SweetartZ28's "Recommended Reading List for the Well Read Adult"

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My list began with me wanting to read one book from every year since 1800… then 1700… then wanting to be able to consider myself "well read". These are all books that I hope to read eventually, be it as an exemplary piece of the time period, their historical significance, or just for the pure pleasure. They are my selections from about 60 various lists, as well as non "listed" selections for their respective time period.

If anyone who stumbles across my list knows of some good reads from the 16th-18th Centuries, I’m obviously lacking. I would welcome the recommendations. I am mostly interested in fiction, but if it held a significant impact on society, I owe it to myself to read it.

This list should also be inclusive of 99% of books from the following lists: Pulitzer Prize Winners for Novel/Fiction; Oprah’s Book Club; Newbery Medal Award Winners (as a well read adult, you should be able to steer a child in the course of reading); BBC’s the Big Read; Time Magazine’s All-Time 100 Novels (1923-present); Costa (Whitbread) Book Awards: Book of the Year / Best Novel; and several other award lists.

(Update: I’m finding goodreads.com way more user friendly, so my lists and I are moving there. Look me up for one very big, comprehensive reading list. Still sweetartz28.)

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12 13

  1. 2.
    A Bell for Adano
    by John Hersey

  2. 3.
    A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
    by Barbara W. Tuchman

  3. 4.

  4. 5.
    A Doll's House - Literary Touchstone Edition
    by Henrik Ibsen

  5. 6.
    A Bend in the River
    by V. S. Naipaul

  6. 7.
    ?
    A Fable
    by William Faulkner

  7. 8.
    The Adventures of Augie March (Penguin Classics)
    by Saul Bellow

  8. 9.
    A Farewell to Arms (Scribner Classics)
    by Ernest Hemingway

  9. 10.
    ?
    A Canticle for Leibowitz
    by Walter M. Miller

  10. 11.
    A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)
    by Rohinton Mistry

  11. 12.

  12. 13.

  13. 15.
    A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
    by Flannery O'Connor

  14. 16.
    The Aeneid
    by Virgil (trans. Robert Fagles)

  15. 17.
    "A Confederacy of Dunces"
    by John Kennedy Toole

  16. 18.
    ?
    Aunt Phillis's Cabin
    by Mary Eastman

  17. 20.
    ?
    The Analects of Confucius
    by Confucius

  18. 21.
    ?
    A Dance to the Music of Time (series)
    by Anthony Powell

  19. 23.
    ?
    A Day No Pigs Would Die
    by Robert Newton Peck

  20. 24.
    ?
    Age of Reason
    by Thomas Paine

  21. 25.
    A Death in the Family: A Novel
    by James Agee

  22. 26.
    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Puffin Classics)
    by Mark Twain

  23. 28.
    The Awakening
    by Kate Chopin

  24. 29.
    Anne of Green Gables (Signet Classic) Paperback
    by L.M. Montgomery

  25. 30.
    Anna Karenina (Barnes & Noble Classics)
    by Leo Tolstoy

  26. 31.
    Anne of Avonlea (Dover Juvenile Classics)
    by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

  27. 32.
    The Ambassadors (Oxford World's Classics)
    by Henry James

  28. 33.
    The Age of Innocence (Barnes & Noble Classics)
    by Edith Wharton

  29. 34.
    ?
    Arthur Mervyn
    by Charles Brockden Brown

  30. 35.
    ?
    All Quiet on the Western Front
    by Erich Maria Remarque

  31. 36.
    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Puffin Classics)
    by Mark Twain

  32. 37.
    ?
    As I Lay Dying
    by William Faulkner

  33. 38.
    Appointment in Samarra: A Novel
    by John O'Hara

  34. 39.
    Absalom, Absalom!
    by William Faulkner

  35. 40.
    Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
    by Anne Frank

  36. 41.
    An American Dream
    by Norman Mailer

  37. 42.
    ?
    AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS.
    by Flann. O'Brien

  38. 43.
    Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
    by Judy Blume

  39. 44.
    ?
    The Assistant
    by Bernard Malamud

  40. 45.
    All the President's Men
    by Bob Woodward

  41. 46.
    All the King's Men
    by Robert Penn Warren

  42. 47.
    Animal Farm
    by George Orwell

  43. 48.
    The Holy Bible
    by Various Authors

  44. 49.
    ?
    Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee
    by Dee Brown

  45. 50.
    Burr: A Novel
    by Gore Vidal

Pages: 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12 13

This is SweetartZ28's list. Only SweetartZ28 can edit it. You can make your own version of this list.
Created by SweetartZ28 on Sep 13, 2008.
 

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