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Sunday, September 7, 2014

My Ultimate Book Bucket List

*Titles in violet are those I have already read. Those marked with (*) at the end of each title are books that I already own.  Books are listed  alphabetically and are linked to Goodreads (GR) if unreviewed, or to my blog (labeled "REVIEWED" if linked to blog, "GR REVIEWED" if linked to my Goodreads). 

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS LIST:  I scoured the net for hours just to assemble a diverse list which include, not only my favorite genres (sci-fi, gothic fiction, philosophical fiction), but almost all kinds of books. Lists that I checked are:  100 Greatest/Best Books of All Time, Top Banned Books, Best-selling books of all time, Greatest Philosophical Fiction, Top Ten Asian Novels, Most Challenging Books Ever, Essential Works of Postmodern Fiction, Best Experimental Novels, Best Modern Novels/Books of the 21st Century, Best Existentialist Books, 50 Coolest Books Ever, Nobel/Man Booker/Pulitzer/Asian Literary Prize winners... etc. etc. Every day I keep on checking other lists which I may have missed, and I'm still adding titles - even books that have gained notoriety or the worst reviews. Some titles here are personal choices (not from any top lists) - just books that I'm curious about.

(*this list is updated regularly*)


14 by Manix Abrera
1984 by George Orwell (1949) * - "The imagery and language of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four permeated society in the 20th century and continues to do so in the 21st. Perhaps the most visionary novel ever written, it foretold a world of surveillance and totalitarian regime. Big Brother, thoughtcrime, Room 101, newspeak and doublespeak; all chilling portents which become more valid by the day." - Shortlist.com
2666 by Roberto Bolano (2004)

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (1936)
The Aeneid by Virgil (29 BC) *
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1920) (Pulitzer, 1921)  - "The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.""
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte (1847)* - "At age 19 Anne Brontë left home and worked as a governess for a few years before becoming a writer. Agnes Grey was an 1847 novel based on her experience as a governess." GR
The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges (1945) - "Full of philosophical puzzles and supernatural surprises, these stories contain some of Borges’s most fully realized human characters. With uncanny insight he takes us inside the minds of an unrepentant Nazi, an imprisoned Mayan priest, fanatical Christian theologians, a woman plotting vengeance on her father’s “killer,” and a man awaiting his assassin in a Buenos Aires guest house."
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)* - "Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work."
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (2000) * - "Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book."
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (1991) * - or any books by Ellis, because dammit, his books are disturbing! But like any "normal" person, you know you don't wanna be a part of it but you just can't look away. You need to read more. -_- Damn you Ellis!
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (1998, Booker) - "On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throng outside a London crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence: Clive is Britain's most successful modern composer, and Vernon is editor of the newspaper The Judge.Gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers, too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister."
Analects by Confucius (400 BC)
Ang Paboritong Libro ni Hudas by Bob Ong (2003)*
Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945) *
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1877)
The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights  India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (900)
The Art of Fiction by Henry James (1884) - "In this classic essay which originally appeared in his 1888 collectionPartial Portraits, Henry James argues against rigid proscriptions on the novelist's choice of subject and method of treatment. He maintains that the widest possible freedom in content and approach will help ensure narrative fiction's continued vitality."
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930)
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift (1704)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957) *
Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001) *
The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard (1970) - "The Atrocity Exhibition practically lies outside of any literary tradition. Part science fiction, part eerie historical fiction, part pornography, its characters adhere to no rules of linearity or stability." - GR
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899)* - "Chopin's depiction of a married woman, bound to her family and with no way to assert a fulfilling life of her own, has become a foundation for feminism and a classic account of gender crises in the late Victorian era."

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (1999) *
The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose by Alice Munro (1991) - "Alice Munro has a unique place in Booker Prize history; The Beggar Maid is the only short story collection to have been shortlisted. (It was shortlisted in 1980.)"
Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre (1943) - "Being & Nothingness is without doubt one of the most significant philosophical books of the 20th century. The central work by one of the century's most influential thinkers, it altered the course of western philosophy. Its revolutionary approach challenged all previous assumptions about the individual's relationship with the world. Known as 'the Bible of existentialism', its impact on culture & literature was immediate & was felt worldwide."
Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (1927)
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963)*
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (1886) *
The Bible * - partly read
Black Hole by Charles Burns (2000) - "Charles Burns released his 12-issue comic book series Black Hole over a decade from 1995, a bleak but brilliant tale of suburban alienation when teenagers who contract a mysterious sexually transmitted disease start to develop bizarre physical mutations, all drawn in eerie black and white, evoking the feel of classic teen horror films." - Shortlist.com
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (2000, Booker*
Blindness by Jose Saramago (1991) *
Blood and Guts in High School by Kathy Acker (1978) - "Janey lived in the locked room. Twice a day the Persian slave trader came in and taught her to be a whore. Otherwise there was nothing. One day she found a pencil stub and scrap of paper in a forgotten corner of the room..." - GR
Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy (1985) *
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald (1995) - "In eighteenth-century Germany, the impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis seeks his father's permission to wed his true philosophy -- a plain, simple child named Sophie. The attachment shocks his family and friends. This brilliant young man, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard! How can it be? A literary sensation and a bestseller in England and the United States, The Blue Flower was one of eleven books- and the only paperback- chosen as an Editor's Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner in Fiction."
The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong (2009)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (1984) (Booker, 1985) - "Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity."
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa (1982)
Brave New World/ Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley (1932) *
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (1958)
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (2015) (Booker) - "From the acclaimed author of The Book of Night Women comes a masterfully written novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s."
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (1987) *
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Thomas Cromwell Trilogy #2) (2012) (Booker)*
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1876)* 


