100 (more or less) novels
Will Barnet, Woman Reading
This is my alternate list to 100 Books you Should Read (Gina Barreca) in Psychology Today. I gave myself an hour to do this.
I started by going through Barreca’s list and asking myself: If this book were assigned to me to teach or to lead a discussion in book group, would I want to do it? If the answer was no, I struck it. A lot of books disappeared. I then looked at the books I struck, and tried to come up with an alternate by the same author. Example: Barreca had D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, which I changed to Lady Chatterley’s Lover because I’ve been a part of really interesting discussions about that novel.
If I couldn’t come up with a novel by the same author, I just went with my instincts. Sometimes alternates that occurred to me made obvious sense (instead of Gone with the Wind, I chose Sacred Hunger); other times I didn’t see a connection, but went with my first impulse anyway.
What I was going for: well put together novels that I liked, that would lend themselves to discussion on more than one level. And there are not a hundred here, I don’t think. I haven’t counted.
1984 George Orwell
A Room with a View E.M. Forster
A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin
A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith
American Gods Neil Gaiman
Asylum Patrick McGrath
Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison
Beloved Ton Morrison
Blue Angel Francine Prose
Catch 22 Joseph Heller
City of Shadows Ariana Franklin
Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier
Collected Stories of Zora Neale Hurston
Dracula Bram Stoker
Dubliners James Joyce
Empire Falls Richard Russo
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
Final Payments Mary Gordon
Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin
Gorilla My Love Tone Cade Bambara
Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry
Middlemarch George Eliot
My Year of Meats Ruth Ozeki
Mystic River Dennis Lehane
Niccolo Rising Dorothy Dunnett
No Country For Old Men Cormac McCarthy
Orlando Virginia Woolf
Pagan Babies Elmore Leonard
Paris Trout Pete Dexter
Persuasion Jane Austen
Pet Sematary Stephen King
Possession A.S. Byatt
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
Sacred Hunger Barry Unsworth
Lady Chatterley’s Lover D.H. Lawrence
Sophie’s Choice William Styron
Straight Man Richard Russo
The Collected Stories of Willa Cather
The Country Girls Trilogy Edna O’Brien
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
The Fortunate Pilgrim Mario Puzo
The Good Soldier Ford Maddox Ford
The Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
The Hours Michael Cunningham
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
The Jungle Upton Sinclair
The Princess Bride William Goldman
The Shape of Things to Come H.G. Wells
The Shipping News Annie Proulx
The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien
The Three Sisters May Sinclair
The Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
The Witches of Eastwick John Updike
Underworld Don De Lillo
Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
Waking the Dead Scott Spencer
White Teeth Zadie Smith
Without Fail Lee Child
Wrongful Death Baine Kerr
Tweet
