22 essential books?
I stumbled across an interesting bit of information this week while trolling on the interwebs. While convalescing in a North Carolina hotel room in 1936, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of THE GREAT GATSBY, had his nurse write down a list of 22 “essential” books he thought everyone should read, and here is that list, presented in the nurse’s handwriting:
Here it is in much easier to read typeface (with links to where you can read or buy):
- SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
- THE LIFE OF JESUS by Ernest Renan
- A DOLL’S HOUSE by Henrik Ibsen
- WINESBURG, OHIO, by Sherwood Anderson
- THE OLD WIVES TALE by Arnold Bennett
- THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiel Hammett
- THE RED AND THE BLACK by Stendahl
- THE SHORT STORIES OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT translated by Michael Monahan
- AN OUTLINE OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY edited by Gardner Murphy
- THE STORIES OF ANTON CHEKHOV edited by Robert N. Linscott
- THE BEST AMERICAN HUMOROUS SHORT STORIES edited by Alexander Jessup
- VICTORY by Joseph Conrad
- THE REVOLT OF THE ANGELS by Anatole France
- THE PLAYS OF OSCAR WILDE
- SANCTUARY by William Faulkner
- WITHIN A BUDDING GROVE by Marcel Proust
- THE GUERMANTES WAY by Marcel Proust
- SWANN’S WAY by Marcel Proust
- SOUTH WIND by Norman Douglas
- THE GARDEN PARTY by Katherine Mansfield
- WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy
- John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete Poetical Works
Even for someone as purportedly great an authority as F. Scott Fitzgerald, these lists are more often than not simply a look into the tastes and experiences of their maker. The above is no more a list of books you “simply must” read than my own:
- FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury
- THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
- ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST by Ken Kesey
- THE STAND by Stephen King
- THE SEA WOLF by Jack London
- A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON by Piers Anthony
- THE WORKS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE by Edgar Allan Poe
- SILENCE OF THE LAMBS by Thomas Harris
- BEOWULF by unknown
- TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
- DRACULA by Bram Stoker
- CANNERY ROW by John Steinbeck
- THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- JAWS by Peter Benchley
- THE GODFATHER by Mario Puzo
- THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway
- I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson
- HAWAII by James Michener
- THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis
- THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE by Ambrose Bierce
- THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells.
- THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
And now, looking back on my own list (which would look differently if you asked me again in a month), I realize that I almost exclusively read books by old white men (thank goodness for Harper Lee!). So this exercise wasn’t as fruitless as I thought at first that it might be. I found out that I suck.
August 2, 2013 at 10:25 am
I would add at least one more to either list: The Holy Bible, if not for its faith teachings (which I would subscribe to), then for its historical and social value.
Dad