Linda Jo Martin

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101 Great Books Recommended by the College Board – Classic Novels and Plays

February 24, 2020 By Linda Jo Martin 8 Comments

Just updated! This list has been on my blog more than ten years. I love to read classic literature, and am intrigued by this list of 101 Great Books Recommended for College Bound Readers – recommended by the College Board.

101 Classics Worth Reading

My love affair with classic books.

Even though I’m not college-bound (I am an old lady) I like to read classics, and am still working on this list. These literary works are listed in alphabetical order, by the last name of the author, not by order of preference. Most are novels. There are some plays, and a few books of essays!

On June 23, 2015 I reformatted this entire page, and updated a bit. As I was doing so, I kept thinking – “Who *writes* these lists, anyway?”

There are some great books on this page, but others I’ve read and loved were left out. Maybe I should write my own list of 100 great and/or classic books I can recommend. I’ll work on that.

I updated on Sept. 4, 2016 as I’ve read several classics this year, and it is my plan to continue reading the books on this list.

(I’m checking off the ones I’ve already read, and may someday be lucky enough to read the rest.)

If you have any favorite books that were left off the list, please add them to the comment section at the end of this page.

So far I’ve read 44 out of the 101 books on this list – with 57 more to read.

Updated again on February 24, 2020. I read a few more classics from this list last year. Doubt I’ll ever get all the way through this list, but I’m still going at it. This time I added the commentary underneath each title and a few videos.

December 2022 – another update in progress.

March 2023 – updated again. I’m reading more of these this year.

All my reviews are at Goodreads.

☆ – I own a copy of the book
★ – I own a copy and am currently reading the book
!!! – This is on my current short-term TBR list
✓ – Finished

  1. ✓ Beowulf – by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet
  2. – You can save yourself the trouble of trying to read archaic English translations…. by listening to the entire book, on these two videos. My review.


  3. ✓ Things Fall Apart – by Chinua Achebe
  4. – I enjoyed reading this short but action-packed fiction about life in an African village as things begin to change due to the unstoppable intrusion of outside civilization. My review.

  5. ✓ A Death in the Family – by James Agee
  6. – It does sound morose, but this is an excellent novel. My review.

    Pride & Prejudice, by Jane Austen
  7. ✓ Pride and Prejudice – by Jane Austen
  8. – I waited to read this during my sixties. Why? This wonderful book should be required reading for every teenager. A great primer on human nature. I failed to review this at Goodreads, so should probably read it again, then do so.

  9. ✓ Go Tell It on the Mountain – by James Baldwin
  10. – I may have read this when I was a teenager. I read two of his books, but I can’t remember the titles! I will have to read it (again?) . . . LATER – I read this book in 2022. Very impressive writing, but a sad story, semi-autobiographical. My review.

  11. ✓ Waiting for Godot – by Samuel Beckett
  12. – I had to read this twice in high school… it was pure torture. I recommend you watch the movie instead – you get all the verbiage of this play and it is a lot more entertaining than reading the play on paper. (Your mileage may vary.) Another book I have yet to review at Goodreads.

  13. The Adventures of Augie March – by Saul Bellow
  14. – 608 pages! “A difficult and challenging read.” – Amazon reviewer

  15. ✓ Jane Eyre – by Charlotte Bronte
  16. – Another amazing novel that I waited too many years to read. My review.

  17. ✓ Wuthering Heights – by Emily Brontë
  18. – Oh my – I always thought Heathcliff was a handsome, romantic guy because I’d seen parts of a few movies – and now, having read the book, I can only hope I never meet anyone like him. This book was nothing like I’d expected from movies, though I really don’t think I ever saw one all the way through. My review.

    The Stranger, by Albert Camus
  19. ✓ The Stranger – by Albert Camus
  20. – A short, interesting novel about a man who can’t seem to connect well – with anyone. My review.

