literature

• main street sinclair lewis
• babbitt sinclair lewis
• breakfast of champions kurt vonnegut
• england, england julian barnes
• a christmas carol charles dickens
• bleak house charles dickens

poetry

• howl allen ginsburg

nonfiction

• kittens for dummies dusty rainbolt
• into thin air jon krakauer

drama

• faust johann wolfgang von goethe

short

• the overcoat and other short stories nikolai gogol
  • "old-fashioned farmers"
  • "the tale of how ivan ivanovich quarrelled with ivan nikiforovich"
  • "the nose"
  • "the overcoat"

other

• television without pity: 752 things we love to hate (and hate to love) about tv tara ariano & sarah d bunting
• the best american nonrequired reading: 2008 ed. dave eggers