Reading List: World Literature

I’ve read all these books, and while their inclusion doesn’t indicate whether or not I think they are worthy of being recommended, they are the works you probably should read if you want a full-orbed view of these areas of literature.

English Literature

• Shakespeare
  • Hamlet. William Shakespeare.
  • The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street. Charles Nicholl.
  • Macbeth. William Shakespeare.
  • Shakespeare: The World As Stage. Bill Bryson.
• Coleridge, Samuel
  • Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge
• Defoe, Daniel
  • A Journal of the Plague Year. Daniel Defoe.
  • Atalantis Major. Daniel Defoe.
  • Captain Singleton. Daniel Defoe
  • Daniel Defoe by William Minto
  • Everybody’s Business Is Nobody’s Business. Daniel Defoe.
  • Moll Flanders. Daniel Defoe.
  • Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe.
  • Roxana. Daniel Defoe.
• Hardy, Thomas
  • Jude The Obscure. Thomas Hardy.
  • The Well-Beloved. Thomas Hardy
• Lewis, C.S.
  • C.S. Lewis: Readings For Meditation edited by Walter Hooper
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicals of Narnia #1). C.S. Lewis.
  • The Narnian:The Life And Imagination of C.S. Lewis. Alan Jacobs.
  • Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, #1) . C.S. Lewis
  • The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
  • Spirits In Bondage – A Cycle Of Lyrics. C.S. Lewis
• Orwell, George
  • 1984. George Orwell.
  • Animal Farm. George Orwell.
  • Down And Out In Paris And London. George Orwell.
  • Homeage to Catalonia. George Orwell
  • Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm by Daniel Leab
  • Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays by George Orwell
• Tolkien, J.R.R.
  • The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien / Christopher Tolkien
  • The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien.
  • J.R.R. Tolkien. Catharine Stimpson.
  • J.R.R. Tolkien. Mark Horne
  • J.R.R. Tolkien: The Man Who Created the Lord of the Rings. Michael Coren
  • The Silmarillion. J.R.R. Tolkien / Christopher Tolkien
• Wodehouse, P.G.
  •  A Damsel In Distress. P.G. Wodehouse.
  • Eggs, Beans and Crumpets. P.G. Wodehouse.
  • Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin by P.G. Wodehouse
  • Something Fresh. P.G. Wodehouse.
  • Stuff Upper Lip, Jeeves. P.G. Wodehouse.
  • Thank You, Jeeves. P.G. Wodehouse.
  • Thank You, Wodehouse. J.H.C. Morris
  • Wodehouse: A Life. Robert McCrum.
  • The World of P.G. Wodehouse. Herbert Warren Wind.
• Wells, H.G.
  • The War of the Worlds. H.G. Wells.
  • H.G. Wells: First Citizen of the Future. Keith Ferrell.
  • Mankind in the Making. H.G. Wells.
• Other
  • Hopkins: New Oxford English Series by Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • Silas Marner by George Eliot
  • Diary Of A Nobody. George Grossmith.
  • A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
  • An Ideal Husband. Oscar Wilde.
  • Whose Body? by Dorothy Sayers
  • A Was Once An Apple Pie (illustrated by Suse Macdonald) by Edward Lear
  • Beowulf translated by Francis Barton Gummere
  • Crome Yellow. Aldous Huxley.
  • Kim. Rudyard Kipling.
  • Literary Taste: How To Form It by Arnold Bennett
  • W.H. Auden: Poems Selected by John Fuller by W.H. Auden
  • The Man Who Knew Too Much. G.K. Chesterton.
  • The Prelude by William Wordsworth
  • Poems of William Blake by William Blake
  • Comic Ballads by Thomas Hood
  • The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  • The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson

Irish Literature

• James Joyce
  • The Dubliners. James Joyce.
• W.B. Yeats
  • The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B. Yeats
  • In the Seven Woods: Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age by W. B. Yeats
  • The Wanderings of Oisin by W.B. Yeats
  • Crossways by W.B. Yeats

Scottish Literature

• George MacDonald
  • The Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald
  • Far Above Rubies. George MacDonald.
  • The Shadows. George MacDonald.
  • The Wise Woman. George MacDonald.

Canadian Literature

• Robert Munsch
  • Robert Munsch by Frank Edwards
  • Much More Munsch! by Robert Munsch
  • Too Much Stuff! by Robert Munsch
  • Murmel, Murmel, Murmel by Robert Munsch
  • Angela’s Airplane by Robert Munsch
  • The Dark by Robert Munsch
  • Mud Puddle by Robert Munsch
  • Mmm, Cookies! by Robert Munsch
  • 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch
  • It’s My Room By Robert Munsch
  • I Have To Go! by Robert Munsch
  • The Fire Station by Robert Munsch
  • Put Me in a Book! by Robert Munsch
  • Just One Goal! by Robert Munsch
  • No Clean Clothes! by Robert Munsch
  • From Far Away by Robert Munsch
  • Playhouse by Robert Munsch
  • The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsch
  • Ribbon Rescue by Robert Munsch
• Robert Service
  • Best Tales of the Yukon. Robert Service
  • The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses by Robert Service
• Eugene McNamara
  • Irving’s Coat: Windsor’s Literary Renaissance by Eugene McNamara
  • Salt: Short Stories by Eugene McNamara
• Other
  • The Broken World: Poems 1967-1998. Len Gasparini
  • A Moose In A Maple Tree: The Original All-Canadian 12 Days of Christmas by Troy Townsin

American Literature

• Mark Twain
  • The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories. Mark Twain
  • A Conneticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court. Mark Twain.
  • Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1. Mark Twain
  • The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Mark Twain.
  • How To Tell A Story And Other Essays. Mark Twain
  • Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain.
  • A Dog’s Tale. Mark Twain
  • The Innocents Abroad. Mark Twain
  • Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion by Mark Twain
  • The War Prayer. Mark Twain
• Jack London
  • The Call Of The Wild. Jack London.
  • John Barleycorn. Jack London.
  • White Fang. Jack London.
• Robert Heinlein
  • Between Planets. Robert Heinlein.
  • Beyond this Horizon. Robert Heinlein.
  • The Door Into Summer. Robert Heinlein.
  • Farnham’s Freehold. Robert Heinlein.
  • Revolt In 2010. Robert Heinlein.
  • Robert A. Heinlein: A Stranger in His Own Land. George E. Slusser
• Jack Kerouac
  • The Dharma Bums. Jack Kerouac.
  • On The Road. Jack Kerouac.
• Kurt Vonnegut
  • 2BRO2B. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • A Man Without A Country. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • God Bless You, Dr. Kervorkian. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A Novel. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Jailbird. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Mother Night. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Slaughterhouse-Five. Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Timequake. Kurt Vonnegut.
• Wendell Berry
  • Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry
  • The Wheel by Wendell Berry
  • A World Lost By Wendell Berry
• Robert McCloskey
  • One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
  • Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
• Edgar Allan Poe
  • Annabel Lee. Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Black Cat. Edgar Allan Poe.
• Phillip Roth
  • American Pastoral. Philip Roth.
  • Zuckerman Unbound. Philip Roth.
  • The Plot Against America. Philip Roth.
• Other
  • Ballistics by Billy Collins
  • Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings. Christopher Moore.
  • Anthem. Ayn Rand.
  • Islands In The Stream. Ernest Hemingway.
  • The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
  • The Cuckoo’s Haiku and Other Birding Poems by Michael Rosen
  • First Hand by Lind Bierds
  • To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee.
  • The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets by Ted Kooser
  • North of Boston. Robert Frost.
  • My Noiseless Entourage by Charles Simic
  • The Voice at 3 AM: Selected Late and New Poems by Charles Simic
  • War Is Kind. Stephen Crane
  • The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou by Maya Angelou
  • The Portrait of a Lady. Henry James.
  • Trees and Other Poems by Joyce Kilmer

Russian Literature

• Dostoevsky
  • Brothers Karamazov. Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  • Dostoievsky. C.M. Woodhouse.
  • Dostoevsky in 90 Minutes. Paul Strathern.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky by Peter Leithart
  • The Gambler. Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  • The Idiot. Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
  • Notes from the Underground. Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
• Turgenev
  • The Diary of a Superfluous Man. Ivan Turgenev.
  • Ivan Turgenev. Charles Moser.
• Chekhov
  • Chekhov in an Hour. Carol Rocamora
  • The Proposal. Anton Chekhov
• Other
  • Master and Man. Leo Tolstoy
  • In The Interlude. Boris Pasternak.
  • Heart of a Dog. Mikhail Bulgakov.
  • Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov.
  • The Master And Margarita. Mikhail Bulgakov.
  • Pale Fire. Vladimir Nabokov.

Balkan Literature

• Garden, Ashes. Danilo Kis.
• The Little Box. Vasko Popa

German Literature

• The Castle. Franz Kafka.
• The Trial. Franz Kafka.

French Literature

• The Last Day of a Condemned Man.Victor Hugo.
• The Outsider. Albert Camus.
• The Plague. Albert Camus

Polish Literature

• Sonnets from the Crimea. Adam Mickiewicz