Cultural Literacy

As I promised in class, what follows are a list of books (and films) that, in my humble opinion, every college student should read/see. These texts have constructed a great deal of the syntagms and paradigms from which our culture is constructed. Each of these works has had some impact on me. I hope that at least one of them is an epiphany for you.

Books (this list is in no particular order....I apologize for any typos.)

1. 1984 George Orwell
2. The Wizard of Oz L. Frank Baum (don't get the novelization of the film, get the real thing.)
3. Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
4. Stranger in a Strange Land Robert Heinlein
5. Moby Dick Herman Melville
6. Heart of Darkness Robert Conrad
7. Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut
8. Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut
9. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
10. Maus I and II Art Spiegleman
11. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson
12. On the Road Jack Kerouac
13. Walden Henry David Thoreau
14. I, Robot Isaac Asimov
15. Brave New World Aldous Huxley
16. The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
17. The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
18. Ulysses James Joyce
19. Works and Days Hesiod
20. Thus Spake Zarathustra Nietzsche
21. Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand
22. A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf
23. Dracula Bram Stoker
24. The Prince Nicco Machiavelli
25. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
26. The Same River Twice Chris Offutt
27. Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll
28. Andromeda Strain Michael Crichton
29. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
30. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Tom Wolfe
31. Dispatches Michael Herr
32. A Canticle for Leibowitz William M. Miller, Jr.
33. Lord of the Flies William Golding
34. Paradise Lost Milton
35. Songs of Distant Earth Arthur C. Clarke
36. To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
37. Relativity Albert Einstein
38. Soul on Ice Eldridge Cleaver
39. How To Talk Dirty and Influence People Lenny Bruce
40. Watership Down Richard Adams
41. Dune Frank Herbert
42. Altered States Paddy Chayefski
43. A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
44. Hiroshima John Hersey
45. Women of Brewster Place Gloria Naylor
46. A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking
47. Analects Confucius
48. Madness and Civilization Michele Foucault
49. Leviathan Hobbes
50. Democracy in America Alexis de Tocqueville
51. Illness as Metaphor Susan Sontag
52. Chance and Circumstance Baskir & Strauss
53. Film-Flam! James Randi
54. Freedom of Speech in the United States Thomas Tedford
55. Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes Neil Gaiman
56. The Stand Stephen King
57. Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
58. The Illuminatus! Trilogy Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
59. God Knows Joseph Heller
60. Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
61. A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemmingway
62. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austin
63. Of Human Bondage W. Somerset Maughm
64. Caligula Albert Camus
65. The Republic Plato
66. Siddhartha Herman Hesse
67. A Tale of Two Cities Dickens
68. Broca's Brain Carl Sagan
69. Magic Mountain Thomas Mann
70. Candide Voltaire
71. Animal Farm George Orwell
72. Blacks Gwendolyn Brooks
73. A good collection of Dickinson
74. Prometheus Unbound Mary Shelley
75. Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgement Nikki Giovanni
76. A good collection of Ginsberg
77. Montage of a Dream Deferred Langston Hughes
78. Why We Can't Wait Martin Luther King Jr.
79. A Good Man is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor
80. Swamp Thing: Love and Death Moore and Bissette
81. Selected Poems Yevgeny Yevtushenko
82. Taps for Private Tussy Jesse Stuart
83. The Dark Knight Frank Miller
84. John Carter of Mars Edgar Rice Burroughs
85. Ardor on Aros Andrew J. Offutt
86. Ways of Seeing Berger
87. Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury
88. Time Enough for Love Robert Heinlein
89. Great Expectations Dickens
90. The Crow J. O. Barr
91. Gravity's Rainbow   Thomas Pynchon
92. A good collection of John Wilmot, The Earl of Rochester, also known as "The Libertine's" poems.
93. The Island of Dr. Moreau  H.G. Wells
94. Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
95. Satyricon  Petronius
96. Maltese Falcon   Dashiell Hammett
97. Fences  August Wilson
98. A Streetcar Named Desire  Tennessee Williams
99. In Cold Blood  Truman Capote
100. Meditations  Marcus Aurelius
101. The History of the Peloponnesian War  Thucydides

Films 

Most of these are old enough that you can rent them very cheaply or buy them for next to nothing.

1. Apocalypse Now (film)
2. Gallopoli (film)
3. Casablanca (film)
4. Blade Runner (film)
5. Sid and Nancy (film)
6. Brazil! (film)
7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (film)
8. Young Frankenstein (film)
9. Akira (film)
10. Alien (film)
11. The Wall (film)
12. Pi  (film)

Well, I'd better stop there. Otherwise, I'll start getting very obscure.

Keith