  21. Death Comes for the Archbishop – by Willa Cather
  22. – I want to read this; I’ve never attempted it.

  23. ☆ The Canterbury Tales – by Geoffrey Chaucer
  24. – My sister had to read this in Old English during high school. I was not so blessed, and to this date, have never read it. I have a Kindle copy in Old English – but it seems a bit intimidating. I don’t know how my sister ever got through it.

  25. The Cherry Orchard – by Anton Chekhov
  26. – Okay, I have no idea what this is about. Haven’t read it.

  27. The Awakening – by Kate Chopin
  28. – I do have an idea what this is about – though I haven’t taken time for it yet.

  29. !!! Heart of Darkness – by Joseph Conrad
  30. – This is on my current short-term TBR list.

  31. ☆ The Last of the Mohicans – by James Fenimore Cooper
  32. – I’ve seen the movie! The book… maybe I’ll read it one of these years.

    The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
  33. ✓ The Red Badge of Courage – by Stephen Crane
  34. – A short classic from the point of view of a young and inexperienced Civil War soldier. Great novel. You will feel like you’re in the battle feeling all the fears the young man is dealing with. This cover says a lot. An unforgettable image. Sad! I still need to review this.

  35. ☆ The Inferno – by Dante
  36. – I need to read this. I bought a copy of The Divine Comedy intending to read The Inferno in 2020, and while it was on order, my home burned to ashes in a forest fire. A friend on Booktube kindly suggested I wait for a while. I tried again a year later, and stalled. I want to try to finish it now.

  37. !!! Don Quixote – by Miguel de Cervantes
  38. – I got three hundred pages into this tome once, and gave up. One of these days, hopefully, I’ll return to it. (It is on my current short-term TBR list.)

  39. ☆ Robinson Crusoe – by Daniel Defoe
  40. – I need to read this book!!

    Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
  41. ✓ A Tale of Two Cities – by Charles Dickens
  42. – This is the first book I read after graduating from high school. It appeared on my bed in the Haight Ashbury at a time when I was quitting smoking. I was so entertained by this great novel, I didn’t give much thought to any desire for tobacco. I have not reviewed it.

  43. ☆ Crime and Punishment – by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  44. – I tried to read this a few years ago, but it fell by the wayside. I gave it another try in 2020 and my home burned to the ground in a forest fire. Because I was already in shock and trauma, the novel gave me nightmares about murder so I had to can it again. Should I try a third time?

  45. ✓ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – by Frederick Douglass
  46. – I read this in 2021 and think it is a memoir that should be read by all American high school students. We all need to know about this! I failed to review is so am going to read it again, God willing.

  47. !!! An American Tragedy – by Theodore Dreiser
  48. – About a social climber with a lower class girlfriend holding him back. 896 pages, but you can get a Kindle copy from Amazon for only 45 cents! This is on my current short-term TBR list.

  49. The Three Musketeers – by Alexandre Dumas
  50. – This is about a young gentleman and his three friends from the King’s Musketeers.

    Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
  51. ☆ The Mill on the Floss – by George Eliot
  52. – Tried to read this once and the first chapter was difficult for me. I have a copy and want to try again.

  53. ✓ Invisible Man – by Ralph Ellison
  54. – What a fantastic book. I read this in 2021 and was amazed at how it kept my attention from start to finish. It is about a young black man growing up in the south and eventually moving north. Really a great novel. My review.

  55. Selected Essays – by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  56. – This would be interesting to read. I wonder what he thought about.

  57. As I Lay Dying – by William Faulkner
  58. – This is about a family traveling across Mississippi to bury their wife/mother.

  59. ✓ The Sound and the Fury – by William Faulkner
  60. – This is the craziest stream-of-consciousness novel I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading via audiobook. I’m pretty sure I would never have gotten through it were it not for the taped version. Later I saw the old movie, and it made more sense out of what I’d read. It is possible I would have understood it better with a printed version to read. My review.

    Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
  61. Tom Jones – by Henry Fielding
  62. – I have no idea…

  63. ✓ The Great Gatsby – by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  64. – I did read this – it is a short novel… and many think it is a masterpiece. I wasn’t all that impressed, but okay… I watched a recent movie later, and that was wonderfully done. No review.

  65. ✓ Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
  66. – A young wife in France is dissatisfied with her marriage to a devoted doctor. She proceeds to make a mess of her life.

  67. ☆ The Good Soldier – by Ford Madox Ford
  68. – Would like to read it, and have a copy.

  69. Faust – by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
  70. – Maybe would like to read it…

  71. ✓ Lord of the Flies – by William Golding
  72. – I had to read this in junior high school. I’ve thought about doing a reread. No review.

    Tess of D'urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
  73. ☆ Tess of the d’Urbervilles – by Thomas Hardy
  74. – Would like to read it.

  75. ✓ The Scarlet Letter – by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  76. – Not my favorite novel ever, but others like it more than I did. My review.

  77. ✓ Catch 22 – by Joseph Heller
  78. – I read this many years ago when I was in high school, when the book was first published. No review.

  79. ✓ Farewell to Arms – by Ernest Hemingway
  80. – I had to read this novel so I could find out what kinds of arms the MC was saying goodbye to. No review.

    The Iliad & The Odyssey, by Homer
  81. The Iliad – by Homer
  82. – Should read, but haven’t yet.

  83. The Odyssey – by Homer
  84. – Should read, but haven’t yet.

  85. The Hunchback of Notre Dame – by Victor Hugo
  86. – Should read, but haven’t yet.

  87. ✓ Their Eyes Were Watching God – by Zora Neale Hurston
  88. – Very interesting book told from the point of view of a black woman in Florida. Loved the Ebonics dialogue! No review.

  89. ☆ Brave New World – by Aldous Huxley
  90. – I don’t know if I ever read this or not. I have an audiobook copy and couldn’t get into it because it was upsetting me.

  91. A Doll’s House – by Henrik Ibsen
  92. – I have no idea what this is about.

  93. The Portrait of a Lady – by Henry James
  94. – Don’t know much about this either.

  95. ✓ The Turn of the Screw – by Henry James
  96. – Fascinating, especially when you realize that the weird disjointed conversations are all part of the plot. I gave this a five star review at Goodreads.

  97. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – by James Joyce
  98. – Terrible… tried to read it and didn’t like the writing style at all.

  99. ✓ The Metamorphosis – by Franz Kafka
  100. – I have a copy… remember reading it long ago but would like to read it again. No review.

  101. The Woman Warrior – by Maxine Hong Kingston
  102. – I don’t know anything about this novel.

  103. ✓ To Kill a Mockingbird – by Harper Lee
  104. – I’ve read this twice, and liked it both times. My review.

  105. ☆ Babbitt – by Sinclair Lewis
  106. – This is definitely on my TBR. George Babbit is a troubled middle aged businessman trying desperately to fit in with the upper class.

  107. ✓ The Call of the Wild – by Jack London
  108. – I loved reading this book by Jack London. The wild reaches out to all of us, drawing us in.

  109. ☆ The Magic Mountain – by Thomas Mann
  110. – A sanatorium in the Swiss Alps that represents Europe. Hmmm.

  111. ✓ One Hundred Years of Solitude – by Gabriel García Marquez
  112. – I bought it. I read it. I didn’t love it. Your mileage may vary. Some people say this is the best novel ever written. I roll my eyes at that thought.

  113. ☆ Bartleby the Scrivener – by Herman Melville
  114. – Really? I’m surprised this is on the list. I’d like to read it. This 53-page novella is a psychological mystery.

  115. ☆ Moby Dick – by Herman Melville
  116. – I tried to read this. Really tried. Got about 2/3 through it and just couldn’t take any more descriptions of whale slaughter. I’ll try again, just to finish it. I won’t start again from the beginning.

