Favorite Novels

I tend to have favorite novels, as opposed to favorite novelists, whereas I tend to have favorite poems and favorite poets.  In any case, here are a few novels that affected me greatly when I first read them and, in some instances, that I return to multiple times. I’ve added authors ‘ names even in the most obvious cases.  “Popular” and “literary” works are mixed together (that should tell you something.) This list is a subset of a larger storehouse on my shelves. Alphabetical by title.  Particular gems in bold (these tend to be ones I re-read regularly, sometimes because I teach them.)

Barrabas, Lagerkvist

Another Country, Baldwin

Bleak House, Dickens

Bone, Ng

Brave New World, Huxley

Brothers Karamozov, Dostoevsky

Burr, Vidal

Busman’s Honeymoon, Sayers

Conjure Man Dies, The, Fisher

Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

Crying of Lot 49, The, Pynchon

Daisy Miller, James

Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler

Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin

Go Tell It On the Mountain, Baldwin

Golden Spiders, The (and many others), Stout

Grapes of Wrath, The, Steinbeck

Heart of Darkness, The, Conrad

Huckleberry Finn, Twain

Human Voices, (Penelope) Fitzgerald

In Our Time, Hemingway (interconnected stories, not a novel, but my favorite book by him)

Invisible Cities [a novel of sorts], Calvino

Invisible Man, Ellison

Kalki, Vidal

Light In August, Faulkner

Magic Mountain, The, Mann

Maigret’s Revolver (and many other Maigret books), Simenon

Maltese Falcon, The, Hammet

Man Who Was Thursday, The, Chesterton

Men At Arms, Waugh

Metamorphosis, The, Kafka (novella)

Middlemarch, Eliot

Ministry of Fear, The, Greene

Moll Flanders, DeFoe

Moving Toy Shop, The Crispin

Pattern Recognition, Gibson

Pincher Martin, Golding

Plum Bun, Fauset

Power and the Glory, The, Greene

Pride and Prejudice, Austen

Rabbit Boss, Sanchez

Rainbow, The, Lawrence

Return of Jeeves, The (and others), Wodehouse

Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut

Snaketown, Wakefield

Snow Crash, Stephenson

Solomon’s Song, Morrison

Sophie’s Choice, Styron

Sound and the Fury, Faulkner

Sparrow, The, Mary Doria Russell

Spire, The, Golding

Stranger, The, Camus

Taken at the Flood, Christie

Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, Baldwin

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy

To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee

Tristram Shandy, Sterne

Trout Fishing In America, Brautigan

War and Peace,  Tolstoy