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Dickens is better than George Eliot. In fact, I have strong opinions about literary merit, but that s not
what we re about here. All I would claim for these works is that if you read them, you will become more
learned. That s the deal. We re in the learning business. I am, and if you ve read this far, so are you.
Education is mostly about institutions and getting tickets stamped; learning is what we do for
ourselves. When we re lucky, they go together. If I had to choose, I d take learning.
Oh, there s another thing that will happen if you read the works on this list: you will have a good time,
mostly. I promise. Hey, I can t guarantee that everyone will like everything or that my taste is your
taste. What I can guarantee is that these works are entertaining. Classics aren t classic because they re
old, they re classic because they re great stories or great poems, because they re beautiful or
entertaining or exciting or funny or all of the above. And the newer works, the ones that aren t
classics? They may grow to that status or they may not. But for now they re engaging, thought-
provoking, maddening, fun. We speak, as I ve said before, of literary works, but in fact literature is
chiefly play. If you read novels and plays and stories and poems and you re not having fun, somebody is
doing something wrong. If a novel seems like an ordeal, quit; you re not getting paid to read it, are you?
And you surely won t get fired if you don t read it. So enjoy.
Primary Works
W. H. Auden,  MusÉe des Beaux Arts (1940),  In Praise of Limestone (1951). The first is a meditation
on human suffering, based on a Pieter Brueghel painting. The second is a great poem extolling the
virtues of gentle landscapes and those of us who live there. There s a lot more great Auden where
those came from.
James Baldwin,  Sonny s Blues (1957). Heroin and jazz and sibling rivalry and promises to dead
parents and grief and guilt and redemption. All in twenty pages.
Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1954). What if there s a road but characters don t travel it? Would
that mean something?
Beowulf (eighth century A.D.). I happen to like Seamus Heaney s translation, which was published in
2000, but any translation will give you the thrill of this heroic epic.
T. Coraghessan Boyle, Water Music (1981),  The Overcoat II (1985), World s End (1987). Savage
comedy, scorching satire, astonishing narrative riffs.
Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac (1984). Don t let the French title fool you; it s really in English, a lovely
little novel about growing older and heartbreak and painfully bought wisdom.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871). Carroll may have been a
mathematician in real life, but he understood the imagination and the illogic of dreams as well as any
writer we ve ever had. Brilliant, loopy fun.
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber (1979), Nights at the Circus (1984), Wise Children (1992).
Subversiveness in narrative can be a good thing. Carter upends the expectations of patriarchal society.
Raymond Carver,  Cathedral (1981). One of the most perfectly realized short stories ever, this is the
tale of a guy who doesn t get it but learns to. This one has several of our favorite elements: blindness,
communion, physical contact. Carver pretty much perfected the minimalist/realist short story, and
most of his are worth a look.
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (1384). You ll have to read this one in a modern translation
unless you ve had training in Middle English, but it s wonderful in any language. Funny, heartbreaking,
warm, ironic, everything a diverse group of people traveling together and telling stories are likely to be.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900). No one looked longer or harder into the
human soul than Conrad, who found truth in extreme situations and alien landscapes.
Robert Coover,  The Gingerbread House (1969). A short, ingenious reworking of  Hansel and Gretel.
Hart Crane, The Bridge (1930). A great American poem sequence, centered around the Brooklyn
Bridge and the great national rivers.
Colin Dexter, The Remorseful Day (1999). Really, any of the Morse mysteries is a good choice. Dexter is
great at representing loneliness and longing in his detective, and it culminates, naturally, in heart
trouble.
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1850),
Bleak House (1853), Great Expectations (1861). Dickens is the most humane writer you ll ever read. He
believes in people, even with all their faults, and he slings a great story, with the most memorable
characters you ll meet anywhere.
E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime (1975). Race relations and the clash of historical forces, all in a deceptively
simple, almost cartoonish narrative.
Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet ( Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea) (1957  60). A brilliant
realization of passion, intrigue, friendship, espionage, comedy, and pathos, in some of the most
seductive prose in modern fiction. What happens when Europeans go to Egypt.
T. S. Eliot,  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1917), The Waste Land (1922). Eliot more than any
other person changed the face of modern poetry. Formal experimentation, spiritual searching, social
commentary.
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1986). The first of a number of novels set on a North Dakota Chippewa [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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