I’ve pulled together this list of books that I think a well-read person should experience in his or her lifetime. It’s been curated from more than a dozen different sources, some of which agree and some of which don’t. I’ve exercised some judgment of my own.
The list is sortable. Besides author and title, I’ve included the century of the work (negative numbers indicate BC dates), the linguistic origin of the author or the work, and a high-level list of categories of my own devising—autobiography, biography, Catholicism, dialogue, epic, essay (i.e., non-fiction), fables & tales, fiction, math & science, other, play, poetry, religious text.
This list, for me, is aspirational. It’s got a “great books” aura; as such, it’s under-representative of non-Western work and doesn’t include a ton of very recent releases—the 20th and 21st centuries are too hard to pin down from the vantage point of 2020. Very good contemporary works unlikely to be canon-eligible don’t appear (but I still read them). If you’re interested in the books I own or have read from my own library, see the Library page on this site.
Recommendations welcome, in the comment section below the table.
Originally published 12/26/2017. Last revised 2/24/2020.
| Title | Author | Century | Origin | Category | Read? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education of Henry Adams, The | Adams | 20 | English | Autobiography | |
| Agamemnon | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Eumenides | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Libation Bearers | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Oresteia | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Prometheus Bound | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Seven Against Thebes | Aeschylus | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Fables | Aesop | -6 | Greek | Fables & Tales | |
| Collected Romanian Folklore | Alecsandri | 19 | Romanian | Fables & Tales | |
| Divine Comedy, The | Alighieri | 14 | Italian | Fiction | |
| Song of Roland | Anonymous | 12 | French | Epic | |
| Nibelungenlied | Anonymous | 13 | German | Epic | |
| Saga of Burnt Njal | Anonymous | 13 | Norse | Epic | |
| Proslogium | Anselm of Canterbury | 11 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Conic Sections | Apollonius of Perga | -3 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Golden Ass | Apuleius | 2 | Latin | Fiction | Y |
| Of Being and Essence | Aquinas | 13 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Summa Contra Gentiles | Aquinas | 13 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Summa Theologica, Summa Contra Gentiles | Aquinas | 13 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Works | Archimedes | -3 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Clouds, The | Aristophanes | -4 | Greek | Play | |
| Frogs, The | Aristophanes | -4 | Greek | Play | |
| Categories | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| De Anima | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Metaphysics | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Nicomachean Ethics | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Poetics | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Politics | Aristotle | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| City of God | Augustine of Hippo | 5 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Confessions | Augustine of Hippo | 5 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| On Christian Doctrine | Augustine of Hippo | 5 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Meditations | Aurelius | 2 | Greek | Essay | Y |
| Pride and Prejudice | Austen | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Essays | Bacon | 17 | Latin | Essay | |
| Eugenie Grandet | Balzac | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Pere Goriot | Balzac | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Barber of Seville, The | Beaumarchais | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Ecclesiastical History of the English People, The | Bede | 8 | Latin | History | |
| How The Reformation Happened | Belloc | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Survivals and New Arrivals | Belloc | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Henderson the Rain King | Bellow | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation | Bentham | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Theory of Fictions | Bentham | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Creative Evolution | Bergson | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Matter and Memory | Bergson | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Time and Free Will | Bergson | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Two Sources of Morality and Religion, The | Bergson | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Principles of Human Knowledge | Berkeley | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Diary of a Country Priest, The | Bernanos | 20 | French | Catholicism | |
| Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine | Bernard | 19 | French | Math & Science | |
| Commentaries on the Laws of England | Blackstone | 17 | English | Essay | |
| Decameron | Boccaccio | 14 | Italian | Fiction | |
| Consolation of Philosophy | Boethius | 6 | Latin | Essay | |
| Laws of Thought, The | Boole | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. | Boswell | 18 | English | Biography | |
| Skeptical Chemist, The | Boyle | 17 | English | Math & Science | |
