Another one of those "must-read" lists of classics, let's have a look

Once in a while I get amused when I see yet another list of stuff someone thinks you ought to read in order to (insert a reason here: be more cultured, be better read, be more of a hipster, be more of a book snob, attract chicks, be more manly, whatever). Also, once in a while, I want to see how I do in relation to the list. Here is one of those lists, which I saw at Book Riot a while back. This is their "100 Must-Read Lesser-Known Classics." I think that, aside from some exceptions, that list is a polite way of saying "some obscure shit that most likely you have not read unless you are a hardcore literature major, a recluse with no other media, or just do not have enough to do with your life." On a serious note, a few things here do sound interesting, and I may add them to my TBR list down the road.

Anyhow, I am transcribing the list below. I removed the big bookstore behemoth links to keep things tidy. I will highlight in bold books I have actually read. In some cases, I will highlight in bold an author to indicate I may have read something else by that author instead. I will make any comments on titles in parenthesis after the title.

The List:

• The Recognition of Sakuntala, by Kalidasa (India, c. 4th century) 
• The Poems of T’ao Ch’ien, by T’ao Ch’ien (China, early 400s) 
• The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, early 1000s) 
• The Song of Roland, author unknown (France, c. 1040-1115) (If I recall, I read this somewhere in high school. It would have been around the time I had to read El Cid).  
• The Essential Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi (Iran, 1200s) (I have read some of his verses.)
• The Bustan of Saadi, by Saadi (Persia, 1257) 
• The Táin, author unknown (Ireland, 12th-14th century) 
• Essays in Idleness, by Yoshida Kenkō (Japan, 1330-1332) 
• The Cloud of Unknowing, author unknown (England, later 1300s) 
• The Book of Margery Kempe, by Margery Kempe (England, 1420s) (Read in  graduate school as an English  major) 
• Lazarillo de Tormes, author unknown (Spain, 1554) (I read this, in Spanish, in high school. To American gringos, this may be obscure. In Latin America, this is pretty well known in school syllabi. It is a classic of Spanish Peninsular literature ) 
• The Heptameron, by Marguerite of Navarre (France, 1558) 
• The Blazing World, by Margaret Cavendish (England, 1666) 
• The Princess of Cleves, by Madame de Lafayette (France, 1678)
• Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn (England, 1688) 
• Brief Lives, by John Aubrey (England, Late 1600s) 
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Matsuo Basho (Japan, 1694) 
• Love in Excess, by Eliza Haywood (England, 1720) 
• A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe (England, 1722) (I read Robinson Crusoe instead) 
• Letters of a Peruvian Woman, by Françoise de Graffigny (France, 1747) 
• Fanny Hill, by John Cleland (England, 1748) 
• Dream of the Red Chamber, by Cao Xueqin (China, mid 1700s) 
• The Female Quixote, by Charlotte Lennox (Scotland, 1752) (never heard of this. However, I  have read Cervantes' Don Quixote, in Spanish, in full version) 
• Letters of Mistress Henley, by Isabelle de Charrière (Netherlands, 1784) 
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, by Olaudah Equiano (Nigeria, 1789) (read this in graduate school. Most people read Douglass, which is fine, but this one may be more interesting) 
• A Simple Story, by Elizabeth Inchbald (England, 1792) 
• Caleb Williams, by William Godwin (England, 1794) 
• A Voyage Around My Room, by Xavier de Maistre (France, 1794) 
• Jacques the Fatalist, by Denis Diderot (France, 1796) 
• Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, by Mary Wollstonecraft (England, 1796) 
• The Coquette, by Hannah Webster Foster (U.S., 1797) 
• Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown (U.S. 1798) (Not this, but I have read other works by him in graduate school) 
• The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (Scotland, 1824) 
• Hope Leslie, by Catharine Maria Sedgwick (U.S. 1827) 
• The Wide, Wide World, by Susan Warner (U.S., 1850) 
• Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell (England, 1851-1853) 
• Ruth Hall, by Fanny Fern (U.S., 1854) 
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs (U.S., 1861) (Again, in graduate school) 
• Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (England, 1862) 
• The Story of Avis, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (U.S. 1877) 
