novels

• albert camus - the stranger (1942)
• alexi galaviz-budziszewski - painted cities (2014)
• david foster wallace - brief interviews with hideous men (1999)
• david foster wallace - infinite jest (1996)
• david foster wallace - oblivion: stories (2004)
• ernest hemingway - a farewell to arms (1929)
• ernest hemingway - for whom the bell tolls (1940)
• fernando de pessoa - the book of disquiet (1982)
• franz kafka - the metamorphosis (1915)
• fyodor dostoevsky - crime and punishment (1866)
• fyodor dostoevsky - the brothers karamazov (1880)
• haruki murakami - kafka on the shore (2002)
• hermann hesse - narcissus and goldmund (1930)
• italo calvino - if on a winter's night a traveler (1979)
• j.d. salinger - franny and zooey (1961)
• jack kerouac - big sur (1962)
• james joyce - portrait of the artist as a young man (1914-15)
• james joyce - ulysses (1922)
• jean-paul sartre - nausea (1938)
• john barth - lost in the funhouse (1968)
• john steinbeck - of mice and men (1937)
• john steinbeck - the grapes of wrath (1939)
• jonathan franzen - freedom: a novel (2010)
• jonathan franzen - the corrections (2001)
• junot diaz - brief wondrous life of oscar wao (2007)
• mark leyner - my cousin, my gastroenterologist (1990)
• maya angelou - i know why the caged bird sings
• mitch alborn - tuesdays with morrie (1997)
• oscar wilde - the picture of dorian gray (1890)
• paul auster - moon palace (1989)
• sandra cisneros - the house on mango street (1984)
• shusaku endo - deep river (1993)
• toni morrison - beloved (1987)
• virginia woolf - mrs. dalloway (1925)
• vladimir nabokov - lolita (1955)
• walker percy - the moviegoer (1961)
• william faulkner - as i lay dying (1930)
• william faulkner - the sound and the fury (1929)
• zadie smith - white teeth (2000)
• zora hurston - their eyes were watching god (1937)

plays

• arthur miller - death of a salesman (1949)
• david mamet - glengarry glen ross (1984)
• oscar wilde - the importance of being earnest (1895)
• susan glaspell - trifles (1916)
• tennessee williams - a streetcar named desire (1947)
• william shakespeare - hamlet
• william shakespeare - richard iii (1592)

short stories

• a.m. homes - "a real doll" (1990)
• annie proulx - "brokeback mountain" (1997)
• charlotte perkins gilman - "the yellow wallpaper" (1892)
• david foster wallace - "the soul is not a smithy" (2003)
  • david foster wallace - "good old neon" (2002)
  • david foster wallace - "incarnations of burned children" (2004)
  • david foster wallace - "the depressed person" (1998)
• dorothy parker - "the standard of living" (1942)
• ernest hemingway - "a clean, well-lighted place" (1933)
• f. scott fitzgerald - "winter dreams" (1922)
• flannery o'connor - "the geranium" (1946)
  • flannery o'connor - "good country people" (1955)
• haruki murakami - "the second bakery attack"
  • haruki murakami - "the year of spaghetti"
• herman melville - "bartleby, the scrivener" (1853)
• j.d. salinger - "a perfect day for bananafish" (1948)
  • j.d. salinger -
• james joyce -
• jhumpa lahiri -
• john cheever - "the swimmer" (1964)
• john updike - "lifeguard" (1932)
• jorge luis borges - "funes the memorious" (1942)
• joyce carol oates - "where are you going, where have you been?"
• leo tolstoy - "the death of ivan ilyich" (1886)
• manuel guiterrex najera - "novela del tranvia" (?)
• miranda july -
• sherwood anderson -
• vladimir nabokov - "signs and symbols" (1948)
• william faulkner - "barn burning" (1939)

poems

• alexander pope - "ode on solitude"
• allen ginsberg - "sunflower sutra"
  • "a supermarket in california"
  • "my sad self"
• anne sexton - "unknown girl in a maternity ward"
  • "her kind"
  • "in celebration of my uterus"
  • "said the poet to the analyst"
  • "sylvia's death"
  • "wanting to die"
• charles baudelaire - "correspondences"
  • "autumn"
  • "be drunk"
• charles bukowski - "alone with everybody"
  • "let it enfold you"
  • "somebody"
• dorothy parker - "a very short song"
• e.e. cummings -
• edwin arlington robinson - "richard cory"
• elizabeth bishop - "the fish"
• emily dickinson -
• ezra pound - "and the days are not full enough"
• federico garcia lorca - "the song of the barren orange tree"
• frank o'hara - "steps"
  • "for grace, after a party"
  • "having a coke with you"
  • "lines for the fortune cookies"
  • "meditations in an emergency"
  • "why i am not a painter"
• gwendolyn brooks - "we real cool"
  • "the mother"
• jack kerouac - "daydreams for ginsberg"
  • "haiku"
• li po - "alone and drinking under the moon"
• lucille clifton - "wishes for sons"
  • "homage to my hips"
  • "memory"
  • "the lost baby poem"
• mir muhammad taqi mir -
• phillip larkin - "to failure"
• stevie smith - "not waving but drowning"
• sylvia plath - "a better resurrection"
• t.s. eliot - "hysteria"
  • "morning at the window"
  • "the love song of j. alfred prufrock"
  • "the waste land"
• theodore roethke - "my papa's waltz"
• w.b. yeats - "when you are old"
• wallace stevens - "a rabbit as king of the ghosts"
• walt whitman -
• william carlos williams - "a love song"
  • "this is just to say"

essays/speeches

• david foster wallace - "e unibus pluram: tv and u.s. fiction" (1993)
• david foster wallace - "shipping out" (1996)
• david foster wallace - "ticket to the fair" (1995)
• david foster wallace - kenyon commencement address (2005)
• george orwell - "books vs. cigarettes" (1946)
• george orwell - "politics and the english language" (1946)
• margaret atwood - "attitude" (1983)
• virginia woolf - "a room of one's own" (1929)
• zadie smith - "joy" (2012)

authors

• albert camus (1913-1960; french 20th c. philosophy)
• david foster wallace (1962-2002; postmodern lit, realism)
• ernest hemingway (1899-1961; american naturalist lit, ww1)
• flannery o'connor (1925-1964; southern gothic/christian realism)
• haruki murakami (1949-present; japanese surrealist fiction)
• herman hesse (1877-1962; german/swiss novelist; spirituality)
• james joyce (1882-1941; irish av. garde modernist; early 20th c.)
• oscar wilde (1854-1900; irish; victorian era; aestheticism)
• paul auster (1947-present; american postmodernism/absurdism)
• virginia woolf (1882-1941; english; foremost modernist)
• vladimir nabokov (1899-1977; russian modernism/postmodernism)
• william faulkner (1897-1962; southern american lit)
• zadie smith (1975-present; british/jamaican postmodernism; hyper realism)

poets

• allen ginsberg (1926-1997; american counterculture/beat)
• anne sexton (1928-1974; american confessional poetry)
• charles bukowski (1920-1994; german-american dirty realism)
• e.e. cummings (1894-1962; american avant-garde poetry)
• elizabeth bishop (1911-1979; american poetry/short story)
• frank o'hara (1926-1966; american av. garde/surrealist poetry)
• lucille clifton (1936-2010; modern black fem. poetry)
• sylvia plath (1932-1963; american confessional poetry)
• t.s. eliot (1888-1965; american modernist poetry)
• walt whitman (1819-1892; american free verse/realist poetry)
• william carlos williams (1883-1963; american modernist/imagist poetry)

artists

• henry darger (1892-1973; american outsider art)