Donald Barthelme’s Reading List

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

About this list

Believer Mag, 82 Books

81 books recommended by Author Donald Barthelme to his students at the University of Houston.

This list was originally published in 1985 and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
357 At Swim Two-Birds Flann O'Brien 1939 Irish English
494 The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien 1967 Irish English
1579 The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel Isaac Babel 1934 Russian Russian
312 Labyrinths Jorge Luis Borges 1962 Argentinian Spanish
6840 Other Inquisitions Jorge Luis Borges 1952 Argentinian Spanish
5 One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez 1967 Colombian Spanish
2257 Correction Thomas Bernhard 1975 Austrian German
14458 Nog Rudy Wurlitzer 1969 American English
2867 Gimpel the Fool Isaac Bashevis Singer 1953 Polish Yiddish
2072 The Assistant Bernard Malamud 1957 American English
6442 The Magic Barrel Bernard Malamud 1958 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
63 Under the Volcano Malcolm Lowry 1947 British English
209 Hunger Knut Hamsun 1890 Norwegian Norwegian
445 I'm Not Stiller Max Frisch 1954 Swiss German
4596 Man in the Holocene Max Frisch 1979 Swiss German
1988 Seven Gothic Tales Isak Dinesen 1934 Danish English
4454 Gogol's Wife Tommaso Landolfi 1953 Italian Italian
455 V Thomas Pynchon 1963 American English
10831 The Lime Twig John Hawkes 1961 American English
4749 Blood Oranges John Hawkes 1971 American English
1885 Little Disturbances Grace Paley 1959 American English
7593 Enormous Changes at the Last Minute Grace Paley 1974 American English
14731 I, etcetera Susan Sontag 1978 American English
2126 Tell Me a Riddle Tillie Olsen 1961 American English
2625 The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell 1949 American English
753 Henderson The Rain King Saul Bellow 1959 American English
13589 The Coup John Updike 1978 American English
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
14599 How We Live Rust Hills 1973 American English
14650 Superfiction Joe David Bellamy 1975 American English
15686 The Paris Review Interviews Paris Review 2006 American English
14680 Pushcart Prize Anthology Pushcart Prize 1976 American English
9185 The Writer on Her Work Janet Sternburg 1980 American English
1508 Surrealist Manifesto André Breton 1924 French French
13753 Documents of Modern Art Robert Motherwell 1944 American English
7664 Against Interpretation Susan Sontag 1966 American English
14650 A Homemade World Hugh Kenner 1975 American English
1870 The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters Gustave Flaubert 1921 French French
14630 Sexual Perversity in Chicago David Mamet 1974 American English
14731 The Changeling Joy Williams 1978 American English
14630 The New Fiction Joe David Bellamy 1974 American English
9963 Going After Cacciato Tim O'Brien 1978 American English
859 The Palm-Wine Drinkard Amos Tutola 1952 Nigerian English
14650 Searching for Caleb Anne Tyler 1975 American English
14212 Thank You and Other Poems Kenneth Koch 1962 American English
14520 Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara Frank O'Hara 1971 American English
14390 Rivers and Mountains John Ashbery 1966 American English
14731 Tragic Magic Wesley Brown 1978 American English
659 Mythologies Roland Barthes 1957 French French
14599 The Pleasure of the Text Roland Barthes 1973 French French
4116 For a New Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet 1963 French French
10085 Falling in Place Ann Beattie 1980 American English
5421 In the Heart of the Heart of the Country William H. Gass 1968 American English
14499 Fiction and the Figures of Life William H. Gass 1970 American English
14731 The World Within the Word William H. Gass 1978 American English
2260 Advertisements for Myself Norman Mailer 1959 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
48 Journey to the End of The Night Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1932 French French
2353 The Box Man Kobo Abé 1973 Japanese Japanese
202 Invisible Cities Italo Calvino 1972 Italian Italian
2406 A Sorrow Beyond Dreams Peter Handke 1972 Austrian German
14411 Kaspar and Other Plays Peter Handke 1967 Austrian German
394 Nadja André Breton 1928 French French
12046 Chimera John Barth 1972 American English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
14176 Black Tickets Jayne Anne Phillips 1979 American English
14458 Collected Stories of Peter Taylor Peter Taylor 1969 American English
13362 The Pure and the Impure Colette 1932 French French
14068 Will You Please be Quiet, Please? Raymond Carver 1976 American English
14680 The Oranging of America Max Apple 1976 American English
350 The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor Flannery O'Connor 1971 American English
1281 Mumbo Jumbo Ishmael Reed 1972 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
1280 The Death of Artemio Cruz Carlos Fuentes 1962 Mexican Spanish
1093 The Book of Laughter and Forgetting Milan Kundera 1979 Czech Czech
14180 The Rhetoric of Fiction Wayne C. Booth 1961 American English
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
14435 Lost In The Funhouse John Barth 1968 American English
14650 I Would Have Saved Them If I Could Leonard Michaels 1975 American English
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
9246 The Complete Dramatic Works Of Samuel Beckett Samuel Beckett 1986 Irish English