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Tania Toma's "My Quest to be Well-Read"

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A mix from several different lists, including Harold Bloom’s Western Canon, Harvard Book Store’s 100 Favorite Titles, Books that Changed the World, 100 Most Meaningful Books of All Time, 100 Books for the Modern Person, and The Well-Stocked Bookcase. And, because it’s hard to find a list of great books released within the last five or ten years, I threw in a few books that everyone I know has read and can’t stop talking about.

I think there’s a pretty good balance of American, British, and world literature, as well as a pretty even balance of women and men. I did my best to cover a wide range of time as well.

It goes without saying that this list is a work in progress, and will probably be frequently added to.

All the lists I took titles from can be found <a href="http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html">here</a>.

  1. 1.
    Things Fall Apart
    by Chinua Achebe

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  2. 2.
    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
    by Douglas Adams

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  3. 3.
    Little Women (Signet Classics)
    by Louisa May Alcott

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  4. 4.
    Winesburg, Ohio (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Sherwood Anderson

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  5. 5.
    The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born (African Writers)
    by Ayi Kwei Armah

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  6. 6.
    Surfacing
    by Margaret Atwood

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  7. 8.
    Pride and Prejudice (Modern Library Classics)
    by Jane Austen

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  8. 9.
    ?
    Casualties: Poems 1966-68,
    by J. P Clark-Bekederemo

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  9. 10.
    Herzog (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

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  10. 11.
    Seize the Day (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

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  11. 12.
    The Holy Bible
    by Various Authors

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  12. 13.
    The Complete Poems, 1927-1979
    by Elizabeth Bishop

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  13. 16.
    The Tortilla Curtain
    by T.C. Boyle

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  14. 17.
    Fahrenheit 451: A Novel
    by Ray Bradbury

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  15. 18.
    Wuthering Heights (Classic Novels Series)
    by Emily Bronte

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  16. 19.
    Ham on Rye
    by Charles Bukowski

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  17. 20.
    A Clockwork Orange
    by Anthony Burgess

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  18. 21.
    Anatomy of Melancholy (2 vols.)
    by Robert Burton

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  19. 22.
    The Way of All Flesh (Giant Thrifts)
    by Samuel Butler

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  20. 23.

  21. 24.
    The Stranger
    by Albert Camus

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  22. 25.
    In Cold Blood
    by Truman Capote

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  23. 26.

  24. 27.
    Silent Spring
    by Rachel Carson

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  25. 28.
    Where I'm Calling From: Selected Stories
    by Raymond Carver

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  26. 29.
    My Antonia
    by Willa Cather

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  27. 30.
    The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini
    by Benvenuto Cellini

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  28. 31.
    ?
    The Plays of Anton Chekhov
    by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

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  29. 32.
    The Awakening
    by Kate Chopin

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  30. 33.
    The Nature of the Gods (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Cicero

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  31. 34.
    The House on Mango Street

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  32. 35.
    The Secret Agent (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Joseph Conrad

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  33. 36.
    Adolphe and the Red Notebook
    by Benjamin Constant

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  34. 37.
    ?
    Stories and Collected Poems
    by Stephen Crane

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  35. 38.
    E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962
    by E. E. Cummings

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  36. 39.
    House of Leaves: The Remastered Full-Color Edition
    by Mark Z. Danielewski

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  37. 40.
    The Divine Comedy
    by Dante Alighieri

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  38. 41.
    ?
    Music of Human Flesh
    by Mahmoud Darwish

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  39. 42.
    The Girl with the Golden Eyes (The Art of the Novella)
    by Honore de Balzac

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  40. 43.
    The Second Sex (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
    by Simone De Beauvoir

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  41. 44.
    Don Quixote (Penguin Classics)
    by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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  42. 45.
    The Fables Of La Fontaine
    by Jean De LA Fontaine

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  43. 46.
    ?
    The unknown light: The poems of Fray Luis de León
    by Luis de León

