Reading path
The Book of Becoming
The literature of transformation. Coming of age, leaving home, finding a voice, losing everything and starting again. These are works about the act of becoming a self, with all the false starts, revelations, and growing pains that entails. Some are autobiographical. Some are fictional. All of them capture that electric, terrifying moment when an old identity falls away and a new one hasn't quite arrived.
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. SiddharthaHermann Hesse, 1922
- 2. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young ManJames Joyce, 1916
- 3. The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger, 1951
- 4. Letters to a Young PoetRainer Maria Rilke, 1929
- 5. WaldenHenry David Thoreau, 1854
- 6. First LoveIvan Turgenev, 1860
- 7. Go Tell It on the MountainJames Baldwin, 1953
- 8. Their Eyes Were Watching GodZora Neale Hurston, 1937
- 9. Invisible ManRalph Ellison, 1952
- 10. The Adventures of Augie MarchSaul Bellow, 1953
- 11. The Diary of a Young GirlAnne Frank, 1947
- 12. Speak MemoryVladimir Nabokov, 1951
- 13. SteppenwolfHermann Hesse, 1927
- 14. The Passion According to G.H.Clarice Lispector, 1964
- 15. The Bell JarSylvia Plath, 1963
- 16. DaddySylvia Plath, 1965
- 17. I and ThouMartin Buber, 1923
- 18. Anne of Green GablesL.M. Montgomery, 1908
- 19. Henderson The Rain KingSaul Bellow, 1959
- 20. The WordsJean Paul Sartre, 1963
- 21. Lost IllusionsHonoré de Balzac, 1837
- 22. A Wrinkle In TimeMadeleine L'Engle, 1962
- 23. Winesburg, OhioSherwood Anderson, 1919
- 24. Look Homeward, AngelThomas Wolfe, 1929
- 25. Little WomenLouisa May Alcott, 1868
- 26. AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2013
- 27. A Wizard Of EarthseaUrsula K. Le Guin, 1968
- 28. Oliver TwistCharles Dickens, 1837
- 29. I Capture the CastleDodie Smith, 1948
- 30. Black BoyRichard Wright, 1945
- 31. The Chronicles of NarniaC.S. Lewis, 1950
- 32. The Adventures of Tom SawyerMark Twain, 1876
- 33. The AlchemistPaulo Coelho, 1988
- 34. Treasure IslandRobert Louis Stevenson, 1883
- 35. Are You There God? It's Me, MargaretJudy Blume, 1970
- 36. His Dark MaterialsPhilip Pullman, 1995
- 37. Tarzan of the ApesEdgar Rice Burroughs, 1912
- 38. The Autobiography of Malcolm XAlex Haley, 1965
- 39. The Color PurpleAlice Walker, 1982
- 40. The Razor's EdgeW. Somerset Maugham, 1944
- 41. The Wonderful Wizard of OzL. Frank Baum, 1900
- 42. Peter And WendyJ.M. Barrie, 1911
- 43. Life is a Carawanserai Has Two Doors I Went in One I Came out the OtherEmine Sevgi Özdamar, 1992
- 44. ParadisoJosé Lezama Lima, 1966
- 45. Reveries over Childhood and YouthW.B. Yeats, 1916
- 46. The Autobiography of Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin, 1791
- 47. The Golden AssApuleius, 158 CE
- 48. The ProfessorCharlotte Brontë, 1857
- 49. BoyhoodLeo Tolstoy, 1854
- 50. ChildhoodLeo Tolstoy, 1852
- 51. YouthLeo Tolstoy, 1857
- 52. Au Bonheur Des DamesÉmile Zola, 1883
- 53. The Prince and the PauperMark Twain, 1881