The Call of Cthulhu by Edgar Allan Poe (1926) * - "One of the feature stories of the Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world."
Candide by Voltaire (1759) *
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1390) *
The Castle by Franz Kafka (1926)
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) *
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951) * - GR REVIEWED. I plan to read this again to see if my feelings regarding Holden have changed.
Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken "Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods is a work of monumental importance--the first book to introduce the shocking theory that ancient Earth had been visited by aliens. This world-famous bestseller has withstood the test of time. But here is where it all began--von Daniken's startling theories of our earliest encounters with alien worlds, based upon his lifelong studies of ancient ruins, lost cities, potential spaceports, and a myriad of hard scientific facts that point to extraterrestrial intervention in human history."
Children of Gebelawi by Naguib Mahfouz (1959)
A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens (1843)*
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1981) *
Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson (1748)
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962) *
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004) *
Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami (1980)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982) (Pulitzer, 1983)* - "The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence."
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels (1848)
The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm (1812)
The Complete Novels of Jane Austen by Jane Austen * - (Sense & Sensibility (1811), Pride & Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815),  Northanger Abbey (1817), Persuasion (1817)) 
The Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle *
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980) - "A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero is one Ignatius J. Reilly, "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures"
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo (1923)
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (1974) (Booker) - "Mehring is rich. He has all the privileges and possessions that South Africa has to offer, but his possessions refuse to remain objects. His wife, son, and mistress leave him; his foreman and workers become increasingly indifferent to his stewarsship; even the land rises up, as drought, then flood, destroy his farm."
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (2002)* - "The line between pleasant and horrible is often blurred until what's what becomes suddenly clear, and like Coraline, we resist leaving this strange world until we're hooked. Unnerving drawings also cast a dark shadow over the book's eerie atmosphere, which is only heightened by simple, hair-raising text." - GR
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo (2003) *
Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz (1965)
The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide (1925) - "An honest treatment of homosexuality and the collapse of morality in middle-class France. The themes of the book explore the problem of morals, the problem of society and the problems facing writers."
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844) *
Crash by J.G. Ballard (1973) * - "A classic work of cutting edge fiction, Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations."
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1866) * - GR REVIEWED.
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1966) - "Bizarre, brilliant, and for Pynchon, brief, The Crying of Lot 49 concerns his heroine Oedipa Maas and her quest to uncover a conspiracy surrounding a shadowy alternative postal service working on the US underground. Though only short, Pynchon weaves multi-threaded plot in what might be a parody of post-modernism, despite being a notable example of the genre."
Cujo by Stephen King (1981)

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951) - "Tey’s 1951 novel is widely praised as one of the best crime novels of all time, but has never really crossed over into genre-blind classic. A shame, because it incorporates history, mystery, crime, and the way we construct the truth into a brilliant, important work." - Flavorwire
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) *
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch (1945)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (1771)
The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr. (1976)
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney (1974)
The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac (1958) - "Penned in the breathlessly inventive style that made On The Road so alluring, The Dharma Bums is a superior novel to its more illustrious older sibling. Recounting Kerouac’s dichotomic lifestyle – between the booze-sodden life of the neon urban sprawl and his contemplative, Buddhist influenced days spent in the idyllic outdoors – in a typically evocative manner, the book remains a countercultural bible."
Dianetics by L.Ron Hubbard (1988) * - partly read. I just wanna finish this piece of crap so I can proudly say it's a total waste of time.
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (2003)* - "Another stunner from Chuck Palahniuk, this bleak but blackly humourous horror is more psychological in tone, rather than the viscerally explicit style that he also turns his hand to. Taking the form of a coma diary, written while protagonist Misty’s husband is in a coma following a suicide attempt, it’s a peculiar and deeply unsettling fable of small town conspiracy."
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol (1835)
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1947)*
The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart (1971)*  - "A psychiatrist called Luke Rhinehart (the novel was written under the pen name by George Cockcroft) begins making his life decisions on the roll of a dice, entering a subversive world of sex and violence. Banned variously, The Dice Man is pretty much the definition of a cult novel, have a wildly fanatical fan base, and having influenced hundreds books and movies ever since."
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (1990) - "It is widely regarded as a book that helped establish the genre conventions of steampunk. It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer (actually his analytical engine rather than the difference engine). The novel was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award in 1990, the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991, and both the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Prix Aurora Award in 1992."
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (1999, Booker) - "Set in post-apartheid South Africa, J. M. Coetzee’s searing novel tells the story of David Lurie, a twice divorced, 52-year-old professor of communications and Romantic Poetry at Cape Technical University. Lurie believes he has created a comfortable, if somewhat passionless, life for himself. He lives within his financial and emotional means. Though his position at the university has been reduced, he teaches his classes dutifully; and while age has diminished his attractiveness, weekly visits to a prostitute satisfy his sexual needs. He considers himself happy. But when Lurie seduces one of his students, he sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter his complacency and leave him utterly disgraced."
Divergent series: (Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), Allegiant (2013)* ) by Veronica Roth - because this list is sorely lacking some YA flavor.
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1306) *
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968) - "A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet. Those who remain, venerate all remaining examples of life, and owning an animal of your own is both a symbol of status and a necessity. For those who can't afford an authentic animal, companies build incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep . . . even humans."
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann (1947) - "Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil."
Don Juan by Lord Byron (1824) - "Don Juan is a satiric poem by Lord Byron, based on the legend of Don Juan, which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women. Byron himself called it an "Epic Satire". When the first two cantos were published anonymously in 1819, the poem was criticised for its 'immoral content', though it was also immensely popular."
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605)
Dune by Frank Herbert (1965) 
Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) * - GR REVIEWED
The Dwarf by Par Lagerkvist (1944) - "Pär Lagerkvist's richly philosophical novel The Dwarf is an exploration of individual and social identity. The novel, set in a time when Italian towns feuded over the outcome of the last feud, centers on a social outcast, the court dwarf Piccoline." 

