Catholic Literature of the USA
The Catholic Influence on American Literature
Some Recommended Book Lists
Don’t read good books, or else you won’t have time for the great books! (Fr Raymond Nyquist)
I. Fr Ryan’s first recommended list of 25 (or so) great fiction novels
Note, This list does not include most classics that predate the modern novel (Homer, the Greek plays, etc), nor does it include the many great non-fiction works of literature, nor does it include much poetry or plays; but it is a list of recommended reading for modern novels.
(Key: *for books that are “top shelf” classics; ^for children' s books; `for books that are particularly important as American classics; “for books that are Catholic classics - some books will have multiple labels)
Jane Austen - *Pride and Prejudice; *Persuasion
Charlotte Bronte - *Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte - *Wuthering Heights
Daniel Defoe - *Robinson Crusoe
Charles Dickens - *Great Expectations; *A Tale of Two Cities;
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - *Brother Karamazov; *Crime and Punishment
Alexander Dumas - *“The Count of Monte Cristo
William Faulkner - *`The Sound and the Fury
F Scott Fitzgerald - *`The Great Gatsby
Gustave Flaubert - *Madame Bovary
Nathaniel Hawthorne - *`The Scarlet Letter
Ernest Hemingway - *`A Farewell to Arms
Victor Hugo - *Les Miserables
Henry James - *`The Portrait of a Lady; *`The Golden Bowl
James Joyce - *“Ulysses
Harper Lee - *`To Kill a Mockingbird
Herman Melville - *`Moby Dick
George Orwell - *1984
John Steinbeck - *`The Grapes of Wrath
Bram Stoker - *“Dracula
J.R.R. Tolkien - *^“The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King)
Leo Tolstoy - *War and Peace
Mark Twain - *^`The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Evelyn Waugh - *“Brideshead Revisited
II. Fr Ryan’s second recommended list of 25 (or so) great fiction novels
Note, This list does not include most classics that predate the modern novel (Homer, the Greek plays, etc), nor does it include the many great non-fiction works of literature, nor does it include much poetry or plays; but it is a list of recommended reading for modern novels.
(Key: *for books that are “top shelf” classics; ^for children' s books; `for books that are particularly important as American classics; “for books that are Catholic classics - some books will have multiple labels)
Jane Austen - *Sense and Sensibility; Emma
Willa Cather - *`“My Antonia
Joseph Conrad - *Heart of Darkness
Steven Crane - *`The Red Badge of Courage
Charles Dickens - *^A Christmas Carol; *David Copperfield
William Faulkner - *`Light in August; `Absalom, Absalom!
E.M. Forster - A Passage to India
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Graham Greene - “The End of the Affair
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
Victor Hugo - *“The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Henry James - *The Turn of the Screw; *`The Wings of the Dove
James Joyce - *“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - *One Hundred Years of Solitude
Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago
J.D. Salinger - *`Catcher in the Rye
John Steinbeck - `East of Eden
Leo Tolstoy - *The Death of Ivan Ilyitch; *Anna Karenina
Sigrid Undset - *“Kristin Lavransdatter (trilogy)
Evelyn Waugh - “A Handful of Dust
Edith Wharton - *`The Age of Innocence
Oscar Wilde - *The Picture of Dorian Gray
III. Fr Ryan’s recommended list of (less than) 50 great Catholic fiction novels, and novels of powerful spiritual reflection
Note, This list does not include classics that pre-date the modern novel (for example Dante’s Divine Comedy or Cervantes’ Don Quixote or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, etc). All of these should, of course, be read. Likewise, the spiritual and theological classics.
