Introduction: A Book Lover Speaks
Things Fall Apart by CHINUA ACHEBE
Half of a Yellow Sun by CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by MAYA ANGELOU
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by KATE ATKINSON
The Handmaid’s Tale by MARGARET ATWOOD
The Wasp Factory by IAIN BANKS
The Sense of an Ending by JULIAN BARNES
Light a Penny Candle by MAEVE BINCHY
Lorna Doone by R. D. BLACKMORE
Any Human Heart by WILLIAM BOYD
The Thirty-Nine Steps by JOHN BUCHAN
A Clockwork Orange by ANTHONY BURGESS
TOP TEN BRITISH AND AMERICAN CLASSICS
Oscar and Lucinda by PETER CAREY
Wise Children by ANGELA CARTER
2001: A Space Odyssey by ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by SUSANNA CLARKE
What a Carve Up! by JONATHAN COE
The Woman in White by WILKIE COLLINS
Heart of Darkness by JOSEPH CONRAD
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES
The Inheritance of Loss by KIRAN DESAI
House of Sand and Fog by ANDRE DUBUS III
A Spell of Winter by HELEN DUNMORE
Middlesex by JEFFREY EUGENIDES
As I Lay Dying by WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Great Gatsby by F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
A Room with a View by E. M. FORSTER
The Corrections by JONATHAN FRANZEN
Love in the Time of Cholera by GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ
Mary Barton by ELIZABETH GASKELL
Cold Comfort Farm by STELLA GIBBONS
Lord of the Flies by WILLIAM GOLDING
The End of the Affair by GRAHAM GREENE
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by PATRICK HAMILTON
The Go-Between by L. P. HARTLEY
The Scarlet Letter by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Notes on a Scandal by ZOË HELLER
To Have and Have Not by ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The Kite Runner by KHALED HOSSEINI
Atomised by MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ
Brave New World by ALDOUS HUXLEY
A Prayer for Owen Meany by JOHN IRVING
The Remains of the Day by KAZUO ISHIGURO
TOP TEN BOOKS WITH A YOUNGER PERSPECTIVE
The Turn of the Screw by HENRY JAMES
The Secret Life of Bees by SUE MONK KIDD
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. LAWRENCE
To Kill a Mockingbird by HARPER LEE
Liars and Saints by MAILE MELOY
Norwegian Wood by HARUKI MURAKAMI
The Sea, The Sea by IRIS MURDOCH
Suite Française by IRÈNE NÉMIROVSKY
The Time Traveler’s Wife by AUDREY NIFFENEGGER
Nineteen Eighty-Four by GEORGE ORWELL
Woman on the Edge of Time by MARGE PIERCY
Vernon God Little by D. B. C. PIERRE
Housekeeping by MARILYNNE ROBINSON
The Human Stain by PHILIP ROTH
The God of Small Things by ARUNDHATI ROY
Midnight’s Children by SALMAN RUSHDIE
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. SALINGER
Drowning Ruth by CHRISTINA SCHWARZ
The Lovely Bones by ALICE SEBOLD
The Bookseller of Kabul by ASNE SEIERSTAD
Fortune’s Rocks by ANITA SHREVE
We Need to Talk About Kevin by LIONEL SHRIVER
Sophie’s Choice by WILLIAM STYRON
The Secret History by DONNA TARTT
The Story of Lucy Gault by WILLIAM TREVOR
Marrying the Mistress by JOANNA TROLLOPE
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by MARK TWAIN
The Color Purple by ALICE WALKER
The Night Watch by SARAH WATERS
Brideshead Revisited by EVELYN WAUGH
When God Was a Rabbit by SARAH WOOLF
Mrs Dalloway by VIRGINIA WOOLF
The Shadow of the Wind by CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN
The Book Thief by MARKUS ZUSAK