My Fifty Favorite Works

1.  St.  Augustine,  The Confessions  --  Wittgenstein called it one of the most serious books ever written...and he was right!

2.  Feodor Dostoyevski, The Brother's Karamavoz  -- this novel has it all:  a great murder mystery, existential despair and some darn interesting characters.

3.  Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility  -- a wonderful novel about the conflict between the life of reason and passion.

4.  St. Bonaventure, The Soul's Journey into God  -- a masterpiece of Franciscan mystical writing.

5.  Victor Hugo, Les Miserables  -- an intensely spiritual work about human redemption and a great adventure story too!

6.  Leo Tostoy, Short Stories  -- Tolstoy's religious fables (especially "Father Sergius" and "Where Love is, There is God") are even more interesting than his novels.

7.  St. Francis De Sales,  Introduction to the Devout Life  --  still the best guide for lay people on the  spiritual life.

8.  Henry Fielding,  Joseph Andrew  --  a real hoot!  A perfectly written novel that causes me to chuckle every time I read it.

9.  Seneca, Moral Epistles  -- some of the most inspiring bits of moral exhortation ever put on paper.

10.  Dante Alighieri,  Purgatorio  -- funnier than his Inferno and less overblown than his Paradiso.  Besides, this is where I probably am going to wind up, so I want to learn as much as I can about the place.

11.  Soren Kierkegaard,  Sickness Unto Death  -- a great work for those suffering from chronic despair---which basically means everyone.

12.  Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics  -- the classic work on virtue ethics.

13.  John Kennedy O'Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces  -- A bit crude, but definitely one of the funniest books ever written.

14.  Sophocles, Antigone  -- one of the great female protagonists in Western literature.

15.  Frederick Nietzsche,  Thus Spoke Zarathustra  -- I don't always agree with Nietzsche, but he always blows my mind.

16.  Plato,  The Republic  -- even I have to struggle to read this work, and I guess that is precisely what makes it so fascinating.  

17.  Henry James, Washington Square  -- Henry's most readable and interesting novel.

18.  Meister Eckhart,  Sermons  -- the great Dominican preacher may be a border-line heretic and some of his ideas are a bit wacky, but Eckhart always takes me to a higher levels of consciousness when I read him.

19. Shakespeare, Richard III  -- not the bard's best play, but one of his funniest.

20.  Harper Lee,  To Kill a Mockingbird  -- Atticus Finch is one of my favorite characters in American literature and the story is a real grabber too.

21. E.M. Forester,  Howard's End  --  a beautifully written book filled with engrossing characters!

22.  Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace  -- sure it's damned long and the first chapter with all those Russian names is a killer, but you will never find more provocative discussion on the folly of war than in this work.

23.  Jane Austen,  Pride and Prejudice  -- I even enjoyed this book in high school, so you know it has to be good.

24.  27.  Homer,  The Illiad  -- one of the great adventure tales of the western world.  

25.  Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights  -- another romance that I happen to like very much--mainly because it is filled with so much atmosphere.

26.  Cicero, On Friendship  -- worth reading even if you don't have any friends.

28.  Michel de Montaigne,  Collected Essays  --  some of these essays  are definitely worth reading over and over.

29.  Sinclair Lewis,  Elmer Gantry  -- lurid little  expose on religious fundamentalism. 

30.  Henry Fielding, Tom Jones  --  Almost as much fun as Joseph Andrews...and that says a lot.

31.  J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit  -- a favorite of mine from childhood.

32.  The Nibelungenlied  -- a terrific little epic, filled with lust, violence and revenge.

33.  Thomas Merton,  The Seven Story Mountain  -- almost made me want to become a monk after I read it.

34.  Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Emile  -- filled with more fallacies and contradictions than any other philosophical work that I have read, but brilliant nonetheless.

35.  Voltaire, Candide -- a real hoot and a devastating critique of Liebnitz as well.

36.  Feodor Dostoyevski, Crime and Punishment  --  a nice little tale about sin, guilt and redemption.

37.  Sigmund Freud,  The Future of An Illusion  -- one of the great critiques of an insipid sort of religious belief.

38.  Robert Graves, I Claudius -- began my life-long fascination with the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

39.  William James, Varieties of the Religious Experience -- once of the best works on religious belief and practice ever written.

40.  Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ  -- another one of my favorite books of Christian spirituality.

41.  J. R.R.  Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings --  I still feel compelled to read this trilogy every five years or so because it is so wonderfully written.

42.  Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince  -- whether you want to be a lion or a fox, this little manual on leadership is the book for you.

43.  The Little Flowers of St. Francis  -- another great work of Franciscan spirituality.

44.  E.M. Forester,  A Room With A View  --  Every time I read this novel, I get swept away by its evocative depiction of uptight Brits in steamy Italia.

45.  Aldous Huxley,  The Devils of Loudon  -- this books perfectly illustrates the principle that the truth is often much weirder than fiction.

46.  Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire  --  Stanley and Blanche...need I say more?

47.  Vladimir Nabakov,  Lolita  -- a sordid little tale, but it is so fabulously written I can help but loving it.

48.  Helene Hanaff, 84 Charing Cross Road  -- A book about people who love books...What's not to like?

49.  C.S.  Forester,  Captain Horatio Hornblower  -- 3 darn exciting adventure stories set during the Napoleonic Wars.

50.  At this point I'm open to your suggestions.  Email me at mrusso@molloy.edu.