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  44. 47.
    Selected Stories of Guy de Maupassant
    by Guy de Maupassant

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  45. 48.
    Confessions of an English Opium Eater (Penguin Classics)
    by Thomas De Quincey

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  46. 49.
    Democracy in America
    by Alexis de Tocqueville

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  47. 50.
    Fuente Ovejuna/Lost in a Mirror
    by Lope de Vega

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  48. 52.
    Descartes's Rules for the Direction of the Mind (Key Texts)
    by Harold Joachim

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  49. 53.
    Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)
    by Charles Dickens

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  50. 54.
    The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
    by Emily Dickinson

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  51. 55.
    The Idiot (Modern Library Classics)
    by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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  52. 57.
    Selected Poems
    by Rita Dove

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  53. 58.
    A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
    by Dave Eggers

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  54. 59.
    You Shall Know Our Velocity
    by Dave Eggers

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  55. 60.

  56. 61.
    The Invisible Man (Signet Classics)
    by H.G. Wells

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  57. 62.
    Emerson's Essays
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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  58. 63.
    ?
    Poems for people who don't read poems;
    by Hans Magnus Enzensberger

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  59. 64.
    In Praise of Folly
    by Erasmus

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  60. 66.
    Middlesex: A Novel
    by Jeffrey Eugenides

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  61. 67.
    The Sound and the Fury
    by William Faulkner

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  62. 68.
    ?
    The Muse Reborn: The Poetry of Antonio Ferreira
    by T. F. Earle

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  63. 69.
    Tom Jones (Modern Library Classics)
    by Henry Fielding

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  64. 70.
    The Great Gatsby
    by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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  65. 71.
    Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)
    by Gustave Flaubert

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  66. 72.
    Everything Is Illuminated
    by Jonathan Safran Foer

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  67. 73.
    The Good Soldier
    by Ford Madox Ford

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  68. 74.
    Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
    by Anne Frank

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  69. 75.
    The Interpretation Of Dreams
    by Sigmund Freud

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  70. 76.
    The Feminine Mystique
    by Betty Friedan

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  71. 77.
    The Affluent Society
    by John Kenneth Galbraith

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  72. 78.
    Non-Violent Resistance
    by M. K. Gandhi

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  73. 79.
    The Beggar's Opera (Dover Thrift Editions)
    by John Gay

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  74. 80.
    Lord of the Flies
    by William Golding

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  75. 82.
    The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales
    by Brothers Grimm

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  76. 83.
    Collected Poems, 1912-1944 (H.D.)
    by H. D. (Hilda Doolittle)

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  77. 84.
    Complete Poems and Plays,: 1909-1950
    by T. S. Eliot

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  78. 85.
    The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics)
    by Alexander Hamilton

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  79. 86.
    The Mayor of Casterbridge (Modern Library Classics)
    by Thomas Hardy

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  80. 87.
    Second Skin
    by John Hawkes

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  81. 89.
    The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Classics)
    by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  82. 90.
    Catch-22
    by Joseph Heller

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  83. 91.
    Garden of Eden
    by Ernest Hemingway

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  84. 92.
    The Jewish State
    by Theodor Herzl

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  85. 93.
    Siddhartha
    by Hermann Hesse

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  86. 95.
    Magna Carta: Second Edition
    by J.C. Holt

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  87. 96.
    The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
    by Homer

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  88. 97.
    The Odyssey
    by Homer

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  89. 98.
    ?
    Complete Poems A.E. Housman
    by A.E. Housman

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  90. 99.
    Treatise of Human Nature
    by David Hume

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  91. 100.
    Their Eyes Were Watching God
    by Zora Neale Hurston

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  92. 101.
    ?
    An Egyptian Childhood (Modern Arabic Writing)
    by Taha Hussein

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  93. 102.
    Brave New World
    by Aldous Huxley

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  94. 103.
    The Portrait of a Lady (Penguin Classics)
    by Henry James

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  95. 104.
    In Parenthesis (New York Review Books)
    by David Jones

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  96. 105.