  117. ✓ The Crucible – by Arthur Miller
  118. – I remember studying this play when I was in high school. I think we acted it out in a theater group, way back in the good old days. It is about the Salem witch trials.

  119. ✓ Beloved – by Toni Morrison
  120. – I read this in February 2020. Great novel. It makes you think.

  121. A Good Man is Hard to Find – by Flannery O’Connor
  122. – Short stories. The title story might be exactly what I need to read about since I’m still looking.

  123. Long Day’s Journey into Night – by Eugene O’Neill
  124. – An autobiographical play.

  125. ✓ Animal Farm – by George Orwell
  126. – I read this in ninth grade. I read it again a few years ago. It is a short novel that exposes the problems with socialism.

  127. Doctor Zhivago – by Boris Pasternak
  128. – Loved the movie, but haven’t read the book.

  129. ✓ The Bell Jar – by Sylvia Plath
  130. – Sad, sad, sad. I read it. An autobiographical novel.

  131. ✓ Selected Tales – by Edgar Allan Poe
  132. – I’ve read many of his stories. My mother gave me a book full of them when I was a teenager.

  133. Swann’s Way – by Marcel Proust
  134. – I have no idea what this is about but it is on my reading list for this year.

  135. The Crying of Lot 49 – by Thomas Pynchon
  136. – A satire of modern America. Sounds interesting, and only 160 pages.

  137. ✓ All Quiet on the Western Front – by Erich Maria Remarque
  138. – I read this in 2022. Too violent for me, but some people actually like this book. It is well-written but… TMI.

  139. Cyrano de Bergerac – by Edmond Rostand
  140. – Did I read this or just part of it? I need to reread, for sure. Only 144 pages.

  141. ☆ Call It Sleep – by Henry Roth
  142. – A dangerously imaginative child comes of age in NYC.

  143. ✓ The Catcher in the Rye – by J.D. Salinger
  144. – I read this when I was a teenager and remember enjoying it.

  145. ✓ A Midsummer Night’s Dream – by William Shakespeare
  146. – I read this when in high school. Can’t remember enjoying that experience, but later saw it performed at Santa Cruz State University and enjoyed the performance.

  147. ✓ Hamlet – by William Shakespeare
  148. – I read this when I was a teenager, and even memorized the “to be or not to be” soliloquy. Of course, forgot that many years ago.

  149. Macbeth – by William Shakespeare
  150. – There are holes in my education. I’m trying to remedy that by reading the books on this list.

  151. Romeo and Juliet – by William Shakespeare
  152. – Don’t recall ever reading this. Saw the movie.

  153. ✓ Pygmalion – by George Bernard Shah
  154. – I was in this play when I was a teenager.

  155. ☆ Frankenstein – by Mary Shelley
  156. – Haven’t read it yet. No excuse.

  157. Ceremony – by Leslie Marmon
  158. – Native American literature.

  159. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  160. WWII novel – a Russian prisoner.

  161. ✓ Antigone – by Sophocles
  162. – I read this play while in high school.

  163. ✓ Oedipus Rex – by Sophocles
  164. – Also read this play while in high school.

  165. ✓ The Grapes of Wrath – by John Steinbeck
  166. – I read this novel while in high school.

  167. ☆ Treasure Island – by Robert Louis Stevenson
  168. – Haven’t read it… though did try at one time.

  169. ☆ Uncle Tom’s Cabin – by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  170. – No, haven’t read it.

  171. ✓ Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
  172. – Read it and lived to regret it. Weird!!!!!

  173. ☆ Vanity Fair – by William Thackery
  174. – Haven’t read it.

  175. Walden – by Henry David Thoreau
  176. – Oh no . . . haven’t gotten through this one.

  177. War and Peace – by Leo Tolstoy
  178. – 1152 pages!

  179. Fathers and Sons – by Ivan Turgenev
  180. – A Russian generation gap novel.

  181. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – by Mark Twain
  182. – Tried to read this once… felt the language of racism was off-putting. I should try again to get past that.

