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Reading List
This is a list of great written works compiled by an SCPL librarian.
f you are looking for a classic to read, browse through our list of 219 works by 146 authors.
Ancient Classics
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Æsop (c.500 B.C.) | Fables |
| Aristophanes (c.448-380 B.C.) | Lysistrata |
| Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) | Ethics |
| Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) | Politics |
| Euripides (c.484-408 B.C.) | The Trojan Women |
| Homer (c.800 B.C.) | The Iliad |
| Homer (c.800 B.C.) | The Odyssey |
| Plato (c.427-347 B.C.) | The Republic |
| Sophocles (496-406 B.C.) | Antigone |
| Sophocles (496-406 B.C.) | Oedipus Rex |
| Virgil (70-19 B.C.) | The Æneid |
British Classics
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Beowulf (c.700) | |
| Chaucer, Geoffrey (c.1340-1400) | The Canterbury Tales |
| Malory, Sir Thomas (1430-1471) | Le Morte d'Arthur |
| Milton, John (1608-1674) | Paradise Lost |
| Shakespeare, William (1564-1616) | The Complete Works |
European Classics
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Arabian Nights (c.700-1500) | |
| Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-1375) | The Decameron |
| Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616) | Don Quixote |
| Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) | The Divine Comedy |
| Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von (1749-1832) | Faust |
| Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von (1749-1832) | The Sorrows of Young Werther |
| Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469-1527) | The Prince |
| Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622-1673) | Tartuffe |
| Omar Khayyám (1048-1122) | The Rubáiyát |
| Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) | Candide |
American 19th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Alcott, Louisa May (1832-1888) | Little Women |
| Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864) | The Scarlet Letter |
| James, Henry (1843-1916) | The Portrait of a Lady |
| James, Henry (1843-1916) | The Turn of the Screw |
| Melville, Herman (1819-1891) | Billy Budd |
| Melville, Herman (1819-1891) | Moby Dick |
| Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849) | Complete Tales |
| Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910) | A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910) | The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
| Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910) | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
American 20th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Bradbury, Ray (1920- ) | Fahrenheit 451 |
| Bradbury, Ray (1920- ) | The Martian Chronicles |
| Faulkner, William (1897-1962) | Absalom, Absalom! |
| Faulkner, William (1897-1962) | As I Lay Dying |
| Faulkner, William (1897-1962) | Light in August |
| Faulkner, William (1897-1962) | The Sound and the Fury |
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) | The Great Gatsby |
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) | The Last Tycoon |
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) | Tender is the Night |
| Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) | This Side of Paradise |
| García Márquez, Gabriel (1928- ) | One Hundred Years of Solitude |
| Heller, Joseph (1923-1999) | Catch-22 |
| Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961) | A Farewell to Arms |
| Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961) | For Whom the Bell Tolls |
| Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961) | The Old Man and the Sea |
| Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961) | The Sun Also Rises |
| Irving, John (1942- ) | The Cider House Rules |
| Irving, John (1942- ) | The Hotel New Hampshire |
| Irving, John (1942- ) | A Prayer for Owen Meany |
| Irving, John (1942- ) | The World According to Garp |
| Lee, Harper (1926- ) | To Kill a Mockingbird |
| Miller, Henry (1891-1980) | Tropic of Cancer |
| Nabakov, Vladimir (1899-1977) | Lolita |
| Rand, Ayn (1905-1982) | Anthem |
| Rand, Ayn (1905-1982) | Atlas Shrugged |
| Rand, Ayn (1905-1982) | The Fountainhead |
| Salinger, J. D. (1919- ) | The Catcher in the Rye |
| Steinbeck, John (1902-1968) | The Grapes of Wrath |
| Steinbeck, John (1902-1968) | Of Mice and Men |
British 17th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731) | Moll Flanders |
| Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731) | Robinson Crusoe |
British 18th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Fielding, Henry (1707-1754) | Tom Jones |
| Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) | Tristram Shandy |
| Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745) | Gulliver's Travels |
British 19th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Abbott, Edwin Abbott (1838-1926) | Flatland |
| Austen, Jane (1775-1817) | Emma |