| Wuthering Heights | Bronte | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Ordinary Men | Browning | 20 | English | Essay | |
| History of Civilization in England, A | Buckle | 19 | English | History | |
| Master and Margarita, The | Bulgakov | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Pilgrim's Progress | Bunyan | 16 | English | History | |
| Clockwork Orange, A | Burgess | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful | Burke | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Reflections on the Revolution in France | Burke | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Tarzan of the Apes | Burroughs | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Way of All Flesh | Butler | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Don Juan | Byron | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Commentaries on the French Wars | Caesar | -1 | Latin | History | Y |
| Postman Always Rings Twice, The | Cain | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Tobacco Road | Caldwell | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Institutes of the Christian Religion | Calvin | 16 | Latin | Essay | |
| Stranger, The | Camus | 20 | French | Fiction | |
| Transfinite Numbers | Cantor | 19 | Russian | Math & Science | |
| How to Win Friends and Influence People | Carnegie | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Carroll | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Death Comes for the Archbishop | Cather | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Dialog of Catherine of Siena | Catherine of Siena | 14 | Italian | Catholicism | |
| Don Quixote | Cervantes | 17 | Spanish | Fiction | |
| Long Goodbye, The | Chandler | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Rape of Nanking, The | Chang | 20 | English | History | |
| Canterbury Tales, The | Chaucer | 14 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Troilus and Criseyde | Chaucer | 14 | English | Fiction | |
| Collected Short Stories | Checkov | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Cherry Orchard, The | Chekhov | 20 | Russian | Play | |
| Everlasting Man | Chesterton | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Orthodoxy | Chesterton | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Cataline Orations | Cicero | -1 | Latin | Dialogue | Y |
| Orations and Letters | Cicero | -1 | Latin | Dialogue | |
| On War | Clausewitz | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Poems | Coleridge | 19 | English | Poetry | |
| Positive Philosophy, The | Comte | 19 | French | Essay | |
| Analects of Confucius | Confucius | -5 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Way of the World, The | Congreve | 18 | English | Play | |
| Heart of Darkness | Conrad | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Nostromo | Conrad | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Secret Agent, The | Conrad | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Last of the Mohicans | Cooper | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres | Copernicus | 16 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Red Badge of Courage, The | Crane | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Notebooks | da Vinci | 16 | Italian | Essay | |
| Life at the Bottom | Dalrymple | 21 | English | Essay | |
| New System of Chemical Philosophy, A | Dalton | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Descent of Man, The | Darwin | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Origin of Species, The | Darwin | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Long Loneliness, The | Day | 20 | English | Autobiography | |
| Fables | de La Fontaine | 17 | French | Fables & Tales | |
| Maximes | de La Rochefoucauld | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies | De Las Casas | 16 | Spanish | History | |
| Book of Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry | De Pizan | 15 | French | Essay | |
| Introduction to Devout Life | de Sales | 19 | French | Catholicism | |
| Essay on the Theory of Numbers | Dedekind | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| Robinson Crusoe | Defoe | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| White Noise | Delillo | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Discourse on the Method | Descartes | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Meditations on First Philosophy | Descartes | 17 | French | Essay | Y |
| Rules for the Direction of the Mind | Descartes | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Geometry | Descartes | 17 | French | Math & Science | |
| Democracy and Education | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Experience and Nature | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Habits and Will | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| How We Think | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Logic | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Theory of Inquiry, The | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Virtues, The | Dewey | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Bleak House | Dickens | 19 | English | Essay | |
| David Copperfield | Dickens | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Great Expectations | Dickens | 19 | English | Essay | Y |
| Oliver Twist | Dickens | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Tale of Two Cities, A | Dickens | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Deliverance | Dickey | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Rameaus Nephew | Diderot | 19 | French | Dialogue | |
| Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers | Diogenes Laertius | 3 | Greek | History | |
| Brothers Karamazov | Dostoevskey | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Crime and Punishment | Dostoevskey | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Idiot, The | Dostoevskey | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Demons | Dostoevsky | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Notes from Underground | Dostoevsky | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| American Tragedy, An | Dreiser | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Sister Carrie | Dreiser | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Souls of Black Folk, The | Du Bois | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Count of Monte Cristo, The | Dumas | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Man in the Iron Mask, The | Dumas | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| On Suicide | Durkheim | 19 | French | Essay | |
| Foucault's Pendulum | Eco | 20 | Italian | Fiction | |
| Meaning of Relativity, The | Einstein | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| On the Method of Theoretical Physics | Einstein | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| History of Religious Ideas, A [3-vol] | Eliade | 20 | English | History | |
| Adam Bede | Eliot | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Middlemarch | Eliot | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Silas Marner | Eliot | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Invisible Man | Ellison | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Essays | Emerson | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Representative Men | Emerson | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Self Reliance | Emerson | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Discourses | Epictetus | 2 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Letter to Herodotus | Epicurus | -3 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Praise of Folly, The | Erasmus | 16 | Latin | Essay | |
| Christ is Passing By | Escriva | 20 | Spanish | Catholicism | |
| Way of the Cross | Escriva | 20 | Spanish | Catholicism | |
| Elements | Euclid | -2 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Bacchae | Euripides | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Hippolytus | Euripides | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Imphigeneia at Aulis | Euripides | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Medea | Euripides | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Trojan Women | Euripides | -5 | Greek | Play | Y |
| Chemical History of a Candle | Faraday | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Experimental Researches in Electricity | Faraday | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Studs Lonigan Trilogy | Farrell | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| As I Lay Dying | Faulkner | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Light in August | Faulkner | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Sound and the Fury | Faulkner | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Essence of Christianity | Feuerbach | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Joseph Andrews | Fielding | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| Tom Jones | Fielding | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| Great Gatsby, The | Fitzgerald | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Tender is the Night | Fitzgerald | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Madame Bovary | Flaubert | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Good Soldier, The | Ford | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Howards End | Forster | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Passage to India, A | Forster | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Room with a View, A | Forster | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Analytical Theory of Heat | Fourier | 19 | French | Math & Science | |
| Man's Search for Meaning | Frankl | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, The | Franklin | 18 | English | Autobiography | |
| Beyond the Pleasure Principle | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Civilization and Its Discontents | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Ego and the Id, The | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Interpretation of Dreams, The | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality | Freud | 20 | German | Essay | |
| On the Natural Faculties | Galen | 2 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences | Galilei | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Starry Messenger, The | Galilei | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Inquiries into Human Faculties and Its Development | Galton | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The | Gibbon | 18 | English | History | |
| On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies | Gilbert | 16 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Faust | Goethe | 19 | German | Play | |
| Dead Souls | Gogol | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Lord of the Flies | Golding | 20 | English | Fiction | Y |
| I, Claudius | Graves | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Heart of the Matter | Greene | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Commentary on Job | Gregory of Tours | 6 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| On the Law of War and Peace | Grotius | 17 | Latin | Essay | |
