Authors in the Canon

A. A. Milne

Start with Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne.

Abbé Prévost

Start with Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost.

Aeschylus

Start with Oresteia by Aeschylus.

Agatha Christie

Start with And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie.

Alain-Fournier

Start with The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier.

Alan Paton

Start with Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

Albert Camus

Start with The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Albert Cohen

Start with Her Lover by Albert Cohen.

Albert Einstein

Start with Relativity by Albert Einstein.

Aldous Huxley

Start with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Start with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Alessandro Manzoni

Start with The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni.

Alex Haley

Start with The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley.

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay

Start with The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay.

Alexander Pushkin

Start with Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin.

Alexandre Dumas

Start with The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Start with Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Alfred Döblin

Start with Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin.

Alice Walker

Start with The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

André Breton

Start with Nadja by André Breton.

André Gide

Start with The Counterfeiters by André Gide.

André Malraux

Start with Man's Fate by André Malraux.

Anna Sewell

Start with Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

Anne Frank

Start with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.

Anthony Burgess

Start with A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

Anthony Powell

Start with A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Start with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Anton Chekhov

Start with The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov.

Apuleius

Start with The Golden Ass by Apuleius.

Aristotle

Start with The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

Arnold Bennett

Start with The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Start with The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Arthur Koestler

Start with Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.

Arthur Miller

Start with Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.

Arthur Rimbaud

Start with A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud.

Arundhati Roy

Start with The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Astrid Lindgren

Start with Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.

Augustine

Start with Confessions by Augustine.

Ayn Rand

Start with The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Baruch de Spinoza

Start with Ethics by Baruch de Spinoza.

Betty Smith

Start with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.

Blaise Pascal

Start with Pensées by Blaise Pascal.

Boris Pasternak

Start with Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Boris Vian

Start with Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian.

Bram Stoker

Start with Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Brothers Grimm

Start with Household Tales by Brothers Grimm.

C. S. Lewis

Start with The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.

Carson McCullers

Start with The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

Cesare Pavese

Start with The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese.

Charles Baudelaire

Start with The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire.

Charles Darwin

Start with On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.

8 books

Charles Dickens

Start with Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Charles Robert Maturin

Start with Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin.

Charlotte Brontë

Start with Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Start with Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Chinua Achebe

Start with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

Christina Stead

Start with The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead.

Clarín

Start with La Regenta by Clarín.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Start with Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Comte de Lautréamont

Start with The Songs of Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont.

Cormac McCarthy

Start with Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

D. H. Lawrence

Start with Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence.

Daniel Defoe

Start with Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

Dante Alighieri

Start with The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

Daphne du Maurier

Start with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

Dashiell Hammett

Start with The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

David Foster Wallace

Start with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

David Mitchell

Start with Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Denis Diderot

Start with Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot.

Dino Buzzati

Start with The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati.

Djuna Barnes

Start with Nightwood by Djuna Barnes.

Don DeLillo

Start with White Noise by Don DeLillo.

Donna Tartt

Start with The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Doris Lessing

Start with The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.

Dorothy L. Sayers

Start with Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers.

Douglas Adams

Start with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

E. B. White

Start with Charlotte's Web by E. B. White.

E. M. Forster

Start with A Passage to India by E. M. Forster.

Edgar Allan Poe

Start with The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Start with Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Edith Wharton

Start with The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Elena Ferrante

Start with My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante.

Elias Canetti

Start with Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti.

Elizabeth Gaskell

Start with North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Elsa Morante

Start with History by Elsa Morante.

Émile Zola

Start with Germinal by Émile Zola.

Emily Brontë

Start with Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.

Emily Dickinson

Start with Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson.

Erich Maria Remarque

Start with All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

Ernest Hemingway

Start with The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

Euripides

Start with Medea by Euripides.

Evelyn Waugh

Start with Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Start with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Federico García Lorca

Start with Gypsy Ballads by Federico García Lorca.

Fernando de Rojas

Start with Celestina, or The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea by Fernando de Rojas.

Fernando Pessoa

Start with The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa.

Flann O'Brien

Start with At Swim Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien.

Flannery O'Connor

Start with A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor.

Ford Madox Ford

Start with The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.

Francesco Petrarca

Start with Petrarch's Songbook by Francesco Petrarca.

François Rabelais

Start with Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais.

François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

Start with Memoirs From Beyond the Grave by François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand.

Françoise Sagan

Start with Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan.

Frank Herbert

Start with Dune by Frank Herbert.

Franz Kafka

Start with The Trial by Franz Kafka.

Frederick Forsyth

Start with The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Start with Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Start with Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

G. K. Chesterton

Start with The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton.

Gabriel García Márquez

Start with One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Start with The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

George Eliot

Start with Middlemarch by George Eliot.

George Orwell

Start with Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Georges Perec

Start with Life, a User's Manual by Georges Perec.

Gertrude Stein

Start with The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein.

Giacomo Casanova

Start with History of My Life by Giacomo Casanova.

Giorgio Bassani

Start with The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Start with Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Start with The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Graham Greene

Start with The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

Guillaume Apollinaire

Start with Alcools by Guillaume Apollinaire.

Günter Grass

Start with The Tin Drum by Günter Grass.

Gustave Flaubert

Start with Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert.

H. G. Wells

Start with The Time Machine by H. G. Wells.

Halldór Laxness

Start with Independent People by Halldór Laxness.

Hannah Arendt

Start with The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt.

Hans Christian Andersen

Start with Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen.

Harper Lee

Start with To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Start with Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Haruki Murakami

Start with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami.

Henrik Ibsen

Start with A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen.

Henry Adams

Start with The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams.

Henry David Thoreau

Start with Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Henry Fielding

Start with Tom Jones by Henry Fielding.

Henry James

Start with The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.

Henry Miller

Start with Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Start with Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Herman Melville

Start with Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

Hermann Broch

Start with Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch.

Hermann Hesse

Start with Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.

Hilary Mantel

Start with Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Homer

Start with The Odyssey by Homer.

Honoré de Balzac

Start with Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac.

Horace Walpole

Start with The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

Ian Fleming

Start with Casino Royale by Ian Fleming.

Ian McEwan

Start with Atonement by Ian McEwan.

Immanuel Kant

Start with Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant.

Imre Kertész

Start with Fatelessness by Imre Kertész.

Iris Murdoch

Start with The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch.

Isaac Asimov

Start with Foundation by Isaac Asimov.

Isabel Allende

Start with The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

Isak Dinesen

Start with Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen.

Italo Calvino

Start with Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

Italo Svevo

Start with Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo.

Ivan Goncharov

Start with Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.

Ivan Turgenev

Start with Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.

Ivo Andrić

Start with The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić.

J. D. Salinger

Start with The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

J. K. Rowling

Start with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling.

J. M. Barrie

Start with Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie.

J. M. Coetzee

Start with Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Start with The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Jack Kerouac

Start with On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

Jack London

Start with The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

James Agee

Start with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee.

James Baldwin

Start with Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

James Boswell

Start with The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell.

James D. Watson

Start with The Double Helix by James D. Watson.

James Fenimore Cooper

Start with The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.

James Hogg

Start with The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg.

James Joyce

Start with Ulysses by James Joyce.

James M. Cain

Start with The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.

Jane Austen

Start with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Javier Marías

Start with A Heart So White by Javier Marías.

Jean Cocteau

Start with Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau.

Jean Rhys

Start with Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Start with The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Start with Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Start with Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Jennifer Egan

Start with A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

Joan Didion

Start with The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

João Guimarães Rosa

Start with The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by João Guimarães Rosa.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Start with Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

John Buchan

Start with The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.

John Dickson Carr

Start with The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr.

John Dos Passos

Start with U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos.

John Fowles

Start with The Magus by John Fowles.

John Galsworthy

Start with The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy.

John Hersey

Start with Hiroshima by John Hersey.

John Irving

Start with The World According to Garp by John Irving.

John Kennedy Toole

Start with A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

John Kenneth Galbraith

Start with The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith.

John le Carré

Start with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carré.

John Maynard Keynes

Start with The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes.

John Milton

Start with Paradise Lost by John Milton.

John Steinbeck

Start with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

John Updike

Start with Rabbit, Run by John Updike.

Jonathan Franzen

Start with The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Jonathan Swift

Start with Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Jorge Luis Borges

Start with Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges.

Joseph Conrad

Start with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Joseph Heller

Start with Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Joseph Roth

Start with The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.

Josephine Tey

Start with The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Start with Platero and I by Juan Ramón Jiménez.

Juan Rulfo

Start with Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo.

Julio Cortázar

Start with Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar.

Junot Díaz

Start with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz.

Kahlil Gibran

Start with The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran.

Karl Marx

Start with Das Kapital by Karl Marx.

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

Start with Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels.

Kate Chopin

Start with The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

Kazuo Ishiguro

Start with The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Ken Kesey

Start with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.

Kenneth Grahame

Start with The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

Kingsley Amis

Start with Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

Knut Hamsun

Start with Hunger by Knut Hamsun.

Kurt Vonnegut

Start with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

L. Frank Baum

Start with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.

L. M. Montgomery

Start with Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery.

Laurence Sterne

Start with The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne.

Lawrence Durrell

Start with The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.

Leo Tolstoy

Start with Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

Lewis Carroll

Start with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Start with Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

Louisa May Alcott

Start with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Lucretius

Start with De Rerum Natura by Lucretius.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Start with Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Luís Vaz Camões

Start with The Lusiad by Luís Vaz Camões.

Machado de Assis

Start with The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis.

Madame de La Fayette

Start with The Princess of Cleves by Madame de La Fayette.

Madeleine L'Engle

Start with A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

Malcolm Lowry

Start with Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.

Marcel Proust

Start with In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.

Marcus Aurelius

Start with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Margaret Atwood

Start with The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Mitchell

Start with Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

Marguerite Duras

Start with The Lover by Marguerite Duras.

