FICTION

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice, 1813.   "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." This witty comedy of manners explores the intricacies of courtship in 18th-century England. 281 p. FIC A933PR; YAP AUS

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451, 1951. Enter a futuristic world where reading is prohibited because it stimulates thought, and firemen "protect" society by burning books. 179 p. SF/FANTASY B7982F

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre, 1847. Jane Eyre, a penniless orphan, is engaged as governess at Thornfield Hall by the mysterious Mr. Rochester. 248 p. FIC B8695J; YAP BRO

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights, 1847. One of the first gothic novels. Passion, hate, and revenge abound in the turbulent story of Heathcliff and Catherine’s obsessive love. 390 p. FIC B8697W 1988

Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865. Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and enters the whimsical, nonsensical world of the Queen of Hearts, Cheshire cat, and Mad Hatter. 143 p. FIC C3196AL 1960; NON-FIC 823.8 C319A 2000

Cather, Willa. My Ántonia, 1918. Soulful portrait of Ántonia Shimerda, a Czech immigrant who faces heartbreak, disillusionment, and social ostracism in frontier Nebraska. 238 p. FIC C363MY

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness, 1902. "The horror! The horror!" A harrowing expedition into the heart of the Belgian Congo becomes a journey into human depravity. (This novella was the literary inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, "Apocalypse Now.") 158 p. FIC C7543HE; FIC C7543HE 1999

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage, 1895. This imaginative account of a young soldier’s quest for a "badge of courage" during a bloody Civil War battle shattered America’s romantic vision of war. 247 p. FIC C8917RE; YAP CRA

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked and marooned on a desert island, must rely on his wits to survive in this exotic tale of travel and adventure. 316 p. FIC D314RO 1980; D314RO 1990

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities, 1859. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … ." The release of a prisoner from the Bastille during the French Revolution leads to the execution of an innocent Englishman. 272 p. FIC D548TA 1987; FIC D548TA 1992

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man, 1952. An anonymous African-American describes how he became an "invisible man." 572 p. FIC E476I; E476I 1992; E476I 1994

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying, 1930. Addie Bundren’s funeral procession becomes a grotesquely comic odyssey across Yoknapatawpha County. 267 p. FIC F263AS

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby, 1925. Jay Gatsby searches for the American Dream amidst the glamour and decadence of the Jazz Age. 182 p. FIC F553G 1991; F553G 1999; YAP FIT

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying, 1993. "I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this." In a small Cajun community in the late 1940’s, a retarded young black man is wrongly convicted of murder and condemned to death. 256 p. FIC G1423LE; G1423LE 1994

García Márquez, Garbriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967. Tragic yet comic tale of the birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo, told through the history of the Buendía family. 458 p. FIC G216ON; G216ON 1998

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies, 1954. Parable about the inherent evil in human nature. A group of English schoolboys, marooned on a Pacific island, evolve into murderous savages. 190 p. FIC G619L; YAP GOL

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. House of the Seven Gables, 1851. "God will give him blood to drink!" said Matthew Maule as they hanged him for witchcraft. Based on a legendary curse placed on Hawthorne’s own family by a woman condemned to death during the Salem witchcraft trials. 281 p. FIC H399HO; H399HO 1990

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22, 1961. A masterpiece of black humor which satirizes the murderous insanity of war. Bombardier John Yossarian is caught-up in absurd schemes to outwit the army. 443 p. FIC H477C; H477C 1996

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea, 1952. Exciting but tragic tale of an old Cuban fisherman’s relentless battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. 127 p. FIC H4883O; H4883O 1995; H4883OL 1996

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937. Independent and articulate, Janie Crawford is determined to be her own person, no mean feat for a black woman in the 1930’s. 219 p. FIC H9668TH 1998; H9668NO; YAP HUR

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World, 1932. In this brave, new world, children are born in test tubes and processed by an assembly line. 177 p. FIC H986B; YAP HUX

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories, 1898. "The Turn of the Screw" is a horrifying and mystifying ghost story, blending the supernatural with psychological terror. 102 p. FIC J273TU; YAP JAM

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916. Masterful Bildungsroman that traces an aspiring young writer’s rejection of traditional Irish-Catholic culture. 257 p. FIC J89P; 823.912 J89PO

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis, 1915. "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself changed in his bed to a monstrous insect." A horror story laced with mordant humor. 98 p. FIC K11M; K11MP

Keneally, Thomas. Schindler’s List, 1982. Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and war profiteer who gambled his life and his fortune to save 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers. FIC K333SC; FIC K333SC 1993