  97. 106.
    The Trial
    by Franz Kafka

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  98. 108.
    Schindler's List
    by Thomas Keneally

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  99. 109.
    On the Road (Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century)
    by Jack Kerouac

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  100. 112.
    Rudyard Kipling: Complete Verse
    by Rudyard Kipling

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  101. 113.
    ?
    Season on Earth (Poets, Penguin)
    by Kenneth Koch

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  102. 114.
    The Koran (Penguin Classics)
    by Anonymous

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  103. 115.

  104. 117.
    Essays of Elia: The Works of Charles Lamb
    by Charles Lamb

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  105. 118.
    Selected Short Stories of D.H. Lawrence (Modern Library)
    by D.H. Lawrence

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  106. 119.
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    by Harper Lee

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  107. 120.
    If Not Now, When? (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Primo Levi

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  108. 121.
    Collected Poems by Vachel Lindsay
    by Vachel Lindsay

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  109. 123.
    The Prince
    by Niccolo Machiavelli

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  110. 124.
    The Assistant: A Novel
    by Bernard Malamud

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  111. 125.
    An Imaginary Life
    by David Malouf

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  112. 126.

  113. 127.
    Death in Venice: And Seven Other Stories
    by Thomas Mann

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  114. 128.
    The Collected Poems of Christopher Marlowe
    by Christopher Marlowe

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  115. 129.
    Love in the Time of Cholera
    by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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  116. 130.
    Life of Pi: Student Edition
    by Yann Martel

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  117. 131.
    The Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics)
    by Karl Marx

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  118. 132.
    Of Human Bondage (Bantam Classics)
    by W. Somerset Maugham

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  119. 133.
    Angela's Ashes
    by Frank McCourt

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  120. 134.
    The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)
    by Carson McCullers

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  121. 135.
    The Egoist
    by George Meredith

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  122. 136.
    Death of a Salesman
    by Arthur Miller

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  123. 137.
    Selected Poems: 1931-2004
    by Czeslaw Milosz

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  124. 138.
    Don Juan
    by Moliere

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  125. 139.
    Complete Poems (Twentieth-Century Classics)
    by Marianne Moore

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  126. 140.
    Utopia (Penguin Classics)
    by Thomas More

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  127. 141.
    The Good Apprentice
    by Iris Murdoch

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  128. 142.
    Lolita
    by Vladimir Nabokov

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  129. 143.
    Pale Fire (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
    by Vladimir Nabokov

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  130. 144.
    A Bend in the River
    by V. S. Naipaul

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  131. 146.
    Beyond Good And Evil
    by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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  132. 147.
    Delta of Venus
    by Anais Nin

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  133. 148.
    The Octopus
    by Frank Norris

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  134. 149.
    The Complete Stories
    by Flannery O'Connor

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  135. 150.
    Them (Modern Library)
    by Joyce Carol Oates

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  136. 151.
    1984: Centennial Edition
    by George Orwell

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  137. 152.
    Animal Farm: Centennial Edition
    by George Orwell

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  138. 153.
    Ovid: The Art of Love
    by Ovid

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  139. 154.
    Doctor Zhivago
    by Boris Pasternak

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  140. 155.
    Cry, the Beloved Country
    by Alan Paton

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  141. 156.
    The Bell Jar: A Novel (Perennial Classics)
    by Sylvia Plath

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  142. 157.
    The Republic (Penguin Classics)
    by Plato

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  143. 158.
    Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
    by Edgar Allan Poe

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  144. 159.
    An Essay On Criticism
    by Alexander Pope

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  145. 160.
    The Cantos of Ezra Pound (New Directions Paperbook)
    by Ezra Pound

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  146. 161.
    The Crying of Lot 49
    by Thomas Pynchon

