A Too-Brief, Incomplete, Unalphabetized List of Must-Read that You Might Not Have Been Taught or Otherwise Made to Read Novels and Short Story Collections Written in the 20th and 21st Centuries Saul Bellow: Henderson the Rain King, Humboldt’s Gift, The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog Grace Paley: Collected Stories Flannery O’Conner: Collected Stories (especially the story from A Good Man is Hard to Find) Evan Connell: Mrs. Bridge, Mr. Bridge Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita, Pale Fire Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man Mary McCarthy: The Group, The Company She Keeps Nathanael West: Miss Lonelyhearts, The Day of the Locust Eudora Welty: Collected Stories Tess Slesinger: The Unpossessed Dagoberto Gilb: The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna Don DeLillo: End Zone, White Noise, Underworld Cormac McCarthy: Suttree, All the Pretty Horses, The Road, Blood Meridian Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, The Comforters, Aiding and Abetting Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go, The Unconsoled Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God Donald Barthelme: Sixty Stories, Forty Stories Thomas Pynchon: V, Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow Padgett Powell: Edisto, Edisto Revisited, Aliens of Affection Barry Hannah: Airships Steven Millhauser: Edwin Mullhouse, Martin Dressler Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist Heidi Julavits: The Effects of Looking Backwards John Cheever: The Stories of John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle Judy Budnitz: Nice Big American Baby, Flying Leap Lee K. Abbott: Love is the Crooked Thing Angela Carter: The Company of Wolves Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep Elizabeth McCracken: The Giant’s House James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket (essays) Elizabeth Hardwick: American Fictions (essays) Lionel Trilling: The Liberal Imagination (essays) Charles Baxter: Burning Down the House (essays) Walker Percy: The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins William Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom; Light in August; As I Lay Dying; Sound and the Fury Willa Cather: My Antonia David Gates: Jernigan Paul Beatty: Slumberland William Kennedy: Ironweed, Very Old Bones E.L. Doctorow: Book of Daniel, Ragtime Joanna Scott: The Manikin, Various Antidotes Lorrie Moore: Self Help, Birds of America Antonya Nelson: Female Trouble Jonathan Ames: Wake Up, Sir Wolf Whistle: Lewis Nordan The Dogs of March: Ernest Hebert Project X: Jim Shepard The Good Soldier: Ford Maddox Ford W.E.B. Dubois: The Souls of Black Folk Ishmael Reed: Mumbo Jumbo Willful Creatures: Aimee Bender Chris Bachedler: U.S.! Iris Murdoch: The Black Prince Bastard out of Carolina: Dorothy Allison George Singleton: Half Mammals of Dixie Keith Lee Morris: The Dart League King Alix Ohlin: Babylon Denis Johnson: Jesus’ Son Shirley Jackson: We Have Always Lived in the Castle Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Richard Russo: The Risk Pool, Nobody’s Fool Donald Antrim: The Hundred Brothers Russell Banks: Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter Margot Livesey: Criminals Michael Griffith: Trophy Sarah Shun-lien Bynum: Hempel Chronicles Tom Drury: Black Brook Frederick Exley: A Fan’s Notes - compiled by Brock Clarke, author and English Professor at Bowdoin College .