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962. Fast-talking con Randle Patrick McMurphy commits himself to a mental institution to avoid work, and matches wits with Nurse Ratched. 277 p. FIC K42O; YAP KES; NON-FIC 813.54 K42O

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960. "Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird." When Atticus Finch defends a black man accused of raping a white woman, he and his children face bigotry and hatred. 296 p. FIC L4784T; YAP LEE

London, Jack. Call of the Wild, 1903. Buck, a pampered dog living on a California ranch, is kidnapped and taken to the Yukon Territory, where he becomes a sled dog and reverts to the most basic animal savagery. 284 p. FIC L847C; L847CA 1999; L847CW 1998

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick, or, the Whale, 1851. "Call me Ishmael." Captain Ahab leads the crew of the Pequod in fanatical pursuit of the fierce white whale, Moby Dick. 594 p. FIC M531MO; M531MO 1988; M531MO 1998

Orwell, George. Animal Farm, 1945. In this scathing satire of communism, power-hungry pigs forge a ruthless dictatorship, where "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." 128 p. FIC O79A; YAP ORW

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front, 1929. A graphic, semiautobiographical account of World War I which exudes the horror of war and the stink of death. 248 p. FIC R384A; R384A 1996

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye, 1951. After Holden Caulfield is expelled from his third private school, this later-day Huck Finn runs away to New York City. 277 p. YA S1654C; YAP SAL

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus, 1818. The ultimate Science Fair project? Obsessed with the secret of creating life, Victor Frankenstein brings to life an eight-foot Monster he assembles from cadavers. 254 p. FIC S5455fr 1999; S5455 1993; NON-FIC 823.7 S545F 1992

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, 1962. Autobiographical memoir which depicts the brutality of Soviet forced labor camps. 203 p. FIC S692O; S692O 1963

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath, 1939. This controversial masterpiece traces the Joad family’s migration from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California, and their subsequent hardships as migrant farm workers. 578 p. FIC S8193G 1989; S8193G 1993

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886. Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with a drug which unleashes his alternate personality, the evil Mr. Hyde. 158 p. FIC S848S 1990; S848S 1992; NON-FIC 823.8 S848E

Stoker, Bram. Dracula, 1897. "There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word, DRACULA." Sinister blend of Transylvanian legend, personal experience, and imagination, with a pinch of Vlad the Impaler. 389 p. FIC S757D 1995; S874D 1992; S874D 1996

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly, 1852. Controversial abolitionist novel which aroused bitter feelings on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. When President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe during the Civil War, rumor has it he greeted her by saying, "So this is the little lady who made this big war." 552 p. FIC S892UN; YAP STO

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels, 1726. Timeless masterpiece of political satire which combines mind-bending adventure with devastating wit. 291 p. FIC S97754G 1995; S9775G 1985; S9775G 1992; NON-FIC 823.5 S977GU 1995; 828.5 S977 GU1980

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1886. Huck, the illiterate son of the town drunk, is the hero of this oft-censored satire of racism, religion, and hypocrisy. Twain’s controversial use of dialect paints a vivid picture of life on the Mississippi. 312 p. FIC T9694AH; YAP TWA; NON-FIC 813.4T969

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five; or the Children’s Crusade, 1969. This Absurdist anti-war novel is based on Vonnegut’s experiences as a POW. Billy Pilgrim survives the hellish fire-bombing of Dresden, then becomes "unstuck in time" after aliens from the planet Tralfamadore abduct him. 186 p. FIC V947SLA; YAP VON

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple, 1982. Epistolary novel about Celie, a young black woman who overcomes  poverty, racism, and sexism to grow into a strong, independent woman. 290 p. FIC W177CO 1983; W177O 1992

Warren, Robert Penn. All the King’s Men, 1946. Political scandal, blackmail, and murder, with a Southern twist. Based indirectly on the life of Huey Long, the notorious Louisiana governor and senator. 438 p. FIC W292AL 1982; W292AL1996

Wright, Richard. Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth, 1945. Subtly crafted narrative of the author’s harrowing childhood in the Jim Crow South. 285 p. FIC W9525BL

NON-FICTION

Ambrose, Stephen E. D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, 1994. Eyewitness testimony from both sides of the battlefield gives a soldier’s-eye view of D-Day. 665 p. NON-FIC 940.54214 A496D

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwhether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, 1996. This lively survey of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is filled with adventure, suspense, and personal tragedy. 511 p. NON-FIC 917.8042 A496U

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 1969. The noted black writer and civil rights activist’s account of her childhood and adolescence offers a message of survival and hope. BIOGRAPHY 92 A584I

Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men, 1974. Two Washington Post reporters describe how the Watergate scandal led to Richard Nixon’s great fall. 347 p. NON-FIC 364.132 B531A

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, 1971. How the West was "won," as seen through Native American eyes. 487 p. NON-FIC 970.1 B877B

Cassill, R. V., ed. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 1978. An enticing introduction to masters of the genre, from Ambrose Bierce and Flannery O’Connor to D. H. Lawrence and James Thurber. Includes annotations and brief biographies of the authors. 1437 p. NON-FIC 808.831 N882SF

Delaney, Sarah, and A. Elizabeth Delaney, with Amy Hill Hearth. Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years, 1993. This feisty memoir offers humorous and poignant glimpses of the Harlem Renaissance, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement. 210 p. NON-FIC 929.2 D337H

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, 1845. Frederick Douglass describes the brutal life of a slave in this eloquent indictment of slavery. 126 p. BIOGRAPHY 92 D7375NA

DuBois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, 1903. Fourteen essays about race relations in America, written by a man at the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement. DuBois wrote, prophetically, that "the problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color line." 209 p. NON-FIC 973.0496 D816S

Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl, 1952. Powerful Holocaust testimony of a Jewish girl who hides with her family from the Nazis. 285 p. YAP FRA; NON-FIC 940.531 F828D 1993; JUV NON-FIC 940.531 F828D

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, 1988. British physicist Stephen Hawking unravels the mysteries of astrophysics, time, and the universe. 198 p. NON-FIC 523.1 H392BR

Hersey, John. Hiroshima, 1946. Describes the explosion of the atom bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and its impact on the lives of six "survivors." 317 p. NON-FIC 940.544 H572H

King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have a Dream, 1963. On August 28, 1963, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his most memorable and inspiring speech. 33 p. NON-FIC 323.1196 K53IH

Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July, 1976. Searing and graphic autobiography of the anti-war activist whose visions of heroism and patriotism were shattered in Vietnam. 208 p. NON-FIC 959.70438 K88B

Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, 1998. Fascinating account of the "monkey trial," the bizarre mix of theatrics and law that sparked a debate about teaching evolution that still rages. 318 p. NON-FIC 345.76807 L334S 1998

Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. The Bible of realpolitik. An intriguing study of the art of practical politics, this is the book that gives meaning to the term, "Machiavellian." 153 p. NON-FIC 320 M149P

McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, 1988. This fast-paced Pulitzer Prize-winner explores the political, social, and military events surrounding the Civil War. 904 p. NON-FIC 973.73 M172B

Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe, 1966. Grotesque favorites from the master of the macabre include "The Masque of the Red Death"; "The Pit and the Pendulum"; and "The Raven." 819 p. NON-FIC 818.3 P743CO

Terkel, Studs. "The Good War": An Oral History of World War Two, 1984. A vivid resurrection of the lives of ordinary Americans during World War II, and a glimpse of their not always golden memories. 589 p. NON-FIC 940.54 T318G

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, or, Life in the Woods, 1854. "Simplify, simplify." Thoreau’s quest to "turn back the clock" and establish an intimate, spiritual relationship with nature. 297 p. NON-FIC 818.3 T488W

United States. The Declaration of Independence, 1776. "When in the Course of human events … ." America’s announcement to the world that it was no longer a colony of Great Britain. NON-FIC 973.313 U58D

Wiesel, Elie. Night, 1958. Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's wrenching attempt to find meaning in the horror of the Holocaust.  Based on the author's experiences in the Nazi death camps.  109 p. NON-FIC 940.5318 W651NI; YAP WIE

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, 1987. Compelling oral history of the early years of the Civil Rights movement, and a tribute to the men and women, both black and white, who kept their eyes on the prize of freedom. 300 p. NON-FIC 323.4 W724E

Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff, 1979. Before John Glenn was the oldest man in space, he was the first American to orbit the earth. Read about Glenn, "spam in a can," and the early years of the American space program in this stellar piece of "New Journalism." 436 p. NON-FIC 629.109 W855R

X, Malcolm, with Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, 1964. Malcolm X’s transformation from preacher’s son and petty criminal to devout Muslim and charismatic leader of black nationalism. 523 p. NON-FIC 92 X111A

Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: A Play, 1962. A dazzling work of gut-wrenching dark comedy, noted for its razor-honed dialogue. 242 p. NON-FIC 812.54 A328W 1983

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts, 1952. Puzzling landmark of the Theater of the Absurd. To some, it’s one of the most profound and amusing plays ever written; to others, it’s a pretentious bore. 60 p. NON-FIC 822.914 B396W

