I read a LOT but mostly recent books. For 2024 I want to add more classics or books that often appear on the Must Read Before You Die lists. I’ll be doing at least 1 per month for 2024. What should I add?
Here are some books I’ve read recently and rated 5 stars if that helps:
The Grapes of Wrath.
Fahrenheit 451.
Still Alice.
When Breath Becomes Air.
From the Ashes: My Story of Being Metis, Homeless and Finding My Way.
Crying in H Mart.
Know My Name.
by chanceofasmile
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Lolita, Pale Fire
Tender is the Night, The Great Gatsby
For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun also Rises
The Idiot, Karamozov Brothers
War and Peace
Eugene Onegin, The Tales of Ivan Belkin
Ulysses
Leaves of Grass
A Season in Hell, Illuminations
Cyrano De Bergerac
For a satirical take on the absurdity of war, ‘Catch-22’ by Joseph Heller is a book I often find myself recommending. Heller’s unique narrative style and biting humor make it a standout novel that challenges the traditional notions of war stories.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway. The book is short, but really good.
When I think of “classics”, I always think of AP Lit novels. I was an ELA teacher for a few years, so I like to include some modern novels in the style of classics (strong motifs, emotionally satisfying…or not, well written).
Frankenstein by Shelley
A Thousand Splendid Suns or Kite Runner by Hosseini
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee
Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver
Bless Me Ultima by Anaya
A Raisin in the Sun by Hansbury
*The Call of the Wild* –Jack London
Mikhail Bulgakov: the Master and Margarita
Wilkie Collins: the Woman in White
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: the Idiot
George Eliot: Adam Bede
William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying
Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South
Graham Greene: the Quiet American
Victor Hugo: les Miserables
Primo Levi: the Periodic Table, if not now when?
W Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: the First Circle
RL Stevenson: the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Theodor Storm: the Rider on the White Horse
Oscar Wilde: the Picture of Dorian Gray
I read George Eliot’s Middlemarch for the first time this year and adored it. I also loved Anna Karenina more than I expected to. Beloved by Toni Morrison if you haven’t yet, and Go Tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin. Make your way through Austen and the Brontës. James Joyce’s Dubliners.
Flowers for Algernon, Of Mice and Men
The Awakening
The Great Gatsby
The Oddessey
Dante’s Inferno
Huckleberry Finn
The Heart of Darkness
Of Mice and Men
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (also my favorite book ever)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (already on your list but also a favorite of mine, so context)
1984 by George Orwell
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemmingway
The Red Pony, Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men and The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
Call of the Wild by Jack London
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Catcher In the Rye by J.D. Salinger
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
1984. I will never not recommend this book.
The Iliad in the translation by Emily Wilson! Preferably with friends, read and performed out loud to each other. Trust me, those make the best evenings, especially if you involve some great food and drinks!