This is my alternate list to 100 Books you Should Read (Gina Barreca) in Psychology Today. I gave myself an hour to do this.
I started by going through Barreca’s list and asking myself: If this book were assigned to me to teach or to lead a discussion in book group, would I want to do it? If the answer was no, I struck it. A lot of books disappeared. I then looked at the books I struck, and tried to come up with an alternate by the same author. Example: Barreca had D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, which I changed to Lady Chatterley’s Lover because I’ve been a part of really interesting discussions about that novel.
If I couldn’t come up with a novel by the same author, I just went with my instincts. Sometimes alternates that occurred to me made obvious sense (instead of Gone with the Wind, I chose Sacred Hunger); other times I didn’t see a connection, but went with my first impulse anyway.
What I was going for: well put together novels that I liked, that would lend themselves to discussion on more than one level. And there are not a hundred here, I don’t think. I haven’t counted.
1984 George Orwell |
A Room with a View E.M. Forster |
A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin |
A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley |
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith |
American Gods Neil Gaiman |
Asylum Patrick McGrath |
Bastard Out of Carolina Dorothy Allison |
Beloved Ton Morrison |
Blue Angel Francine Prose |
Catch 22 Joseph Heller |
City of Shadows Ariana Franklin |
Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons |
Cold Mountain Charles Frazier |
Collected Stories of Zora Neale Hurston |
Dracula Bram Stoker |
Dubliners James Joyce |
Empire Falls Richard Russo |
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton |
Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury |
Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy |
Final Payments Mary Gordon |
Go Tell It on the Mountain James Baldwin |
Gorilla My Love Tone Cade Bambara |
Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood |
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Julia Alvarez |
Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte |
Lolita Vladimir Nabokov |
Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry |
Middlemarch George Eliot |
My Year of Meats Ruth Ozeki |
Mystic River Dennis Lehane |
Niccolo Rising Dorothy Dunnett |
No Country For Old Men Cormac McCarthy |
Orlando Virginia Woolf |
Pagan Babies Elmore Leonard |
Paris Trout Pete Dexter |
Persuasion Jane Austen |
Pet Sematary Stephen King |
Possession A.S. Byatt |
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen |
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark |
Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier |
Sacred Hunger Barry Unsworth |
Lady Chatterley’s Lover D.H. Lawrence |
Sophie’s Choice William Styron |
Straight Man Richard Russo |
The Collected Stories of Willa Cather |
The Country Girls Trilogy Edna O’Brien |
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje |
The Fortunate Pilgrim Mario Puzo |
The Good Soldier Ford Maddox Ford |
The Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad |
The Hours Michael Cunningham |
The House of Mirth Edith Wharton |
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros |
The Jungle Upton Sinclair |
The Princess Bride William Goldman |
The Shape of Things to Come H.G. Wells |
The Shipping News Annie Proulx |
The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien |
The Three Sisters May Sinclair |
The Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys |
The Witches of Eastwick John Updike |
Underworld Don De Lillo |
Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray |
Waking the Dead Scott Spencer |
White Teeth Zadie Smith |
Without Fail Lee Child |
Wrongful Death Baine Kerr |