• A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabella Bird (England, 1879) 
• Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Scotland, 1879) (I read what most kids read, namely Treasure Island.)
• The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (Brazil, 1881) 
• Hester, by Margaret Oliphant (Scotland, 1883) 
• The Story of an African Farm, by Olive Schreiner (South Africa, 1883) 
• Hunger, by Knut Hamsun (Norway, 1890) 
• Effi Briest, by Theodor Fontane (Germany, 1894) 
• Trilby, by George Du Maurier (France and England, 1894) 
• Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim (Australia, 1898) 
• The Conjure Woman, by Charles Chestnutt (U.S., 1899) 
• I Await the Devil’s Coming, by Mary MacLane (Canada/U.S., 1901) 
• The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton (England, 1908) 
• Jakob von Gunten, by Robert Walser (Switzerland, 1909) 
• Kokoro, by Natsume Sōseki (Japan, 1914) 
• Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (U.S. 1915) 
• Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein (U.S., 1915) 
• The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore (India, 1916) 
• Diary of a Madman, by Lu Xun (China, 1918) 
• Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West (England, 1918) 
• Demian, by Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1919) 
• The Sheik, by Edith Maude Hull (England, 1919) 
• Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Unset (Norway, 1920) 
• Cane, by Jean Toomer (U.S., 1923) (Again, in graduate school) 
• Zeno’s Conscience, by Italo Svevo (Italy, 1923) 
• The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (U.S., 1924) 
• There is Confusion, by Jessie Redmon Fauset (U.S., 1924) 
• Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska (U.S. 1925) 
• Chaka, by Thomas Mofolo (Lesotho, 1925) 
• Lolly Willowes, by Silvia Townsend Warner (England, 1926) 
• Home to Harlem, by Claude McKay (Jamaica/U.S., 1928) 
• Quicksand, by Nella Larsen (U.S., 1928) 
• Doña Bárbara, by Rómulo Gallegos (Venezuela, 1929) (Again, read this in high school. Not obscure at all in Latin America. Many of us down there already know about "the devourer of men.") 
• A High Wind in Jamaica, by Richard Hughes (Wales, 1929) 
• Dance Night, by Dawn Powell (U.S., 1930) 
• A Note in Music, by Rosamond Lehmann (England, 1930) 
• Devil’s Cub, by Georgette Heyer (England, 1932)* 
• Frost in May, by Antonia White (England, 1933) 
• Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain (England, 1933) 
• Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schulz (Poland, 1934) 
• Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1935-7) 
• Jamaica Inn, by Daphne du Maurier (England, 1936) 
• Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes (U.S., 1936) 
• Journey by Moonlight, by Antal Szerb (Hungary, 1937) 
• The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland, 1938) 
• Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig (Austria, 1939) 
• The Invention of Morel, by Adolpho Bioy Cesares (Argentina, 1940) (I have not read this author, but again, in Spanish language he is not obscure.) 
• Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston (U.S., 1942) 
• Iceland’s Bell, by Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1943) 
• Love in a Fallen City, by Eileen Chang (China, 1943) 
• Near to the Wild Heart, by Clarice Lispector (Brazil, 1943) 
• The Makioka Sisters, by Junichirō Tanizaki (Japan, 1943-1948) 
• Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1944) (How the hell anyone other than someone clueless thinks Borges is obscure or lesser known is beyond me. Seems some people need to read outside the usual stuff more.)  
• Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey (Scotland, 1946) 
• Trilogy, by H.D. (U.S. 1946) 
• In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes (U.S. 1947) 
• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford (U.S., 1947) 
• The Slaves of Solitude, by Patrick Hamilton (England, 1947) 
• I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith (England, 1948)

I have read 10 books from the list, either from high school for the Spanish language ones or in graduate school as an English major.

I have read 12 additional authors.

I will comment a few others I have heard of, and I honestly wonder how a few others rate as "lesser known." Borges lesser known? You'd be laughed out of polite company anywhere south of the U.S. border. Having said that, there are some here I personally had not heard of and may be adding to my TBR list.