(Key: *for books that are “top shelf” classics; ^for children' s books; `for books that are particularly important as American classics; “for books that are Catholic classics - some books will have multiple labels)
Robert Hugh Benson - “Lord of the World; “Come Rack! Come Rope!; “The Dawn of All
Georges Bernanos - “The Diary of a Country Priest; “Under the Sun of Satan
Charlotte Bronte - *Jane Eyre
Willa Cather - `“Death Comes for the Archbishop; “Shadows on the Rock
Daniel Defoe - *Robinson Crusoe
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - *Brother Karamazov
Alexander Dumas - *“The Count of Monte Cristo
Rumer Godden - “In This House of Brede
Graham Greene - “The Power and the Glory; “The End of the Affair; Brighton Rock; Collected Short Stories
Gertrude von Le Fort - “The Song of the Scaffold
Gerard Manley Hopkins - “All his poetry
CS Lewis - *^“The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; and the other six books in the series); “The Sci-fi Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength); “The Screwtape Letters
Francois Mauriac - “Viper’s Tangle
Walter M Miller, Jr - “A Canticle for Leibowitz
Flannery O’Connor - *`“Short Stories; `“Wise Blood; `“The Violent Bear it Away
Walker Percy - `“The Moviegoer; `“Love in the Ruins; The Last Gentleman; The Second Coming
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - *^The Little Prince
Henryk Sienkiewicz - “Quo Vadis
Bram Stoker - *“Dracula
J.R.R. Tolkien - *^“The Hobbit; *^“The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King)
John Kennedy Toole - “A Confederacy of Dunces
Mark Twain - “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Sigrid Undset - *“Kristin Lavransdatter (trilogy); “Catherine of Siena
Lew Wallace - “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Evelyn Waugh - *“Brideshead Revisited; “A Handful of Dust; Helena
Louis De Wohl - The Spear; Various short books on different saints
IV. Fr Ryan’s recommended list of great fiction novels (not complete)
Note, This list does not include most classics that predate the modern novel (Homer, the Greek plays, etc), nor does it include the many great non-fiction works of literature, nor does it include much poetry or plays; but it is a list of recommended reading for modern novels. We include also in this list, some children’s literature.
(Key: *for books that are “top shelf” classics; ^for children' s books; `for books that are particularly important as American classics; “for books that are Catholic classics - some books will have multiple labels and many will have no label)
Richard Adams - ^Watership Down
Aesop - *^Aesop’s Fables
Louisa May Alcott - ^Little Women
Dante Alghieri - *“The Divine Comedy
Jane Austen - *Pride and Prejudice; *Sense and Sensibility; *Persuasion; Emma
J.M. Barrie - ^Peter Pan
Robert Hugh Benson - “Lord of the World; “Come Rack! Come Rope!; “The Dawn of All
Georges Bernanos - “The Diary of a Country Priest; “Under the Sun of Satan
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451; Something Wicked This Way Comes
Charlotte Bronte - *Jane Eyre
Anne Bronte - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Emily Bronte - *Wuthering Heights
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Francis Hodgson Burnett - ^The Secret Garden
Samuel Butler - The Way of All Flesh
Alber Camus - The Stranger
Lewis Carroll - ^Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Willa Cather - *`“My Antonia; `“Death Comes for the Archbishop; O Pioneers!
Miguel Cervantes - *“Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer - *“The Canterbury Tales
GK Chesterton - “The Man Who was Thursday; “The Ball and the Cross; The Flying Inn; The Napoleon of Notting Hill; “The Father Brown Stories; “Biographies of St Thomas Aquinas and St Francis of Assisi
Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White
Carlo Collodi - ^Pinocchio
Joseph Conrad - *Heart of Darkness; Lord Jim
James Fenimore Cooper - `The Last of the Mohicans
Steven Crane - *`The Red Badge of Courage
Roald Dahl - ^James and the Giant Peach; ^Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and other children’s books
Daniel Defoe - *Robinson Crusoe
Charles Dickens - *^A Christmas Carol; *Great Expectations; *A Tale of Two Cities; *David Copperfield; probably all of Dicken’s novels should be read
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - *Brother Karamazov; *Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of Bakersvilles; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Alexander Dumas - *“The Count of Monte Cristo; “The Three Musketeers
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) - Middlemarch
William Faulkner - *`Light in August; *`The Sound and the Fury; `Absalom, Absalom!