Marguerite Yourcenar

Start with Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar.

Marilynne Robinson

Start with Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.

Mario Puzo

Start with The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

Mark Twain

Start with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Mary Shelley

Start with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Maurice Sendak

Start with Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Max Frisch

Start with I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch.

Michael Chabon

Start with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

Michel de Montaigne

Start with Essays by Michel de Montaigne.

Miguel de Cervantes

Start with Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

Mikhail Bulgakov

Start with The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Mikhail Lermontov

Start with A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov.

Milan Kundera

Start with The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera.

Murasaki Shikibu

Start with The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu.

Muriel Spark

Start with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.

Nathanael West

Start with The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Start with The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Nella Larsen

Start with Passing by Nella Larsen.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Start with The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli.

Nikolai Gogol

Start with Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Start with Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis.

Norman Mailer

Start with The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.

Oliver Goldsmith

Start with The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith.

Oscar Wilde

Start with The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Ovid

Start with Metamorphoses by Ovid.

Patricia Highsmith

Start with The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

Paulo Coelho

Start with The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Pearl S. Buck

Start with The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.

Philip Pullman

Start with His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.

Philip Roth

Start with Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth.

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Start with Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

Plato

Start with The Republic by Plato.

Plutarch

Start with Parallel Lives by Plutarch.

Primo Levi

Start with If This Is a Man by Primo Levi.

Rachel Carson

Start with Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Start with The Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Ralph Ellison

Start with Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

Ray Bradbury

Start with Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Raymond Chandler

Start with The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

Richard Adams

Start with Watership Down by Richard Adams.

Richard Wright

Start with Native Son by Richard Wright.

Robert A. Heinlein

Start with Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.

Robert Frost

Start with The Poems of Robert Frost by Robert Frost.

Robert Graves

Start with I, Claudius by Robert Graves.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Start with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Robert Musil

Start with The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil.

Robert Penn Warren

Start with All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.

Robert Tressell

Start with The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.

Robert Walser

Start with Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser.

Roberto Bolaño

Start with 2666 by Roberto Bolaño.

Rudyard Kipling

Start with Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

Salman Rushdie

Start with Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

Samuel Beckett

Start with Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Samuel Butler

Start with The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler.

Samuel Richardson

Start with Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.

Sándor Márai

Start with Embers by Sándor Márai.

Saul Bellow

Start with The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow.

Shelby Foote

Start with The Civil War by Shelby Foote.

Sherwood Anderson

Start with Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.

Shirley Jackson

Start with The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.

Sigmund Freud

Start with The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud.

Sigrid Undset

Start with Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset.

Simone de Beauvoir

Start with The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir.

Sinclair Lewis

Start with Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.

Sir Walter Scott

Start with Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott.

Sophocles

Start with Oedipus the King by Sophocles.

Stanisław Lem

Start with Solaris by Stanisław Lem.

Stella Gibbons

Start with Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

Stendhal

Start with The Red and the Black by Stendhal.

Stephen King

Start with The Stand by Stephen King.

Sylvia Plath

Start with The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

T. H. White

Start with The Once and Future King by T. H. White.

T. S. Eliot

Start with The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

Theodor Fontane

Start with Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane.

Theodore Dreiser

Start with An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

Thomas Hardy

Start with Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hobbes

Start with Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.

Thomas Kuhn

Start with The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn.

Thomas Mann

Start with The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

Thomas Pynchon

Start with Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

Thomas Wolfe

Start with Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe.

Tom Wolfe

Start with Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.

Toni Morrison

Start with Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Truman Capote

Start with In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

Umberto Eco

Start with The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

Unknown

Start with One Thousand and One Nights by Unknown.

Upton Sinclair

Start with The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

Ursula K. Le Guin

Start with A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.

V. S. Naipaul

Start with A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul.

Valmiki

Start with Ramayana by Valmiki.

Various

Start with The Bible by Various.

Varlam Shalamov

Start with Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov.

Vasily Grossman

Start with Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman.

Victor Hugo

Start with Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

Virgil

Start with The Aeneid by Virgil.

Virginia Woolf

Start with To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.

Vladimir Nabokov

Start with Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

Voltaire

Start with Candide by Voltaire.

Vyasa

Start with Mahabharata by Vyasa.

W. G. Sebald

Start with Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

W. Somerset Maugham

Start with Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

Walker Percy

Start with The Moviegoer by Walker Percy.

Wallace Stevens

Start with Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens.

Walt Whitman

Start with Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

Wilkie Collins

Start with The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

Willa Cather

Start with My Antonia by Willa Cather.

William Butler Yeats

Start with Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats by William Butler Yeats.

William Faulkner

Start with The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

William Golding

Start with Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Start with Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.

William S. Burroughs

Start with Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.

7 books

William Shakespeare

Start with Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Winston Churchill

Start with The Second World War by Winston Churchill.

Witold Gombrowicz

Start with Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz.

Wu Cheng'en

Start with Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Start with We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.

Zadie Smith

Start with White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

Zora Neale Hurston

Start with Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.