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.

r= read more than once. 

(last updated: 21/09/2026)

Prose

Absolon, Absolon! (William Faulkner) r

The Abyss* (Marguerite Yourcenar) r

Address Unknown* (Katherine Kressman Taylor) r

Against the Day* (Thomas Pynchon)

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

Ambergris* (Jeff VanderMeer)

An Accidental Man* (Iris Murdoch) 

Anna Karenina (Lev Tolstoy) r

The Angelic Avengers (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen) r

Augustus* (John Williams) r

Austerlitz (W.G. Sebald) r

Baltasar & Blimunda (José Saramago)

Baudolino (Umberto Eco) r

Barabbas (Pär Lagerkvist) r

The Baron in the Trees (Italo Calvino) r

Berlin Alexanderplatz (Alfred Döblin)

Beware of Pity (Stefan Zweig) r

The Bethrothed (Alessandro Manzoni)

Blood Meridian* (Cormac McCarthy) r

The Book of Disquiet (Fernando Pessoa) r

The Book of the Long Sun* (Gene Wolfe)

The Book of the New Sun* (Gene Wolfe) r

Brideshead Revisited* (Evelyn Waugh) r

The Bridge on the Drina (Ivo Andric) r

The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) r

Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann) r

The Buru Quartet (Praomedya Ananta Toer)

By Night Under the Stone Bridge (Leo Perutz) r

The Captain's Daughter (Alexander Pushkin)

The Castle (Franz Kafka) r

Carmilla* (Joseph Sheridan Lefanu) r

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

The Case of Comrade Tulayev (Victor Serge)

The Charterhouse of Parma* (Stendhal/Henri Beyle) r

The Christmas Oratorio* (Göran Tunström)

The Comedians* (Graham Greene) r

The Confessions of Felix Krull (Thomas Mann) r

Conversations in the Cathedral (Mario Vargas Llosa)

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas) r

Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) r

Dangerous Liaisons* (Choderlos de Laclos) r

Daniel Deronda (George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans) r

Darkness at Noon (Arthur Koestler) 

Daughter of Fortune (Isabel Allende)

Death of a Beekeeper* (Lars Gustavsson) r

The Death of Artemio Cruz (Carlos Fuentes)

The Death of Virgil (Hermann Broch)

Demons (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) r

The Deptford Trilogy (Robertson Davies) r

Diary of a Country Priest* (Georges Bernanos)

Doctor Faustus (Thomas Mann)

Doctor Glas*  (Hjalmar Söderberg)

Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)

Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin)

The Dwarf* (Pär Lagerkvist) r

Earthly Powers* (Anthony Burgess) r

Earthsea books* (Ursula LeGuin) r

East of Eden* (John Steinbeck)

The Emperor of Portugal* (Selma Lagerlöf) r

The Erl-King* (Michel Tournier)

Everything Flows (Vassily Grossman) r

Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev) r

The Feast of the Goat (Mario Vargas Llosa)

The Fifth Queen* (Ford Maddox Ford) r

Flashman at the Charge* (George MacDonald Fraser) r

A Fringe of Leaves* (Patrick White)

The Galton Case* (Ross MacDonald) r

The Golem (Gustav Meyrink) r

Great Expectations* (Charles Dickens)

The Great Gatsby* (F. Scott Fitzgerald) r

Grendel* (John Gardner) r

A Harlot High and Low* (Honoré de Balzac)

A High Wind in Jamaica* (Richard Hughes) 

A Hero of Our Time (Michail Lermontov) r

Herscht 07769 (Laszlo Krasznahorkai) r

The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende) r

Hunger (Knut Hamsun) 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame* (Victor Hugo) r

Hyperion* (Dan Simmons) r

I, Claudius* (Robert Graves) r

I Served the King of England (Boumil Hrabal)

Iceland's Bell (Halldor Laxness)

The Idiot (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) r

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

Independent People (Halldor Laxness)

Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino) r

Jacques the Fatalist* (Denis Diderot) r

Jane Eyre* (Charlotte Bronte) r

The Jerusalem Quartet* (Edward Whittemore)

Journey by Moonlight (Antal Szerb)

Kidnapped* (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Kim* (Rudyard Kipling) r

A King Alone* (Jean Giono)

The King Must Die* (Mary Renault) r

Kristin Lavransdatter (Sigrid Undset) r

The Last Unicorn* (Peter S. Beagle) r

The Left Hand of Darkness* (Ursula K. Le Guin)

The Leopard (Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa) r

Life and Fate* (Vassily Grossman)

Lord Jim* (Joseph Conrad)

Lost Illusions* (Honoré de Balzac)

Lyonesse* (Jack Vance) r 

The Makioka Sisters (Junichiro Tanizaki)

The Man Who Laughs* (Victor Hugo)

The Man Who Was Thursday* (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Jan Potocki) r

The Master and Margarita (Michail Bulgakov) r

The Melancholy of Resistance (Laszló Krasznahorkai)

Memories of Hadrian (Marguerite Yourcenar) r

Middlemarch* (George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans)

The Miracles of Antichrist* (Selma Lagerlöf) r

Les Miserables* (Victor Hugo) r

Moby Dick* (Herman Melville) r 

Mrs. Dalloway* (Virginia Woolf) r

Music and Silence* (Rose Tremain) r

My Name is Red (Orhan Pamuk) r

Mysteries (Knut Hamsun) 