| History of Civilization in France | Guizot | 19 | French | History | |
| King Solomon's Mines | Haggard | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Federalist Papers, The | Hamilton et al | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Maltese Falcon, The | Hammett | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Code of Hammurabi | Hammurabi | -25 | Mesopotamian | Fables & Tales | |
| On the Circulation of the Blood | Harvey | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| On the Generation of Animals | Harvey | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals | Harvey | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Scarlet Letter, The | Hawthorne | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Lectures on the Philosophy of History | Hegel | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Phenomenology of Spirit | Hegel | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Philosophy of Right | Hegel | 19 | German | Essay | |
| What is Philosophy? | Heidegger | 20 | German | Essay | |
| Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory, The | Heisenberg | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| Catch-22 | Heller | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Farewell to Arms, A | Hemingway | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| For Whom the Bell Tolls | Hemingway | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Old Man and the Sea, The | Hemingway | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Sun Also Rises, The | Hemingway | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Corpus Hermetica | Hermes | 2 | Egyptian | Dialogue | |
| Histories, The | Herodotus | -5 | Greek | History | |
| Steppenwolf | Hesse | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Medical Writings | Hippocrates | -4 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Leviathan | Hobbes | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Common Law, The | Holmes | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Catechism of the Catholic Church | Holy Office | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Iliad | Homer | -9 | Greek | Poetry | Y |
| Odyssey | Homer | -9 | Greek | Poetry | Y |
| Poetic Works | Horace | -1 | Latin | Poetry | |
| Hunchback of Notre Dame, The | Hugo | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Les Miserables | Hugo | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Essays Moral and Political | Hume | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, An | Hume | 18 | English | Essay | Y |
| Treatise on Human Nature | Hume | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Brave New World | Huxley | 20 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Point Counter Point | Huxley | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| On the Movement of Bodies by Impact | Huygens | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Treatise on Light | Huygens | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Hedda Gabler | Ibsen | 20 | Norwegian | Play | |
| Master Builder, The | Ibsen | 20 | Norwegian | Play | |
| Wild Duck, The | Ibsen | 20 | Norwegian | Play | |
| Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The | Irving | 19 | English | Fables & Tales | |
| Ambassadors, The | James, H | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| American, The | James, H | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Beast in the Jungle, The | James, H | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Wings of the Dove | James, H | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Essays in Radical Empiricism | James, W | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Pragamatism | James, W | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Principles of Psychology, The | James, W | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Varieties of Religious Experience, The | James, W | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Vulgate | Jerome | 5 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Dark Night of the Soul | John of the Cross | 16 | Spanish | Poetry | |
| Journal of a Soul | John XXIII | 20 | Italian | Catholicism | |
| Lives of the Poets, The | Johnson | 18 | English | Biography | |
| Vanity of Human Wishes, The | Johnson | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| From Here to Eternity | Jones | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Thin Red Line, The | Jones | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Ulysses | Joyce | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Modern Man in Search of a Soul | Jung | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| Castle, The | Kafka | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Metamorphosis, The | Kafka | 20 | German | Fiction | Y |
| Trial, The | Kafka | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Critique of Judgment | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | |
| Critique of Practical Reason | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | |
| Critique of Pure Reason | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | Y |
| Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | |
| Perpetual Peace | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | |
| Science of Right, The | Kant | 18 | German | Essay | |
| History of the Russian State | Karamzin | 19 | Russian | History | |
| Fratricides | Kazantzakis | 20 | Greek | Fiction | |
| Zorba the Greek | Kazantzakis | 21 | Greek | Fiction | |
