| Title | Author | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| A Modest Proposal | Jonathan Swift | With tongue firmly in cheek, Swift proposes an audacious solution to the starving Irish |
| A Passage to India | E. M. Forster | Explores the tensions between the British Raj and their Indian subjects. |
| Alices Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll | Who needs hallucinagenic drugs when you can read this childrens story? |
| Around the world in eighty days | Jules Verne | The premise is a gentlemanly wager. Centred around the eccentric punter and his valet. |
| As You Like It | William Shakespeare | I studied this play for my A levels 1973-1975 |
| Aspects of the Novel | E. M. Forster | A critical analysis of novel writing. |
| Cranford | Elizabeth Gaskell | I read this for my English course at college. |
| Emma | Jane Austen | Emma is a wicked match-maker. A most unlikeable main character. |
| Fanny Hill | John Cleland | An early erotic novel. Fanny uses her sexuality to her advantage and eventually marries. |
| Gulliver's Travels | Jonathan Swift | A hilarious political satire and a parody of travel writing and colonialism. |
| Hard Times | Charles Dickens | A novel set in the industrial north with typically two dimensional characters such as Mr Gradgrind. Ok if you like Dickens. |
| Heart of Darkness | Joseph Conrad | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| Hedda Gabler | Henrik Ibsen | A play about a cultured woman in a stifling middle class marriage. |
| Howards End | E. M. Forster | Set in early 1900s two cultured sisters have different approaches to life. |
| Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Jules Verne | Two men investigate the inner workings of the earth and are ejected via a volcanic chimney. Good reading for teenage boys. |
| King Lear | William Shakespeare | I studied this play for my A levels 1973-1975 |
| Lady Chatterleys Lover | D. H. Lawrence | A controversial novel that was initially banned in many countries. |
| Lord Jim | Joseph Conrad | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| Mansfield Park | Jane Austen | Not the most memorable of Jane Austen novels but still good. |
| Mary Barton | Elizabeth Gaskell | Working class strife 1840s |
| Moll Flanders | Daniel Defoe | Working girl escapes death and makes good. Whats not to like? |
| North and South | Elizabeth Gaskell | A story of comparisons and worker-manager relations. |
| Northanger Abbey | Jane Austen | Was this in the middle of a re-work? Two distinct approaches. |
| Nostromo | Joseph Conrad | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 and wrote my long study about time-shifts. |
| Persuasion | Jane Austen | One of the shorter Austen novels. |
| Poems and prose | Gerrard Manley Hopkins | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | The regency equivalent of a rom-com. With razor sharpe observations. |
| Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | You know the story but have you read the actual book? |
| Sense and Sensibility | Jane Austen | A novel tracing the betrothal of the sisters Elinor and Marianne. |
| Sons and Lovers | D. H. Lawrence | A semi-autobiographical account set in a Nottinghamshire mining village. |
| Tess of the DUrbervilles | Thomas Hardy | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The Book | Keith Houston | An absorbing account of the history of the book as a medium. An academic work with references. |
| The Canterbury Tales | Geoffrey Chaucer | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The complete English poems | John Donne | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The complete poems | John Keats | I studied this play for my A levels 1973-1975 |
| The complete poems | Andrew Marvell | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The Computing Universe | Tony Hey and Gyuri Papay | This is an academic work with extensive references covering a wide range of aspects of computing. |
| The Greek Myths: Complete Edition | Robert Graves | Treat this as a reference work as the text is very bitty. The story lines are very short. |
| The Group | Mary McCarthy | Novel about NY socialites in the late 1930s. Not a page-turner. |
| The Mayor of Castorbridge | Thomas Hardy | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The Odyssey | Homer | Odysseus returns from his voyage to his wife, Penelope, after ten years. |
| The Penguin poets | William Blake | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The Playboy of the Western World | J. M. Synge | A play about a man who murdered his mother. Set in Aran. |
| The Portrait of a Lady | Henry James | Isabel Archer and her aunt travel from America to Europe. |
| The Rainbow | D. H. Lawrence | A companion novel to Women in Love. The Brangwen farming family. |
| The Red Badge of Courage | Stephen Crane | Set in the American civil war. |
| The Secret Agent | Joseph Conrad | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| The Seven Pillars of Wisdom | T.E. Lawrence | Lawrence of Arabias own account of the Arab Revolt. A substantial work. |
| The Tempest | William Shakespeare | I studied this play for my A levels 1973-1975 |
| The Time Machine | H. G. Wells | Early science fiction. |
| The Two Gentlemen of Verona | William Shakespeare | I must have read this a long time ago. |
| Tom Jones | Henry Fielding | Tom Jones is the typical bad boy that the girls go for. Reveals the hyocritical morals of the period. |
| Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain | |
| Treasure Island | Robert Lewis Stevenson | A romping tale of piracy and contrasting characters. |
| Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea | Jules Verne | Early science fiction about Captain Nemo and his submarine encounters. |
| Ulysses | James Joyce | Famously unreadable... until he wrote Finnegans Wake that is. |
| Where Angels Fear to Tread | E. M. Forster | I studied this for my English degree 1976-1979 |
| Women in Love | D. H. Lawrence | A companion novel to The Rainbow. The Brangwen farming family. Ursula and Gudrun. |