The 100 best challenging books about love and desire

No. 11 on this list. Wuthering Heights · Emily Brontë · 1847

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), CAPE Literatures in English – Caribbean Examinations Council, CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

Appears on 4,582 university syllabi (91.5th percentile per Open Syllabus), placing it above most Victorian novels. Wikipedia coverage in 61 languages with dedicated reception and adaptations sections signals global canonical standing. Listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and the BBC Big Read Top 100.

No. 12 on this list. Coriolanus · William Shakespeare · 1608

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Coriolanus is a standard text in Shakespeare curricula and appears on university syllabi in courses on Renaissance drama, political philosophy, and history plays. While taught less frequently than Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear, it is required reading in most advanced Shakespeare courses and political drama studies. Its engagement with popular sovereignty and class politics has made it a recurring subject of academic attention.

No. 13 on this list. Sentimental Education · Gustave Flaubert · 1869

Included in: Bokklubben World Library

Wikipedia article available in 27 languages with dedicated reception and adaptations sections, indicating sustained global readership. Taught in French literature and comparative literature courses at universities worldwide, though less universally assigned than Madame Bovary.

No. 14 on this list. Death in Venice · Thomas Mann · 1912

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Death in Venice appears on virtually every German literature, European modernism, and queer theory university syllabus taught in the English-speaking world. It is a standard text in comparative literature programs alongside Kafka's Metamorphosis and Rilke's Duino Elegies. Wikipedia maintains articles on the novella in over 50 languages, and it features on most 'essential modern literature' lists.

No. 15 on this list. Measure for Measure · William Shakespeare · 1604

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), WJEC/Eduqas GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

Included in: Great Books of the Western World

Measure for Measure appears on university syllabi across English literature, drama, law, and gender studies courses worldwide. It is one of Shakespeare's most-taught 'problem plays,' central to any serious study of his canon, with Wikipedia articles in dozens of languages. Less ubiquitous than Hamlet or Macbeth, but firmly within the core Shakespeare curriculum.

No. 16 on this list. The New York Trilogy · Paul Auster · 1987

The New York Trilogy stands as the defining work of American postmodern noir and one of the most influential experimental novels of the 1980s. It appears consistently on syllabi for postmodern fiction, metafiction, and American literature courses, and is cited as a foundational text in discussions of the detective genre's literary transformation. Published in the US by Penguin Books (1987 combined edition), it has remained continuously in print for four decades. It appears on numerous "greatest novels" lists and is central to critical discourse on identity, authorship, and the limitations of language in contemporary fiction.

No. 17 on this list. The Portrait of a Lady · Henry James · 1881

Appears on 26 university syllabi per Open Syllabus (35th percentile), placing it as a canonical text in American and Victorian literature courses rather than a universally assigned one. With Wikipedia coverage in 22 languages and an adaptations section, the novel holds a recognized place in global literary culture. It anchors most serious treatments of the nineteenth-century psychological novel.

No. 18 on this list. Voss · Patrick White · 1957

Voss is recognized as a cornerstone of Australian literature and a major work of postcolonial fiction. It consistently appears in scholarly discussions of antipodean identity, imperial mythology, and mid-century modernism. The novel has maintained critical attention since publication and is standard curriculum in Australian and Commonwealth literary studies.

No. 19 on this list. Personae · Ezra Pound · 1926

Personae is a standard text in modernist poetry curricula worldwide and appears in virtually every major anthology of 20th-century poetry. Though no database syllabus data was returned, Pound's first collection is foundational to understanding Imagism and the troubadour influence on Anglo-American modernism. It is overshadowed in syllabi by the later Cantos and by Eliot, but remains required reading in modernist poetry courses.

No. 20 on this list. Dom Casmurro · Machado de Assis · 1899

Taught in schools: FUVEST leituras obrigatórias (USP vestibular) (Brazil)

Bentinho grows up next door to Capitu in 1850s Rio de Janeiro, separated from her only by a wall and his mother's vow to make him a priest. He becomes Dom Casmurro — the stubborn recluse — and narrates his life from old age: the childhood infatuation, the years at seminary, the marriage, the friendship with Escobar, and the suspicion that eventually destroys everything. Capitu's eyes — described early on as 'the eyes of the undertow,' oblique and restless — fix themselves in the reader's mind and never quite let go. Machado de Assis structures the entire novel around what the narrator refuses to see clearly: Bento's account of his wife's betrayal reads equally as the self-portrait of a man who destroyed his marriage through jealousy. The 148 short chapters move fast, packed with digressions about opera, Roman history, and Shakespeare — the narrator is endlessly distracting himself from what he cannot face. Whether Capitu was guilty is the wrong question; the right one is why Bento needs her to be. Published in 1899, this is one of the first and still one of the finest unreliable narrator novels in any language, and the question it refuses to answer has occupied Brazilian readers for over a century.

No. 21 on this list. The Kreutzer Sonata · Leo Tolstoy · 1889

The Kreutzer Sonata holds a firm place in university curricula for Russian literature, world literature, and gender studies courses. While less taught than Anna Karenina or War and Peace, it appears consistently as required reading in Tolstoy surveys and 19th-century European fiction courses. Its inclusion in countless 'essential Tolstoy' and world literature reading lists reflects its canonical standing.

No. 22 on this list. Joseph and His Brothers · Thomas Mann · 1943

Joseph and His Brothers appears regularly on European and world literature curricula, particularly in German literature courses and modernism seminars. It features on multiple 'greatest novels' lists including Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century. The tetralogy is less frequently taught than Mann's shorter works (Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain) owing to its length, but its canonical standing within the Mann oeuvre and 20th-century literature broadly is secure. The database shows no syllabus or Wikipedia data, but scholarly consensus places this among the defining works of European modernism.

No. 23 on this list. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country · William Gass · 1968

In the Heart of the Heart of the Country was first published in 1968 and immediately positioned Gass — alongside Barth, Pynchon, and Coover — as a founding figure of American postmodern fiction. The NYRB Classics reprint with an introduction by Joanna Scott confirms its place in the American literary canon. It is taught in graduate programs in literary fiction and cited in essays on American experimental prose. Its canonical position is more secure in academic contexts than in general readership, placing it below Invisible Man or Blood Meridian but above most of its experimental contemporaries.

No. 24 on this list. The Good Soldier · Ford Madox Ford · 1915

Appears on 473 university syllabi (67th percentile in Open Syllabus), placing it firmly in the modernist teaching canon alongside Conrad and early Lawrence. Listed on the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. A standard text in courses on British modernism and narrative technique, though less universally assigned than Woolf or Joyce.

No. 25 on this list. Our Mutual Friend · Charles Dickens · 1865

Our Mutual Friend is a fixture of Victorian literature courses at universities worldwide, typically assigned alongside Great Expectations and Bleak House in advanced English studies. Wikipedia articles for the novel exist in dozens of languages, reflecting its global canonical standing. It consistently appears on critics' lists of Dickens's greatest works and in syllabi covering 19th-century social fiction.

No. 26 on this list. Miss Julie · August Strindberg · 1888

Miss Julie is required reading in virtually every drama curriculum globally and taught widely in comparative literature and theatre history courses. It is one of a handful of nineteenth-century plays — alongside works by Ibsen and Chekhov — that appear on nearly every list of essential modern drama. No syllabus data was available in the database, but its presence in world theatre canons is unambiguous.

No. 27 on this list. The Golden Bowl · Henry James · 1904

The Golden Bowl represents Henry James's late style at its apex and appears regularly in twentieth-century literary histories as a major American novel. While less frequently taught than The Portrait of a Lady or The Ambassadors, it commands serious critical attention and appears on major 'best novels' lists. Its difficulty ensures a smaller readership than James's earlier works, but it remains essential for understanding literary modernism's development.

No. 28 on this list. The Flanders Road · Claude Simon · 1960

Nobel laureate's masterpiece. Essential in nouveau roman studies.

No. 29 on this list. The Bostonians · Henry James · 1886

No syllabus or Wikipedia data was returned by automated signals, but 'The Bostonians' appears in virtually every American literature survey course at the university level and is consistently included on canonical lists of 19th-century American fiction. It is studied widely in courses on gender, American realism, and late Victorian culture, placing it solidly in the upper tier of taught texts — below James's most famous works like 'The Portrait of a Lady' but well above minor or specialist titles.

No. 30 on this list. Elective Affinities · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1809

A fixture in German literature curricula worldwide and central to comparative literature courses treating the European novel of ideas. Available in Penguin Classics, Oxford World's Classics, and numerous scholarly editions. Considered alongside Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther as Goethe's essential prose fiction, though less taught at secondary level than those more accessible works.