Either/Or: A Fragment of Life by Soren Kierkegaard (1843) - "'What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?' Either/Or is the earliest of the major works of Søren Kierkegaard, one of the most startlingly original thinkers and writers of the nineteenth century, and the first which he wrote under a pseudonym, as he would for his greatest philosophical writings. Adopting the viewpoints of two distinct figures with radically different beliefs--the aesthetic young man of Part One, called simply 'A', and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section--Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as diverse as Mozart, drama, boredom, and, in the famous Seducer's Diary, the cynical seduction and ultimate rejection of a young, beautiful woman. A masterpiece of duality, Either/Or is an exploration of the conflict between the aesthetic and the ethical--both meditating ironically and seductively upon Epicurean pleasures, and eloquently expounding the noble virtues of a morally upstanding life."
The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (1969) (Booker, 1979) - "Norman is the clever one of a closely-knit Jewish family in London's East End. Infant prodigy, brilliant barrister, the apple of his parents' eyes—until at 41 he becomes a drug addict, confined to his bedroom, at the mercy of his hallucinations and paranoia."
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr., E.B. White (1918) - "This style manual offers practical advice on improving writing skills. Throughout the emphasis is on promoting a plain English style. This little book can help your students communicate more effectively by showing them how to enliven their sentences."
El Filibusterismo by Jose Rizal (translated by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin) (1891) *
Elmer by Gerry Alanguilan (2009)* - "Elmer is a window into a world where chickens have suddenly acquired the intelligence and consciousness of humans, where they can now consider themselves a race no different than browns, black, or whites. Recognizing themselves to be sentient, the inexplicably evolved chickens push to attain rights for themselves as the newest members of the human race."
Embassytown by China Mieville (2011) - "In the far future, humans have colonized a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak. Avice Benner Cho, a human colonist, has returned to Embassytown after years of deep-space adventure. She cannot speak the Ariekei tongue, but she is an indelible part of it, having long ago been made a figure of speech, a living simile in their language."
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (1992) (Booker* - "With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II."
Enjoy Your Symptom! by Slavoj Zizek (1991) - "His inimitable blend of philosophical and social theory, Lacanian analysis, and outrageous humor are made to show how Hollywood movies can explain psychoanalysis-and vice versa using films such as Marnie and The Man Who Knew Too Much."
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Modern Morals and Happiness by William Godwin (1793) - "To his contemporaries, Godwin was simply "the philosopher", and this title is a statement of rational anarchism, its ideas echoing through Kropotkin's mutual aid and Marx's vision of the post-revolutionary paradise."
Ethics by Baruch Spinoza (1867) - "Published shortly after his death in 1677, Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza’s greatest work—a fully cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a coherent picture of reality and to comprehend the meaning of an ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding, moving from a consideration of the eternal to speculate upon humanity’s place in the natural order, freedom, and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection."
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)* - "With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man - also named Jonathan Safran Foer - sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past."

Factotum by Charles Bukowski (1975) - "The ‘laureate of American lowlife’, in Factotum Bukowski presented his alter-ego Henry Chinaksi, a shambling booze-hound meandering from one disastrous menial job to the next with an increasing level of disdain as he struggles to get himself published as a writer. Set in the seamy world of the 40s LA barfly, this is a grubby classic."
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1590)
Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by Hans Christian Andersen
The Fall by Albert Camus *
The Famished Road by Ben Okri (1991) (Booker) - "In the decade since it won the Booker Prize, Ben Okri's Famished Roadhas become a classic. Like Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it combines brilliant narrative technique with a fresh vision to create an essential work of world literature."
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1832)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson (1971) * - "Chaotic, psychedelic, and dripping in hallucinogens, this is Thompson’s crowning work of gonzo madness. Centring around the exploits of journalist Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr Gonzo, things rapidly degenerate (including the integrity of the narrative) as the pair ditch their assignment to cover a motorbike race and lose themselves in a haze of acid, ether, cocaine and mescaline in Sin City."
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973) - "A clear indicator of a novel permeating, and in some cases transforming, everyday life is in the adoption of the book’s language. Erica Jong achieved this in spades with her remarkable debut novel. An intelligent, captivating, vivid and not to mention highly contentious account of a woman’s desires, it has become a key feminist tract since its publication. The origin of the phrase ‘zipless f**k’ can be traced back to this fascinating novel." - Shortlist.com
The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges (1944) - "First published in 1945, his Ficciones compressed several centuries' worth of philosophy and poetry into 17 tiny, unclassifiable pieces of prose. He offered up diabolical tigers, imaginary encyclopedias, ontological detective stories, and scholarly commentaries on nonexistent books, and in the process exploded all previous notions of genre. Would any of David Foster Wallace's famous footnotes be possible without Borges? Or, for that matter, the syntactical games of Perec, the metafictional pastiche of Calvino? For good or for ill, the blind Argentinian paved the way for a generation's worth of postmodern monkey business--and fiction will never be simply "fiction" again. "
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (2005) *
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010) (Booker)*
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (1939)*
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (1988)* 
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943) *
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) 
The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem (1971) *

G. by John Berger (1972) (Booker) - "In this luminous novel -- winner of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize -- John Berger relates the story of "G.," a young man forging an energetic sexual career in Europe during the early years of this century. With profound compassion, Berger explores the hearts and minds of both men and women, and what happens during sex, to reveal the conditions of the Don Juan's success: his essential loneliness, the quiet cumulation in each of his sexual experiences of all of those that precede it, the tenderness that infuses even the briefest of his encounters, and the way women experience their own extraordinariness through their moments with him. "
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (2012) (Asian Literary Prize)
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais (1532) - "The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c.1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour, while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world."
The Gathering by Anne Enright (2007) (Booker)* - "Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new. The Gathering is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate is written in the body, not in the stars."
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (1991) - "Andy, Dag and Claire have been handed a society priced beyond their means. Twentysomethings, brought up with divorce, Watergate and Three Mile Island, and scarred by the 80s fall-out of yuppies, recession, crack and Ronald Reagan, they represent the new generation - Generation X."
Gerilya by Norman Wilwayco (2008)
Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike (2000) - "As its title suggests, this is a prelude to the actual play (Hamlet), focusing not on the sulky star but on his mother and fratricidal stepfather"
The Ghost Road (Regeneration trilogy #3) by Pat Barker (1995) (Booker) - "The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy."
Ghost Story by Peter Straub (1979) - "The novel was a watershed in Straub's career. Though his earlier books had achieved a limited amount of critical and commercial success, Ghost Story became a national bestseller and cemented the author's reputation."
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes (1998) - "Celebrated author and cartoonist Daniel Clowes constructed an immersive narrative in his Ghost World comics, which were brought together as a single volume in 1997. Enid and Rebecca are best friends, searingly witty consumers and critics of pop culture, living in a nameless suburbia. Both are classic outsiders, nerdy but also effortlessly cool. A blueprint for hipster culture."
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2006)* - "Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart. Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Marilynne Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order" (Slate)"
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (1998)* - "Victor Ward, a model with perfect abs who exists in magazines and gossip columns and whose life resembles an ultra-hip movie, is living with one beautiful model and having an affair with another. And then it's time to move on to the next stage. But the future he gets is not the one he had in mind."
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997) (Booker) - ""They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved and how. And how much.""
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013) - because the reviews/ratings are so polarizing.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1936)
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald (1925) *
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (1861) *
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726) *

