Of A Tub, Jonathan Swift
Pre-1700
  1. Oroonoko, Aphra Behn
  2. The Princess Of Clèves, Comtesse de La Fayette
  3. The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan
  4. Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (5 Stars)
  5. The Unfortunate Traveller, Thomas Nashe
  6. Euphues: The Anatomy Of Wit, John Lyly
  7. Gargantua And Pantagruel, Françoise Rabelais
  8. The Thousand And One Nights, Anonymous
  9. The Golden Ass, Lucius Apuleius
  10. Aithiopika, Heliodorus
  11. Chaireas And Kallirhoe, Chariton
  12. Metamorphoses, Ovid
  13. Aesop’s Fables, Aesopus

Source: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die: A Comprehensive Reference Source, Chronicling the History of the Novel