How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Reading List

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Thomas C. Foster, 125 Books

English professor Thomas C. Foster, at the end of his book, includes a recommended "reading list".

This list was originally published in 2003 and was added to this site over 11 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
618 Poems of W. H. Auden W. H. Auden 1930 British English
101 Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett 1953 Irish French
669 Beowulf Unknown 1000 Unknown Old english
3809 Hotel du Lac Anita Brookner 1984 British English
35 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll 1865 British English
547 Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll 1871 British English
2103 The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories Angela Carter 1979 British English
2696 Wise Children Angela Carter 1991 British English
110 The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer 1400 British Middle english
31 Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad 1899 British English
137 Lord Jim Joseph Conrad 1900 British English
216 A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens 1843 British English
47 David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1849 British English
121 Bleak House Charles Dickens 1852 British English
38 Great Expectations Charles Dickens 1860 British English
406 Ragtime E. L. Doctorow 1975 American English
226 The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell 1957 British English
10071 Prufrock and Other Observations T. S. Eliot 1917 British English
1318 Love Medicine Louise Erdrich 1984 American English
9 The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner 1929 American English
79 As I Lay Dying William Faulkner 1930 American English
43 Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner 1936 American English
641 Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding 1996 British English
13 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 1813 British English
134 Tom Jones Henry Fielding 1749 British English
3 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925 American English
85 The Good Soldier Ford Madox Ford 1915 British English
289 A Room With a View E. M. Forster 1908 British English
197 Howards End E. M. Forster 1910 British English
78 A Passage to India E. M. Forster 1924 British English
442 The Magus John Fowles 1965 British English
567 The French Lieutenant's Woman John Fowles 1969 British English
317 The Poems of Robert Frost Robert Frost 1913 American English
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
734 Loving Henry Green 1945 British English
142 The Maltese Falcon Dashiell Hammett 1930 American English
358 The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy 1886 British English
117 Tess of the d'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy 1891 British English
1157 Twice-Told Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne 1837 American English
74 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1850 American English
601 The House of the Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne 1851 American English
825 In Our Time Ernest Hemingway 1925 American English
655 Stories of Ernest Hemingway Ernest Hemingway 1987 American English
62 The Sun Also Rises Ernest Hemingway 1926 American English
67 A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemingway 1929 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
37 The Iliad Homer -750 Greek Ancient greek
24 The Odyssey Homer -740 Greek Ancient greek
189 The Turn of the Screw Henry James 1898 American English
3125 Daisy Miller Henry James 1878 American English
330 Dubliners James Joyce 1914 Irish English
88 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce 1916 Irish English
1 Ulysses James Joyce 1922 Irish English
66 The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka 1915 Czech German
295 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka 1971 Czech Unknown
21 The Trial Franz Kafka 1925 Czech German
2098 The Bean Trees Barbara Kingsolver 1988 American English
14051 Pigs in Heaven Barbara Kingsolver 1993 American English
878 The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver 1998 American English
4611 Complete Short Stories D. H. Lawrence 1950 British English
144 Sons and Lovers D. H. Lawrence 1913 British English
227 Women in Love D. H. Lawrence 1920 British English
196 Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence 1928 British English
548 Le Morte d'Arthur Thomas Malory 1485 British Middle english
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
454 The Sea, The Sea Iris Murdoch 1978 British English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
9959 Going After Cacciato Tim O'Brien 1978 American English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
98 The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe 1902 American English
441 The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon 1966 American English
71 Hamlet William Shakespeare 1600 British English
337 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare 1597 British English
2121 Julius Caesar William Shakespeare 1623 British English
155 Macbeth William Shakespeare 1606 British English
131 King Lear William Shakespeare 1608 British English
1661 A Midsummer Night's Dream William Shakespeare 1595 British English
211 The Tempest William Shakespeare 1623 British English
5985 Twelfth Night William Shakespeare 1602 British English
1340 As You Like it William Shakespeare 1600 British English
343 The Sonnets William Shakespeare 1609 British English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
7042 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Simon Armitage 2007 British Middle english
383 Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles -401 Greek Ancient greek
106 Oedipus the King Sophocles -429 Greek Ancient greek
125 Antigone Sophocles -441 Greek Ancient greek
1284 The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser 1590 British English
218 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson 1886 British English
53 Dracula Bram Stoker 1897 British English
1355 Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas 1952 British English
22 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain 1884 American English
1830 Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler 1982 American English
2273 The Accidental Tourist Anne Tyler 1985 American English
14492 The Early Stories John Updike 2003 American English
1270 Omeros Derek Walcott 1990 Saint Lucian English
32 Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf 1925 British English
27 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1927 British English
268 Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats 1933 Irish English
322 Household Tales Brothers Grimm 1812 German German
14389 Early Novels and Stories James Baldwin 1984 American English
14362 Water Music T. C. Boyle 1982 American English
1912 World's End T. C. Boyle 1987 American English
15559 Stories T. C. Boyle 1998 American English
628 Nights At The Circus Angela Carter 1984 British English
1312 The Stories of Raymond Carver Raymond Carver 1981 American English
2266 Pricksongs and Descants Robert Coover 1969 American English
8662 The Bridge Hart Crane 1930 American English
5322 The Remorseful Day Colin Dexter 1999 British English
8251 The Old Curiosity Shop Charles Dickens 1841 British English
14519 The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald 1989 American English
2446 Blindness Henry Green 1926 British English
1179 Living Henry Green 1929 British English
3630 Party Going Henry Green 1939 British English
14498 The Short Stories Of Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy 1988 British English
1584 A Severed Head Iris Murdoch 1961 British English
5472 The Unicorn Iris Murdoch 1963 British English
14649 The Green Knight Iris Murdoch 1993 British English
6763 The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke Theodore Roethke 1966 American English
3225 Much Ado about Nothing William Shakespeare 1600 British English
2449 Henry V William Shakespeare 1600 British English