I’m excited to announce that I will be joining The Classics Club, a very goal-oriented group started by Jillian at A Room of One’s Own. I decided to join because mainly I just wanted to compile a list of books that I knew I would want to read, and with a deadline it’s more likely to happen. Also, I might want to take the GRE in Literature test again (I didn’t do as well as I would’ve liked eight years ago) and so I’ve compiled my list based off of the most often tested works of literature.
So, here is a list of 71 books that I would like to read in the next five years. It’s possible, right?
This books are listed in order from most often tested to least likely tested on the GRE.
–Goal Date to Finish: March 15, 2017 (five years)–
Note: * denotes a re-read
1. Paradise Lost by John Milton
2. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer*
3. Collected Works of Alexander Pope
4. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift*
5. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
6. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe*
7. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
8. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser*
9. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
10. Collected Plays of Sophocles*
11. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
12. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens*
13. A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
14. Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw
15. The Republic by Plato*
16. Collected Works of John Keats*
17. Volpone by Ben Jonson*
18. The Iliad by Homer
19. The Way of the World by William Congreve*
20. Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
21. The Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson
22. Don Juan by George Gordon, Lord Byron*
23. Everyman by Anonymous*
24. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
25. Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth*
26. Collected Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley*
27. Pamela by Samuel Richardson
28. Tristram Shandy by Laurance Stern
29. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
30. Collected Works of T.S. Eliot
31. As You Like It by William Shakespeare*
32. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
33. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
34. Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
35. Hard Times by Charles Dickens
36. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
37. The Poetics by Aristotle
38. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous*
39. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
40. A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
41. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
42. The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster*
43. Collected Works of Dylan Thomas
44. Don Quixote by Cervantes
45. Dubliners by James Joyce
46. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
47. Tartuffe by Moliere
48. Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill
49. Collected Works of George Orwell
50. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
51. Richard II by William Shakespeare
52. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
53. Collected Works of Sylvia Plath
54. Collected Works of Emily Dickinson
55. The Aeneid by Virgil
56. Evelina by Frances Burney
57. Candide by Voltaire*
58. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
59. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
60. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
61. The American Language by H.L. Mencken
62. The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper
63. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
64. Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
65. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
66. The Stranger by Albert Camus
67. Endgame by Samuel Beckett
68. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett*
69. The Bible by Anonymous
70. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
71. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
Heather
Great list! WALDEN is my sweetheart.
borkadventures
That’s one I’m really excited about–I’ve read so many good things about it! I’m thinking about saving it for the spring or summer when I’ll be inspired by nature…maybe before or after a backpacking trip in the woods.
Jillian ♣
Awesome list, Mandy — and super helpful, since I also hope to take the GRE in Lit test in a few years.
Good luck!!
borkadventures
I’m going to provide a link here to the site I found with a list of the most commonly tested works on the GRE…you all might find it useful as well!
Jillian ♣
Thanks! I might have it already on my list?
http://jillianreadsbooks2.wordpress.com/project-read-what-i-own/gre-reading-list/#list2
borkadventures
Yes! That’s the one! I wish it had been available when I took the GRE in 2003–I spent sooooo much time researching what the most important books were for each time period, cross-referencing all of my Norton’s…this would’ve helped quite a bit! I still have my GRE binder of notes on each and every time period–it’s rather thick!
Jillian ♣
I found it so helpful, when I saw it. I can imagine the research would have been intense. There’s a Princeton Cracking the GRE in Lit book out too. I have an old copy but plan to get the newer one closer to when I plan to take the test. (A couple years at least, for me.)
ankitthereviewer
I am saving this page for future reference….Great List …. but why 5 years? I think with your reading speed you can complete in less than 2 years …
Also can you tell more GRE in literature? I mean whats use of this test? The course is very foreign to me. What type of career opportunity we can get after scoring good marks in GRE?
I can do google but little information from you will help..
borkadventures
Well, it’ll be hard because I’m such a mood reader, and so I’ll have to fit these works in with all of the fantasy, horror, science fiction, and nonfiction I want to read. I can’t force myself to read anything!
The GRE is a test you take to get into Grad. School here in the states. The best English grad programs in the U.S. require a certain score on the GRE in literature test, which covers many areas of Literature. I need to put a link up on here of the site that lists all the works most commonly tested. I’ll do that, and you can check it out.
ankitthereviewer
Thanks!!
Charlotte Reads Classics
Great list! And impressive – The Faerie Queene, for example! I tried to read that at University but couldn’t do it! We’ve got some of the same books down, looking forward to seeing what you make of them
borkadventures
Surprisingly, I dug The Faerie Queene in college–it might because I favored Elizabethan Lit so much.
I can’t wait to set aside some time to go through everyone else’s lists! I am just worried that it will force me to add on to my own!
sj
Hee! I know it’s wrong, but I am super giggly over #69.
borkadventures
Are you giggling because it’s 69, because it’s the Bible, or because it’s by anonymous? Or all three? All of which are not wrong and perfectly understandable. I am very immature and so 69 is still amusing to me…and yes I consider the Bible an integral piece of mythical literature that has so much influence on other pieces of literature, that I have to read it. Atheist funny or immature funny?
sj
All three! Because I’m immature, and because the by anonymous really tickled me.
borkadventures
Nice! I was hoping you’d say that, because it further shows that you are a woman similar in taste to me–all three tickle me as well!
somersaultingthroughlife
Wow, great list!
.
borkadventures
Thanks! I think it will be some good reading!
somersaultingthroughlife
I have a similar mental list and am thinking of signing up to the 2012 goodreads challenge where you just choose a number of books you aim to read this year. You might want to encooperate it with this one so you pass two challenges instead of one!
Paula
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