The New Lifetime Reading Plan

This is one of the 748 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

The New Lifetime Reading Plan, 202 Books

Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman (May 15, 1904 – June 20, 1999) was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.

The New Lifetime Reading Plan provides readers with brief, informative and entertaining introductions to more than 130 classics of world literature. From Homer to Hawthorne, Plato to Pascal, and Shakespeare to Solzhenitsyn, the great writers of Western civilization can be found in its pages. In addition, this new edition offers a much broader representation of women authors, such as Charlotte Bront%, Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton, as well as non-Western writers such as Confucius, Sun-Tzu, Chinua Achebe, Mishima Yukio and many others.
This fourth edition also features a simpler format that arranges the works chronologically in five sections (The Ancient World; 300-1600; 1600-1800; and The 20th Century), making them easier to look up than ever before. It deserves a place in the libraries of all lovers of literature.

This list was originally published in 1999 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
2681 Selected Plays of Henrick Ibsen Henrik Ibsen 1900 Norwegian Norwegian
156 Poems of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson 1890 American English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
546 Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
356 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
1340 The Principles of Psychology William James 1890 American English
1720 Pragmatism William James 1907 American English
9842 The Meaning of Truth William James 1909 American English
641 The Varieties of Religious Experience William James 1902 American English
235 The Ambassadors Henry James 1903 American English
222 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche 1883 German German
1537 On the Genealogy of Morality Friedrich Nietzsche 1887 German German
3102 Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche 1886 German German
177 The Interpretation of Dreams Sigmund Freud 1899 Austrian German
2255 Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Sigmund Freud 1905 Austrian German
843 Civilization and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud 1930 Austrian German
2648 Selected Plays of George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw 1976 Irish English
281 Nostromo Joseph Conrad 1904 British English
1032 Uncle Vanya Anton Chekhov 1897 Russian Russian
572 Three Sisters Anton Chekhov 1901 Russian Russian
877 The Cherry Orchard Anton Chekhov 1904 Russian Russian
127 The Stories of Anton Chekhov Anton Chekhov 1900 Russian Russian
736 The Custom of the Country Edith Wharton 1913 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
218 The House of Mirth Edith Wharton 1905 American English
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
2668 Autobiographies William Butler Yeats 1926 Irish English
4477 The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1934 Irish English
1486 Kokoro Natsume Sōseki 1914 Japanese Japanese
2 In Search of Lost Time Marcel Proust 1913 French French
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
25 The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann 1924 German German
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
873 Call to Arms Lu Xun 1922 Chinese Chinese
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
95 Orlando Virginia Woolf 1928 British English
252 The Waves Virginia Woolf 1931 British English
20 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
81 The Castle Franz Kafka 1926 Czech German
294 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
225 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
1357 The Makioka Sisters Junichiro Tanizaki 1948 Japanese Japanese
2088 Mourning Becomes Electra Eugene O'Neill 1931 American English
2251 The Iceman Cometh Eugene O'Neill 1946 American English
1305 Long Day's Journey Into Night Eugene O'Neill 1956 American English
812 Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1963 British English
11019 The Complete Plays of T. S. Eliot T. S. Eliot 1969 British English
51 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
650 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
1551 Beauty and Sadness Yasunari Kawabata 1964 Japanese Japanese
311 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
1531 Dreamtigers Jorge Luis Borges 1960 Argentinian Spanish
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
71 Pale Fire Vladimir Nabokov 1962 American English
514 Speak, Memory Vladimir Nabokov 1951 American English
55 Animal Farm George Orwell 1945 British English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
819 Burmese Days George Orwell 1934 British English
9842 The English Teacher R. K. Narayan 1945 Indian English
8884 Vendor Of Sweets R. K. Narayan 1967 Indian English
99 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
2859 Endgame Samuel Beckett 1957 Irish French
4140 Krapp's Last Tape Samuel Beckett 1958 Irish English
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
77 The Plague Albert Camus 1947 French French
23 The Stranger Albert Camus 1942 French French
279 The Adventures of Augie March Saul Bellow 1953 American English
307 Herzog Saul Bellow 1964 American English
679 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
1747 First Circle Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1968 Russian Russian
1521 Cancer Ward Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1967 Russian Russian
414 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 American English
839 Confessions of a Mask Yukio Mishima 1949 Japanese Japanese
1028 The Temple of the Golden Pavilion Yukio Mishima 1956 Japanese Japanese
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
60 Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe 1958 Nigerian English