Oundle School
English
Books we recommend
These are lists of novels which the department recommends for your private reading. The list is by no means complete, but we hope that you enjoy what is here.
If you would like to recommend novels, please email Mr Hipperson (tph@oundleschool.org.uk).
Click on a category below to take you to the relevant list.
* Novels marked with an asterisk are texts that we recommend for sixth formers only. A list for junior pupils will follow shortly.
Pre-Nineteenth Century and Nineteenth Century Fiction
Early Twentieth Century Fiction
Later Twentieth Century Fiction
Twentieth Century American Prose : A reading list for
the Upper Sixth*
The Gothic Tradition : A reading list for the Upper
Sixth*
Fantasy
On the Beach : A list of good reads.
Individual Recommendations
Pre-Nineteenth Century and Nineteenth Century Fiction
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen Emma
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe
Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens Great Expectations
Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment
George Eliot Silas Marner
Henry Fielding Tom Jones
Elizabeth Gaskell North and South
Thomas Hardy Far From the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native
Thomas Hughes Tom Brown's Schooldays
Herman Melville Moby Dick
Sir Walter Scott Ivanhoe
Laurence Sterne Tristram Shandy
Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels
Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray
Early Twentieth Century Fiction
John Buchan The Thirty-Nine Steps
Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of the Baskervilles
Joseph Conrad Lord Jim
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
Ford Madox Ford The Good Soldier
EM Forster A Room with a View
John Galsworthy The Man of Property
Graham Greene Brighton Rock
Aldous Huxley Brave New World
Christopher Isherwood Mr Norris Changes Trains
James Joyce Dubliners*
DH Lawrence Lady Chatterley's Lover*
DH Lawrence The Rainbow
Jack London The Call of the Wild
Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind
Evelyn Waugh Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh Decline and Fall
Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse
Later 20th century
Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim
Isaac Asimov I, Robot
Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale*
Pat Barker Regeneration*
Julian Barnes A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
Raymond Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
Anthony Burgess Earthly Powers
Louis de Bernieres Captain Correlli's Mandolin
Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Gray
Sebastian Faulks Birdsong
John Fowles The French Lieutenant's Woman
Micheal Frayn Headlong
Esther Freud Hideous Kinky
Stella Gibbons Cold Comfort Farm
Graham Greene The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene The Comedians
Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner
Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day
Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera
Ian McEwan The Child in Time
Ian McEwan Enduring Love
Iris Murdoch The Bell
Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita*
VS Naipaul A House for Mr Biswas
Michael Ondaatje The English Patient
George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar
Anthony Powell A Question of Upbringing
Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things*
Alice Sebald Lovely Bones
Zadie Smith White Teeth*
Muriel Spark The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rose Tremain Music and Silence*
Fay Weldon Polaris
Twentieth Century American Prose*
Flannery O’Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find.
William Faulkner Absalom Absalom
Philip Roth American Pastoral
Toni Morrison Beloved
Cormac McCarthy Blood Meridian
Tom Wolfe Bonfire of the Vanities
Truman Capote Breakfast at Tiffany's
John Edgar Wideman Brothers and Keepers
John Steinbeck Cannery Row
Joseph Heller Catch 22
Saul Bellow Dangling Man
Don DeLillo Falling Man
E. Hemingway Farewell to Arms
Hunter S Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
E. Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls
Elmore Leonard Get Shorty
James Baldwin Go Tell it on the Mountain
Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Truman Capote In Cold Blood
Willa Cather My Antonia
Jack Kerouac On the Road
E.L. Doctorow Ragtime
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon
Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence
Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep
John Updike The Centaur
Alice Walker The Color Purple
Jonathan Franzen The Corrections
Thomas Pynchon The Crying of Lot 49
John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath
Carson McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Philip Roth The Human Stain
Norman Mailer The Naked and the Dead
Donna Tartt The Secret History
Annie Proulx The Shipping News
William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury
John Irving The World According to Garp
Don DeLillo Underworld
Robert M.Pirsig Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Gothic Tradition*
Jane Austen Northanger Abbey
Iain Banks The Wasp Factory
William Beckford Vathek
Charlotte Bronte Villette
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights
Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber
Wilkie Collins The Woman in White
Charlotte Dacre Zofloya
Susan Hill The Woman in Black
Susan Hill Mrs de Winter
Matthew Lewis The Monk
Patrick McCabe The Dead School
Patrick McGrath Martha Peake
Mervyn Peake Gormenghast
Ann Radcliffe The Romance of the Forest
Ann Radcliffe The Italian
Mary Shelley Frankenstein
RL Stevenson The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Bram Stoker Dracula
Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto
Fantasy
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Louis de Bernieres Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord*
Brian Jacques Redwall
CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia
Mervyn Peake Gormenghast
Terry Pratchett The Carpet People
Philip Pullman His Dark Materials
JRR Tolkien The Lord of the Rings
Robert Westall The Cats of Seroster
On the Beach
Martin Amis The Rachel Papers*
Russell Banks Rule of the Bone
Jonathan Coe The Rotters’ Club*
Bernard Cornwell Sharpe’s Gold
Patricia Cornwell Postmortem
Colin Dexter The Dead of Jericho
Michael Dibdin Auriello Zen
Ian Fleming Goldfinger
CS Forester The Happy Return
Frederick Forsyth The Day of the Jackal
GM Fraser Flashman on the March
Robert Harris Fatherland
Jack Higgins Thunder Point
Nick Hornby High Fidelity
Anthony Horowitz Stormbreaker
Hugh Laurie The Gun Seller
John Le Carre The Night Manager
Robert Ludlum The Road to Omaha
Joyce Carol Oates Blonde*
Mario Puzo The Godfather
Ian Rankin The Name of the Dead
Lionel Shriver We Need to Talk about Kevin
PG Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves
John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids
Carlos Ruiz Zafon The Shadow of the Wind
Individual Recommendations
Stephen Johnson Fishing from Afar - Mr Court
Tim Binding A Perfect Execution - Mr Court
Peter Ackroyd Hawksmoor - Mr Hipperson
Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum* - Mr Hipperson
Miklos Vamos The Book of Fathers* - Mr Martens
Cormac McCarthy The Road* - Mr Martens
Melvin Burgess Sarah's Face - Mr Martens
Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children - Mr Martens
Joseph Conrad Nostromo*- Mr Raudnitz
Raymond Chandler The Lady in the Lake - Mr Raudnitz
JL Carr The Battle of Pollock's Crossing - Mr Sherwin
JL Carr A Month in the Country - Mr Sherwin
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose - Mr Wood
Cormac McCarthy The Orchard Keeper - Ms Kuhn
Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy - Ms Kuhn
Jim Crace Being Dead*- Ms Smedley
Henry Fielding Shamela- Ms Smedley
John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces - Dr Quiddington
Charles Dickens Dombey and Son - Mr Collier