| Imitation of Christ | Kempis | 15 | Latin | Catholicism | |
| Concerning the Harmonies of the World | Kepler | 17 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Dharma Bums | Kerouac | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| On the Road | Kerouac | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Kesey | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Sometimes a Great Notion | Kesey | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Rubaiyat | Khayyam | 11 | Persian | Poetry | |
| Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The | Kuhn | ||||
| Either/Or | Kierkegaard | 19 | Danish | Essay | |
| Fear and Trembling | Kierkegaard | 19 | Danish | Essay | |
| Philosophical Fragments | Kierkegaard | 19 | Danish | Essay | |
| Separate Peace, A | Knowles | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Darkness at Noon | Koestler | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Painted Bird, The | Kosinski | 20 | Polish | Fiction | |
| Into the Wild | Krakauer | 20 | English | Biography | |
| Into Thin Air | Krakauer | 20 | English | Biography | |
| Tao Te Ching | Laozi | -4 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Stone Angel, The | Laurence | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Elements of Chemistry | Lavoisier | 18 | French | Math & Science | |
| Sons and Lovers | Lawrence | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Lee | 10 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Discourse on Metaphysics | Leibniz | 18 | Latin | Essay | |
| New Essays Concerning Human Understanding | Leibniz | 18 | Latin | Essay | |
| State and Revolution, The | Lenin | 20 | Russian | Essay | |
| Mere Christianity | Lewis | 20 | English | Catholicism | Y |
| Main Street | Lewis | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Journals of Lewis and Clark, The | Lewis | 19 | English | History | |
| History of Rome | Livy | 1 | Latin | History | |
| Theory of Parallels | Lobachevsky | 19 | Russian | Math & Science | |
| Essay Concerning Human Understanding | Locke | 17 | English | Essay | Y |
| Letter Concerning Toleration | Locke | 17 | English | Essay | |
| Of Civil Government | Locke | 17 | English | Essay | |
| Thoughts Concerning Education | Locke | 17 | English | Essay | |
| Call of the Wild | London | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Under the Volcano | Lowry | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Dialogues of the Courtesans | Lucian of Samosata | 2 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Dialogues of the Dead | Lucian of Samosata | 2 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Dialogues of the Gods | Lucian of Samosata | 2 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Dialogues of the Sea-Gods | Lucian of Samosata | 2 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| On the Nature of Things | Lucretius | -1 | Latin | Essay | Y |
| Table Talk | Luther | 16 | German | Essay | |
| Three Treatises | Luther | 16 | German | Essay | |
| Principles of Geology | Lyell | 19 | English | Math & Science | |
| Prince, The | Machiavelli | 16 | Italian | Essay | |
| River Runs Through It, A | Maclean | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Naked and the Dead, The | Mailer | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Guide for the Perplexed, The | Maimonides | 12 | Jewish | Essay | |
| Malcolm X: The Autobiography | Malcom X | 20 | English | Autobiography | |
| Treatise on Ethics | Malebranche | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Le Morte d'Arthur | Malory | 15 | English | Fiction | |
| Essay on the Principle of Population | Malthus | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Joseph and His Brothers | Mann | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Magic Mountain, The | Mann | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Art and Scholasticism | Maritain | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Degrees of Knowledge, The | Maritain | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Freedom and the Modern World | Maritain | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Rights of Man and Natural Law, The | Maritain | 20 | French | Essay | |
| True Humanism | Maritain | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Capital | Marx | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Communist Manifesto | Marx | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Of Human Bondage | Maugham | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Complete Short Stories | Maupassant | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West | McCarthy | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Road, The | McCarthy | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The | McCullers | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Lonesome Dove | McMurty | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Billy Budd | Melville | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Moby Dick | Melville | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Mencius | Mencius | -4 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Seven Storey Mountain | Merton | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| On Liberty | Mill | 19 | English | Essay | Y |
| Representative Government | Mill | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Subjection of Women, The | Mill | 19 | English | Essay | Y |
