Abe,  Kobo (Japan)
The Woman in the Dunes
In this hauntingly beautiful tale, Niki Jumpei, a scientist in search of a rare beetle, stumbles upon a strange village where the inhabitants live in sandpits, and becomes imprisoned with an outcast widow.
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Allende,  Isabel (Chile)
The House of Sprits
The dramatic, turbulent history of Latin America told through four generations of the Trueba family up until the 1973 assassination of Chilean president Allende, the author's uncle.
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Atwood,  Margaret (Canada)
The Handmaid's Tale
In this disturbing dystopian vision, subjugated "handmaid" Offred tries to escape from the totalitarian misogynistic Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States.
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de Balzac,  Honore (France)
Cousin Bette
Secrets, betrayal, and vengeance converge in this suspenseful story in which sweet and venomous Cousin Bette quietly manipulates the wealthy relatives who abuse and underestimate her.
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Bulgakov,  Mikhail (Russia)
The Master and Margarita
In this delightful, dreamlike satire, banned for 30 years, the Devil and his talking cat come to Stalinist Moscow to strike a Faustian bargain, while Pilate tries to wash his hands of the matter.
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Colette,   (France)
The Claudine Novels
Claudine lives life to the hilt and candidly relates her indulgent exploration of love, lust, intellect in 19th century Paris.
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Davies,  Robertson (Canada)
The Fifth Business
Dunstan Ramsay recounts his life and the one moment in the past that has linked him forever to the fates of his friend and enemy, Boy Staunton, the village trollop, Mrs. Dempsey, and her magician son.
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Cervantes,  Miguel Saavedra de (Spain)
Don Quixote
After reading one too many adventures, Don Quixote ventures forth on a swaybacked mare with his faithful squire Sancho, to fight for the honor of an unattainable damsel, in a land that's forgotten how to dream.
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Dinesen,  Isak (Denmark)
Seven Gothic Tales
In these dreamlike fantasies, Dinesen spins an eerie web in which lost lovers, vengeful ghosts and longing libertines shake at the passions that bind them, only to waken some dark menace.
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Dostoyevsky,  Fyodor (Russia)
The Brothers Karamozov
When wicked and debauched landowner Fyodor Karamozov is murdered, his three radically different sons each seek and find where guilt lies. This epic saga of evil and redemption is a profound and gripping read.
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Dumas,  Alexandre (France)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dante, separated from his beloved fiancé, betrayed by his friend, and unjustly imprisoned for 15 years, returns from exile to exact magnificent revenge at the point of a sword.
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Flaubert,  Gustave (France)
Madame Bovary
Frenchwoman Emma Rouault indulges in a scandalous and desperate affair to escape her confining provincial life and dreary marriage, seeking the romance she has read about in books - but not books like this one!
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Franklin,  Miles (Australia)
My Brilliant Career
Sybylla Melvyn, a passionate and rebellious young woman growing up in the Australian Outback in the 1890's, relates her offbeat life during a time of social expectations and political upheaval.
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Gogol,  Nikolai Vasilevich (Russia)
Dead Souls
In this wry dark comedy, a newcomer to an unnamed Russian village hatches an unusual plan to better his station in life by purchasing the souls of dead peasants.
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Grass,  Gunter (Germany)
The Tin Drum
Oskar Matzerath, a boy who chooses to remain a child physically and renounce the madness of the adult world, provides a distinctly different view of the rise of Nazi Germany.
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Hugo,  Victor (France)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Half-man and half-gargoyle, Quasimodo falls hard for the beguiling Esmerelda; but in a world as cruel and ugly as medieval Paris, will she sense the bell-ringer's beautiful soul?
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Kawabata,  Yasunari (Japan)
A Thousand Cranes
In this sensual and poetic story of memory and desire, Kikuji attends a tea ceremony where he has been unwittingly set up to meet a prospective bride.
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Kazantzakis,  Nikos (Greece)
The Last Temptation of Christ
In this intensely thought-provoking and controversial retelling of the Gospels, Jesus Christ walks the earth much like other men, and his crucifixion is far from the end of the story.
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Mahfouz,  Naguib (Egypt)
Palace Walk
Set in post-WWI Egypt, this first installment of the sweeping Cairo Trilogy introduces wealthy merchant Ahmad Abd al-Jawad who imprisons the women in his family while he indulges in Cairo's seedy nightlife.
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Mann,  Thomas (Germany)
The Magic Mountain
Hans Castorp's convalescence in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients mirrors the disintegration and decay of a Europe teetering on the brink of war.
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Mishima,  Yukio (Japan)
Spring Snow
In turn-of-the-century Tokyo, love and death unite as Satoko falls in love with a young man from an elite provincial family, despite her betrothal to an imperial prince.
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Nabokov,  Vladimir (Russia and America)
Lolita
This is the notorious tale of Humbert Humbert's obsessive love for his wife's pre-adolescent daughter, and the destruction brought about by his extravagant and doomed desire.
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Paton,  Alan (South Africa)
Cry, the Beloved Country
When his son is accused of murdering a white man, a Zulu minister travels from rural South Africa to Johannesburg on a nearly hopeless quest to save him, or his soul.
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Pasternak,  Boris (Russia)
Doctor Zhivago
In this sweeping epic of the Russian people, physician and poet Zhivago is orphaned young, marries his caretaker's daughter, and then falls passionately and tragically in love with the enigmatic Lara.
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Proust,  Marcel (France)
Swann's Way
In this lush novel of reverie and reflection - first in a cycle of six - the writer looks back on his childhood in 19th century France, and recounts Swann's passionate affair with the elusive Odette.
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Remarque,  Erich Maria (Germany)
All Quiet on the Western Front
The tests and horrors of war are told with raw intensity from the perspective of a group of German boys struggling for survival in the trenches during the Great War.
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Rushdie,  Salman (India)
Midnight's Children
Saleem's varied and surreal journey through life also depicts the cataclysmic birth and coming-of-age of modern India.
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Stendhal,   (France)
The Red and the Black
Julien Sorel idolizes and attempts to emulate the lost leader Napoleon in his ruthless search for wealth, power, and love - a quest that brings him to the brink of disaster.
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Tolstoy,  Leo (Russia)
Anna Karenina
In this tour-de-force of 19th century Russian manners and society, Anna risks everything for the great passion of her life, the dashing Count Vronsky.
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Undset,  Sigrid (Norway)
Kristin Lavransdatter
The first in an enchanting trilogy set in 14th century Norway, young and beautiful Kristin marries Erland, the man of her dreams, whose love does not equal her own.
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