Favorite Books

An ever-growing, ever-changing list of my favorite books (novels, short-story collections, plays, etc) excluding graphic novels and non-fictional books (even though there are plenty of both that I think are great).

*= Book read in its original language.

(last updated: 08/01/2025)

Absolon, Absolon! (William Faulkner)

The Abyss* (Marguerite Yourcenar)

Address Unknown* (Katherine Kressman Taylor)

Against the Day* (Thomas Pynchon)

The Aeneid (Vergil)

The Aleph (Jorge Luis Borges)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass* (Lewis Carroll/Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

Ambergris* (Jeff VanderMeer)

Anna Karenina (Lev Tolstoy)

Aniara* (Harry Martinsson)

Andromaque* (Jean Racine)

The Angelic Avengers (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen)

Austerlitz (W.G. Sebald)

Baltasar & Blimunda (José Saramago)

Baudolino (Umberto Eco)

Barabbas (Pär Lagerkvist)

The Baron in the Trees (Italo Calvino)

Berenice* (Jean Racine)

Berlin Alexanderplatz (Alfred Döblin)

Beware of Pity (Stefan Zweig)

The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily (Dino Buzzati)

The Bethrothed (Alessandro Manzoni)

Blood Meridian* (Cormac McCarthy)

The Book of Disquiet (Fernando Pessoa)

The Book of the Long Sun* (Gene Wolfe)

The Book of the New Sun* (Gene Wolfe)

Boris Godunov (Alexander Pushkin)

Brideshead Revisited* (Evelyn Waugh)

The Bridge on the Drina (Ivo Andric)

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann)

The Buru Quartet (Praomedya Ananta Toer)

By Night Under the Stone Bridge (Leo Perutz)

The Captain's Daughter (Alexander Pushkin)

Carmilla* (Joseph Sheridan Lefanu)

A Canticle for Leibowitz* (Walter M. Miller Jr.)

The Case of Comrade Tulayev (Victor Serge)

The Charterhouse of Parma* (Stendhal/Henri Beyle)

The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov)

The Christmas Oratorio* (Göran Tunström)

The Comedians* (Graham Greene)

The Confessions of Felix Krull (Thomas Mann)

Conversations in the Cathedral (Mario Vargas Llosa)

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Cyrano de Bergerac* (Edmond Rostand)

Daniel Deronda (George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans)

Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler)

Daughter of Fortune (Isabel Allende)

Death and the King's Horseman* (Wole Soyinka)

Death of a Beekeeper* (Lars Gustavsson)

The Death of Artemio Cruz (Carlos Fuentes)

The Death of Vergil (Hermann Broch)

Demons (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

The Deptford Trilogy (Robertson Davies)

Diary of a Country Priest* (Georges Bernanos)

The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)

Doctor Faustus (Thomas Mann)

Don Juan* (Molière/Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)

Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)

Dr. Weiss's Sista Uppdrag* (Lars Gustavsson)

Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin)

Dune* (Frank Herbert)

The Dwarf* (Pär Lagerkvist)

Earthly Powers* (Anthony Burgess)

Earthsea* (Ursula LeGuin)

East of Eden* (John Steinbeck)

Emma* (Jane Austen)

The Emperor of Portugal* (Selma Lagerlöf)

The End of Satan* (Victor Hugo)

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Unknown)

The Erl-King* (Michel Tournier)

Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin)

Everything Flows (Vassily Grossman)

Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev)

Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

The Feast of the Goat (Mario Vargas Llosa)

Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges)

The Fifth Queen* (Ford Maddox Ford)

Flashman at the Charge* (George MacDonald Fraser)

The Four Sisters (Anton Chekhov)

A Fring of Leaves* (Patrick White)

The Galton Case* (Ross MacDonald)

Gaspard de la Nuit* (Aloysius Bertrand)

The Golem (Gustav Meyrink)

Gormenghast* (Mervyn Peake)

Great Expectations* (Charles Dickens)

Grendel* (John Gardner)

Hamlet* (William Shakespeare)

A Harlot High and Low* (Honoré de Balzac)

Hedda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen)

Henry IV* (William Shakespeare)

The House of Bernarda Alba (Federico Garcia Lorca)

The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (Victor Hugo)

Hyperion* (Dan Simmons)

I, Claudius* (Robert Graves)

I Served the King of England (Boumil Hrabal)

Iceland's Bell (Halldor Laxness)

The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

If on a Winter's Night a Traveller (Italo Calvino)

The Illiad (Homer)

Independent People (Halldor Laxness)

The Insulted and the Injured (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino)

Jacques the Fatalist* (Denis Diderot)

Jerusalem* (Selma Lagerlöf)

The Jerusalem Quartet* (Edward Whittemore)

Journey by Moonlight (Antal Szerb)

The Kalevala (Elias Lönnrot, ed)

Kidnapped* (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Kim* (Rudyard Kipling)

King Lear* (William Shakespeare)

The King Must Die* (Mary Renault)