| System of Logic, A | Mill | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Utilitarianism | Mill | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Tropic of Cancer | Miller | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Death of a Salesman | Miller | 20 | English | Play | |
| Areopagitica | Milton | 17 | English | Essay | |
| Paradise Lost | Milton | 17 | English | Fiction | |
| Imaginary Invalid, The | Moliere | 17 | French | Play | |
| Misanthrope, The | Moliere | 17 | French | Play | |
| Miser, The | Moliere | 17 | French | Play | |
| Tartuffe | Moliere | 17 | French | Play | |
| Essays | Montaigne | 16 | French | Essay | |
| Persian Letters | Montesquieu | 18 | French | Essay | |
| Spirit of Laws | Montesquieu | 18 | French | Essay | |
| Utopia | More | 16 | Latin | Essay | |
| Something Beautiful for God | Muggeridge | 20 | English | Biography | |
| Under the Net | Murdoch | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Life of Alexander Nevsky, The | N/A | 13 | Russian | Biography | |
| I Ching | N/A | -8 | Chinese | Essay | Y |
| Great Learning | N/A | -5 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Thirty-Six Strategems | N/A | -5 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Doctrine of the Mean | N/A | -4 | Chinese | Essay | |
| Letters of Abelard and Heloise, The | N/A | 12 | French | Essay | |
| Epic of Gilgamesh | N/A | -19 | Mesopotamian | Fables & Tales | |
| Adapa and the Food of Life | N/A | -10 | Mesopotamian | Fables & Tales | |
| Aesop's Fables | N/A | -6 | Greek | Fables & Tales | Y |
| Descent of the Goddess Ishtar | N/A | -5 | Mesopotamian | Fables & Tales | |
| Enuma Elish | N/A | -5 | Mesopotamian | Fables & Tales | |
| One Thousand and One Nights | N/A | 9 | Arabic | Fables & Tales | |
| Beowulf | N/A | 14 | English | Fables & Tales | Y |
| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | N/A | 14 | English | Fiction | |
| Magna Carta | N/A | 13 | Latin | Other | Y |
| Book of the Dead | N/A | -16 | Egyptian | Religious Text | |
| Rigveda | N/A | -11 | Sanskrit | Religious Text | |
| Upanishads | N/A | -6 | Indian | Religious Text | |
| Bhagavad Gita | N/A | -3 | Indian | Religious Text | |
| Koran | N/A | 6 | Arabic | Religious Text | |
| Lolita | Nabokov | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Pale Fire | Nabokov | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| House for Mr Biswas, A | Naipaul | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Catholic Matters | Neuhaus | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Apologia Pro Vita Sua | Newman | 19 | English | Catholicism | |
| Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine | Newman | 19 | English | Catholicism | |
| Idea of a University | Newman | 19 | English | Catholicism | |
| Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy | Newton | 18 | Latin | Math & Science | |
| Introduction to Arithmetic | Nicomachus of Gerasa | 1 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Anti-Christ, The | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Beyond Good and Evil | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Birth of Tragedy | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Gay Science, The | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Geneology of Morals | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Thus Spoke Zarathustra | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Twilight of the Idols | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Will to Power, The | Nietzsche | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Appointment in Samarra | O'Hara | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Road to Wigan Pier | Orwell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Animal Farm | Orwell | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Nineteen Eight-Four | Orwell | 20 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Metamorphosis | Ovid | 1 | Latin | Poetry | |
| Affective Neuroscience | Panksepp | 20 | English | Math & Science | |
| Travels in the Interior of Africa | Park | 18 | English | Biography | |
| Meditations | Pascal | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Pensees | Pascal | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Provincial Letters, The | Pascal | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Scientific Treatises | Pascal | 17 | French | Essay | |
| Moviegoer, The | Percy | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief | Peterson | 21 | English | Math & Science | |
| Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science . | Pinker | 21 | English | Essay | |
| Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance | Pirsig | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Origin and Development of the Quantum Theory | Planck | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| Where Is Science Going? | Planck | 20 | German | Math & Science | |
| Apology | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Crito | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Gorgias | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Meno | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Parmenides | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Phaedo | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Phaedrus | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Republic | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | Y |
| Sophist | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Symposium | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Theatetus | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Timaeus | Plato | -4 | Greek | Dialogue | |
