Reading path
The Life Half-Lived
The books that know what you almost did. Missed chances, roads not taken, the ghostly outline of the person you might have been. These writers understand regret not as melodrama but as the quiet background radiation of a human life. Every character on this path is haunted by an alternative version of themselves. Reading them is like looking through a window into a room you once chose not to enter.
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. The Remains of the DayKazuo Ishiguro, 1989
- 2. StonerJohn Edward Williams, 1965
- 3. The Death of Ivan IlyichLeo Tolstoy, 1886
- 4. Madame BovaryGustave Flaubert, 1857
- 5. The Cherry OrchardAnton Chekhov, 1904
- 6. The Lady with the DogAnton Chekhov, 1899
- 7. Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy, 1877
- 8. A Handful of DustEvelyn Waugh, 1934
- 9. Death of a SalesmanArthur Miller, 1949
- 10. The Portrait of a LadyHenry James, 1881
- 11. The LeopardGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958
- 12. Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardThomas Gray, 1751
- 13. The Good SoldierFord Madox Ford, 1915
- 14. The AmbassadorsHenry James, 1903
- 15. A Sentimental EducationGustave Flaubert, 1869
- 16. The House of MirthEdith Wharton, 1905
- 17. The Spy Who Came in From the ColdJohn le Carré, 1963
- 18. EmbersSandor Marai, 1942
- 19. Rabbit, RunJohn Updike, 1960
- 20. The Age of InnocenceEdith Wharton, 1920
- 21. BabbittSinclair Lewis, 1922
- 22. Ethan FromeEdith Wharton, 1911
- 23. The Old Wives' TaleArnold Bennett, 1908
- 24. AdolpheBenjamin Constant, 1816
- 25. Please Look After MomShin Kyung-sook, 2008
- 26. Niels LyhneJens Peter Jacobson, 1880
- 27. IronweedWilliam Kennedy, 1983
- 28. The Small House at AllingtonAnthony Trollope, 1864
- 29. Can You Forgive Her?Anthony Trollope, 1864
- 30. Felix Holt, the RadicalGeorge Eliot, 1866
- 31. The Trumpet-MajorThomas Hardy, 1880
- 32. The WoodlandersThomas Hardy, 1887
- 33. ShirleyCharlotte Brontë, 1849
- 34. Family HappinessLeo Tolstoy, 1859
- 35. Daisy MillerHenry James, 1878
- 36. The Blithedale RomanceNathaniel Hawthorne, 1852
- 37. The History of Mr. PollyH.G. Wells, 1910
- 38. When I Have Fears That I May Cease to BeJohn Keats, 1818
- 39. KavanaghHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1849
- 40. Black Stone on a White StoneCésar Vallejo, 1938