Reading path
Time and Memory
Literature obsessed with the past, its hold on us, and the impossibility of recovering it. These are works haunted by what has been lost: a person, a place, a way of life, a feeling that will never return in quite the same form. The writing is often slow, deliberate, and achingly precise, as if the act of remembering carefully enough might somehow undo time. It never does. That is what makes these works so beautiful and so sad.
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. Elegy Written in a Country ChurchyardThomas Gray, 1751
- 2. In Memoriam A.H.H.Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850
- 3. In Search of Lost TimeMarcel Proust, 1913
- 4. Sailing to ByzantiumW.B. Yeats, 1927
- 5. A Christmas CarolCharles Dickens, 1843
- 6. Speak MemoryVladimir Nabokov, 1951
- 7. Memoirs of HadrianMarguerite Yourcenar, 1951
- 8. The LeopardGiuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958
- 9. StonerJohn Edward Williams, 1965
- 10. The Year of the Death of Ricardo ReisJosé Saramago, 1984
- 11. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningRobert Frost, 1923
- 12. The Book of DisquietFernando Pessoa, 1982
- 13. The Remains of the DayKazuo Ishiguro, 1989
- 14. ArcadiaTom Stoppard, 1993
- 15. The Rings of SaturnW.G. Sebald, 1995
- 16. AusterlitzW.G. Sebald, 2001
- 17. The Moon and the BonfiresCesare Pavese, 1950
- 18. KindredOctavia E. Butler, 1979
- 19. The WordsJean Paul Sartre, 1963
- 20. EmbersSandor Marai, 1942
- 21. Death Comes for the ArchbishopWilla Cather, 1927
- 22. Memoirs From Beyond the GraveFrançois-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand, 1849
- 23. Out of AfricaIsak Dinesen, 1937
- 24. Look Homeward, AngelThomas Wolfe, 1929
- 25. Family SayingsNatalia Ginzburg, 1963
- 26. The Garden of the Finzi-ContinisGiorgio Bassani, 1962
- 27. A Death in the FamilyJames Agee, 1957
- 28. The God of Small ThingsArundhati Roy, 1997
- 29. A Dance to the Music of TimeAnthony Powell, 1951
- 30. Angle of ReposeWallace Stegner, 1971
- 31. AnniversariesUwe Johnson, 1970
- 32. The Confessions of Jean-Jacques RousseauJean-Jacques Rousseau, 1782
- 33. The Lost EstateHenri Alain-Fournier, 1913
- 34. The Old Wives' TaleArnold Bennett, 1908
- 35. My AntoniaWilla Cather, 1918
- 36. The Year of Magical ThinkingJoan Didion, 2005
- 37. A Heart So WhiteJavier Marias, 1992
- 38. The Sound Of Things FallingJuan Gabriel Vásquez, 2011
- 39. Cantares MexicanosAnonymous, 1585
- 40. Please Look After MomShin Kyung-sook, 2008
- 41. W, or the Memory of ChildhoodGeorges Perec, 1975
- 42. The Magnificent AmbersonsBooth Tarkington, 1918
- 43. Reveries over Childhood and YouthW.B. Yeats, 1916
- 44. The Autobiography of Mark TwainMark Twain, 1959
- 45. West With the NightBeryl Markham, 1942
- 46. BoyhoodLeo Tolstoy, 1854
- 47. ChildhoodLeo Tolstoy, 1852
- 48. YouthLeo Tolstoy, 1857
- 49. Twenty Years AfterAlexandre Dumas, 1845
- 50. Cat's EyeMargaret Atwood, 1988
- 51. Fugitive PiecesAnne Michaels, 1996
- 52. Rakes Of The Old CourtMateiu I. Caragiale, 1929
- 53. Wasted MorningGabriela Adameșteanu, 1984
- 54. Bruges-la-MorteGeorges Rodenbach, 1892
- 55. At the BayKatherine Mansfield, 1922