| Enneads, The | Plotinus | 3 | Greek | Essay | |
| Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans | Plutarch | 1 | Greek | History | |
| Parallel Lives | Plutarch | 1 | Greek | History | |
| Science and Hypothesis | Poincare | 20 | French | Math & Science | |
| Science and Method | Poincare | 20 | French | Math & Science | |
| Travels of Marco Polo, The | Polo | 15 | Italian | Biography | |
| Essay on Criticism | Pope | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Essay on Man | Pope | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Rape of the Lock | Pope | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Remembrance of Things Past | Proust | 20 | French | Fiction | |
| Almagest | Ptolemy | 2 | Greek | Math & Science | |
| Eugene Onegin | Pushkin | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Boris Godunov | Pushkin | 19 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Ruslan and Ludmila | Pushkin | 19 | Russian | Poetry | |
| Institutes of Oratory | Quintilian | 1 | Latin | Essay | |
| Gargantua and Pantagruel | Rabelais | 16 | French | Fiction | |
| Andromaque | Racine | 17 | French | Play | |
| Iphigenie | Racine | 17 | French | Play | |
| Phedre | Racine | 17 | French | Play | |
| Atlas Shrugged | Rand | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Introduction to Christianity | Ratzinger | 20 | German | Catholicism | |
| All Quiet on the Western Front | Remarq | 20 | German | Fiction | |
| Wide Sargasso Sea | Rhys | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation | Ricardo | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Hypotheses of Geometry, The | Riemann | 19 | German | Math & Science | |
| Rough Riders, The | Roosevelt | 20 | English | Biography | |
| Cyrano de Bergerac | Rostand | 19 | French | Play | |
| Portnoy's Complaint | Roth | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Emile | Rousseau | 18 | French | Essay | |
| On the Origin of Inequality | Rousseau | 18 | French | Essay | |
| On the Political Economy | Rousseau | 18 | French | Essay | |
| Social Contract, The | Rousseau | 18 | French | Essay | |
| Midnight's Children | Rushdie | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Analsysis of Mind, The | Russell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits | Russell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, An | Russell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Principles of Mathematics | Russell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Problems of Philosophy, The | Russell | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Killer Angels, The | Sahaara | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Catcher in the Rye, The | Salinger | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Life of Reason, The | Santayana | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Persons and Places | Santayana | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Realms of Being, The | Santayana | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Skepticism and Animal Faith | Santayana | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Being and Nothingness | Sartre | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Nausea | Sartre | 20 | French | Essay | |
| No Exit | Sartre | 20 | French | Essay | |
| Parerga and Paralipomena | Schopenhauer | 19 | German | Essay | |
| World as Will and Representation, The | Schopenhauer | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Ivanhoe | Scott | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Dialogues | Seneca | 1 | Latin | Dialogue | |
| Letters from a Stoic | Seneca | 1 | Latin | Essay | |
| Anthony and Cleopatra | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| As You Like It | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Hamlet | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | Y |
| Henry IV | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Henry V | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| King Lear | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Macbeth | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Othello | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Richard II | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Sonnets | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Tempest, The | Shakespeare | 17 | English | Play | |
| Plays and Prefaces | Shaw | 20 | English | Play | |
| Frankenstein | Shelly | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| House of God, The | Shem | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The | Shirer | 20 | English | History | |
| Jungle, The | Sinclair | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Sailing Alone Around the World | Slocum | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Theory of Moral Sentiments, The | Smith | 18 | English | Essay | Y |
| Wealth of Nations | Smith | 18 | English | Essay | |
| Gulag Archipelago, The | Solzhenitsyn | 20 | Russian | Essay | Y |
| Cancer Ward, The | Solzhenitsyn | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| First Circle, The | Solzhenitsyn | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| Antigone | Sophocles | -5 | Greek | Play | Y |
| Oedipus | Sophocles | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Oedipus at Colonus | Sophocles | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Oedipus the King | Sophocles | -5 | Greek | Play | Y |
| Philoctetes | Sophocles | -5 | Greek | Play | |
| Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The | Spark | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Faerie Queene, The | Spenser | 16 | English | Poetry | |
