100 Books to Read Before Starting University

To the students considering an English Literature program at university, I always tell them that they should at least be familiar with Homer’s The Odyssey, a handful of Shakespeare’s plays, and The Bible. In reality, though, their professors will assume a far greater familiarity with English literature. I therefore suggest that each student try to read the following list before starting his or her university education:

1. The Hithhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
2. Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. Next Episode, Hubert Aquin
4. Foundation, Isaac Asimov
5. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
6. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
7. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
8. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
9. Emma, Jane Austen
10. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
11. Crabbe, William Bell
12. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
13. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
14. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
15. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
16. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
17. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
18. The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
19. JPod, Douglas Coupland
20. The Plains of Abraham, James Oliver Curwood
21. Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
22. Leaven of Malice, Robertson Davies
23. Tempest-Tost, Robertson Davies
24. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
25. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
26. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
27. Crime and Punishment, Fydor Dostoevsky
28. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
29. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas
30. The Last of the Crazy People, Timothy Findley
31. The Piano Man’s Daughter, Timothy Findley
32. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
33. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
34. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
35. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
36. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
37. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
38. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
39. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
40. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
41. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
42. Dune, Frank Herbert
43. The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton
44. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
45. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
46. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
47. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
48. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Wayne Johnston
49. The Divine Ryans, Wayne Johnston
50. The Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay
51. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
52. Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
53. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
54. The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling
55. English Passengers, Matthew Kneale
56. The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
57. The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence
58. Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock
59. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
60. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
61. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
62. The Way the Crow Flies, Ann-Marie MacDonald
63. Barometer Rising, Hugh MacLennan
64. Two Solitudes, Hugh MacLennan
65. Island, Alistair MacLeod
66. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
67. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
68. Who Has Seen the Wind, W.O. Mitchell
69. Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
70. Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat
71. Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O’Brien
72. Animal Farm, George Orwell
73. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
74. Anthem, Ayn Rand
75. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
76. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
77. Mercy Among the Children, David Adams Richards
78. Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler
79. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Mordecai Richler
80. Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling
81. Holes, Louis Sachar
82. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
83. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
84. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
85. Bone, Jeff Smith
86. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
87. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
88. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
89. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
90. Dracula, Bram Stoker
91. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
92. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
93. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
94. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
95. The Once and Future King, T.H. White
96. Night, Elie Wiesel
97. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
98. Where the Red Fern Grows, Rawls Wilson
99. I am Charlotte Simmons, Tom Wolfe
100. The Chrysalids, John Wyndham