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  147. 162.
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    A Dress of Fire
    by Dalia Ravikovitch

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  148. 163.
    Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters
    by Wallace Fowlie

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  149. 164.
    The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke
    by Theodore Roethke

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  150. 165.
    Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti
    by Christina Georgina Rossetti

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  151. 166.
    ?
    Portnoy's Complaint
    by Philip Roth

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  152. 167.
    Confessions (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
    by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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  153. 168.
    Midnight's Children: A Novel
    by Salman Rushdie

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  154. 169.
    Empire Falls (HBO Tie-in)
    by Richard Russo

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  155. 170.
    The Catcher in the Rye
    by J.D. Salinger

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  156. 171.
    No Exit and Three Other Plays
    by Jean-Paul Sartre

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  157. 172.
    ?
    Naive and Sentimental Poetry, and on the Sublime; Two Essays
    by Johann Christoph Friedrich Von Schiller

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  158. 173.
    Pygmalion (Penguin Classics)
    by George Bernard Shaw

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  159. 174.
    Frankenstein (Enriched Classics)
    by Mary Shelley

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  160. 176.
    The Jungle: The Uncensored Original Edition
    by Upton Sinclair

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  161. 178.
    Spenser: Faerie Queene
    by A. Hamilton

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  162. 179.
    Tender Buttons (Dodo Press)
    by Gertrude Stein

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  163. 180.
    The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition)
    by John Steinbeck

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  164. 181.
    Love (Penguin Classics)
    by Stendhal

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  165. 183.
    Bram Stoker's Dracula
    by Bram Stoker

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  166. 184.
    Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
    by Patrick Suskind

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  167. 185.

  168. 186.
    The Joy Luck Club
    by Amy Tan

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  169. 187.
    Vanity Fair (Penguin Classics)
    by William Makepeace Thackeray

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  170. 189.
    Civil Disobedience (Dodo Press)
    by Henry David Thoreau

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  171. 190.
    Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club)
    by Leo Tolstoy

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  172. 191.
    The Torah

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  173. 192.
    Civilization on Trial
    by Arnold J Toynbee

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  174. 193.
    Fathers and Sons
    by Ivan Turgenev

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  175. 194.
    The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
    by Amos Tutuola

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  176. 195.
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics)
    by Mark Twain

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  177. 196.
    Witches of Eastwick
    by John Updike

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  178. 197.
    Candide (Modern Library)
    by Voltaire

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  179. 198.
    Cat's Cradle
    by Kurt Vonnegut

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  180. 199.
    Slaughterhouse-Five
    by Kurt Vonnegut

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  181. 200.
    World Enough and Time (Voices of the South)
    by Robert Penn Warren

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  182. 201.
    The House of Mirth (Barnes & Noble Classics)
    by Edith Wharton

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  183. 202.
    Leaves of Grass (Enriched Classics)
    by Walt Whitman

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  184. 203.
    The Picture of Dorian Gray (Modern Library Classics)
    by Oscar Wilde

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  185. 204.
    Three Plays By Thornton Wilder
    by Thornton Wilder

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  186. 205.
    A Streetcar Named Desire.
    by Tennessee Williams

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  187. 206.
    The Glass Menagerie
    by Tennessee Williams

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  188. 207.
    Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (Winterson, Jeanette)
    by Jeanette Winterson

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  189. 208.
    Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays
    by Christa Wolf

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  190. 209.
    Orlando: A Biography (Wordsworth Classics)
    by Virginia Woolf

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  191. 210.
    The Prelude: A Parallel Text (Penguin Classics)
    by William Wordsworth

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  192. 211.
    Native Son (Perennial Classics)
    by Richard A. Wright

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  193. 212.
    The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
    by William Butler Yeats

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This is Tania Toma's list. Only Tania Toma can edit it. You can make your own version of this list.
Created by Tania Toma on May 14, 2007.