Read These 50 Books Before You Write Your First Fiction Novel

Most of these recommendations come with the territory of “living in a society flush with books.” They are a given, yet I want to assume that, if you want to write a fiction novel, you are out-of-this-world stupid and in need of guidance.

The links are to free copies online where available, otherwise it’s an Amazon link. E-books in reality are inferior to print because, as I’ve said before, they will disappear after the dolphin apocalypse. But for now they are fine.

Your favorite novel isn’t on here because it sucks, but make sure you scroll down to the end of the list before airing a complaint.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
The Grapes of Wrath
My Antonia
Winesburg, Ohio
Les Misérables
The House of the Seven Gables
American Gods
The Iliad
The Red Badge of Courage
The Pilgrim’s Progress
The Moviegoer
Lord of the Flies
Beowulf
The Sound and the Fury
Love in the Time of Cholera
Watchmen
The Secret Garden
The Prose Edda
Dune
Catch-22
Great Expectations
Crash: A Novel
The Velveteen Rabbit
The Divine Comedy
Pride and Prejudice
Pale Fire
The Satanic Verses
The Canterbury Tales
The Heart of Darkness
Moby Dick
On the Road
The Scarlet Letter
1984
Ulysses
A Tale of Two Cities
Fahrenheit 451
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Time Machine
Don Quixote
Crime and Punishment
Paradise Lost
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit
The Great Divorce
Babbit
A Christmas Carol
Siddartha
The Bhagavad-Gita
To Kill A Mockingbird
Far From the Madding Crowd
Jude the Obscure

As a mandatory bonus, read these non-fiction books. They will give you a sliver-sized sampling of what and how people throughout history have thought, and knowing how people think is a good idea if you’re going to write about them.
The Bible
The Summa Theologica
Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau
Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates
The Qu’ran

You’ve all of read those like I told you, and you’ve written your first novel. The bad news is that you’ll have to throw that first manuscript away because it will be nigh unreadable. The good news is that you’ll never write something so horrible again.

This is the best way to get all the kinks out. Now read these 50 books, then go write your real first novel.

The Poetic Edda
The Chronicles of Narnia
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Howards End
Naked Lunch
All Quiet on the Western Front
Absalom, Absalom!
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Great Gatsby
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Pickwick Papers
Rabbit, Run
Doctor Zhivago
The Stranger
The Invisible Man
Flowers for Algernon
The Dark Knight Returns
H.P. Lovecraft The Complete Collection
Frankenstein
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Count of Monte Cristo
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Idiot
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Metamorphosis
Native Son
The Stand
Catcher in the Rye
Animal Farm
The Old Man and the Sea
Gulliver’s Travels
Robinson Crusoe
Stranger in a Strange Land
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales
Wuthering Heights
Little Women
Anthem
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Brave New World
The Republic
The Odyssey
War of the Worlds
Flatland
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Trial
Lolita
The Lord of the Rings
The Man Who Was Thursday

Photo by Bravo_Zulu_.