| Austen, Jane (1775-1817) | Mansfield Park |
| Austen, Jane (1775-1817) | Pride and Prejudice |
| Austen, Jane (1775-1817) | Sense and Sensibility |
| Brontë, Charlotte (1816-1855) | Jane Eyre |
| Brontë, Emily (1818-1848) | Wuthering Heights |
| Carroll, Lewis (Charles Dodgson) (1832-1898) | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |
| Carroll, Lewis (Charles Dodgson) (1832-1898) | Through the Looking-Glass |
| Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) | Bleak House |
| Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) | Great Expectations |
| Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) | Hard Times |
| Dickens, Charles (1812-1870) | A Tale of Two Cities |
| Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan (1859-1930) | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
| Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880) | Middlemarch |
| Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880) | The Mill on the Floss |
| Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880) | Silas Marner |
| Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) | Far from the Maddening Crowd |
| Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) | Jude the Obscure |
| Hardy, Thomas (1840-1928) | Tess of the d'Urbervilles |
| Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797-1851) | Frankenstein |
| Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894) | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
| Thackeray, William Makepeace (1811-1863) | Vanity Fair |
| Wilde, Oscar (1854-1900) | The Picture of Dorian Gray |
British 20th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Burgess, Anthony (1917-1993) | A Clockwork Orange |
| Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924) | Heart of Darkness |
| Conrad, Joseph (1857-1924) | Lord Jim |
| Durrell, Lawrence (1912-1990) | The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea |
| Forster, E. M. (1879-1970) | Howards End |
| Forster, E. M. (1879-1970) | A Passage to India |
| Forster, E. M. (1879-1970) | A Room with a View |
| Forster, E. M. (1879-1970) | Where Angels Fear to Tread |
| Huxley, Aldous (1894-1963) | Brave New World |
| Ishiguro, Kazuo (1954- ) | The Remains of the Day |
| Joyce, James (1882-1941) | Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man |
| Joyce, James (1882-1941) | Ulysses |
| Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930) | Lady Chatterley's Lover |
| Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930) | Sons and Lovers |
| Lawrence, D. H. (1885-1930) | Women in Love |
| Lewis, C. S. (1898-1963) | The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe |
| Orwell, George (1903-1950) | Animal Farm |
| Orwell, George (1903-1950) | 1984 |
| Wells, H. G. (1866-1946) | The Invisible Man |
| Wells, H. G. (1866-1946) | The Time Machine |
| Wells, H. G. (1866-1946) | The War of the Worlds |
| Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941) | Orlando |
| Woolf, Virginia (1882-1941) | To the Lighthouse |
European 19th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Balzac, Honoré de (1799-1850) | Eugénie Grandet |
| Balzac, Honoré de (1799-1850) | Père Goriot |
| Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1821-1881) | The Brothers Karamazov |
| Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1821-1881) | Crime and Punishment |
| Dumas, Alexandre (1802-1870) | The Count of Monte Cristo |
| Dumas, Alexandre (1802-1870) | The Three Musketeers |
| Flaubert, Gustave (1821-1880) | Madame Bovary |
| Hugo, Victor (1802-1885) | The Hunchback of Notre Dame |
| Hugo, Victor (1802-1885) | Les Misérables |
| Hugo, Victor (1802-1885) | Ninety-Three |
| Stendahl (Marie-Henry Beyle) (1783-1842) | The Red and the Black |
| Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910) | Anna Karenina |
| Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910) | The Death of Ivan Ilych |
| Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910) | War and Peace |
| Turgenev, Ivan (1818-1883) | Fathers and Sons |
| Turgenev, Ivan (1818-1883) | First Love |
European 20th Century Novels
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Camus, Albert (1913-1960) | The Plague |
| Camus, Albert (1913-1960) | The Stranger |
| Hesse, Herman (1877-1962) | Siddhartha |
| Kafka, Franz (1883-1924) | The Castle |
| Kafka, Franz (1883-1924) | The Metamorphosis |
| Kafka, Franz (1883-1924) | The Trial |
| Mann, Thomas (1875-1955) | Death in Venice |
| Mann, Thomas (1875-1955) | The Magic Mountain |
| Nin, Anaïs (1903-1977) | Delta of Venus |
| Nin, Anaïs (1903-1977) | The Diary of Anaïs Nin |
| Proust, Marcel (1871-1922) | Remembrance of Things Past |
American 19th Century Poetry
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886) | Poems by Emily Dickinson |
| Whitman, Walt (1819-1892) | Leaves of Grass |
American 20th Century Poetry
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| cummings, e. e. (1894-1962) | Complete Poems |
| Frost, Robert (1874-1963) | The Road Not Taken |