The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) r

The Napoleon of Notting Hill* (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) r

Night Flight* (Antoine Saint-Exupéry) r

Ninety-Three* (Victor Hugo)

Nostromo (Joseph Conrad)

The Notebook (Agota Kristof)

Oblomov (Ivan Goncharov)

Old Goriot* (Honoré de Balzac) r

Orlando* (Virginia Woolf)

Our Mutual Friend* (Charles Dickens) 

Pale Fire* (Vladimir Nabokov) r

A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)

Peace* (Gene Wolfe)

Pedro Paramo* (Juan Rulfo) r

Pereira Maintains (Antonio Tabbuchi) r

Petersburg (Andrei Bély) r

The Power and the Glory* (Graham Greene)

The Prague Cemetery (Umberto Eco)

Pride and Prejudice* (Jane Austen)

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

The Quiet American* (Graham Greene)

The Quincunx* (Charles Palliser)

Quo Vadis (Henryk Sienkiewicz)

Pale Fire* (Vladimir Nabokov) r

The Raj Quartet* (Paul Scott)

The Remains of the Day* (Kazuo Ishiguro) r

Resurrection (Lev Tolstoy)

Restoration* (Rose Tremain) r

Riddley Walker* (Russell Hoban) r

Romola* (George Eliot/Mary Ann Evans) 

Salka Valka (Halldor Laxness)

The Samurai (Shunsaku Endo)

Satantango (Laszló Krasznahorkai)

Scaramouche* (Rafael Sabatini)

The Sea, The Sea* (Iris Murdoch)

The Serious Game* (Hjalmar Söderberg)

The Sleepwalkers (Hermann Broch) r

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner) r

The Spectre of Alexander Wolf (Gaito Gazdanov) r

The Spire (William Golding) 

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

Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse) 

Sword of Honour* (Evelyn Waugh) 

The Swedish Cavalier (Leo Perutz) r

The Tartar Steppe (Dino Perutz)

Terra Nostra (Carlos Fuentes) 

Tigana* (Guy Gavriel Kay) r

The Third Policeman* (Flann O'Brien)

Thomas Cromwell books* (Hilary Mantel)

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

The Three Wise Men (Michel Tournier)

The Tin Drum (Günter Grass) 

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

Titus Groan and Gormenghast (Mervyn Peake) r 

The Transylvanian Trilogy (Miklós Banffy)

True Grit* (Charles Portis) r

The Turn of the Screw* (Henry James) r 

Ubik* (Philip K. Dick) r

The Unconsoled* (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Under the Sun of Satan* (Georges Bernanos)

Vertigo (W.G. Sebald) r

Villette* (Charlotte Brontë) r

Voss* (Patrick White) r

Waiting for the Barbarians* (John Maxwell Coetzee) r

Watership Down* (Richard Adams) r

The Waves* (Virginia Woolf)

The Way We Live Now* (Anthony Trollope)

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

Zeno's Conscience (Italo Svevo) 

Zimiamvia* (E.R. Eddison) r

 

 Short-Story Collections

 The Aleph (Jorge Luis Borges) r

 Fictions (Jorge Luis Borges) r

The King With the Golden Mask* (Marcel Schwob) 

The Periodic Table (Primo Levi)

 Seven Gothic Tales (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen) r

The Sword of Welleran* (Lord Dunsany) r

Trafalgar (Angelica Gorodischer)

Winter's Tales   (Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen) r

 

Verse

The Aeneid (Virgil) r

Aniara* (Harry Martinsson) r

 The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri) r

Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin) r

 Gaspard de la Nuit* (Aloysius Bertrand) r

The Illiad (Homer) r

The Kalevala (Elias Lönnrot, ed) r

 Metamorphoses (Ovid) r

The Odyssey (Homer) r

Orlando Furioso (Ariosto)

Paradise Lost  (John Milton) r

The Ring and the Book* (Robert Browning) r

Selected Poems (Robert Browning) 

  

Plays

 Andromaque* (Jean Racine) r

The Alchemists* (Ben Johnson)

Berenice* (Jean Racine) r

Blood Wedding (Federico Garcia Lorca)  r

Boris Godunov (Alexander Pushkin) r

The Cherry Orchard (Anton Chekhov) r

Cyrano de Bergerac* (Edmond Rostand) r

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

Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) r

Hamlet* (William Shakespeare) r

Hedda Gabler (Henrik Ibsen) r

Henry IV* (William Shakespeare) r

The House of Bernarda Alba (Federico Garcia Lorca) r

Julius Caesar* (William Shakespeare) r

King Lear* (William Shakespeare) r

Macbeth* (William Shakespeare) r

Maria Stuart (Friedrich Schiller)

A Man For All Seasons* (Robert Bolt) r

The Master Builder (Henrik Ibsen) r

The Misanthrope* (Moliére/Jean-Bapiste Poquelin) r

A Month in the Country (Ivan Turgenev) r

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

Othello* (William Shakespeare) r

The Oresteia (Aeschylus) r

 Peer Gynt* (Henrik Ibsen) r

Phedre (Jean Racine) r

Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus)

The Satin Slipper* (Paul Claudel)

The Seagull (Anton Chekhov)

The Theban Plays (Sophocles)

Three Sisters (Anton Chekhov)

The Trojan Women (Euripides) r

Uncle Vania (Anton Chekhov) r

Volpone* (Ben Johnson)

The Wild Duck (Henrik Ibsen) r