The King With the Golden Mask* (Marcel Schwob)

Kristin Lavransdatter (Sigrid Undset)

The Lady From the Sea (Henrik Ibsen)

The Last Unicorn* (Peter S. Beagle)

The Leopard (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa)

Life and Fate* (Vassily Grossman)

Lord Jim* (Joseph Conrad)

Lost Illusions* (Honoré de Balzac)

The Löwensköld Ring* (Selma Lagerlöf)

MacBeth* (William Shakespeare)

The Makioka Sisters (Junichiro Tanizaki)

A Man For All Seasons* (Robert Bolt)

The Man Who Laughs* (Victor Hugo)

The Man Who Was Thursday* (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Jan Potocki)

The Master and Margarita (Michail Bulgakov)

Medea (Euripides)

The Melancholy of Resistance (Laszló Krasznahorkai)

Memories of Hadrian (Marguerite Yourcenar)

Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Middlemarch* (George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans)

The Ministry of Fear* (Graham Greene)

The Misanthrope* (Moliére/Jean-Bapiste Poquelin)

The Miser* (Moliére/Jean-Bapiste Poquelin)

Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)

The Moonstone* (Wilkie Collins)

Mrs. Dalloway* (Virginia Woolf)

Murder in the Cathedral* (T.S. Eliot)

Music and Silence* (Rose Tremain)

My Name is Red (Orhan Pamuk)

The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)

The Napoleon of Notting Hill* (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

Narciss and Goldmund (Herman Hesse)

Night Flight* (Antoine Saint-Exupéry)

Ninety-Three* (Victor Hugo)

No Name* (Wilkie Collins)

Nostromo (Joseph Conrad)

The Notebook (Agota Kristof)

Oblomov (Ivan Goncharov)

Old Goriot* (Honoré de Balzac)

The Oresteia (Aeschylus)

Orlando* (Virginia Woolf)

Orlando Furioso (Ariosto)

Paradise Lost (John Milton)

A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)

Peace* (Gene Wolfe)

Pedro Paramo* (Juan Rulfo)

Peer Gynt (Henrik Ibsen)

The Periodic Table (Primo Levi)

Pereira Maintains (Antonio Tabbuchi)

Petersburg (Andrei Bély)

Phedre (Jean Racine)

The Power and the Glory* (Graham Greene)

The Prague Cemetery (Umberto Eco)

Pride and Prejudice* (Jane Austen)

Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus)

The Queen's Tiara* (Carl Jonas Love Almqvist)

The Quiet American* (Graham Greene)

The Quincunx* (Charles Palliser)

Quo Vadis (Henryk Sienkiewicz)

The Raj Quartet* (Paul Scott)

The Remains of the Day* (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Requiem (Antonio Tabucchi)

Resurrection (Lev Tolstoy)

Restoration* (Rose Tremain)

Riddley Walker* (Russell Hoban)

The Ring and the Book* (Robert Browning)

Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures (Walter Moers)

The Saga of Gösta Berling* (Selma Lagerlöf)

Salka Valka (Halldor Laxness)

The Samurai (Shunsaku Endo)

Satantango (Laszló Krasznahorkai)

The Satin Slipper* (Paul Claudel)

A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick)

Scaramouche* (Rafael Sabatini)

The Seagull (Anton Chekhov)

Seven Gothic Tales (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen)

Silence (Shunsaku Endo)

The Silence of the Sea* (Vercors/Jean Bruller)

The Sleepwalkers (Hermann Broch)

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)

The Spectre of Alexander Wolf (Gaito Gazdanov)

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (John Le Carré/David Cornwell)

The Supper* (Jean-Claude Brisville)

The Sword of Welleran* (Lord Dunsany)

A Tale of Two Cities* (Charles Dickens)

The Tartar Steppe (Buzzati Dino)

Tartuffe (Molière/Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)

The Theban Plays (Sophocles)

Tigana* (Guy Gavriel Kay)

The Third Policeman* (Flann O'Brien)

Thomas Cromwell Trilogy* (Hilary Mantel)

Three Men in a Boat* (Jerome K. Jerome)

The Three Wise Men (Michel Tournier)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John Le Carré/David Cornwell)

Trafalgar (Angelica Gorodischer)

The Transylvanian Trilogy (Miklós Banffy)

Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

True Grit* (Charles Portis)

Ubik* (Philip K. Dick)

Uncle Vanya (Anton Chekhov)

The Unconsoled* (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Under the Sun of Satan* (Georges Bernanos)

Vertigo (W.G. Sebald)

Villette* (Charlotte Brontë)

Voss* (Patrick White)

Waiting for the Barbarians* (John Maxwell Coetzee)

Watership Down* (Richard Adams)

The Waves* (Virginia Woolf)

The Way We Live Now* (Anthony Trollope)

The Wild Ass's Skin* (Honoré de Balzac)

The Wild Duck (Henrik Ibsen)

The Woman in White* (Wilkie Collins)

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (José Saramago)