Reading path
The Isolated Self
Solitude, alienation, and the struggle to connect. Some of these characters choose isolation. Others have it forced upon them. All of them inhabit a landscape where the distance between one person and another feels vast, perhaps unbridgeable. This is literature about what happens to the self when it is left alone with itself: the madness, the clarity, the longing, and the strange dignity that can emerge when there is no one left to perform for.
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. Robinson CrusoeDaniel Defoe, 1719
- 2. Moby-DickHerman Melville, 1851
- 3. White NightsFyodor Dostoevsky, 1848
- 4. Notes From the UndergroundFyodor Dostoevsky, 1864
- 5. OblomovIvan Goncharov, 1859
- 6. HungerKnut Hamsun, 1890
- 7. The Tartar SteppeDino Buzzati, 1940
- 8. The Heart Is a Lonely HunterCarson McCullers, 1940
- 9. The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. Salinger, 1951
- 10. The Old Man and the SeaErnest Hemingway, 1952
- 11. Lord of the FliesWilliam Golding, 1954
- 12. ZamaAntonio Di Benedetto, 1956
- 13. Independent PeopleHalldór Laxness, 1935
- 14. The Bell JarSylvia Plath, 1963
- 15. HerzogSaul Bellow, 1964
- 16. StonerJohn Edward Williams, 1965
- 17. The Remains of the DayKazuo Ishiguro, 1989
- 18. Anton ReiserKarl Philipp Moritz, 1785
- 19. Les Enfants TerriblesJean Cocteau, 1929
- 20. The Moon and the BonfiresCesare Pavese, 1950
- 21. The Haunting of Hill HouseShirley Jackson, 1959
- 22. The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carré, 1963
- 23. Auto Da FéElias Canetti, 1935
- 24. SolarisStanislaw Lem, 1961
- 25. Winesburg, OhioSherwood Anderson, 1919
- 26. Bartleby the ScrivenerHerman Melville, 1853
- 27. Dom CasmurroMachado de Assis, 1899
- 28. Tarzan of the ApesEdgar Rice Burroughs, 1912
- 29. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids BriggeRainer Maria Rilke, 1910
- 30. The Turn of the ScrewHenry James, 1898
- 31. Interview with the VampireAnne Rice, 1976
- 32. A Winter In HakkariFerit Edgü, 1977
- 33. Smilla's Sense of SnowPeter Høeg, 1992
- 34. The Copenhagen TrilogyTiina Nunnally, Michael Favala Goldman, Tove Ditlevsen, 1967
- 35. The EveningsGerard Reve, 1947
- 36. The Royal GameStefan Zweig, 1941
- 37. VossPatrick White, 1957
- 38. The TruceMario Benedetti, 1960
- 39. The Seven MadmenRoberto Arlt, 1929
- 40. The Heart of the MatterGraham Greene, 1948
- 41. Main StreetSinclair Lewis, 1920
- 42. The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles, 1949
- 43. BoyhoodLeo Tolstoy, 1854
- 44. The Toilers of the SeaVictor Hugo, 1866
- 45. Under Western EyesJoseph Conrad, 1911
- 46. VictoryJoseph Conrad, 1915
- 47. The Lady of ShalottAlfred, Lord Tennyson, 1842
- 48. AlastorPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1816
- 49. Doctor GlasHjalmar Soderberg, 1905
- 50. Green HenryGottfried Keller, 1855
- 51. No Longer HumanOsamu Dazai, 1948
- 52. The Letters of Vincent van GoghVincent van Gogh, 1914