  183. ✓ Candide – by Voltaire
  184. – Read this a few years ago and very much enjoyed it.

  185. ✓ Slaughterhouse Five – by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  186. – Read this and multiple other Vonnegut novels when I was a teenager in the 1960’s.

  187. ✓ The Color Purple – by Alice Walker
  188. – I borrowed my mother’s copy many, many years ago.

  189. Collected Stories – by Eudora Welty
  190. – Wanted to read this last year but didn’t get around to it.

  191. ☆ The House of Mirth – by Edith Wharton
  192. – A NYC socialite is alone, nearly 30, and having trouble finding the right man.

  193. ☆ Leaves of Grass – by Walt Whitman
  194. – I started reading it and stalled because of extreme tedium. I’d like to finish one of these years.

  195. ☆ The Picture of Dorian Gray – by Oscar Wilde
  196. – Tried to read this but didn’t like the vibe. I’ll probably pick it up again someday.

  197. ✓ The Glass Menagerie – by Tennessee Williams
  198. – I was a performer in this play, or at least, a scene from it, when I was a teenager.

  199. To the Lighthouse – by Virginia Woolf
  200. – The story of the Ramsay family while vacationing in the Isle of Skye. I seriously dread reading anything by this author. If I do, it will only be because it is on this list.

  201. Native Son – by Richard Wright
  202. – 1930’s Chicago – a young black man killed a white woman. Here’s the aftermath. A crime story. Nothing cheerful.

A stack of classic books.

Still reading . . .

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Comments

  1. Barbara Radisalvjeivc says

    June 24, 2015 at 12:01 am

    I, too, wonder who makes these lists and whether this is the same list colleges would recommend today. I read about half of these before or in college, since I majored in English. I have to honestly say there are several I would have left off the list. Some impressed me greatly when I first read them, but on second reading I wondered why I had been so impressed. Some I’d like to reread now to see what I missed the first time.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Book Lady's November 2020 Reading Report & Diary - Linda Jo Martin says:
    November 2, 2020 at 12:04 am

    […] All three of these are on my list: 101 Books Recommended by the College Board […]

    Reply
  2. Book Lady's October 2020 Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    October 1, 2020 at 6:42 pm

    […] All three of these are on my list: 101 Books Recommended by the College Board […]

    Reply
  3. Book Lady's September 2020 Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    September 7, 2020 at 3:01 pm

    […] All three of these are on my list: 101 Books Recommended by the College Board […]

    Reply
  4. Book Lady's August 2020 Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    August 11, 2020 at 3:46 pm

    […] a “Random Number Generator” book and the book will be one of those listed on this page: 101 Great Books Recommended by the College Board – Classic Novels and Plays. At this point I’ve read 37 out of 100 of these classics, and I want to up my score. I got […]

    Reply
  5. Book Lady’s June 2019 Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    June 1, 2019 at 12:29 pm

    […] didn’t get to this last month as I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time. It is on my list of classics, a list I’m making efforts to use when planning my reading each year. I’ve heard the […]

    Reply
  6. Book Lady's May Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    May 1, 2019 at 12:14 am

    […] Africa, or South America – I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time. It is on my list of classics, a list I’m making efforts to use when planning my reading each year. I considered buying the […]

    Reply
  7. Book Lady's February 2019 Reading Report - Linda Jo Martin says:
    February 1, 2019 at 1:10 am

    […] Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe – [PSRC #25. A debut novel] – This book is on my list of 101 Great Books Recommended by the College Board and I’ve tried to include some of those books in my 2019 reading plans. It is the first book […]

    Reply

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California Reading

California Reading

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The World Rushed In: The California Gold Rush Experience
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Hillinger’s California: Stories from All 58 Counties
by Charles Hillinger





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