30 Books to Read Before You Die (Pt. 6)

As we make our way through the further parts of this series, you may see some of the books becoming more and more obscure. If you haven't checked out the previous section (which is ripe with 19th-century European stuff!) then click here to do so.

My lists, if you're new here, always consist of some old and some new fictions. Since this is a list strictly dedicated to books, you won't really see many plays on here (though if you read my previous sections, I can't promise anything! My Ancient Greek play love came through and almost desecrated one of the sections!). I hope you can understand that though I don't want to put many plays on the lists, there will be some special ones occasionally.

Now, just to revise how these lists work. I'll talk about some intermittently and the ones that are my personal favourites will have a (*) next to them. Sometimes, they will have both an explanation/anecdote and a (*), and those are probably the ones I love the most and have the fondest memories of. I will never ever put a book on the list that I haven't already read, and if you think of anything that hasn't been on the lists yet that you'd love to recommend to me to read, then my social media handles are in my bio.

Let us get on with the list, and I hope you enjoy the next thirty books you are about to read about:

151-160

151. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

152. The Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst

153. Debacle by Emile Zola*

154. English Hours by Henry James*

155. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

156. 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' by Mark Twain

I remember taking this book to London with me when I went on a trip, I must have been around 18 or 19 years old. This book was recommended to me by a website (which I rarely do get recommendations from since they are mainly so surface layer!). This book caught my attention because one of my favourite children's books is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,and obviously, they're by the same author. I didn't actually read the blurb or summary before I bought it because it was going so cheaply online. I bought it and then got stuck in it. It was hilariously funny and I loved the fact that it mixed the old and the new by taking the "Yankee" back to the times of the grail legends. Also, because I was reading grail legends around that time, I was pleasantly surprised!

157. Tarantula by Bob Dylan*

158. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

159. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

160. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

161-170

161. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

162. The Shining by Stephen King

163. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

164. 'The Reader' by Bernard Schlink

I was actually made to read this whilst I was in school. Here's what happened: I was in sixth form and I was most probably in my first year because I remember my teacher changed after that. Our teacher gave us all a book to find from the library, it was written on a piece of paper. I had The Reader by Bernard Schlink. So I went to look it up after class, and no offence, it looked boring as hell. I already hated school and I didn't want to hate it even more. I ended up reading it just because I had to—but I also ended up really enjoying it. The language was amazing and the book was really beautifully written. It thoroughly surprised me, and I have actually read it since! Moral of the story? It doesn't matter if you hate school, sometimes the teacher has some good book recommendations (even if she is a little drunk).

165. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

166. The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan

167. The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald*

168. Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

169. 'A Rebours' by J.K. Huysmans

Have you ever found one book because of another book? Well, this was the case for me. I was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray for the 20000000th (exaggerated) time and I wanted to know what the yellow book was that Dorian was so interested in. I then did some research on it and found out that some people thought it was A Rebours (Against Nature) by JK Huysmans, and so I read that book as well.

I can tell you now that you should definitely read The Picture of Dorian Gray before you read A Rebours because then you'll really get the connection that I had.

170. The Constant Gardener by John Le Carré*

171-180

171. The 39 Steps by John Buchan

172. Why Are We Artists? by Jessica Lack

173. Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson

174. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

175. Just an Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson*

176. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson*

177. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

178. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

179. The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield

180. The Night Manager by John Le Carré