H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies: The Classic Stories That Inspired the Classic Horror Films by H.P. Lovecraft *- partly read (The Call of Cthulhu, Dagon, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Dreams in the Witch House)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (1602) *  - "To be or not to be, that is the question." Enough said.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985) - "Already a classic in some circles perhaps, but let’s be real — the more time goes by, the more it’s essential that everybody read this book." - Flavorwire
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000)* - "Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:")"
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899) *
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (1948)
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) (Booker) - "A profound and powerful novel, winner of the Booker Prize. Set in colonial India during the 1920s, Heat and Dust tells the story of Olivia, a beautiful woman suffocated by the propriety and social constraints of her position as the wife of an important English civil servant. Longing for passion and independence, Olivia is drawn into the spell of the Nawab, a minor Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots."
Herzog by Saul Bellow (1964)
His Family by Ernest Poole (1917) (Pulitzer, 1918) - "Widower Roger Gale struggles to deal with the way his children and grandchildren respond to the changing society. His Family is the story of a sixty-year-old New York man who reflects on his life and the lives of his three daughters. The women represent three separate types - one maternal, the second devoted to social movements, and the third living a happy and carefree existence - and the father sees something of himself in each."
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2003) - "Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to ‘My dear and unfortunate successor’. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of – a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history. "
A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (1340)
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (1937) *
Holiday by Stanley Middleton (1974) (Booker) - "This is an extremely subtle story, a consummate portrait of English provincial life told with all Stanley Middleton's artistry and depth of feeling. It was joint winner of the Booker Prize in 1974. Review quotation: "At first glance, or even at second, Stanley Middleton's world is easily recognizable...The excellence of art, for Middleton, is an exact vision of real things as they are. And because he is himself so exact an observer, his world at third glance can seem strange and disturbing or newly and brilliantly lit with colour.""
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar (1963)
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (1984) (Booker) - "In the novel that won her the Booker Prize and established her international reputation, Anita Brookner finds a new vocabulary for framing the eternal question "Why love?" It tells the story of Edith Hope, who writes romance novels under a psudonym. When her life begins to resemble the plots of her own novels, however, Edith flees to Switzerland, where the quiet luxury of the Hotel du Lac promises to resore her to her senses."
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000) * - "Danielewski’s intensely claustrophobic novel uses almost every trick in the book: multiple narrators, text in unusual places, insane typography, and copious footnotes. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside." 
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905) *
How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman (1994) (Booker) - "One Sunday morning in Glasgow, shoplifting ex-con Sammy awakens in an alley, wearing another man's shoes and trying to remember his two-day drinking binge."
How to Read Lacan by Slavoj Zizek (2006) - "is Žižek’s trademark blend of Lacanian analysis and pop culturewith the emphasis on explaining Lacan and clarifying his notoriously difficult writings with wit and humor." - severalfourmany
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo (1831) *
Hunger by Knut Hamsun (1890)

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1869)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (1979) - "Mind-bending and thoroughly post-modern, Calvino’s masterpiece of self-reference (‘you’ are part of the plot), its dizzyingly clever, labyrinthine construction has made it a classic. If there was ever a novel to make you look like an urbane Poindexter on the train/bus, then this is it." - Shortlist.com
The Iliad by Homer (800 BC)
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco (2008)*  - "Garnering international prizes and acclaim before its publication, Ilustrado has been called “brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed . . .It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humor” (2008 Man Asian Literary Prize panel of judges). Exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving, Ilustrado explores the hidden truths that haunt every family. It is a daring and inventive debut by a new writer of astonishing talent."
The Immoralist by Andre Gide (1902) - "“I have reached a point in my life where I can’t go on. It’s not a question of weariness — I no longer understand anything… Knowing how to free oneself is nothing; the difficult thing is how to live with that freedom.” In the opening pages of the novel, Gide gives us the anguished voice of Michel, who searches for happiness in a past that cannot be found again." - Flavorwire
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2010)* - "Henrietta Lacks, as HeLa, is known to present-day scientists for her cells from cervical cancer. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells were taken without her knowledge and still live decades after her death. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks was buried in an unmarked grave."
In a Free State by V.S. Naipaul (1971) (Booker, 1971) - "No writer has rendered our boundariless, post-colonial world more acutely or prophetically than V. S. Naipaul, or given its upheavals such a hauntingly human face. A perfect case in point is this riveting novel, a masterful and stylishly rendered narrative of emigration, dislocation, and dread, accompanied by four supporting narratives."
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965) * - "Without question the crowning achievement of Truman Capote’s career, his coverage in non-fiction novel form of the 1959 murder of a devout farmer, his wife and two of their daughters in Holcomb, Kansas, is utterly, page-turningly gripping. Capote took six years to write it, befriending murderer Perry Smith while he awaited execution." - Shortlist.com
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1995) - "Explores essential questions about what entertainment is, why we need it, and what it says about who we are."
The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis (1994) - "Set in Los Angeles, in the recent past. The birthplace and graveyard of American myths and dreams, the city harbours a group of people trapped between the beauty of their surroundings and their own moral impoverishment. This novel is a chronicle of their voices."
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (2005) (Booker, 2006) - "Kiran Desai’s brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that majestically illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world."
In Search of Lost Time / Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust (1932) - "A 3000-page pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style. It is an intimate 7-volume epic, an excavation of the self, and a comedy of manners by turns and all at once. Proust is the twentieth century's Dante, presenting us with a unique, unsettling picture of ourselves as jealous lovers and unmitigated snobs, frittering our lives away, with only the hope of art as a possible salvation."
In the Woods by Tana French (2007) - "As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours."
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (1996)
Island by Aldous Huxley (1962) - "In Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world.
It by Stephen King (1986)

Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot (1778)
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware (2000) - "A comic/graphic novel that won the Guardian First Book Award 2001. It is the first graphic novel to win a major British literary prize."
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (1939)
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann (1948)
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1932)
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1905) * - not really excited to read this one but I feel it's a mortal sin not to. "The book depicts working class poverty, the absence of social programs, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power"

Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana

Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. (1964) - "Depicting a rundown area of New York in the 1950s, Last Exit to Brooklyn features drug addicts, wanton violence, rape, crime and any other deviancy you care to mention. Penned in everyman, spontaneous prose, it’s the book most aspiring writers hope to emulate."
Last Orders by Graham Swift (1996) (Booker) - "Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day's outing, Last Order is Graham Swift's most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives."
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)*
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1857)
Letters from LA by Bret Easton Ellis (2005)
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan (2008)
Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee (1983) (Booker) - "Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience - the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision."
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001) (Booker, 2002) - "Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker."
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig (1991)* -  "In this best-selling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsing, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in. Along the way he picks up a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life."
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst (Booker, 2004) 
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868) *
Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice - (The Witching Hour *, Lasher (1992)*, Taltos (1994) *)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
LOTR Trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring *The Two Towers *The Return of the King * by J.R.R. Tolkien (1954)
The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy by Evelyn Waugh (1948)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985) * 
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (2013) (Booker)* - "Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner."
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis (2005) - "'Lunar Park' confounds one expectation after another, passing through comedy and mounting psychological and supernatural horror toward an astonishing resolution - about love and loss, fathers and sons - in what is surely the most powerfully original and moving novel of an extraordinary career."


Macbeth by William Shakespeare *
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1856) *
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link (2005) - "The nine stories in Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen: effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock themes of genre fiction into the stuff of delicate lyrical fantasy."
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924)
The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein (1925)
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (1930) - "In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century."
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil (1930)
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)* - "Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks & a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate & Yeshua, & the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless, circus-like reality of Moscow." - GR
Medea by Euripides (431 BC) 
Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (1925) - "In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust." - GR
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997)* "In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion."
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (1951)
Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber (1903) - "In his madness, the world was revealed to him as an enormous architecture of nerves, dominated by a predatory God. It became clear to Schreber that his personal crisis was implicated in what he called a "crisis in God's realm," one that had transformed the rest of humanity into a race of fantasms. There was only one remedy; as his doctor noted: "This, however, he could only do by first being transformed from a man into a woman....""
Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1915) * - "When Gregor Samsa awoke as a grotesque insect, he was forced to ponder his existence both as a man and a beast. " - DBC
Middlemarch by George Eliot (1872)*
Mga Ibong Mandaragit by Amado V. Hernandez (1969)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (1981) (Booker) - "In 1993 to mark the 25th anniversary it was decided to choose a Booker of Bookers Prize. Three previous judges of the award, Malcolm Bradbury, David Holloway and W. L. Webb, met and chose Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (the 1981 winner) as "the best novel out of all the winners. A similar prize known as The Best of the Booker was awarded in 2008 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize. The winner was again Midnight's Children.  Midnight's Children not only won the 1981 Booker, but also the special 1993 Booker of Bookers prize, which commemorated the award's 25th anniversary. This represented an unprecedented third Booker victory for Rushdie."
Misery by Stephen King (1987)
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851) * - tried reading this in college. Only managed a few chapters. Will try again in the future.
Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett (1958)
Mondomanila by Norman Wilwayco (2002)
Money by Martin Amis (1984) - "Time Magazine included the book in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, fast food, drugs, porn and more,Money is ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage; a tale of life lived without restraint, of money and the disasters it can precipitate."
The Monk by Matthew Lewis (17960) - "Set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid, this is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions tempts its main character into breaking his vows."
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (1987) (Booker) - "The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world."
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner (1995) - "When Movern Callar wakes up to find her boyfriend dead in the kitchen, having taken his own life, she decides to steal and sell his unpublished novel, passing it off as her own work. Warner won the prestigious Somerset Maugham prize for his debut novel."
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy (1960) 
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925) *
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (1926) *
The Mythology Class by Arnold Arre (2005) - "The story centers on University of the Philippines Anthropology student Nicole Lacson, a girl who holds a passionate love for Filipino myths passed down from her grandfather. Together with a motley assortment of companions, she meets the mysterious Mrs. Enkanta and races to recapture enkantos (supernatural creatures) who have escaped and are causing havoc in the human world. The story also references historical and mythological Filipino heroes like Kubin, Sulayman and Lam-ang."
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (1942) - "One of the most influential works of this century, this is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not living in an absurd universe devoid of order or meaning."
Mythspace by Paolo Chikiamco (2012)

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (1959)
Naermyth by Karen Francisco (2010) - "The world ended. It was not because of a comet, prophecy, natural disaster or whatever garbage foretold on the internet, but because every myth ever written turned out to be an account of historical fact. These monsters we’ve read about as children waged a war that lead to the human race’s downfall. And the unlucky who survived are hunted down or, worse, tortured."
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980)* - "The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon—all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. "
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (2013) (Booker, 2014)* - "Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho's travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love."
Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (1938)
New Tales of the Vampires by Anne Rice (Pandora (1998)*Vittorio the Vampire (1999)*)
Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984) - "The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . . Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century's most potent visions of the future."
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan (2005) - Because Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man protagonists are named Nick & Nora.
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle (350)
Night by Elie Wiesel (1958) - "Night is a work by Elie Wiesel about his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, at the height of the Holocaust and toward the end of the Second World War. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own increasing disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father–child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver."
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter (1984) - "Ah, Angela Carter, you can do no wrong, and all the world should know it. This spellbinding novel follows a beloved aerialiste who is also half swan, and the journalist who runs off with the circus, bent on discovering the truth. Full of myth and magic and delight, and also postmodern playfulness and political power." - Flavorwire
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes (1936)
No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (1944)* - "Jean-Paul Sartre, the great French existentialist, displays his mastery of drama in NO EXIT, an unforgettable portrayal of hell."
Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal (translated by Ma. Soledad Lacson-Locsin)
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami (1987)
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864) * - "“I am a sick man…I am a wicked man. An unattractive man. I think my liver hurts.” Dostoyevsky’s classic opens with perhaps the most memorable line in literature. Certainly one of the foremost works of existentialist fiction." - DBC
Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski (1969) *
The Nova Trilogy: The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), Nova Express (1964) by William S. Burroughs - "Commenting on the trilogy in an interview, Burroughs said, "I am attempting to create a new mythology for the space age.""

