everything is illuminated.
For me it was The Crucible— I bitterly trudged through it in high school. But rereading Arthur Miller’s play a few years ago, as civil rights for gay Americans began demanding the national spotlight, something resonated for me in his story of the Salem witch hunts (an allegory on the 1950’s finger-pointing about communism, as Miller himself experienced the era’s rampant McCarthyism firsthand). I didn’t read The Catcher in the Rye until I was 23. I felt regret at Holden Caulfield’s inability to swallow even some of his idealism and face the harsh realities of the “real” world, and a sadness that I had. There was a kinship that a teenaged me trapped in suburban hell might have formed with the character, but didn’t have that opportunity.
Buzzfeed author Doree Shafrir and company have compiled a list of exactly those sort of treasures, stories that shine even brighter from the vantage point of (some) maturity. “Even if you read them in high school or college,” she advises, “you’ll have a different perspective on them now that you’re Out In The World. (Trust me.)” Of course, I’d love to be a pretentious schmuck and point out all of the poignant literature I have on my own bookshelf and call them glaring omissions (especially authors like Jeanette Winterson, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jeffrey Eugenides, uh hello). But the issue is really just that Shafrir et al. have made me feel insecure in my status as the “well read one.” I’ve cracked less than ten of those books and that bums me out. I consume so much media. How can I devour all of the amazing words and phrases, lyrics and melodies, stage and screen, that exist and still have time to work and earn enough to survive? It’d give ol’ Holden an absolute anxiety attack.
It’s with a heavy-heart, Internet, that I admit that I haven’t tackled a lot of these classics. Though I’ve enjoyed a quite a few of these titles, when it comes to Plath, Kerouac, and many of their contemporaries, I’m just not as cultured as I thought I was. Check out the list, below, and see how you measure up. Or invest in Amazon Prime and start shopping. — Casandra Armour
1. The Emperor’s Children- Claire Messud
2. What She Saw…- Lucinda Rosenfeld
3. The Deptford Trilogy- Robertson Davies
4. The Secret History- Donna Tartt
5. Giovanni’s Room- James Baldwin
6. A Visit from the Goon Squad- Jennifer Egan
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Díaz
8. Lucy- Jamaica Kincaid
9. The Moviegoer- Walker Percy
10. White Teeth- Zadie Smith
11. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay- Michael Chabon
12. Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
13. Bright Lights, Big City- Jay McInerney
14. The Namesake- Jhumpa Lahiri
15. Call Me by Your Name- André Aciman
16. The Rachel Papers- Martin Amis
17. Song of Solomon-Toni Morrison
18. The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
19. Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
20. A Home at the End of the World- Michael Cunningham
21. The Sandman Series- Neil Gaiman
22. The Group- Mary McCarthy
23. Quicksand and Passing- Nella Larsen
24. Pastoralia- George Saunders
25. Ready Player One- Ernest Cline
26. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius- Dave Eggers
27. The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath
28. Main Street- Sinclair Lewis
30. Generation X- Douglas Coupland
31. The Fortress of Solitude- Jonathan Lethem
32. Housekeeping- Marilynne Robinson
33. I Love Dick- Chris Kraus
34. On the Road- Jack Kerouac
35. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues- Tom Robbins
36. Hard-Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World- Haruki Murakami
37. Bossypants- Tina Fey
38. Kitchen Confidential- Anthony Bourdain
39. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People- Toby Young
40. The Dirt- Mötley Crüe and Neil Strauss
41. Lunar Park- Bret Easton Ellis
42. Just Kids- Patti Smith
43. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City- Nick Flynn
44. Oh the Glory of it All- Sean Wilsey
45. I Don’t Care About Your Band- Julie Klausner
46. Wild- Cheryl Strayed
47. Lit- Mary Karr
48. I’m with the Band- Pamela Des Barres
49. Dear Diary- Lesley Arfin
50. The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton
51. Actual Air- David Berman
52. The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch
53. Alien vs. Predator- Michael Robbins
54. The Collected Poems of Audre Lord
55. Me Talk Pretty One Day- David Sedaris
56. How to Be a Woman- Caitlin Moran
57. My Misspent Youth- Meghan Daum
58. Slouching Towards Bethlehem- Joan Didion
59. Up in the Old Hotel- Joseph Mitchell
60. How to Cook Everything- Mark Bittman
61. How’s Your Drink?- Eric Felten
62. The Elements of Style- Strunk & White
63. Letters to a Young Contrarian- Christopher Hitchens
64. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain- Betty Edwards
65. He’s Just Not That Into You- Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo
