An overview of literature and genre fiction recommended by /lit/.
Literature
By format
Novellas | ||||
 Heart of a Dog (1925) by Mikhail Bulgakov |
 Dream Story (1926) by Arthur Schnitzler |
 Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad |
 Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) by Nathanael West |
 Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell |
| A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens | ||||
| A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess | ||||
| A Room of One's Own (1929) by Virginia Woolf | ||||
| Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury | ||||
| First Love (1860) by Ivan Turgenev | ||||
| A Pale View of Hills (1982) by Kazuo Ishiguro | ||||
| Around the World in 80 Days (1873) by Jules Verne | ||||
| At the Mountains of Madness (1931) by H.P. Lovecraft | ||||
| Bartleby the Scrivener (1853) by Herman Melville | ||||
| Billy Budd (1888) by Herman Melville | ||||
| The Call of the Wild (1903) by Jack London | ||||
| Candide (1759) by Voltaire | ||||
| Cannery Row (1945) by John Steinbeck | ||||
| Junky (1953) by William S. Burroughs | ||||
| Master and Man (1895) by Leo Tolstoy | ||||
| The Metamorphosis (1915) by Franz Kafka | ||||
| Botchan (1906) by Natsume Soseki | ||||
| The Horla (1887) by Guy de Maupassant | ||||
| Looking Backward (1887) by Edward Bellamy | ||||
| Child of God (1973) by Cormac McCarthy | ||||
 Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck |
 Nausea (1938) by Jean-Paul Sartre |
 Notes from Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) by Solzhenitsyn |
 The Ballad of Sad Cafe (1951) by Carson McCullers |
| Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez | ||||
| Daisy Miller (1878) by Henry James | ||||
| Death in Venice (1912) by Thomas Mann | ||||
| Night (1955) by Elie Wiesel | ||||
| No One Writes the Colonel (1961) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez | ||||
| Mathilda (1820) by Mary Shelley | ||||
| Pedro Paramo (1955) by Juan Rulfo | ||||
| Snow Country (1947) by Yasunari Kawabata | ||||
| South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992) by Haruki Murakami | ||||
| Diary of a Madman (1835) by Nikolai Gogol | ||||
| Dusklands (1974) by J.M. Coetzee | ||||
| Ethan Frome (1911) by Edith Wharton | ||||
| The Dying Animal (2001) by Phillip Roth | ||||
| Outer Dark (1968) by Cormac McCarthy | ||||
| Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) by George Eliot | ||||
| Everyman (2006) by Phillip Roth | ||||
| The Fox (1923) by D.H. Lawrence | ||||
| The Girl With the Golden Eyes (1833) by Honore de Balzac | ||||
| Seize the Day (1956) by Saul Bellow | ||||
| Siddhartha (1922) by Hermann Hesse | ||||
| Recommendation images | ||||
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Contemporary Novellas | ||||
| 1970s | ||||
 Dark Spring (1970) by Unica Zurn |
 The White Ship (1970) by Chinghiz Aitmatov |
 Flats/Quake (1971-4) by Rudolph Wurlitzer |
 Love (1971) by Angela Carter |
 Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine (1972) by Stanley Crawford |
| Further 1970s | ||||
| The Summer Book (1972) by Tove Jansson | ||||
| Motorman (1972) by David Ohle | ||||
| A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (1972) by Peter Handke | ||||
| Roadside Picnic (1972) by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky | ||||
| Asleep in the Sun (1973) by Adolfo Bioy Casares | ||||
| Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry (1973) by B.S. Johnson | ||||
| Telegram (1973) by Putu Wijaya | ||||
| The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1974) by Heinrich Boll | ||||
| For Love of Norway (1975) by Pal Espolin Johnson | ||||
| Travesty (1976) by John Hawkes | ||||
| Journey into the Past (1976) by Stefan Zweig | ||||
| P’s Three Women (1977) by Paulo Emilio Slaes Gomes | ||||
| Fatale (1977) by Jean-Patrick Manchette | ||||
| The Hour of the Star (1977) by Clarice Lispector | ||||
| The Painter of Signs (1977) by R.K. Narayan | ||||
| Secret Rendezvous (1977) by Kobo Abe | ||||
| A Tomb for Boris Davidovich (1978) by Danilo Kis | ||||
| Sleepless Nights (1979) by Elizabeth Hardwick | ||||
| Volcano (1979) by Shusaku Endo | ||||
| 1980s | ||||
 The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980) by Bruce Chatwin |
 A Month in the Country (1980) by J.L. Carr |
 A Bohemian Youth (1980) by Josef Hirsal |
 Loitering With Intent (1981) by Muriel Spark |
 Concrete (1982) by Thomas Bernhard |
| Further 1980s | ||||
| So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away (1982) by Richard Brautigan | ||||
