Recommended English-language Books lists

This groundbreaking play starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeill, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands in the Broadway production which opened in 1959. Set on Chicago's South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husband's insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school.

An allegory on the realities of communism, from a capitalist point of view, Animal Farm tells a story of a farm in which the animals decide to rule themselves, and all animals are equal. The inevitable catch, as the reader will come to find out, is that all societies tend to have a ruling class. When all the decent members of society try to adhere to the social rules of equality for everyone, the role of leadership and authority is left to the pigs.

The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books. 

Golding’s first novel, a rather pessimistic study of human nature, is recognized as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The story concerns a group of schoolboys who become stranded on a desert island. Initially the boys behave sensibly, electing a leader and dividing the chores amongst themselves but soon divisions appear within their ranks and the party split into two ‘tribes’. The title refers to a pig’s head left on top of a stick by a mysterious hunter. Some of the boys believe the head was left as an offering to a supposed ‘beast’ believed to inhabit the island.

William Blake's volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were "the two contrary states of the human soul," and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, with quite a different perspective of the world.

Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach ... Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.

Bassanio, a feckless young Venetian, asks his wealthy friend, the merchant Antonio, for money to finance a trip to woo the beautiful Portia in Belmont. Reluctant to refuse his friend (to whom he professes intense love), Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. If he reneges on the deal, Shylock jokingly demands a pound of his flesh. When all Antonio's ships are lost at sea, Shylock calls in his debt, and the love and laughter of the first scenes of the play threaten to give way to death and tragedy. The final climactic courtroom scene, complete with a cross-dressed Portia, a knife-wielding Shylock, and the debate on "the quality of mercy" is one of the great dramatic moments in Shakespeare.