Recommended Reading/old

Fiction

American

Selected Fiction Works.

Great Short Story Authors and Collections

• Hawthorne - Twice Told Tales
• Edgar Allan Poe - Collected Works
• Mark Twain - Collected Short Stories
• Herman Melville - Billy Budd and the Piazza Tales
• Stephen Crane - Maggie and other Stories
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - Flappers and Philosophers
• Ernest Hemingway - Collected Short Works
• Sherwood Anderson - Death in the Woods and other Stories
• Raymond Carver - Where I'm Calling From
• John Cheever - The Stories of John Cheever
• H. P. Lovecraft - H.P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)

Poets and Poetry Collections

• Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
• Emily Dickinson - The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
• T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land and other Poems
• Wallace Stevens - Harmonium
• Robinson Jeffers - Selected Poems
• Robert Frost - Collected Poems
• Hart Crane - The Bridge
• Williams Carlos Williams - Collected Poems Vol.1 & 2
• John Ashbery - Collected Poems
• Allen Ginsberg - Howl and Other Poems
• Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du mal (English: The Flowers of Evil)

Plays and Playwrights

• Eugene O'Neill - Complete Plays (Library of America)
• Arthur Miller - Death of a Salesman
• Thornton Wilder - Our Town
• Tennessee Williams - Plays 1937 - 1955 (Library of America)
• Lorraine Hansberry - A Raisin in the Sun
• Edward Albee - The Collected Plays of Edward Albee
• Sam Shepard - Buried Child
• August Wilson - Fences
• Tony Kushner - Angels in America

Others

• Feminore Cooper - The Last of the Mohicans
• Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter
• Herman Melville - Moby-Dick
• Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Henry James - The American
• Henry James - The Turn of the Screw and other short novels
• Stephen Crane - The Red Badge of Courage
• Kate Chopin - The Awakening
• Jack London - The Call of the Wild
• Gertrude Stein - Three Lives
• Edith Wharton - The Age of Innocence
• Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy
• Willa Cather - My Ántonia
• Francis Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
• Sinclair Lewis - Main Street
• Sinclair Lewis - Babbitt
• Paul Auster - The New York Trilogy
• Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
• Ernest Hemingway - For Whom the Bells Toll
• William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
• William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom!
• Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
• John O'Hara - Appointment in Samarra
• Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
• John Steinbeck - East of Eden
• John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
• Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust
• Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep
• Richard Wright - Native Son
• Robert Penn Warren - All the King's Men
• Ray Bradbury - Farenheit 451
• J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
• Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
• William Gaddis - The Recognitions
• Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
• Jack Kerouac - On the Road
• William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch
• John Updike - Rabbit,Run
• Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
• Joseph Heller - Catch-22
• John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor
• Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
• Saul Bellow - Herzog
• Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
• Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
• Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow
• Thomas Pynchon - V.
• William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
• Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon
• Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
• Philip Roth - American Pastoral
• Cormac McCarthy - The Road
• John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy of Dunces
• Don Delillo - Libra
• Don Delillo - Underworld
• David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest

African American Literature.

Slave Narratives

• Olaudah Equiano - The Interesting Narrative
• Solomon Northrup - Twelve Years a Slave
• Harriet Jacobs - Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
• - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
• - Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Reconstruction Era

• W.E.B. Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk
• - The Collected Poetry of Pawl Laurence Dunbar
• Booker T.Washington - Up From Slavery

Harlem Renaissance

• Langston Hughes - Not Without Laughter
• Jean Toomer - Cane
• George S. Schugler - Black No More
• Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Claude McKay - Home to Harlem
• Mella Larsen - Quicksand and Passing
• - The Walls of Jericho
• - The Blacker and the Berry

Civil Rights Era

• James Baldwin - Go Tell it on the Mountain
• Richard Wright - Native Son
• Ralph Ellison - Invisible Man
• - The Autobiography of Malcolm X
• Maya Angelou - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• Gwendolyn Brooks - Selected Poems
• Chester Himes - If he Hollers Let Him Go
• Lorraine Hansberry - A Raisin in the Sun

Contemporary

• Charles Mingus - Beneath the Underdog
• Alice Walker - The Color Purple
• Toni Morrison - Beloved
• Walter Mosley - Killing Johnny Fry
• Alex haley - Roots
• Amiri Baraka - Somebody Blew Up America
• Terry McMillan - Waiting to Exhale
• Gloria Naylor - Linden Hills
• Ismael Reed - Mumbo Jumbo
• - Kindre D
• Edward P. Jones - The Known World

Australian

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(includes some non-fiction as well)

British & Irish

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Chinese

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• 
  Guide to Journey to the West translations
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  Guide to Romance of the Three Kingdoms translations

French

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Italian

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Japanese

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• 
  100 Works of Japanese Literature

Norse

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German

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Russian

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  Russian lit
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  Maksim Gorky - Mother

Spanish

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Mexican

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Persian

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General

• 
  Theater/Drama part 1
• 
  Theater/Drama part 2
• 
  Novellas
• 
  100 Novellas
• 
  Classics
• 
  Short Story Collections
• 
  Flash Fiction and Short Short Stories
• 
  Female writers
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  Essential Doorstoppers (Unfinished)
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  Dystopia & Utopia (Unfinished)
• 
  Essential Poetry Guide
• 
  Humor
• 
  A collection of 'must read' lists.

