The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1868). Prince Myshkin—epileptic, unworldly, sensitive—is the “idiot” of the title, but his gentle, generous nature forces readers to question that assumption. Myshkin (a scarcely disguised self-portrait of the author) tries again and again to help the people he encounters, only to have his efforts mocked or misunderstood.
The Iliad by Homer (ninth century b.c.e.?). The glory and horror of war pulse through this epic poem about the thousand ships launched in battle after the Trojan prince Paris abducts the beautiful Helen from her husband Menelaus, the King of Sparta. Through exquisite language Homer tells of capricious Greek gods and goddesses, fealty and honor between friends, and the terror of war.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (1895). “The truth is rarely pure and never simple,” one character remarks in Wilde’s clever comedy about double identities.
The Infinities by John Banville (2009). On a languid midsummer’s day in the countryside, the Godley family gathers at the bedside of Adam, a renowned mathematician and their patriarch. But they are not alone in their vigil.
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (1952). Lou Ford is the boy next door—a deputy sheriff in his Texas hometown. But he suffers from “the sickness,” which urges him to kill women and others who get in his way. Through Ford’s chilling first-person narration, Thompson takes us inside the mind of a serial killer.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2003). Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, this rich, sprawling novel centers on the life and legacy of an African American man who was also a slaveholder.
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope (1867). Trollope’s inimitable gift for combining the chatty and the epic found its greatest flowering in this, the sixth and final volume of his Barsetshire series.
The legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. These tales of medieval chivalry, romance, and high adventure composed primarily from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries feature a host of iconic characters: Sir Galahad, Lancelot, Mordred, Guinevere, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake.
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958). While liberal rebels roam the hills of Sicily, and rumors spread that Garibaldi’s army is poised for invasion, the old prince Don Fabrizio struggles to manage his vast and now threatened estates.
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001). The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks.