Skip to main content

New Lifetime Reading Plan by Fadiman and Major

Description: This list is based on The New Lifetime Reading Plan (1998) by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major. It does not include the "Going Further" recommendations.

1 2 3

Rank Title Author Added

1

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

43,312 members

520 reviews

3.9

5 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

2

Pride and Prejudice

81,278 members

1,372 reviews

½ 4.4

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

3

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

27,376 members

482 reviews

4

5 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

4

by George Orwell

82,512 members

1,276 reviews

4.2

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

5

38,288 members

506 reviews

4.1

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

6

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

by Lewis Carroll

7,894 members

127 reviews

4

5 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

7

by George Orwell

60,467 members

892 reviews

4

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

8

by Charlotte Brontë

59,431 members

924 reviews

4.2

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

9

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

52,380 members

709 reviews

3.9

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

10

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

36,836 members

375 reviews

½ 3.4

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

11

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

38,743 members

440 reviews

3.9

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

12

A Passage to India

by E. M. Forster

12,529 members

142 reviews

3.8

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

13

One Hundred Years of Solitude

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44,661 members

699 reviews

4.2

3 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB

14

by William Makepeace Thackeray

14,784 members

193 reviews

3.9

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

15

Gulliver's Travels

by Jonathan Swift

17,949 members

170 reviews

½ 3.7

4 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

16

The Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

22,120 members

169 reviews

½ 3.7

3 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ManWithAnAgenda

17

The House of Mirth

by Edith Wharton

9,759 members

204 reviews

4

3 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB

18

The Age of Innocence

by Edith Wharton

13,999 members

302 reviews

4

3 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, NinieB

19

The Mayor of Casterbridge

by Thomas Hardy

8,348 members

114 reviews

3.9

3 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

20

The Epic of Gilgamesh

by Gilgamesh Poet

9,943 members

120 reviews

3.8

3 Members: merrystar, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

21

Long Day's Journey into Night

by Eugene O'Neill

3,506 members

38 reviews

4.1

3 Members: hipdeep, ahef1963, NinieB

22

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

54,233 members

774 reviews

3.9

3 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, ManWithAnAgenda

23

Collected Poems, 1909–1962

3,066 members

23 reviews

½ 4.4

3 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ManWithAnAgenda

24

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe

23,389 members

323 reviews

½ 3.6

3 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

25

by Albert Camus

18,615 members

249 reviews

4

3 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

26

Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

by Samuel Beckett

13,016 members

161 reviews

3.9

3 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, ManWithAnAgenda

27

by Henry Fielding

8,175 members

95 reviews

3.9

3 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

28

by Anthony Trollope

4,392 members

131 reviews

3.8

3 Members: ahef1963, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

29

40,290 members

386 reviews

4

3 Members: hipdeep, merrystar, NinieB

30

by Albert Camus

35,704 members

510 reviews

3.9

3 Members: merrystar, ahef1963, ManWithAnAgenda

31

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare

31,923 members

170 reviews

½ 4.6

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

32

To the Lighthouse

by Virginia Woolf

17,710 members

271 reviews

3.9

2 Members: merrystar, ManWithAnAgenda

33

The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

8,767 members

119 reviews

3.8

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

34

by Gustave Flaubert

26,375 members

390 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: ahef1963, NinieB

35

23,100 members

199 reviews

3.9

Member: merrystar

36

by George Eliot

17,836 members

331 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

37

Collected Poems

3,555 members

26 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: hipdeep

38

David Copperfield

by Charles Dickens

21,184 members

282 reviews

4.1

2 Members: ahef1963, NinieB

39

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

30,703 members

453 reviews

4.1

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

40

by Charles Dickens

10,627 members

134 reviews

½ 3.5

2 Members: ahef1963, NinieB

41

Antigone / Oedipus Rex / Oedipus at Colonus

13,279 members

51 reviews

4

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

42

Mourning Becomes Electra

by Eugene O'Neill

353 members

2 reviews

3.8

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

43

1,433 members

19 reviews

4

2 Members: ahef1963, NinieB

44

by Niccolò Machiavelli

23,816 members

255 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

45

by Henrik Ibsen

5,425 members

91 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: merrystar, ManWithAnAgenda

46

The Complete Stories (Everyman's Library)

by Edgar Allan Poe

632 members

2 reviews

4.2

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

47

53,534 members

476 reviews

4

2 Members: hipdeep, merrystar

48

The Last Chronicle of Barset

by Anthony Trollope

1,812 members

48 reviews

½ 4.3

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

49

The Eustace Diamonds

by Anthony Trollope

1,985 members

40 reviews

3.9

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda

50

Complete Poetry and Selected Prose (Riverside Editions)

by Walt Whitman

299 members

3.8

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

51

The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne

1,088 members

4 reviews

½ 4.4

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

52

The Poetry of Robert Frost

by Robert Frost

5,212 members

18 reviews

4.2

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

53

6,573 members

71 reviews

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

54

23,306 members

254 reviews

3.8

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

55

Orlando: A Biography

by Virginia Woolf

10,683 members

174 reviews

3.9

2 Members: hipdeep, ManWithAnAgenda

56

by Virginia Woolf

20,819 members

332 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

57

by George Orwell

3,737 members

76 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

58

The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats

263 members

4.1

Member: hipdeep

59

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

20,829 members

435 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

60

The Complete Plays of T.S. Eliot

69 members

1 review

½ 4.7

Member: hipdeep

61

by Vladimir Nabokov

31,866 members

565 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

62

The Iceman Cometh

by Eugene O'Neill

1,405 members

10 reviews

3.9

Member: hipdeep

63

Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

by Emily Dickinson

3,684 members

21 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

64

The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

21,932 members

188 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

65

The Meditations

by Marcus Aurelius

14,879 members

154 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

66

by Herman Melville

35,696 members

545 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

67

by Aristophanes

2,927 members

41 reviews

3.8

Member: hipdeep

68

The Tale of Genji

by Shikibu Murasaki

5,548 members

53 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

69

The Cherry Orchard

by Anton Chekhov

1,602 members

30 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: hipdeep

70

20,016 members

238 reviews

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

71

Nicomachean Ethics

10,201 members

58 reviews

3.9

Member: hipdeep

72

Hawthorne's Short Stories

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

465 members

1 review

½ 4.3

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

73

20,681 members

310 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

74

5,798 members

41 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: hipdeep

75

The Red and the Black

9,562 members

136 reviews

3.8

Member: NinieB

76

The Pickwick Papers

by Charles Dickens

9,120 members

131 reviews

3.9

Member: NinieB

77

The Old Curiosity Shop

by Charles Dickens

5,734 members

73 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: NinieB

78

by Charles Dickens

5,638 members

89 reviews

4

Member: NinieB

79

Eugénie Grandet

by Honoré de Balzac

3,456 members

62 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: NinieB

80

The Way We Live Now

by Anthony Trollope

2,872 members

58 reviews

4.2

Member: NinieB

81

Arms and the Man

by George Bernard Shaw

1,099 members

18 reviews

3.8

Member: hipdeep

82

431 members

13 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: NinieB

83

The Essays: A Selection

by Michel de Montaigne

1,252 members

10 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

84

The Subjection of Women

by John Stuart Mill

974 members

12 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

85

Selected Poetry and Prose of Coleridge

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

280 members

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

86

10,138 members

85 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

87

Collected Poems

1,512 members

13 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: hipdeep

88

22,090 members

142 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

89

by Thomas Hobbes

8,307 members

45 reviews

½ 3.6

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

90

by Henrik Ibsen

1,584 members

23 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: merrystar

91

Essays and Lectures

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

1,004 members

2 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

92

Crime and Punishment

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

44,488 members

496 reviews

4.2

Member: ahef1963

93

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street

by Herman Melville

2,895 members

100 reviews

3.9

Member: merrystar

94

by George Bernard Shaw

1,179 members

12 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: hipdeep

95

The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

702 members

2 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

96

5,102 members

51 reviews

3.8

Member: hipdeep

97

Medea [in Translation]

2,935 members

50 reviews

3.8

Member: merrystar

98

Civil Disobedience

by Henry David Thoreau

1,595 members

30 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

99

Anton Chekhov: Selected Stories (Classic Club edition)

by Anton Chekhov

187 members

4.2

Member: hipdeep

100

by Jorge Luis Borges

6,886 members

84 reviews

½ 4.4

Member: merrystar

1 2 3

About This List

Started: NinieB
August 2023
Type: Numbered and unnumbered, Adding restricted

Related Lists

Greatest Books, allegedly

100 books that changed the world

The Art of Manliness' 100+ Books Every Man Should Read

1964 College Preparatory Reading List

The Well-Educated Mind Reading Challenge

Books I recommend to be read

Literary Classics To Read (pre 1900)

The Telegraph's 110 Best Books: The Perfect Library

Current Discussions

None

Related Tags

19th century (17,255) 20th century (8,419) American literature (6,452) British (8,725) British literature (9,730) classic (48,205) classics (60,412) drama (11,341) dystopia (7,178) England (7,771) English literature (11,606) fiction (153,537) history (10,765) literature (46,212) non-fiction (13,794) novel (29,560) philosophy (35,577) poetry (23,633) politics (8,095) read (16,608) romance (7,970) Russian literature (6,324) science fiction (8,082) to-read (66,704) unread (8,023)

Verdana Standard Verdana Small The Lorax System Standard System Large Georgia Large Text Atkinson

This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.