Annotated Bibliography

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This is hardly a complete list of the classics, nor even a complete list of the ones I've read. These are merely some of the ones that I feel were important to me one way or another.

Samuel Beckett

• Waiting for Godot
  The original existential play; this is the most readable (by far) of its genre. I almost enjoyed it.

Albert Camus

• The Stranger
  What a dark depressing book. What a cold unlovable protagonist. It's a relatively easy book to read in French if (like me) you aren't particularly fluent.

Jean Cocteau

• Les Enfants Terribles
  I had such a horrendous time reading this in French, I think I missed a great deal of it.

Miguel de Cervantes

• Don Quixote
  No, alas, I was unable to finish it. But I'm convinced there is a beautiful message lurking between those monstrous covers...

Charles Dickens

• Christmas Carol
  This one is also pretty easy to read.
• Great Expectations
  I really enjoyed this one. (He wasn't paid by the word on this one and it shows!)
• Hard Times
  I'd really have to be in hard times to pick this one up again. I guess I'll never make a real literary critic.
• Tale of Two Cities
  It's a good thing I was forced to read this in school.

William Faulkner

• Sound and the Fury
  I had to read it twice to understand anything that was going on in the first part. It was worth it: it is an extremely powerful work.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The Great Gatsby
  This is the story of the colorful Mr. Gatsby. This generally isn't my kind of story, but I loved it. Every so often I was transfixed by a phrase or paragraph of startling poetic beauty, and the dialog was great.

Victor Hugo

• Les Miserables
  I almost finished this one time in high school and was fairly proud of myself. It turns out it was an abridged version. It really was great, but man it's a lot of words to plow through...

William Shakespeare
There's no way I'm gonna try to comment on "The Bard", but here is a list of some of my favorites.

• As You Like It
  
• Hamlet
  
• Henry V
  
• Julius Caesar
  
• King Lear
  
• Macbeth
  
• Othello
  
• The Tempest
  
• Twelfth Night
  

John Steinbeck

• Grapes of Wrath
  This is about the "Oakies" moving west to make a living as their farms were slowly driven out of business by industrialized farming. The only complaint I can make is Steinbeck went a little heavy handed on the symbolism (esp. the turtle!) It is a classic no matter which perspective you use: history, literature, entertainment.

Harriett Beecher Stowe

• Uncle Tom's Cabin
  I was expecting essentially anti-slavery propaganda; I found an extremely well-written book with superb plot, characters, settings, language, etc. And heavy-handed anti-slavery propaganda. A highly enjoyable read.

?

• Beowulf
  This is an important work to read if you want to understand the origins of old English mythology. Is this the original dragon-slayer story?
• Tristan and Isolde
  This is another useful book to read to learn about the mentality of medieval life in England and France. It is also a pretty classic tragic love story.

?

• Beowulf
  This is an important work to read if you want to understand the origins of old English mythology. Is this the original dragon-slayer story?
• Tristan and Isolde
  This is another useful book to read to learn about the mentality of medieval life in England and France. It is also a pretty classic tragic love story.