Literature. If you actually take the time to read these few books, and drop references to them in your essays, every English teacher you ever have will love you. Furthermore, having something to say about these great novels will allow you to pass for being literate. Plus, they're great reads, which are well worth reading for pleasure. Don't force yourself to read any of them; find the ones that interest you at that time. All of these works are classics, and each of them will inform your reading of many other works.
Crime and Punishment.
In my current opinion, the greatest novel ever written. The first real "twentieth-century" novel, even if it was written in the 19th. Those 19th century Russians (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol) where all ahead of their time. But don't get Crime and Punishment confused with War and Peace. You'll never finsish W & P but C & P will take a matter of days. |  |
 | Hamlet
You'll probably read several of Shakespeare's plays in your life, but this is by far the most important. That's not necessarily because its the "best" (whatever that means) but because it is alluded to much more than any other work of fiction, period. And for goodness sake, read the footnotes. Shakepeare's England was far removed from our time, and the language often requires explanation for modern readers. Reading the notes will make this classic play much more intelligible. |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce's pioneering work into stream-of-consciousness. This has always been one of my favorite novels. Very interesting, very "modern", and very much shorter than Ulysses. |  |
 | As I Lay Dying
Faulkner's story of the Bundren family's journey to bury their mother. Simply written, but brilliant, as each chapter is written in the first person, from the perspective of a different character. A true tour-de-force. |
The Epic of Sundiata
A modern-day griot's retelling of the hero Sundiata's defeat of teh evil sorceror-king Sumanguru's, one of West Africa's oldest and most famous tale of battle, magic and adventure, passed down through oral tradition for hundreds of years. |  |
 | Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe's first novel, a tragedy centering on the downfall of a prosperous and strong-willed Ibo hero named Okonkwo, whose pre-colonial Nigerian world is torn apart by the changes British imperialism brings. Although filled with anti-imperialist sentiment, the novel is complex and pre-colonial Nigeria is not portrayed as a utopia. |
1984
Orwell's story of a distopian "future" (even though it was set in 1984) in which Big Brother is "watching you". A fast read that is a little creepy, 1984 will leave you wondering as to the extent to which our own society actually is, or might be, run by some "Big Brother" (or "Big Sister"?). Our web-surfing and credit card transactions are all monitored, right? How would we know if our whole reality was filtered through a totally autocratic propaganda state? |  |
 | Animal Farm
Another work by Orwell, this fanciful tale of farmyard rebellion is a direct allegory of (and critique of) the Communist revolution in Russia. Have fun matching up barnyard creatures with the Bolshevik leaders they represent. |
Brave New World
Marking the date in terms of the "Year of our Ford", Huxley's fictional world is the classic tale of a technologically rationalized utopia gone "horribly wrong." Still, the Brave New World has its upsides: while the system may have seemed unjust to external observers, everyone, from highest alpha to lowliest delta was conditioned to be happy in their pre-ordained roles, and thus, everyone was at least content...  |  |
 | Moby Dick
Herman Melville's timeless story of the monomaniacal Captain Ahab and his self-destructive search for the white whale, Moby Dick. Some of my friends much better versed in American Lit than me think this is the best novel ever. I'm not so sure, but I do admit to being tickled by the scenes involving "Ishmael" and Queequeg, the harpoonist. To get some of the symbolism, you should probably look into some study notes to read in conjunction with the book. Although it is quite long, no educated person should go without having made an attempt at Moby Dick. |
The Count of Monte Cristo
No great moral or symbolism here: just the timeless tale of a lifetime spent plotting revenge. Dumas' masterpiece is not far from a 19th century Shawshank Redemption. Plus, people are always surprised that Alexandre Dumas (the author) was Afro-French. Despite the racism of his period, his works (including The Three Musketeers) have always been admired, in the 1800s as now. |  |
 | Wuthering Heights
The story of Heathcliff and Catherine's forbidden love (subtle subtext: incest?) and its reverbations down the successive generation. I read this book in 8th grade and hated it. When I reread it in 12th grade, it was one of my favorites, and I ended up writing an essay on it for the AP English Lit. exam. Certainly not a book for everyone or for all ages, but one of the masterpieces of English literature. |
The Last of the Mohicans
You should take a look at this to get an idea of what pre-revolutionary American literature was like: not very good. I stumbled through this one and didn't get that much pleasure out of Natty Bumpo's exploits during the French and Indian War, but I guess every literate American should give it try. (Non-Americans: count yourself lucky.) |  |
 | The Scarlet Letter
One of the first truly great American works, The Scarlet Letter, which revolves around the subject of adultery, proves that great literature is anything but stodgy. Using Hester Prynne's "crime" as a focus, the book introduces complicated themes from the nature of sin to the need for revenge. |
A Tale of Two Cities
One of Dickens' most famous works, the story is filled with lines that we've all heard, right on from the best-known beginning ever: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Personally, I prefer the biting social critiques in Hard Times, Bleak House, and Little Dorrit, but no one can claim to know a thing about Dickens, the definitive Victorian writer, without reading Tale of Two Cities first. |  |
 | Bleak House
Now this is the Dickens' work I really love! All the characters in the novel are sucked into the case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, a case so old that no one can remember anything about it but that it involves a lot of money. But the book doesn't only make fun of the legal system; it mercilessly satirizes just about everyone and everything in mid-Victorian British life, from the High Court of Chancery to philanthropists (the Pardiggles). The characters are so comic and petty that when reading it I found myself wanting to give a repressed British chuckle every few paragraphs. And the critique of society still seems to apply very well to our own time. |
Huckleberry Finn
This page is becoming quite lengthy and I'm getting tired of working on it. But one last thing: you shouldn't make it past 15 or 16 without having read Huck Finn. I'm not going to justify that in any way because it's too late at night right now. But enjoy yourself, keep surfing, and keep reading... |  |
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