The Ultimate Reading List

Title - Author (#of books on list), Awards/Lists

Number in parenthesis beside author’s name indicates number of author's books on list.
An asterisk* beside the author’s name indicates Nobel Prize winner.

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre 7

Veronica - Mary Gaitskill 13

Victory Over Japan - Ellen Gilchrist 2

Waiting - Ha Jin(2) 2, 3

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett 10, 11

Wapshot Chronicles, The - John Cheever(2) 2, 8, 10

War of the Worlds, The - HG Wells 9

War Trash - Ha Jin(2) 4

Waste Land, The - T.S. Eliot 11                              

Watermark - Joseph Brodsky* 12

Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen 6

Waters of Kronos, The - Conrad Richter(2) 2

Way of All Flesh, The - Samuel Butler 8, 12

Way West, The - A.B. Guthrie 1

Ways of Seeing - John Berger(2) 12

Welcome to the End - Joshua Ferris 13

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Raymond Carver(2) 12

Where Angels Fear to Tread - EM Forster(4) 9

Where I’m Calling From - Raymond Carver(2) 12

Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak 10

White Hotel, The - D. M. Thomas 5

White Noise - Don DeLillo(3) 2, 9, 10, 12

White People - Allan Gurganus 5

White Teeth - Zadie Smith(2) 13

Why Did I Ever: A Novel - Mary Robison 5

Wide Sargasso Sea, The - Jean Rhys 8, 9, 10

Wild Swans at Coole, The - William Butler Yeats 11          

Wind in the Willows, The - Kenneth Grahame 9, 10

Winds of War, The - Herman Wouk(2) 10

Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson 8, 10

Wings of the Dove, The - Henry James(5) 8, 9

Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne 9, 10

Wise Blood - Flannery O’Connor(3) 10

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel 7

Women in Love - DH Lawrence(4) 8, 9, 10

Women in their Beds  - Gina Berriault 3, 4

Women of Brewster Place, The - Gloria Naylor 2

Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The - Frank L. Baum 9, 10

World According to Garp, The - John Irving - 2, 9, 10

World's End - T. Coraghessan Boyle 3

World's Fair - E.L. Doctorow(3) 2

Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson 12

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 12

Year of the French, The - Thomas Flanagan 4

Yearling, The - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 1, 10

Years of Grace - Margaret Ayer Barnes 1

Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm 8

1-Pulitzer Prize
2-National Book Award
3-Pen/Faulkner Award
4-National Book Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction
5-Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction
6-Book Sense Book Award
7-Man Booker Prize
8-American Library’s Top 100 Novels
9-Modern Library 100 Best Books
10-Library Journal’s Most Influential Fiction of the 20th Century
11-New York Library’s Books of the Century
12-Harvard Bookstore’s 100 Best Books
13-New York Times Editor’s Choice