Reading List for the College Bound

This reading list for college-bound students is a combination of many lists compiled by colleges and universities for high school reading. College professors expect incoming students to be familiar with these works; in many cases they will be reread and studied in more depth in college. Students not planning to attend university should not shy away from this list, however, if reading abilities, comprehension skills, and maturity levels are adequate.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain
Bellow, Saul. Humboldt's Gift
Camus, Albert. The Stranger
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield; Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment
Eliot, George. Adam Bede
Ralph Ellison. Invisible Man
Faulkner, William. The Unvanquished; Intruder in the Dust
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary
Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant's Woman
Golding, William. . Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas. The Return of the Native
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
Hemmingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms; The Nick Adams Stories
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady
Joyce, James. Dubliners
Kafka, Franz. The Trial
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt; Arrowsmith
Malamud, Bernard. The Complete Stories: The Magic Barrel
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick
Orwell, George. 1984; Animal Farm
Paton, Alan. Cry the Beloved Country
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Stories: The Tell-Tale Heart; The Black Cat; The Pit and the Pendulum
Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye
Scott, Sir Walter. Ivanhoe
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath
Stendhal. The Red and the Black
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels.
Thackeray, William. Vanity Fair
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace
Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Innocents Abroad
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five
Waugh, Evelyn. A Handful of Dust
Wright, Richard. Native Son

This list provided by The Center for Applied Research in Education