100 books like Dubliners

This was a fellow who tried to do everything right, and yet, in the end, his whole worldly life seemed to go wrong. A senator, a scholar, and an advisor to a king, he found himself trapped in the usual sort of political machinations, and so was sentenced to death. He wrote this book while awaiting his execution. Lady Philosophy speaks to him, and he learns how his character matters more than his circumstances. 

“By Love are peoples too kept bound together by a treaty which they may not break. Love binds with pure affection the sacred ties of wedlock, and speaks its bidding to all trusty friends. O happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled as is the Universe, by Love!"

This is the most recent translation of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, at the time of writing but I’m mainly including it because of Robin Waterfield’s very thorough annotations, which are invaluable when it comes to understanding some of the more obscure passages. They provide historical and philosophical context that’s otherwise missing and make it much easier to appreciate what Marcus was trying to say.

I am cheating a bit here since this was never a complete work, but a set of notes that Pascal was using for a far greater text. It confuses some people to hear that one of the greatest scientific and mathematical minds of his age was also a devout Christian, but that should not trouble someone with an open mind and an open heart. His intention was to show that there is a gaping hole inside of all of us, and that no diversion can ever fill it, except for a desire to know and to love what is Absolute. 

“All of humanity's problems stem from a man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Georgia-born Flannery O’Connor gifted the world with dozens of stories, which can be read individually or collectively.

Set on farms, in small towns, and off-the-beaten path, she colorfully explores both people and places, inviting readers along to do the same. Some stories are folksy, some are humorous, and some are dark, but one thread is constant: her highly individualized style is built on strong literary conventions.  

I guess that this book doesn’t really count, as Duras was born and grew up in Vietnam; a Frenchwoman in Indochina, she wasn’t living abroad.

Her portrayal of her own coming of age and sexual awakening (still rather controversial to many) illuminates not only the way colonial society was structured but also larger themes of love and loss.

It was one of the first things I read before moving to Laos, and her voice, singular and astonishing, has never left me. 

A controversial play because of its end. Nora Helmer is the main character, a Norwegian married woman, wife of a bank manager, and a mother of three. Her life elapses day after day without opportunities for self-fulfillment in the last decades of the 19th century. I can’t say this female character is a feminist for its time, because she lives in a world full of laws made by men; so, in this sense she is like a doll, a superficial and wasteful person, and she changes slowly from act to act; she feels empty, she contemplates killing herself and at the end of the play Nora leaves her husband and family trying to escape from a stifling male-dominated society. Although this play was not intended written as a feminist, it has a great historical value in this field. If after reading you try to imagine what kind of life… show more.

Elfriede Jelinek has many anti-heroines in novels and plays, but I pick Erika Kohut, a repressed Austrian piano teacher who in her late thirties is still living under the power of her stifling elderly mother. Vienna, the city of music and great composers like Franz Schubert, is seen not only through the Vienna Conservatory but inside peep-shops that Erika frequently visits to escape from her mother. Although she is a masochist and self-mutilates, she begins a relationship with Walter, a new student, and gives him the instructions through an atypical letter. Jelinek's work makes me feel many things, not only due to her stories and characters but also the depth of her writing! The importance of her voices in novels and plays is extraordinary, her prose is satirical and very critical. She looks at their characters psychologically, from the deep of human behavior.

I remember an awards ceremony where Bjork described herself as “a musical scientist.” Most likely accepting some well-deserved award, she spoke in this odd sing-song way that made her seem genuinely like a mad scientist.

I think Olga Tokarczuk is a bit like Bjork. Her voice is utterly unique, with a texture and humor perfectly suited to this book's marvelous protagonist. I loved Janina Dusezjko, a cranky old Polish woman wandering the hills of her village trying to solve a mystery. I could have listened to her for the whole book even if there was no mystery, so the unraveling felt like an added bonus! 

Unfortunately, Toni Morrison’s first major novel The Bluest Eye has long been targeted on banned book lists, which is unfortunate.

Told through the narration of Claudia - a Black girl character after my own heart with the same on-point, justifiably defiant thinking I had as a young girl, we get the story of Pecola and a community that is shaped by both the history of white supremacy and it’s own cultural richness and texture.

Morrison’s writing is so visual and visceral, and the storytelling so honest it spoke to my own war against Black girl invisibility in my own world. I’ve read it many times, and it still emotionally shakes me as so much memorable writing and stories tend to do.

And like other books by this Nobel Prize winner author, The Bluest Eye should be required reading for advanced grade high school students rather than banned. 

First, I found the writing in this book phenomenal, especially the dialogue. I feel like each bit of dialogue revealed something new about the character or pulled me deeper into the plot. It’s witty and dark. Honest would be a good word to describe it.

The characters felt so human to me–simultaneously loveable and deplorable, true to human nature. But it was the twist midway through the novel that really drew me in—the shift in reality. It changed the book for me, molding it into something unique, something I’d never read before.

It’s a novel I come back to time and time again, especially when I need inspiration.