| Prothalamion | Spenser | 16 | English | Poetry | |
| Ethics | Spinoza | 17 | Latin | Essay | |
| Cannery Row | Steinbeck | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| East of Eden | Steinbeck | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Grapes of Wrath, The | Steinbeck | 20 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Pearl, The | Steinbeck | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Charterhouse of Parma, The | Stendhal | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| On Love | Stendhal | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Red and the Black, The | Stendhal | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, The | Sterne | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| Treasure Island | Stevenson | 19 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Dracula | Stoker | 19 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin | Stowe | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Sophie's Choice | Styron | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Lives of the Caesars | Suetonius | 2 | Latin | Biography | Y |
| Art of War | Sun Tzu | -6 | Chinese | Essay | Y |
| Gulliver's Travels | Swift | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| Modest Proposal, A | Swift | 18 | English | Fiction | |
| Dialogue on Oratory | Tacitus | 2 | Latin | Dialogue | |
| Agricola | Tacitus | 2 | Latin | Essay | |
| Annals | Tacitus | 2 | Latin | Essay | |
| Germania | Tacitus | 2 | Latin | Essay | |
| Histories | Tacitus | 2 | Latin | Essay | |
| Idylls of the King | Tennyson | 19 | English | Poetry | |
| Way of Perfection | Teresa of Avila | 16 | Spanish | Catholicism | |
| Interior Castle | Teresa of Avila | 16 | Spanish | Catholicism | |
| Meditations from a Simple Path | Teresa of Calcutta | 20 | Indian | Catholicism | |
| Vanity Fair | Thackeray | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Story of a Soul | Therese of Lisieux | 19 | French | Catholicism | |
| Great Railway Bazaar, The | Theroux | 20 | English | Biography | |
| Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Thompson | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Civil Disobedience | Thoreau | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Walden | Thoreau | 19 | English | Essay | |
| History of the Peloponnesian War | Thucydides | -5 | Greek | History | Y |
| Democracy in America | Tocqueville | 19 | French | Essay | |
| Hobbit, The | Tolkein | 20 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Anna Karenina | Tolstoy | 20 | Russian | Fiction | |
| War and Peace | Tolstoy | 20 | Russian | Fiction | Y |
| Confederacy of Dunces | Toole | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Civilization on Trial | Toynbee | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Study of History, A | Toynbee | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Frontier in American History, The | Turner | 19 | English | Essay | |
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The | Twain | 19 | English | Fiction | Y |
| Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, A | Twain | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Mysterious Stranger, The | Twain | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Around the World in Eighty Days | Verne | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Journey to the Center of the Earth | Verne | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Verne | 19 | French | Fiction | |
| New Science | Vico | 18 | Italian | Essay | |
| Notebooks | Vinci | 16 | Italian | Essay | |
| Aeneid | Virgil | -1 | Latin | Poetry | Y |
| Candide | Voltaire | 18 | French | Fiction | |
| Tristan and Isolde | von Strassburg | 12 | German | Fiction | |
| Bluebeard | Vonnegut | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Slaughterhouse Five | Vonnegut | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| All the King's Men | Warren | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Handful of Dust, A | Waugh | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Brideshead Revisited | Waugh | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Witness to Hope | Weigel | 20 | English | Catholicism | |
| Island of Dr. Moreau, The | Wells | 19 | English | Fiction | |
| Age of Innocence | Wharton | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Adventures of Ideas | Whitehead | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Aims of Education and Other Essays, The | Whitehead | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Process and Reality | Whitehead | 20 | English | Essay | |
| Introduction to Mathematics, An | Whitehead | 20 | English | Math & Science | |
| Science and the Modern World | Whitehead | 20 | English | Math & Science | |
| Treatise on Universal Algebra, A | Whitehead | 20 | English | Math & Science | |
| Picture of Dorian Gray, The | Wilde | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Bridge of San Luis Rey | Wilder | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test | Wolfe | 20 | English | Essay | |
| To the Lighthouse | Woolf | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Poems | Wordsworth | 19 | English | Poetry | |
| Native Son | Wright | 20 | English | Fiction | |
| Physiological Psychology | Wundt | 19 | German | Essay | |
| Swiss Family Robinson | Wyss | 19 | English | Fiction |
2 comments
For some of the religious texts, check out http://www.ccel.org/
For some of the religious texts, check out http://www.ccel.org/