50 Books to be Read in High School
This is my attempt at creating an essential literature list, such as many of us had to read in high school. The intent is not to read specific classics but to give an overview of the history of literature in English.
Genre Fiction
Fantasy: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (alt. The Lord of the Rings)
Graphic Novel: Alan Moore and David Gibbons, Watchmen
Horror: Stephen King, The Shining
Mystery: P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Romance: Susan Elizabeth Phillips, It Had to be You
Science Fiction: Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep
Western: Zane Grey, Riders of the Purple Sage
Old Dead White Men
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal
19th Century British
Jane Austen, Emma
Charlotte, Bronte, Jane Eyre
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
William Makepease Thackeray, Vanity Fair
19th Century American
Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Nathaniel Hawthornre, The Scarlet Letter
Henry James, Wings of the Dove
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Edgar Allen Poe, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
Mark Twain, The Prince and the Pauper
Early 20th Century British
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Early 20th Century American
Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
Modern
Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Toni Morrison, Sula
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Ursula K. Leguin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Graham Swift, Last Orders
Muril Spark, Girls of Slender Means
Other Voices
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Louis Erdrich, Love Medicine
Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World
V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas
Other
Norton Anthology of Poetry
Best American Short Stories of the 20th Century
Film Accompaniment
Genre
Fantasy: The Princess Bride
Graphic Novel: Batman (1989)
Horror: Jaws
Mystery: Rear Window
Romance: The Shop Around the Corner
Science Fiction: Blade Runner
Western: High Noon (alt. Red River)
Old Dead White Guys
Castaway (2000)
Barry Lyndon
Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli)
Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh/Thompson)
19th Century Britain
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
19th Century American
Last of the Mohicans
Washington Square
Other Voices:
The Gods Must be Crazy
Remains of the Day
Smoke Signals
Pre-WWII British
My Fair Lady
Orlando
Heart of Darkness
Brideshead Revisited
Contemporary
Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead
M*A*S*H