To all of the veteran English majors, I understand your pain. To the newbies...get ready, because you're probably gonna be reading most of these whether you like it or not. And don't worry, there won't be any spoilers.
1. "Moby Dick"
GiphyI'm putting this one right up front because it is 100% a rite of passage for every student pursuing an English degree. I personally enjoyed the novel (to my immense surprise), but the fact of the matter is that it is one long, long, long story about whales.
2. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
Honestly, I didn't like this book until my second time reading it, when I was in a college setting. If you read the book in high school, you should probably read it again. You're not really an English major until you've spent ten lectures breaking down the finer points of Mark Twain's psyche as presented by Huck. No one really wins in this story, but like, read it anyway.
3. "The Red Badge of Courage"
GiphyEverything from the plot to the narrative point of view is one huge convoluted mess. Stephen Crane was a literary genius, so don't try to skip this book, ladies and gents.
4. "Frankenstein"
Ah, what an interesting commentary on the human condition. Also, Mary Shelley is so cool—she wrote "Frankenstein" as part of a little competition between herself, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron to see who could write a good ghost story. Mary was the only one who even finished her story, but let's be honest...even if their stories had been finished, the men couldn't have competed with this masterpiece that Mary Shelley concocted.
5. "Wuthering Heights"
GiphyThis is another one I didn't like until the second time I read it, but wow. Emily Brontë really did that. A love triangle (or maybe a love quadrilateral—I really don't know what was going on sometimes), a mysterious setting, characters with horrible personalities...this book has it all. If you've never read "Wuthering Heights," good luck getting through what will likely seem like a dreadfully slow slog at first.
6. "The Scarlet Letter"
Each of Nathaniel Hawthorne's sentences is about as long as a standard-length short story. If I had to struggle through that nonsense, so do you.
7. "The Great Gasby"
To be honest, I can't even remember the actual story line anymore...I just get this vague sense of melancholy when I think about Jay Gatsby. Cheers!
8. "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
This is one of my favorite literary works ever. Please, please, please read it. This is just turning into my book recommendations, honestly, but "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is pretty fantastic. And Oscar Wilde wrote it, so you know it's a good time.
9. "Pride & Prejudice"
I mean, come on. You know Jane Austen had to be on this list. You know I had to do it to 'em.
10. "Heart of Darkness"
GiphyThis novella haunts my dreams. I really didn't understand 90 percent of what I read. If you haven't read this thematically dense work by Conrad, you're not allowed to pretend you've felt the English major struggle. Please, never again.
11. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
This story was not at all like what I expected it to be. I think this is one of those books you just have to read because it seems like everyone else has read it. But hey, at least it isn't as much of a confusing mess as "Heart of Darkness."
Don't make up any excuses for not having read all these...if you want to tell people you're an English major, get to readin', buckaroo. Pay your dues.