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (1859)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (2013)*
The Odyssey by Homer (800 BC) *
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) (Booker) - "It is Nenna’s domestic predicament that, as it deepens, draws the relations among this scrubby community together into ever more complex and comic patterns. The result is one of Fitzgerald’s greatest triumphs, a novel the Booker judges deemed “flawless.”"
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (1914)
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis (1986) (Booker)* - "Malcolm, Peter and Charlie and their Soave-sodden wives have one ambition left in life: to drink Wales dry. But their routine is both shaken and stirred when professional Welshman, Alun Weaver (CBE) and his wife, Rhiannon, join them."
Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac (1835)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1839) *
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (1962) *
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)
The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (1859) * - partly read
Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood (2003)
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (1988) (Booker)* - "Peter Carey's Booker Prize winning novel imagines Australia's youth, before its dynamic passions became dangerous habits. It is also a startling and unusual love story. Oscar is a young English clergyman who has broken with his past and developed a disturbing talent for gambling. A country girl of singular ambition, Lucinda moves to Sydney, driven by dreams of self-reliance and the building of an industrial Utopia."
Othello by William Shakespeare (1603) * 
Out by Natsuo Kirino (1997)


Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle (1993) (Booker)* - "In Roddy Doyle's Booker Prize-winning novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, an Irish lad named Paddy rampages through the streets of Barrytown with a pack of like-minded hooligans, playing cowboys and Indians, etching their names in wet concrete, and setting fires. Roddy Doyle has captured the sensations and speech patterns of preadolescents with consummate skill, and managed to do so without resorting to sentimentality."
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (1962) * - "An engrossing metafictional spiral into the increasingly deluded mind of an obsessive editor, the book is filled with literary mania, questionable motives, and endnotes that refer to and contradict each other." - GR
Para Kay B (o kung paano dinevastate ng pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa atin) by Ricky Lee (2008) - "Alam mo ba ang ibig-sabihin ng "CONJURE"? Isa ka bang Capital S? Me quota ang pag-ibig. Sa bawat limang umiibig ay isa lang ang magiging maligaya. Kasama ka ba sa quota?"
The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek (2006) - "The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus."
Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667) - "In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the Fall of Man. Written when Milton was in his fifties – blind, bitterly disappointed by the Restoration and briefly in danger of execution – Paradise Lost’s apparent ambivalence towards authority has led to intense debate about whether it manages to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, or exposes the cruelty of Christianity." - GR
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (2000) - "Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies the city of New Crobuzon, where the unsavory deal is stranger to no one--not even to Isaac, a gifted and eccentric scientist who has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research."
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind (1985)* - "In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift: an absolute sense of smell. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. "
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)
Phenomenology of the Spirit by Hegel
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (1837) * - "‘Rising rage & extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of Mr Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat’ Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers–-a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame."
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890) *
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (1989) - "The spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England, The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known—and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother."
The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe (1842) *
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion (1970) *
Please Look After Mom by Shin Kyung-Sook (2008) (Asian Literary Prize, 2011) - "You will never think of your mother the same way again after you read this book."
Plutarch's Lives by Plutarch (100) - "Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the second century A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world by one of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In what is by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch reveals the character and personality of his subjects and how they led ultimately to tragedy or victory." - GR
Politics by Aristotle *
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1881) * - "When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. She then finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond, who, beneath his veneer of charm and cultivation, is cruelty itself."
Possession by A.S. Byatt (1990) (Booker) - "An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom."


The Quran (632)

Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1915)
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1844) *
Rebecca by Daphne du Murier (1938)*  - "National Book Award for Fiction (1938), Best Novel of the 20th Century/Bouchercon World Mystery Convention"
The Recognitions by William Gaddis (1955) - "Organized like a triptych, this book, whose many shifting scenes and characters are concerned with fallacy, mistaken identity, and forgeries — an extreme of the Holden Caulfield syndrome, as it were. Characters lose their names and gain others, dialogue may float unattributed, allusions abound." (-Flavorwire)
The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1830)*
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammet (1929) - "Time magazine included Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest on a list of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005."
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1988) (Booker, 1989) - "Ishiguro’s dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change."
The Republic by Plato (380)
Responde by Norman Wilwayco * - REVIEWED.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961) *
Rites of Passage by William Golding (1980) (Booker) - "In the cabin of an ancient, stinking warship bound for Australia, a man writes a journal to entertain his godfather back in England. With wit and disdain he records mounting tensions on board, as an obsequious clergyman attracts the animosity of the tyrannical captain and surly crew."
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719) *
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1966) * -  GR REVIEWED. Highly recommended if you liked Hamlet. One of the best plays I've read. "Hamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godotresound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a tragic but inevitable end."
The Royal Family by William T. Vollmann (2000)
The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis (1987) - "Set at a small affluent liberal-arts college in New England eighties, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future—or even the present—who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle."


Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (1992) (Booker) - "Sacred Hunger is a stunning and engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed. Filled with the "sacred hunger" to expand its empire and its profits, England entered full into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies."
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima (1963) - "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea tells the tale of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call "objectivity.""
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)
Saville by David Storey (1976) (Booker) - "Colin Saville grows up in a mining village in South Yorkshire, against the background of war, of an industrialised countryside, of town and coalmine and village."
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) *
Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally (1982) (Booker) - "Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize-winning novel recreates the story of Oskar Schindler, an Aryan who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, who continually defied and outwitted the SS, and who was transformed by the war into an angel of mercy. It is an unforgettable tale, all the more extraordinary for being true."
The Sea by John Banville (2005) (Booker)
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch (1978) (Booker) - "In exposing the jumble of motivations that drive Arrowby and the other characters, Iris Murdoch lays bare "the truth of untruth"--the human vanity, jealousy, and lack of compassion behind the disguises they present to the world. Played out against a vividly rendered landscape and filled with allusions to myth and magic, Charles's confrontation with the tidal rips of love and forgiveness is one of Murdoch's most moving and powerful tales."
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1966)
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (1949)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)* - "A contemporary of Brett Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History is a murder mystery presented in reverse, a modern Greek tragedy involving a group of students studying classics at an upscale Vermont college who stage a wild ‘bacchanal’ which ends in the death of a local farmer. The murder soon exposes the fault lines in the tight-knit group’s relationship."
Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov (1900) *
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (2011) (Booker) - "Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they all swore to stay friends for life. Now Tony is in middle age. He’s had a career and a single marriage, a calm divorce. He’s certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer’s letter is about to prove."
A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert (1869) *
Seroks, Iteration 1: Mirror Man by David Hontiveros (2013)*  - "In this Iteration, paired with the singular artistic sensibilities of Alan Navarra, Hontiveros continues to explore this clone-littered world where everything is a commodity, and everything can be pirated, even people. A world where the truth is ugly and a fake can be a hero. "
Seroks, Iteration 2: Once in a Lifetime by David Hontiveros (2014)* - "In this second Sekorks Iteration, we return to the dystopic future world that Iteration 1: Mirror Man introduced us to. In Iteration 2: Once in a Lifetime, we meet two more of the 8 seroks of the world's first superhero, Paladin, engineered from the DNA of popular yesteryear movie star-slash-disgraced ex-Philippine President Federico Rubio. And we find out more about the ones we've already met."
The Siege of Krishnapur (Empire Trilogy #2) by J.G. Farrell (1973) (Booker) - "India, 1857 the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years."
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (1977) *
Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme (1981) - "Barthelme’s work is rife with allusions, intertextuality, and a supreme disregard for the traditional (at the time, at least) form of the short story — stories may be just a few words, or several pages without a punctuation mark, or an accumulation of details that make the reader search for the plot themselves. They are mostly, however, amazing." - Flavorwire
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1968)
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1961) * - GR REVIEW linked. "Lem’s weird, surrealist space novel is a classic of sorts for those in the know, but epidemically under-read. The book vacillates between beautifully ruminative and action-packed exciting, as the inhabitants of a space station deal with the clones of their loved ones that the sentient planet they’re on continually sends their way. Also, best depiction of an alien sea that has ever been committed to print." - Flavorwire
Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby (1968) (Booker, 1969) - "It was 1956 and he was in Port Said. About these two facts Townrow was reasonably certain. He had been summoned there, to Egypt, by the widow of his deceased friend, Elie Khoury. Having been found dead in the street, she is convinced he was murdered, but nobody seems to agree with her. What of Leah Strauss, the mistress?"
A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones series) by George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000)*, A Feast for Crows (2005)*A Dance with Dragons (2011)* )
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977) - suggested by a fellow bookworm
Sophie's Choice by William Styron (1976) *
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder (1991) *
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1774)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929) *
Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima (1968)
The Stand by Stephen King (1978) - "This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen."
Staying On by Paul Scott (1977) (Booker) - "Both funny and deeply moving, Staying On is a unique, engrossing portrait of the end of an empire and of a forty-year love affair."
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse (1927) *
Stoner by John Edward Williams (1965) - "William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known."
The Stranger by Albert Camus (1942)* - "Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."" - GR
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link (2001) - "This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear. These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart."
The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Zizek (1989) - "In this provocative and original work, Slavoj Žižek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcock’s Rear Window, from the operas of Wagner to science fiction, from Alien to the Jewish Joke, the author’s acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society."

Tabi Po: Isyu 1 by Mervin Malonzo (2014)
Tabi Po: Isyu 2 by Mervin Malonzo (2014)
The Tale of Genji by Shikibu Murasaki (1008)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) *
Tampa by Alissa Nutting (2013)
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (500)*
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (1843) *
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891) *
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett (1934) - "The Thin Man was Hammett's last published novel."
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930)
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (1959)
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (1844) *
Three Sisters by Bi Feiyu (2003) (Asian Literary Prize, 2010)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1883) *
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927) *
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1993)
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller (1938) - "Banned in America for almost thirty years because of its explicit sexual content, this companion volume to Miller’s Tropic of Cancer chronicles his life in 1920s New York City. Famous for its frank portrayal of life in Brooklyn’s ethnic neighborhoods and Miller’s outrageous sexual exploits, The Tropic of Capricorn is now considered a cornerstone of modern literature."
Troubles (Empire Trilogy #1) by J.G. Farrell (1970) (Booker) - "Winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize"
The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925) - "Josef K. is our humble protagonist who is arrested on the first page of Kafka’s unfinished novel. When he asks at the station, the officers say, “We don’t answer questions like that.” What is a man to do but surrender to his fate?"
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Stern (1759) - "As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until Volume III."
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2000) (Booker, 2001) - "I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false."
In True History of the Kelly Gang," " the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police."

Tutubi, Tutubi, 'Wag Kang Magpahuli Sa Mamang Salbahe by Jun Cruz Reyes (1987) - "Ang Tutubi, Tutubi, 'Wag Kang Magpahuli sa Mamang Salbahe ay pagtatangka ng awtor na isalaysay ang mga unang araw ng batas militar "sa panahong hindi puwedeng sabihin nang deretso ang nasa isip." Bunga ito ng kanyang eksperimento sa paggamit ng satire upang masabi ang bawal "nang hindi makakagalitan" o sa paraang matatawa lang ang nakarinig (mula sa Paunang Salita ng may-akda). Nanalo ang nobelang ito ng grand prize sa Palanca noong 1982. Unang inilathala ng New Day Publishers noong 1987, nagkamit din ito ng National Book Award mula sa Manila Critics Circle."

