I am currently looking to read more this year and am wanting to read some books that many people consider to have changed literature or culture. I already have a list of some books, such as
LoTR, Dune, No Country for Old Men, The Great Gatsby, and The Aeneid, etc.
What are some other books you think I should read that you would consider to have shaped literature and culture? It can be any genre, from any time period. All recommendations are welcome
by Steven56x
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Steppenwolf and Siddartha
“East of Eden” by Steinbeck and since you have Dune on there, I’d add an Asimov too. I don’t know if you want to bite off the entire Foundation Series though.
Feels cliche these days but 1984 by George Orwell.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Influential classics that, in my view, shaped some aspect of literature, be it by pioneering or popularising something stylistically, in genre or theme etc. I’ve included a few that I also think are a bit under appreciated despite their influence. This is me blurting some that come to mind for me:
– **The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison**
– **Woman in White by Wilkie Collins**
– **Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe**
– **The Monk by Matthew Lewis**
– **Crime and Punishment by Fedor Dostoevsky**
– **Hunger by Knut Hamsun** (Norwegian classic that is appreciated enough in the anglosphere. Very much inspired by Dostoevsky)
– **Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte** (my favourite of the Bronte sisters)
– **Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte**
– **Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte**
– **Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen**
– **Frankenstein by Mary Shelley**
– **Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu**
– **The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster** (short story, but predicted social media, smart homes, and the problems that come with them, back in 1909)
– **R.U.R. by Karel Capek** (foundation for what became robots in later sci-fi)
– And on that note, the **Robot series by Isaac Asimov** (shaped much of modern robot fiction)
– **Foundation by Isaac Asimov** (came before Dune)
– **All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque**
– **A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemmingway**
– **The Iron Heel by Jack London** and **We by Yevgeny Zamyatin** both directly influenced **1984 by George Orwell.**
– **War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells**
– **Romeo & Juliet**, **Macbeth**, **Hamlet**, **A Midsummer Night’s Dream**, and **Much Ado About Nothing** by Shakespeare
– **The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer**
– **The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde**
– Anything **Charles Dickens**
– **Study In Scarlet** and **Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle**
– **And Then There Were None** and **Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie**
– **Rosemary’s Baby** and **The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin**
Will stop there, but lots to choose from!
For Whom the Bell Tolls is pretty awesome. All about a soldier trying to blow up a bridge.