Reading path
Funny but Actually Devastating
The cruelest trick in literature: making you laugh until you realise what you are laughing about. Every work on this path uses humour as a Trojan horse for despair, absurdity as a vehicle for moral devastation. The jokes land. Then, hours later, the grief does too. If you have ever laughed at something and then had to sit very still for a while, you know exactly what this path is.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. Catch-22Joseph Heller, 1961
- 2. Slaughterhouse-FiveKurt Vonnegut, 1969
- 3. Dead SoulsNikolai Gogol, 1842
- 4. The NoseNikolai Gogol, 1836
- 5. Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes, 1605
- 6. The Master & MargaritaMikhail Bulgakov, 1967
- 7. Waiting for GodotSamuel Beckett, 1953
- 8. FerdydurkeWitold Gombrowicz, 1937
- 9. HerzogSaul Bellow, 1964
- 10. The Tin DrumGünter Grass, 1959
- 11. Tristram ShandyLaurence Sterne, 1759
- 12. White NoiseDon DeLillo, 1985
- 13. The Good Soldier ŠvejkJaroslav Hašek, 1921
- 14. Froth on the daydreamBoris Vian, 1947
- 15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams, 1979
- 16. The World According to GarpJohn Irving, 1978
- 17. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoJunot Diaz, 2007
- 18. Henderson The Rain KingSaul Bellow, 1959
- 19. The CorrectionsJonathan Franzen, 2001
- 20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey, 1962
- 21. Humboldt's GiftSaul Bellow, 1975
- 22. I Served The King Of EnglandBohumil Hrabal, 1983
- 23. Portnoy's ComplaintPhilip Roth, 1969
- 24. The EveningsGerard Reve, 1947
- 25. Zuleika DobsonMax Beerbohm, 1911
- 26. The Prime of Miss Jean BrodieMuriel Spark, 1961
- 27. The Ginger ManJ.P. Donleavy, 1955
- 28. Operating InstructionsAnne Lamott, 1993
- 29. Nicholas NicklebyCharles Dickens, 1839
- 30. Barry LyndonWilliam Makepeace Thackeray, 1844
- 31. Where Angels Fear to TreadE.M. Forster, 1905
- 32. The History of Mr. PollyH.G. Wells, 1910
- 33. CheeseWillem Elsschot, 1933
- 34. Death And The PenguinAndrey Kurkov, 1996
- 35. TrainspottingIrvine Welsh, 1993