The Ultimate Reading List

Title - Author (#of books on list), Awards/Lists

Number in parenthesis beside author’s name indicates number of author's books on list.
An asterisk* beside the author’s name indicates Nobel Prize winner.

Da Vinci Code, The - Dan Brown 6

Dale Loves Sophie to Death - Robb Forman Dew 2

Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koesler 8

David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 12

Day of the Locust, The - Nathaniel West 8

Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather (4) 8, 9, 10

Death of the Heart, The - Elizabeth Bowen 8

Deliverance - James Dickey 8

Disgrace - J.M. Coetzee*(2) 7, 13

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, The - Rebecca Wells 6

Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak 10

Dog Soldiers - Robert Stone (2) 2 

Dragon's Teeth - Upton Sinclair (2) 1

Drop City - T.C. Boyle 13

Dubliners - James Joyce(4) 12

Duino Elegies - Rainer Maria Rilke 12

Dune - Frank Herbert 10

Dusk  - James Salter 2

Early Autumn - Louis Bromfield 1

Early Stories, The - John Updike 3

East of Eden - John Steinbeck (4) 10, 12

Easy in the Islands - Bob Shacochis 2

Echo Maker, The - Richard Powers 2

Edge of Sadness, The - Edwin O'Connor 1

Education of Little Tree, The - Forrest Carter 6

Eighth Day,The - Thornton Wilder(2) 2

Elbow Room - James Alan McPherson 1

Elected Member, The - Bernice Ruben 7

Empire Falls - Richard Russo 1

End of the Affair, The - Graham Greene (2) 10

English Patient, The - Michael Ondaatje 7, 12

Emperor’s Children, The - Claire Messud 13

Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton(3) 9, 10

Europe Central - William T. Vollman 2

Everyman - Philip Roth (8) 3

Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer(2) 1

Exodus - Leon Uris 10

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury 10

Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev 12

Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges 11               

Field of Vision, The - Wright Morris(2) 2

Finnegan’s Wake - James Joyce(4) 8, 9

Fixer, The - Bernard Malamud(2) 1, 2

Fool's Crow - James Welch 5

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway(4) 9, 12

Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie 1

Forsyth Saga, The - John Galsworthy 10

Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Lethem 13

Fountainhead, The - Ayn Rand(2) 9, 10

Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger(4) 9

Freedom Song - Amit Chaudhuri 5

French Lieutenant's Woman, The - John Fowles(2) 9

From Here to Eternity - James Jones 2, 8, 10

1-Pulitzer Prize
2-National Book Award
3-Pen/Faulkner Award
4-National Book Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction
5-Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction
6-Book Sense Book Award
7-Man Booker Prize
8-American Library’s Top 100 Novels
9-Modern Library 100 Best Books
10-Library Journal’s Most Influential Fiction of the 20th Century
11-New York Library’s Books of the Century
12-Harvard Bookstore’s 100 Best Books
13-New York Times Editor’s Choice