Ulysses by James Joyce (1920)* 
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1981)
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch (1954) - "Under the Net was the first novel of Iris Murdoch, published in 1954. Set in London, it is the story of a struggling young writer, Jake Donaghue. Its mixture of the philosophical and the picaresque has made it one of Murdoch's most popular"
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro (1995) - "Never Let Me Go gets all the love these days, and maybe The Remains of the Day picks up the scraps, but The Unconsoled might be the best (and most difficult, and most rewarding) of Ishiguro’s novels. Or worst, depending on whom you ask — but when a novel is this polarizing, you know it’s pushing some essential buttons. Those crazy, psychological mystery/Proustian dream-state buttons. Does everyone not have those?" - Flavorwire
Underworld by Don DeLillo (1997)

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire (1976)*,  The Vampire Lestat (1985)*The Queen of the Damned (1988)*The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)*Memnoch the Devil (1995)*The Vampire Armand (1998)*Merrick (2000)*Blood and Gold (2001)*Blackwood Farm (2002)*Blood Canticle (2003)*Prince Lestat (2014) )*
The Vampyre by John Polidori (1819) - "The Vampyre was the first vampire story in English prose, and as such had a wide-ranging influence, almost singlehandedly creating the now-popular image of the vampire as an aristocratic seducer."
Vanity Fair by William M. Thackeray (1847) *
Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre (2003) (Booker)* - "Fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory Little is in trouble, and it has something to do with the recent massacre of 16 students at his high school. Soon, the quirky backwater of Martirio, barbecue capital of Texas, is flooded with wannabe CNN hacks, eager for a scapegoat."


Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1897) *
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)* - "Vastly disturbing, Banks’ first novel caused a storm of controversy for the blank violence emitting from its troubled protagonist Frank Cauldhame, who describes a childhood growing up on the rugged north east coast of Scotland. The impending arrival of Frank’s brother Eric, who has escaped from an asylum, coupled with Franks bursts of mindless anger, create an unsettling gothic horror." -Shortlist.com (I'm a lot hesitant to read this book because it has been mentioned in some GR reviews that it involves animal abuse/killings. That's a big no-no for me. But we'll see.)
Wasted by Gerry Alanguilan - "A story of love and tragedy. Jenny fell out of love from Eric. Eric started a killing spree out of desperation for the love of his life."
Water from the Sun and Discovering Japan by Bret Easton Ellis (2006) - "Bret Easton Ellis' two short stories chronicle the lives of a group of Los Angele's residents all of them suffering from nothing less that death of the soul. Ellis has immense gift for dialogue, off-the-wall humour, merciless description and exotic bleakness."
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (1903) - "Hailed by George Bernard Shaw as "one of the summits of human achievement," Butler's autobiographical account of a harsh upbringing and troubled adulthood satirizes Victorian hypocrisy in its chronicle of the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex. Along the way, it offers a powerful indictment of 19th-century England's major institutions."
Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein (1974) - "Come in … for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. You'll meet a boy who turns into a TV set, and a girl who eats a whale. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters are auctioned off, and crocodiles go to the dentist."
White Noise by Don DeLillo (1984)*
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008) (Booker)* - "The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation—and a startling, provocative debut. "
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966) * - REVIEWED
The Willows (1907) by Algernon Blackwood - "Blackwood is one of the legends of early horror. This English writer was called one of the “Masters” by no less than H.P. Lovecraft. In fact, Lovecraft considered Blackwood’s tale The Willows to be the finest weird tale ever written."
The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche (1901) - "Represents a selection from Nietzche's notebooks to find out what he wrote on nihilism, art, morality, religion, and the theory of knowledge, among others.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (1994) - "Norwegian Wood might be his best known work, but The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is arguably his best. A typically mesmeric story, it focusses on the supposedly ordinary life of Toru Okada. In expertly drawing Okada in a bewildering variety of colours, Murakami succeeds in saying much about the confusion of late 20th century life." - Shortlist
Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson (1988)*  - "The postmodern giant’s seminal work is a dizzying, disturbing book either about a woman who has gone mad, or about a woman who is the last woman on earth, or both." - Flavorwire
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (2009) (Booker) (Thomas Cromwell Trilogy #1)* - "Tudor England. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is charged with securing his divorce. Into this atmosphere of distrust comes Thomas Cromwell - a man as ruthlessly ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. "
Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong (2007) (Asian Literary Prize)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847) - I only have 3 different editions, I plan to collect more. I don't know why. 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005) *

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (1974)*


Total: 
Books I Own: 
Books I Have Read: 
Pulitzer:
Man Booker:  
Currently Reading: 


These are authors whose complete works I want to read:

Agatha Christie
Michael Crichton
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Arthur Conan Doyle
Bret Easton Ellis
H.P. Lovecraft
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Haruki Murakami
Friedrich Nietzsche
Edgar Allan Poe
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jules Verne
H.G. Wells
Edith Wharton


More wishlist:
Any graphology books (Handwriting Analysis): You Are What You Write by Huntington Hartford
Personology/Physiognomy books
Books about the Aryan Race, Atlantis, Mayan civilization etc.




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5 comments:

  1. Keep up the great list.. Anxious to read more titles.!

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    Replies
    1. thank you! I'm quite excited to find these books and read them =D

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  2. Have you read Songs of Solomon by Toni Morrison - if not add it now. Also her novel Beloved - have read it seven times myself, each time is like opening a new novel, her books are so well written that there is something new to find every time!!!

    Love that Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles are on the list, must also read her The Witching Hour!

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  3. I haven't read any books by Toni Morrison though I keep seeing her books in online bookshops, i will definitely give it a try =D

    I love Anne Rice, unfortunately I haven't found the time to read the vampire chronicles -_- I've only read Interview... Also The Witching Hour - which is so good.

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