Genre-Oriented Fiction

Science Fiction

• 
  Sci Fi 1
• 
  Sci Fi 3

Horror

Suggested horror titles.

Classic Horror

• Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
• Bram Stoker - Dracula
• Henry James - The Turn of the Screw
• Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Washington Irving - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Edgar Allen Poe - The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
• Robert W. Chambers - The King in Yellow
• Matthew Lewis - The Monk
• Charles Maturin - Melmoth the Wanderer
• Ambrose Bierce - Ghost, and Other Stories

20th Century Horror

• Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
• Richard Matheson - I Am Legend
• Clive Barker - Books of Blood
• Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Stephen King - It, Pet Sematary
• Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs
• Dan Simmons - Song of Kali
• Algernon Blackwood - Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
• M.R. James - Casting the Runes, and Other Ghost Stories
• Mervyn Peake - Boy in Darkness
• William Hodgson - The House on the Borderland
• H. P. Lovecraft - The Dunwich Horror
• Peter Straub - Shadowland

New Horror

• Laird Barron - Occultation
• Joe R. Lansdale - The Best of Joe R. Lansdale
• Will Elliot - The Pilo Family Circus
• Edward Lee - Bullet Through Your Face
• Tim Curran - The Devil Next Door
• Dave Brockie - Whargoul
• Joe Hill - Heart-Shaped Box
• China Mieville - King Rat
• Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves

Fantasy

Suggested fantasy titles.

Epic Fantasy:

• J.R.R. Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring
• George R.R. Martin - A Game Of Thrones
• Joe Abercrombie - The Blade Itself
• R.Scott Bakker - The Darkness That Comes Before
• Steven Erikson - Gardens of the Moon
• J.V.Jones - A Cavern of Black Ice
• Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time
• Paul Kearney - Hawkwood's Voyage
• K.J.Parker - Devices and Desires
• Melanie Rawn - Dragon Prince
• Brian Ruckley - Winterbirth
• Tad WIlliams - The Dragonbone Chair
• David Zindell - The lightsone
• Daniel Abraham - A shadow in summer
• Chris Wooding - The braided path
• S.L.Farrell - A magic of Twilight
• Greg Keyes - The Briar King
• Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of The Wind

Urban Fantasy

• Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere, American Gods, The Anansi Boys
• Graham Joyce - The tooth fairy
• R.A.Macavoy - Tea with the black dragon
• Jonathan Carroll - The land of laughs

Swords and sorcery

• R.E.Howard - Conan
• Fritz Leiber - The first book of Lankhmar
• Michael Moorcock - Elric of Melnibone
• Michael Shea - The incomplete nifft
• Jack Vance - Tales of the dying earth
• Karl Edward Wagner - Gods in Darkness
• C.L.Moore - Jirel of Joiry

Entry Level

• Terry Brooks - First King of Shamhara
• Susan Cooper - The dark is rising
• David Eddings - Pawn of prophecy
• David Eddings - The Diamond Throne
• Raymond E.Feist - Magician
• Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman - Dragons of Autumn Twilight
• Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman - Dragon Wing
• Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman - Rose of the Prophet
• Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, - Time of the twins
• C.S.Lewis The Lion, - The witch and the wardrobe.
• R.A.Salvatore - Homeland
• Philip Pullman - His dark materials

Coming of age

• Glen Cook The - swordbearer
• Robin Hobb - Assassin's apprentice
• J.V.Jones - The Baker's boy
• Rebecca Bradley - Lady in gil

Historic Fantasy

• David Gemell - Troy
• Guy Gavriel Kay - The lions of Al-rassan
• J.Gregory Keyes - Newton's cannon
• R.A.MacAvoy - Damiano
• T.H.White - The once and future king
• Gene Wolfe - Latro in the mist
• George R.R. Martin - Fevre dream
• John M.Ford - The dragon waiting
• Mary Gentle - A secret History

Mystery

• Steven Brust - The book of Jhereg
• Jim Butcher - Storm Front
• Glen Cook - Sweet silver blues
• Barry Hughart - Bridge of birds
• Matthew Hughes - Majestrum

Comic Fantasy

• Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum
• Christopher Moore - Lamb
• Peter David - Sir Apropos of nothing
• Mary Gentle - Grunts
• William Goldman - The princess bride

Weird

• H.P.Lovecraft - At the mountains of madness
• William Hope Hodgson - The house in the borderland
• Clark Ashton Smith - The emperor of dreams
• Jeff Vandermeer - City of saints and madmen
• China Miéville - Perdido street station