F Scott Fitzgerald - *`The Great Gatsby
Gustave Flaubert - *Madame Bovary
E.M. Forster - A Room with a View; A Passage to India
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Kenneth Grahame - ^The Wind in the Willows
Graham Greene - The Quiet American; The Heart of the Matter; “The Power and the Glory; The Comedians; “The End of the Affair; Brighton Rock
Grimm Brothers - *^Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne - *`The Scarlet Letter; The House of the Seven Gables
Ernest Hemingway - *`For Whom the Bell Tolls; *`The Old Man and the Sea; *`A Farewell to Arms; The Sun Also Rises
O Henry - `The Four Million (short story collection)
Gerard Manley Hopkins - “All his poetry
Victor Hugo - *“The Hunchback of Notre Dame; *Les Miserables
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Washington Irving - `The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Henry James - *The Turn of the Screw; *`The Portrait of a Lady; What Maisie Knew; *`The Wings of the Dove; *`The Golden Bowl; The Ambassadors
James Joyce - *“Ulysses; Finnegans Wake; *“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Franz Kafka - *The Metamorphosis
Rudyard Kimpling - *^Just So Stories; *^The Jungle Book; ^Captains Courageous
Harper Lee - *`To Kill a Mockingbird
Madeleine L’Engle - ^A Wrinkle in Time (and the other four books in the series)
CS Lewis - *^“The Chronicles of Narnia (The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; and the other six books in the series); “The Sci-fi Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength); “The Screwtape Letters; The Great Divorce; Till We Have Faces
Jack London - ^`The Call of the Wild
George MacDonald - ^The Princess and the Goblin; ^The Princess and Curdie; ^At the Back of the North Wind; ^Lilith; ^Phantastes
Alessandro Manzoni - “The Betrothed
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - *One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Francois Mauriac - “Viper’s Tangle
Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca; Short Story Collections
Cormac McCarthy - `The Road; *`“Blood Meridian; Suttree
Larry McMurtry - `Lonesome Dove
Herman Melville - *`Moby Dick
Walter M Miller, Jr - “A Canticle for Leibowitz
A.A. Milne - *^Winnie-the-Pooh
Lucy Maud Montgomery - ^Anne of Green Gables
Toni Morrison - “Beloved
Flannery O’Connor - `“The Violent Bear it Away; `“Wise Blood; *`“Short Stories
George Orwell - Animal Farm; *1984
Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago
Walker Percy - `“The Moviegoer; `“Love in the Ruins; The Second Coming; The Last Gentleman; Lancelot; The Thanatos Syndrome
Edgar Allan Poe - *`All of Poe’s fiction should be read: The Narrative of Gordon Pym; Short Stories (not just the scary stories, but also his sci-fi and detective stories!); poems
Beatrix Potter - ^The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other stories
Howard Pyle - ^The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood; ^The Story of King Arthur and his Knights
Antoine de Saint-Exupery - *^The Little Prince
J.D. Salinger - *`Catcher in the Rye
Sir Walter Scott - *Ivanhoe
William Shakespeare - *All of his plays and sonnets, of course
Mary Shelley - *Frankenstein
Henryk Sienkiewicz - “Quo Vadis
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Johanna Spyri - ^Heidi
John Steinbeck - *`Of Mice and Men; `East of Eden; *`The Grapes of Wrath; `The Pearl; `The Red Pony
Stendhal - The Red and the Black
Robert Louis Stevenson - *The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; ^Treasure Island
Bram Stoker - *“Dracula
Harriet Beecher Stowe - *`Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Jonathan Swift - *Gulliver’s Travels
J.R.R. Tolkien - *^“The Hobbit; *^“The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of the King)
Leo Tolstoy - *The Death of Ivan Ilyitch; What Men Live By, and Other Stories; *War and Peace; *Anna Karenina
Anthony Trollope - The Chronicles of Bersetshire Series
Mark Twain - *^`The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; ^`The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Tom Sawyer Abroad by Huck Finn; “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
Sigrid Undset - *“Kristin Lavransdatter (trilogy); “Catherine of Siena
Jules Verne - *^Around the World in Eighty Days; *Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; A Journey into the Interior of the Earth
Lew Wallace - “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Evelyn Waugh - *“Brideshead Revisited; “A Handful of Dust; Helena
HG Wells - *The Time Machine; *War of the Worlds; The Island of Doctor Moreau; The Invisible Man
Edith Wharton - *`The Age of Innocence; The House of Mirth
E.B. White - *^`Charlotte’s Web; ^Stuart Little; ^The Trumpet of the Swan
Oscar Wilde - *The Picture of Dorian Gray
Laura Ingalls Wilder - ^`Little House on the Prairie
Charles Williams - All Hallows’ Eve
Louis De Wohl - The Spear; Various short books on different saints
PG Woodhouse - *^My Man Jeeves; other selections of Jeeves and Wooster
Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway; To The Lighthouse
Johann David Wyss - ^The Swiss Family Robinson
V. A few contemporary authors: Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Abraham Verghese, Amor Towles, Toni Morisson.
A couple Montana authors: Norman Maclean, Ivan Doig.