Thomas C. Foster’s Reading List

Taken from his 2003 book How to Read Literature Like a Professor. The books in green are the ones that I have already read.

  • My Reading Stats
    • 2014: 25 of 142 read (17.6%)
    • 2015: 31 of 142 read (21.8%)
    • 2016: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2017: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2018: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2019: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2020: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2021: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2022: 35 of 142 read (24.6%)
    • 2023: 37 of 142 read (26.0%)
  1. (1940) Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden
  2. (1951) In Praise of Limestone by W. H. Auden
  3. (1957) Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin
  4. (1954) Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
  5. (1st Cent.) Beowulf by Seamus Heany (2000 Translation)
  6. (1981) Water Music by T. Coraghessan Boyle
  7. (1985) The Overcoat II by T. Coraghessan Boyle
  8. (1987) World’s End by T. Coraghessan Boyle
  9. (1984) Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
  10. (1865) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  11. (1871) Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
  12. (1979) The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
  13. (1984) Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
  14. (1992) Wise Children by Angela Carter
  15. (1981) Cathedral by Raymond Carver
  16. (1384) The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  17. (1899) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  18. (1900) Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
  19. (1969) The Gingerbread House by Robert Coover
  20. (1930) The Bridge by Hart Crane
  21. (1999) The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
  22. (1841) The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
  23. (1843) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  24. (1850) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  25. (1853) Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  26. (1861) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  27. (1975) Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
  28. (1957-60) The Alexandra Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea) by Lawrence Durrell
  29. (1917) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
  30. (1922) The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
  31. (1986) Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
  32. (1929) The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
  33. (1930) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
  34. (1936) Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
  35. (1999) Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
  36. (1741) Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
  37. (1925) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  38. (1931) Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  39. (1915) The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
  40. (1908) A Room With a View by E. M. Forster
  41. (1910) Howard’s End by E. M. Forster
  42. (1924) A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
  43. (1966) The Magus by John Fowles
  44. (1969) The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
  45. (1913-16) After Apple Picking by Robert Frost
  46. (1913-16) The Woodpile by Robert Frost
  47. (1913-16) Out, Out – by Robert Frost
  48. (1913-16) Mowing by Robert Frost
  49. (1968) The Pedersen Kid by William H. Gass
  50. (1968) In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass
  51. (1926) Blindness by Henry Green
  52. (1929) Living by Henry Green
  53. (1939) Party Going by Henry Green
  54. (1945) Loving by Henry Green
  55. (1929) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
  56. (1883) The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy
  57. (1886) The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
  58. (1891) Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
  59. (1835) Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  60. (1837) The Man of Adamant by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  61. (1850) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  62. (1851) The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  63. (1969) Bogland by Seamus Heaney
  64. (1986) Clearance by Seamus Heaney
  65. ( 1925) Big Two-Hearted River by Ernest Hemingway
  66. (1925) Indian Camp by Ernest Hemingway
  67. (1925) The Battler by Ernest Hemingway
  68. (1926) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  69. (1927) Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
  70. (1929) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
  71. (1936) The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
  72. (1952) The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  73. (8th Cent.) The Iliad by Homer
  74. (8th Cent.) The Odyssey by Homer
  75. (1898) The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
  76. (1878) Daisy Miller by Henry James
  77. (1914) Dubliners by James Joyce
  78. (1916) Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man by James Joyce
  79. (1915) The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  80. (1924) A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka
  81. (1925) The Trial by Franz Kafka
  82. (1988) The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
  83. (1998) Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
  84. (1998) The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
  85. (1913) Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
  86. (1920) Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
  87. (1922) The Horse Dealer’s Daughter by D. H. Lawrence
  88. (1923) The Fox by D. H. Lawrence
  89. (1928) Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
  90. (1930) The Virgin and the Gypsy by D. H. Lawrence
  91. (1932) The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence
  92. (15th Cent.) Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
  93. (1961) A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
  94. (1963) The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
  95. (1978) The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
  96. (1992) The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch
  97. (1958) Lolita by Vladimire Nabokov
  98. (1978) Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien
  99. (1990) The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
  100. (1839) The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
  101. (1841) The Mystery of the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe
  102. (1842) The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
  103. (1843) The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
  104. (1845) The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
  105. (1846) The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
  106. (1965) The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
  107. (1941) In Praise of Prairie by Theodore Roethke
  108. (1964) The Far Field by Theodore Roethke
  109. (16th Cent.) Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  110. (16th Cent.) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
  111. (16th Cent.) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
  112. (16th Cent.) Macbeth by William Shakespeare
  113. (16th Cent.) King Lear by William Shakespeare
  114. (16th Cent.) Henry V by William Shakespeare
  115. (16th Cent.) A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
  116. (16th Cent.) Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
  117. (16th Cent.) The Tempest by William Shakespeare
  118. (16th Cent.) A Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare
  119. (16th Cent.) As You Like It by William Shakespeare
  120. (16th Cent.) Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
  121. (16th Cent.) Sonnets by William Shakespeare
  122. (1818) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  123. (14th Cent.) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous
  124. (5th Cent. B.C.) Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
  125. (5th Cent B.C.) Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
  126. (5th Cent. B.C.) Antigone by Sophocles
  127. (1596) The Faerie Queen by Sir Edmund Spenser
  128. (1886) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  129. (1889) The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson
  130. (1897) Dracula by Bram Stroker
  131. (1946) Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas
  132. (1885) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  133. (1982) Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
  134. (1985) The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
  135. (1962) A & P by John Updike
  136. (1990) Omeros by Derek Walcott
  137. (1988) The Hearts and Lives of Men by Fay Weldon
  138. (1925) Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  139. (1927) To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  140. (1892) The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
  141. (1916) Easter 1916 by William Butler Yeats
  142. (1917) The Wild Swans at Coole by William Butler Yeats

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