| The Witch-Herbalist of the Remote Town (1982) by Amos Tutuola | ||||
| The Assault (1982) by Harry Mulisch | ||||
| The Wine of Astonishment (1982) by Earl Lovelace | ||||
| A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) by R.K. Narayan | ||||
| Mr. Palomar (1983) by Italo Calvino | ||||
| The Cannibal Galaxy (1983) by Cynthia Ozick | ||||
| Alladin's Problem (1984) by Ernst Junger | ||||
| The Lover (1984) by Marguerite Duras | ||||
| In the Dutch Mountains (1984) by Cees Nooteboom | ||||
| Isle of Dreams (1985) by Hino Keizo | ||||
| Old Floating Cloud: Two Novellas (1983-6) by Can Xue | ||||
| Stone in a Landslide (1985) by Maria Barbal | ||||
| The Day the Leader was Killed (1985) by Naguib Mahfouz | ||||
| In the Country of Last Things (1987) by Paul Auster | ||||
| The Pigeon (1987) by Patrick Suskind | ||||
| Kitchen (1988) by Banana Yoshimoto | ||||
| The Swordfish (1989) by Hugo Claus | ||||
| Mister Blue (1989) by Jacques Poulin | ||||
| 1990s | ||||
 Kaddish for an Unborn Child (1990) by Imre Kertesz |
 The Following Story (1991) by Cees Nooteboom |
 Chaos and All That (1991) by Lui Sola |
 Babyfucker (1992) by Urs Allemann |
 The Death of the Author (1992) by Gilbert Adai |
| Further 1990s | ||||
| Angels and Insects (1992) by A.S. Byatt | ||||
| The Other City (1993) by Michal Ajvaz | ||||
| Loving Sabotage (1993) by Amelie Nothomb | ||||
| The Marx Family Saga (1993) by Juan Goytisolo | ||||
| The Crime Studio (1994) by Steve Aylett | ||||
| Shyness and Dignity (1994) by Dag Solstad | ||||
| Of Love and Other Demons (1994) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez | ||||
| Pereira Declares (1994) by Antonio Tabucchi | ||||
| Phosphor in Dreamland (1995) by Rikki Ducornet | ||||
| Panther in the Basement (1995) by Amos Oz | ||||
| I Have the Right to Destroy Myself (1996) by Kim Young-ha | ||||
| Escape Hatch (1996) by Vladimir Makanin | ||||
| The Diary of Mr. Pinke (1995) by Ewald Murrer | ||||
| Reader's Block (1996) by David Markson | ||||
| A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family (1998) by Peter Dimock | ||||
| Kneller's Happy Campers (1998) by Etgar Keret | ||||
| Honk if you Love Aphrodite (1999) by Daniel Evan Weiss | ||||
| The Literary Conference (1999) by Cesar Aira | ||||
| Earth and Ashes (1999) by Atiq Rahimi | ||||
| 2000s | ||||
 In Her Absence (2000) by Antonio Munoz Molina |
 Kafka's Leopards (2000) by Moacyr Scliar |
 The Colors of Infamy (2000) by Albert Cossery |
 Tales of Galicia (2001) by Andrzej Stasiuk |
 Besides the Sea (2001) by Veronique Olmi |
| Further 2000s | ||||
| Inez (2001) by Carlos Fuentes | ||||
| Bait (2001) by David Albahari | ||||
| Europeana (2001) by Patrik Ourednik | ||||
| Good Morning Comrades (2001) by Ondjaki | ||||
| All This Belongs to Me (2002) by Petra Hulova | ||||
| Conversations with Spinoza (2002) by Gocec Smilevski | ||||
| In the Flesh (2002) by Christa Wolf | ||||
| Agape Agape (2002) by William Gaddis | ||||
| The Blue Fox (2003) by Sjon | ||||
| Piano (2003) by Jean Echenoz | ||||
| The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003) by Yoko Ogawa | ||||
| The Book of Words (2004) by Jenny Erpenbeck | ||||
| Moving Parts (2004) by Magdalena Tulli | ||||
| Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest (2005) by Amos Oz | ||||
| Bonsai (2006) by Alejandro Zambra | ||||
| The Waitress Was New (2008) by Dominique Fabre | ||||
| The North of God (2008) by Steve Stern | ||||
| The Hermaphrodite (2009) by Daniel Grandbois | ||||
| Next World Novella (2009) by Matthias Politycki | ||||
| 2010s | ||||
 The Brothers (2010) by Asko Sahlberg |
 Lightning (2010) by Jean Echenoz |
 Train Dreams (2011) by Denis Johnson |
 Down the Rabbit Hole (2011) by Juan Pablo Villalobos | |
| Recommendation images | ||||
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Short Story Collections | ||||
| Classic | ||||
 A Parisian Affair and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant |
 First Love and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev |
 The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy |
 Three Tales by Gustav Flaubert |
 Dead Men Tell No Tales by Emile Zola |
| Further classic collections | ||||
| The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky | ||||
| The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings by Edgar Allan Poe | ||||
| The Kruezter Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy | ||||
| The Queen of Spades and Other Stories by Alexander Pushkin | ||||
| Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892–1895 by Anton Chekhov | ||||
| The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896–1904 by Anton Chekhov | ||||
| Carmen and Other Stories by Prosper Merimee | ||||
| Modern | ||||
 Elephant by Raymond Carver |
 Dubliners by James Joyce |
 Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges |
 Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway |
 South of No North by Charles Bukowski |
| Further modern collections | ||||
| The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Short Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald | ||||
| In the Heart of the Country by William Gass | ||||
| Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner | ||||
| The Return by Andrei Platonov | ||||
| The Collected Short Stories by Roald Dahl | ||||
| Contemporary | ||||
 Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace |
 The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami |
 Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño |
 The Dog of the Marriage by Amy Hempel |
 Life After God by Douglas Coupland |
| Further contemporary collections | ||||
| How We are Hungry by Dave Eggers | ||||
| Drown by Junot Diaz | ||||
| Break it Down by Lydia Davis | ||||
| No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July | ||||
| Recommendation images | ||||
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Flash Fiction Collections | ||||
| Pre-1950 | ||||
 The Waste Books by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg |
 The Complete Fables of Jean de la Fontaine |
 Nature Stories by Jules Renard |
 Microscripts by Robert Walser |
 Today I Wrote Nothing by Daniil Kharms |
| Further Pre-1950 | ||||
| Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon | ||||
| The Collected Stories by Colette | ||||
| The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights | ||||
| 41 Stories by O. Henry | ||||
| Post-1950 | ||||
 Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata |
 Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth |
 The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard |
 The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus |
 Metrophilias by Brendan Connell |
| Further Post-1950 | ||||
| The Book of Fables by W.S. Merwin | ||||
| The Nimrod Flip-out by Etgar Keret | ||||
| Murder in the Dark by Margaret Atwood | ||||
| The Collected Stories by Lydia Davis | ||||
| AM/PM by Amelia Gray | ||||
| The Black Sheep and Other Fables by Augusto Monterroso | ||||
| Road-Side Dog by Czeslaw Milosz | ||||
| Recommendation images | ||||
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Theatre/Drama | ||||
| Classical through Medieval | ||||
 The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles |
 The Oresteia by Aeschylus |
 Electra and Other Plays by Euripides |
 The Complete Plays by Aristophanes |
 Plays and Fragments by Menander |
| Classical through Medieval cont. | ||||
| The Pot of Gold and Other Plays by Plautus | ||||
| Four Tragedies and Octavia by Seneca | ||||
| The Comedies by Terence | ||||
| The Loom of Time by Kalidasa | ||||
| The Plays of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim | ||||
| Japanese Noh Dramas | ||||
| Recommendation images | ||||
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Genre fiction
By genre
Fantasy | ||||
| Epic fantasy | ||||
 The Hobbit (1937) by J. R. R. Tolkien |
 The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955) by J. R. R. Tolkien |
 The Black Company (1984—) by Glen Cook |
 The Wheel of Time (1990—) by Robert Jordan |
 A Song of Ice and Fire (1996—) by George R. R. Martin |
 Malazan Book (1999–2011) by Steven Erikson |
 The First Law (2006—) by Joe Abercrombie |
 The Kingkiller Chronicle (2007—) by Patrick Rothfuss |
 The Stormlight Archive (2010—) by Brandon Sanderson |
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| Additional epic fantasy | ||||
| The Silmarillion (1977) by J. R. R. Tolkien | ||||
| Shannara (1977—) by Terry Brooks | ||||
| The Swordbearer (1982) by Glen Cook | ||||
| The Belgariad (1982–1984) by David Eddings | ||||
| The Deed of Paksenarrion (1992) by Elizabeth Moon | ||||
| Mistborn (2006–2008) by Brandon Sanderson | ||||
| Weird fiction | ||||
 The House on the Borderland (1908) William Hope Hodgson |
 At the Mountains of Madness (1936) by H. P. Lovecraft |
 Perdido Street Station (2000) by China Miéville |
 City of Saints and Madmen (2001) by Jeff VanderMeer |
 The Emperor of Dreams (2002) by Clark Ashton Smith |
| Additional weird fiction | ||||
| The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) by H. P. Lovecraft | ||||
| Kraken (2010) by China Miéville | ||||
| Recommendation images | ||||
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