Christie, Agatha. The Mousetrap, & Other Plays, 1978. Eight ingenious and chilling whodunits, including "The Mousetrap"; "Witness for the Prosecution"; and "Ten Little Indians." 659 p. NON-FIC 822.912 C555M

Eliot, T. S. Murder in the Cathedral, 1935. Compelling verse play which dramatizes the martyrdom and assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury. 88 p. NON-FIC 822.912 E42M

Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House, 1879. Psychological tension energizes this revolutionary portrait of a woman who leaves her husband when she realizes that he is not worth her love. 100 p. NON-FIC 839.822 I14D

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman, 1949. Willy Loman ponders the wreckage of his life and the emptiness of the American Dream. Is Willy a tragic hero, or a pathetic dreamer? 139 p. NON-FIC 812.52 M647DE

O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night, 1956. The greatest American play of the 20th-century? A day in the life of a dysfunctional family. (This autobiographical drama was so painful and personal that O’Neill wouldn’t allow it to be published until after his death.) 176 p. NON-FIC 812.52 O58L

Shakespeare, William. Read a comedy, history, and tragedy written by the Bard of Avon. Favorites include The Taming of the Shrew (the Battle of the Sexes, 16th-century style); Richard III (a divinely evil king who is able to "smile, and murder whiles I smile"); and Hamlet ("sweet prince" or pragmatic villain?) NON-FIC 822.33 . . .

Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion, 1913. Eliza Doolittle, a guttersnipe Cockney flower girl, is the star of Shaw’s exquisite spin on Cinderella. 148 p. NON-FIC 822.91 S534PP

Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, 430 B. C. The supreme tragic drama. Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. Combines a rapid, compelling plot with elegant poetry. 108 p. NON-FIC 822.01 S712O

Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1967. An offbeat blend of wit, stagecraft, and verbal verve, this behind-the-scenes look at Hamlet is a contemporary classic. 107 p. NON-FIC 822.914 S883RG

Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, 1895. Wilde combines high comedy with farce to satirize the shallowness of Victorian society. 158 p. NON-FIC 822.8 W672I

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town, 1938. A slice of Americana: Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. (Everyone’s a critic: this daring Pulitzer Prize-winner closed after one week in Boston because of bad reviews.) 103 p. NON-FIC 812.52 W673O

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie, 1945. Semiautobiographical play about a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation. 142 p. NON-FIC 812.54 W727G

Wilson, August. The Piano Lesson, 1990. Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a black American family’s struggle to remember and yet overcome the brutal legacy of slavery. 108 p. NON-FIC 812.54 W746P

Many professors recommend browsing the collected works of the following poets to familiarize yourself with their styles:

Allison, Alexander W., et al, ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 1983. Diverse sampling of the best poetry written in the English language, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Seamus Heaney. 896 p. NON-FIC 808.81 E13N 1983

Angelou, Maya. Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou, 1994. Poems which voice Angelou’s belief that, "you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." 273 p. NON-FIC 811.54 A584CC

Beowulf, 700 A. D. The oldest epic poem in the English language features deep-sea monsters and a fire-breathing dragon. Based on Norse legends and 6^th-century history. 121 p. NON-FIC 829.3 B481

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1798. Chilling ballad fraught with superstition and mystery. The ancient mariner, a "grey-bearded loon," tells of a cursed voyage to Antarctic seas. 48 p. NON-FIC 821.7 C693R; NON-FIC 821.7 C693RI

Connaroe, Joel, ed. Six American Poets: An Anthology, 1991. Collection of memorable poems by six of America’s most widely read and enjoyed poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes. 281 p. NON-FIC 811.008 S625

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy, 1321. Brilliantly imagined pilgrimage through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. 798 p. NON-FIC 851.1 D192D

Doreski, Carole Kiler, and William Doreski. How to Read and Interpret Poetry, 1988. Insights into reading poetry with a critical and appreciative eye, plus hints on writing a critical essay. 184p. NON-FIC 808.1 D695H

Homer. The Odyssey. Wily Odysseus encounters a fantastic array of monsters and heroes during his epic journey homeward from the Trojan War. 509 p. NON-FIC 883.01 H766O

Pinsky, Robert, and Maggie Dietz, ed. Americans’ Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology, 2000. Creates a portrait of the United States through the lens of poetry. 327 p. NON-FIC 808.81 A512A

Shakespeare, William. The Sonnets, 1998. Serious and not-so-serious meditations on love and melancholy, life and death. Few poems in English literature match the eloquence of Shakespeare’s sonnets. 154 p. NON-FIC 822.33 Y25