Bookshelf

The list below contains books I consider significant. It is a selection, not a complete collection. I omit obvious important works like Plato or Homer that should be in any home library. But since literature is voluminous enough that even the best classics are routinely overlooked, I select some here for emphasis.

• The most valuable book is the one you read twice.
• You should start many books and complete few.
• You should buy books on a whim. Your home library should act like one: you should not know its entire contents, you should discover and rediscover within it.
• You should prune without mercy.

I have written some times about reading, especially: Reading Well and Audiobooks Are Books and They’re Also Practice

Literature

• I Served the King of England - Bohumil Hrabal
  See influences pt. 1.
• Too Loud a Solitude - Bohumil Hrabal
• Closely Watched Trains - Bohumil Hrabal
• Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino
  While excellent, its best if you read other Calvino first
• Numbers in the Dark - Italo Calvino
• Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov
  His most accessible work.
• The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov - Vladimir Nabokov
• Ada, or Ardor - Vladimir Nabokov
  His best work.
• No One Writes to the Colonel - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  I think he considered this is best work.
• Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  Almost everything Marquez is excellent, including this book, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Of Love and other Demons, and his autobiography.
• The Post-Office Girl - Stefan Zweig
  Possibly Zweig's best fiction.
• Seven Japanese Tales - Junichiro Tanizaki
• Silas Marner - George Eliot
  A perfect book. Close to a fairy tale.
• Middlemarch - George Eliot
• Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
• Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
  His best work. I prefer the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation, or else the Maude translation. However the audiobook narrated by Maggie Gyllenhaal is so good that one can excuse the Constance Garnett translation.
• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
• The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
  Read, watch the 1963 movie, and then read it again.
• The Professor and the Siren - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
• The Wounded Age and Eastern Tales - Ferit Edgü
• Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
  The audiobook performed by Jeremy Irons is so good that you might consider listening instead.
• Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
  James' best work. Though Daisy Miller is much shorter and almost as good. The American and The Bostonians are also good, but for different reasons.

Tales

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - translation by Simon Armitage
  I strongly recommend the audiobook
• Italian Folktales - Italo Calvino
  I have read many collections of tales, and this is a favorite.
• Works and Days / Theogony - Hesiod
  As important as Homer. I recall disliking the M. L. West (Oxford World's Classics) translation. I have an annotated copy of Works and Days on this site.
• Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages - Harold Bloom

History

• The Merchant of Prato - Iris Origo
• Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 - Eugen Weber
• The Origins of Political Order - Francis Fukuyama
  From a political perspective, if you only ever read a single "broad" history book, read this. But from a cultural perspective, read Will Durant.
• An American Childhood - Annie Dillard
• Seeing Like a State - James Scott
• Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States - James Scott
• Sexual Personae - Camille Paglia
• The World of Yesterday - Stefan Zweig
• Memoirs from Beyond the Grave - François-René de Chateaubriand
  'The World of Yesterday', 100 years earlier.
• Reflections on the Revolution in France - Edmund Burke
• The Renaissance: The Story of Civilization, Volume V - Will Durant
  Durant's whole series is good, and the audiobook versions are worthwhile. Consider them more as a jumping off point, a way to scout for what you want to read in depth. If you read only one, I suggest The Renaissance or The Life of Greece.

Biographies

• Napoleon: A Life - Andrew Roberts
• Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination - Neal Gabler
• Caesar: Life of a Colossus - Adrian Goldsworthy
  Reasonably good, but on the fence for this list.

Design

• The Timeless Way of Building - Christopher Alexander
  For my discussion, see the article series Designing a New Old Home.
• Get Your House Right - Marianne Cusato
• Drawing for Architecture - Leon Krier
• In Praise of Shadows - Junichiro Tanizaki
  The link is to my copy on this website.
• Gardens Are For People - Thomas Church

Photography

• 100 Studies of the Figure - John Rawlings
  1951. With Evelyn Frey
• The Photographer and His Model - John Rawlings
  1966. With Betty Biehn. These are fine art nudes with one model, but Rawlings shot over 200 covers for Vogue and Glamour. You may also want to consider the much more recently published 'John Rawlings: 30 Years in Vogue'.

Food

• An Everlasting Meal - Tamar Adler
  "A Pattern Language" for food. A book about how to think about cooking and eating.
• The Measure of Her Powers: An M. F. K. Fisher Reader - M. F. K. Fisher
  Famous for her food writing, I actually think she is one of the century's better erotic writers. The audiobook is very good.
• Old World Italian - Mimi Thorisson
  Every Mimi Thorisson cookbook is a good balance of simple and satisfying. The photography, shot by her husband, is nice too.