| Frost, Robert (1874-1963) | Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening |
British 18th Century Poetry
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Blake, William (1757-1827) | Songs of Experience |
| Blake, William (1757-1827) | Songs of Innocence |
| Burns, Robert (1759-1796) | Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect |
| Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) | Kubla Khan |
| Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) | Rime of the Ancient Mariner |
| Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) | Lines Composed a Few Miles from Tintern Abbey |
| Wordsworth, William (1770-1850) | The Prelude |
British 19th Century Poetry
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) | Sonnets from the Portuguese |
| Browning, Robert (1812-1889) | The Ring and the Book |
| Byron, George Gordon (Lord) (1788-1824) | Don Juan |
| Keats, John (1795-1821) | Hyperion |
| Keats, John (1795-1821) | Ode to a Nightingale |
| Keats, John (1795-1821) | To Autumn |
| Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) | Prometheus Unbound |
British 20th Century Poetry
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939) | Last Poems and Plays |
Drama
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989) | Waiting for Godot |
| Checkov, Anton (1860-1904) | Three Sisters |
| Checkov, Anton (1860-1904) | Uncle Vanya |
| Ibsen, Henrik (1828-1906) | A Doll's House |
| Ibsen, Henrik (1828-1906) | The Master Builder |
| Ibsen, Henrik (1828-1906) | Peer Gynt |
| Miller, Arthur (1915- ) | Death of a Salesman |
| O'Neill, Eugene (1888-1953) | Long Day's Journey into Night |
| Rostand, Edmond (1868-1918) | Cyrano de Bergerac |
| Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) | Arms and the Man |
| Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950) | Pygmalion |
| Williams, Tennessee (1914-1983) | A Streetcar Named Desire |
Philosophy
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Descartes, René (1596-1650) | Discourse on Method |
| Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679) | Leviathan |
| Hume, David (1711-1776) | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding |
| Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804) | The Critique of Pure Reason |
| Locke, John (1632-1704) | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |
| Marx, Karl (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) | The Communist Manifesto |
| Marx, Karl (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) | Das Kapital |
| Mill, John Stuart (1806-1873) | On Liberty |
| More, Sir Thomas (1478-1535) | Utopia |
| Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900) | Beyond Good and Evil |
| Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844-1900) | Thus Spake Zarathustra |
| Paine, Thomas (1737-1809) | The Age of Reason |
| Paine, Thomas (1737-1809) | The Rights of Man |
| Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662) | Pensées |
| Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712-1778) | The Social Contract |
| Smith, Adam (1723-1790) | The Wealth of Nations |
| Thomas Aquinas, Saint (1225-1274) | Summa Theologica |
Religious Texts
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Bhagavad Gita (c.400-200 B.C.) | |
| The Bible (c.800 B.C.-300 A.D.) | |
| Popul Vuh (unknown) | |
| The Upanishads (c.600 B.C.) | |
| Buddha (563-483 B.C.) | Teachings |
| Lao-Tzu (c.604-531 B.C.) | Tao Te Ching |
| Muhammad (c.570-632) | The Koran |
Biography and History
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Boswell, James (1740-1795) | The Life of Samuel Johnson |
| Franklin, Benjamin (1706-1790) | Autobiography |
| Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794) | The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
| Hamilton, Alexander (1757-1804), James Madison (1751-1836), and John Jay (1745-1829) | The Federalist Papers |
| Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826) | The Declaration of Independence |
| Pepys, Samuel (1633-1703) | Diary |
| Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862) | Civil Disobedience |
| Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862) | Walden |
Science and Mathematics
| Author | Title |
|---|---|
| Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473-1543) | On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres |
| Darwin, Charles (1809-1882) | On the Origin of Species |
| Einstein, Albert (1879-1955) | Relativity: The Special and the General Theory |
| Euclid (c.330-c.275 B.C.) | The Elements |
| Freud, Sigmund (1859-1939) | A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis |
| Freud, Sigmund (1859-1939) | The Interpretation of Dreams |
| Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) | Two New Sciences |
| Hawking, Stephen (1942- ) | A Brief History of Time |
| Newton, Isaac (1642-1727) | Opticks |
| Newton, Isaac (1642-1727) | Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis |
| Ptolemy (c.100 B.C.) | The Almagest |