Mythic

• Roger Zelazny - Creatures of Light and Darkness
• Mickey Zucker Reichert - The last of the Renshai
• Jonh Myers Myers - Silverlock
• Steven Brust - To reign in hell
• Poul Anderson - The broken sword
• Michael Scott Rogan - The anvil of ice

Alternate world

• Stephen R. Donaldson - The chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the unbeliever, The mirror in her dreams
• Julian May - The many-coloured land
• Stephen R. Lawhead - The paradise war
• Poul Anderson - Three heards and three lions
• Roger Zelazny - The great book of Amber

Old School

• George MacDonal - Phantastes
• E.R.Eddison - The worm Ouroboros
• Lord Dunsany - The king of elfland's daughter
• Ernest Bramah - The wallet of Kail Lung
• David Lindsay - A voyage to Arcturus
• Charles G. Finney - The circus of Dr.Lao
• Mikhail Bulgakov - The master and Margarita
• Mervyn Peake - Titus groan

Miscellaneous

• Paul Edwin Zimmer - The lost prince
• David Gemell - Legend
• C.S.Friedman - Black Sun Rising
• K.J.Parker - Shadow
• Kate Elliot - King's dragon
• Michael A.Stackpole - Talion revenant
• Matthew Woodring Stover - Heroes die
• Gene Wolfe - The shadow of the torturer
• Tim Powers - The Anubis gates
• John Marco - The Jackal of Nar
• Andrzej Sapkowski - Blood of elves
• Ken Grimwood - Replay
• Glen Cook - Chronicles of the black company
• Patricia A. Mckillip - The riddle-master of Hed
• Sean Ruselss - The initiate brother
• Brent Weeks - The way of shadows
• Jeniffer Fallon - The immortal prince
• John Crowley - Little, Big
• Catherynne M. Valente - In the night garden
• M. John Harrison - Viriconium
• Jack Vance - Lyonesse
• Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert: the Dune series
• Dave Duncan: King's Blades series
• David Eddings: Belgariad trilogy
• Piers Anthony: Incarnations of Immortality

Non-Fiction

Classical Philosophy.

Classical

Pre-socratics:

• Various - Early Greek Philosophy
• Kenneth Sylvan Guthre - The Pythagorean Sourcebook and library
• Charles H.Kahn - The art and thought of Heraclitus
• Parmenides of Elea - Fragments
• David Gallop - Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments
• John Dillon, Tania Gergel - The Greek sophists
• Empedocles - The extant Fragments
• Various links
  • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics
  • http://www.heraclitusfragments.com
  • http://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/

On Socrates:

• I.F.Stone - The trial of Socrates
• Aristophanes - The clouds
• Charles H.Kahn - Plato and the Socratic dialogue
• Karl R. Popper - The open society and its enemies
• Gail Fine - Plato on knowledge and forms.

By plato:

(Note made by Isabelle: later translations are usually more accessible. I AM not a fan of Jowett. Since she composed this list I thought it necessary to add this)

• Early Works:
  • Apology
  • Crito
  • Euthyphro (holiness, the Euthyphro dilemma)
  • Ion
  • Laches (courage)
  • Protagoras (the teachability of virtue)
  • Gorgias (rethoric vs. philosophy)
  • Meno (virtue, Meno's paradox)
• Middle Works
  • Parmenides - Forms
  • Phaedo (the death of socrates, the afterlife)
  • Phaedrus (love and rethoric)
  • Republic (politics, the state and the soul)
  • Symposium (true love, the 'Ladder of Love')
  • Theaetetus (knowledge)
• Later Works
  • Critias (Atlantis=
  • Sophist (more on Forms)
  • Timaeus (the purpose of the universe)

On Aristotle

• David M.Balme - Aristotle on Nature and Living Things: Philosophical and Historical Studies
• Cristopher Shields - Aristotle
• David Furley - From Aristotle to Augustine

By Aristotle

(Another note by Isabelle: Oxford translations are best)

• The Nicomachean Ethics (virtue ethics, leads into Politics)
• Rethoric
• Metaphysics
• Poetics
• Politics

Cynicism

• Farrand Sayre - Diogenes of Sinope: A study of Greek cynicism
• R. Bracht Branham, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé -The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy

Epicureanism

• James Warren - The Cambridge's companion to Epicureanism
• Eugene O'connor - The essential Epicurus
• Lucretius - The nature of things

Stoicism

(Isabella specified Penguin Classics)

• Seneca - Letters from a stoic
• Epictetus - Discourses and selected writings
• Marcus Aurelius - Meditations

Skepticism

• Norman Maccoll - The Greek Sceptics: From Pyrrho to Sextus
• Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism
• Richard T. Wallis - Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
• John Gregory - The neoplatonists
• Plotinus - The enneads

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  Christian and Medieval

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  Modern

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  Modern Part 2

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  Scientific Revolution

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  German Idealism

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  Existentialism

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  Analytic

• 
  Analytic Part 2

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  Postmodernism

• 
  Feminism/Queer Theory