Introduction
I thought I’d have a little fun today and compile a list of my 50 favorite novels.
First off, the rules.
I didn’t include any short stories, short story collections, poetry collections, screenplays, plays, nonfiction (creative or otherwise), or graphic novels. Every book on this list is a novel (well, there is one novella).
Also, this is a list of my 50 favorite novels, not a list of the 50 best novels in terms of literary merit. Nostalgia, my own personal taste, and the fact that I’ve only read a smidgen of the novels that have been written limit this to a very arbitrary list.
Without further ado, the list!
My 50 Favorite Novels
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
- Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
- The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
- The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
- A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale by Chuck Kinder
- Skagboys by Irvine Welsh
- Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- Native Son by Richard Wright
- Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
- Women by Charles Bukowski
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- 1984 by George Orwell
- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- The Plague by Albert Camus
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
- The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson
- Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
- The Group by Mary McCarthy
- Drop City by T.C. Boyle
- The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight
- The Chosen by Chaim Potok
- Junky by William S. Burroughs
- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
- Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- NW by Zadie Smith
- The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Fall by Albert Camus
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis
- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
- Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
- Plainsong by Kent Haruf
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Feedback
Now, here’s where I turn it back to you with a few questions:
How many of these novels have you read?
Do you hate any of the books on this list? Why?
What’s on your list of 50 favorite books?
Comments and feedback are always appreciated!
Fighting the good fight with you,
Alfonso
Man, I consider myself pretty well read and I haven’t read a lot of these. All the same, a great list, and I’ll look out for some of these.
I’m surprised to see Zadie Smith’s “NW” on there – although I appreciate its skill it’s not stuck with me like some of her work. And “Wise Blood” felt like hard work, although I love O’Connor’s short stories.
I have to put Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything is Illuminated” on my top list. Dickens’ “Bleak House”. Joan Didion’s “Play it as it Lays”. And Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”. I’m sure there’s more but that’s for a post of my own…
Looks like you have the makings of your own excellent list there, especially with Everything is Illuminated.
I read 7 of yours. Karamazov is my favorite of the list.
I’ve read 7. I love The Fall. And it’s not a novel but I love Richard Wright’s haiku. I lean toward mysteries and thrillers myself- many favorites there.
Looks like I just found a treasure here, recommendations of good reads.. Hurray! Thank you!
I recently have developed this habit of reading books and with every page I read I regret not to start it earlier.
I am on a yearly target to read 12 novels this year and I am in mid of finishing the fifth novel ‘Love in the time of cholera’.
I have read Shantaram, Wuthering Heights, The Kite Runner, A Fine Balance so far and I have Middlesex on my list.
Thanks again for I am definitely going to pick few from your list!
Happy reading! Happy blogging!
You’re welcome, Shefali – I hope you enjoy these books and good luck on your target!
Thank you Alfonso.. 🙂