Note that this represents an international/cross historial flavor. I would make very different suggestions if you were looking to focus on any one specific aspects of literary history.
Fiction
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll’s House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC). Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays. Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Iran, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight’s Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian
Non-Fiction
The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams
The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James
Up From Slavery, by Booker T. Washington
A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
Selected Essays, 1917-1932, by T.S. Eliot
The Double Helix, by James D. Watson
Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov
The American Language, by H.L. Mencken
The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, by John Maynard Keynes
The Lives of A Cell, by Lewis Thomas
The Frontier in American History, by Frederick Jackson Turner
Black Boy, by Richard Wright
Aspects of the Novel, by E.M. Forster
The Civil War*, by Shelby Foote
The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman
The Proper Study of Mankind, by Isaiah Berlin
The Nature and Destiny of Man*, by Reinhold Niebuhr
Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, by Gertrude Stein
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk & E.B. White
An American Dilemma*, by Gunnar Myrdal
Principia Mathematica, by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould
The Mirror and the Lamp, by M.H. Abrams
The Art of the Solube, by Peter Medawar
The Ants, by Bert Hoelldobler and E.O. Wilson
A Theory of Justice, by John Rawls
Art and Illusion, by E.H. Gombrich
The Making of the English Working Class, by E.P. Thompson
The Souls of Black Folk, by W.E.B. DuBois
Principia Ethica, by G.E. Moore
Philosophy and Civilization, by John Dewey
On Growth and Form, by D’Arcy Thompson
Ideas and Opinions, by Albert Einstein
The Age of Jackson, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West
Autobiographies*, by W.B. Yeats
Science and Civilization in China, by Joseph Needham
Goodbye to All That, by Robert Graves
Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
The Autobiography of Mark Twain, by Mark Twain
Children of Crisis*, by Robert Coles
A Study of History*, by Arnold Toynbee
The Affluent Society, by John Kenneth Galbraith
Present at the Creation, by Dean Acheson
The Great Bridge, by David McCullough
Patriotic Gore, by Edmund Wilson
Samuel Johnson, by W.J. Bate
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley and Malcolm X
The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe
Eminent Victorians, by Lytton Strachey
Working, by Studs Terkel
Darkenss Visible, by William Styron
The Liberal Imagination, by Lionel Trilling
The Second World War, by Winston Churchill
Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen
Jefferson and His Time*, by Dumas Malone
In the American Grain, by William Carlos Williams
Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner
The House of Morgan, by Ron Chernow
The Sweet Science, by A.J. Liebling
The Open Society and its Enemies, by Karl Popper
The Art of Memory, by Frances Yates
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, by R.H. Tawney
A Preface to Morals, by Walter Lippmann
The Gate of Heavenly Peace, by Jonathan Spence
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Vann Woodward
The Rise of the West, by William H. McNeill
The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels
James Joyce, by Richard Ellmann
Florence Nightingale, by Cecil Woodham-Smith
The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell
The City in History, by Lewis Mumford
Battle Cry of Freedom, by James M. Macpherson
Why We Can’t Wait, by Martin Luther King Jr.
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris
Studies in Iconology, by Erwin Panofsky
The Face of Battle, by John Keegan
The Strange Death of Liberal England, by George Dangerfield
Vermeer, by Lawrence Gowing
A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan
West With the Night, by Beryl Markham
This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff
A Mathematician’s Apology, by G.H. Hardy
Six Easy Pieces, by Richard Feynman
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
The Golden Bough, by James George Frazier
Shadow and Act, by Ralph Ellison
The Power Broker, by Robert A. Caro
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter
The Contours of American History, by William Appleman Williams
The Promise of American Life, by Herbert Croly
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
The Journalist and the Murderer, by Janet Malcolm
The Taming of Chance, by Ian Hacking
Operating Instructions, by Anne Lamott
Melbourne, by David Cecil
So much for reading for enlightenment, the following is pleasure:
Science Fiction
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
Dune, by Frank Herbert
Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
Valis, by Philip K. Dick
Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Gateway, by Frederik Pohl
Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl
Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart
Cuckoo’s Egg, by C.J. Cherryh
Star Surgeon, by James White
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick
Radix, by A. A. Attanasio
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, by Larry Niven
A Case of Conscience, by James Blish
Last and First Man, by Olaf Stapledon
The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon
Gray Lensman, by E.E. “Doc” Smith
The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Behold the Man, by Michael Moorcock
Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon
The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne
Heritage of Hastur, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Slan, by A. E. Van Vogt
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
In Conquest Born, by C. S. Friedman
Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny
Eon, by Greg Bear
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
Cosm, by Gregory Benford
The Voyage of the Space Beagle, by A. E. Van Vogt
Blood Music, by Greg Bear
Beggars in Spain, by Nancy Kress
Omnivore, by Piers Anthony
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
Mission of Gravity, by Hal Clement
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold
1984, by George Orwell
The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
Flesh, by Philip Jose Farmer
Cities in Flight, by James Blish
Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe
Startide Rising, by David Brin
Triton, by Samuel R. Delany
Stand on Zanzibar, by John Brunner
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
No Blade of Grass, by John Christopher
The Postman, by David Brin
Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany
Berserker, by Fred Saberhagen
Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott
Planiverse, by A. K. Dewdney
Dragon’s Egg, by Robert L. Forward
Downbelow Station, by C. J. Cherryh
Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler
The Puppet Masters, by Robert A. Heinlein
The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
Roadside Picnic, by Arkady Strugatsky
The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge
The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
Drowned World, by J.G. Ballard
Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson
Upanishads, by Various
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Midwich Cuckoos, by John Wyndham
Mutant, by Henry Kuttner
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Ralph 124C41+, by Hugo Gernsback
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
Timescape, by Gregory Benford
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
War with the Newts, by Karl Kapek
Mars, by Ben Bova
Brain Wave, by Poul Anderson
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Crichton
Camp Concentration, by Thomas M. Disch
A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Fantasy Series
Anything by R.A. Salvatore (he has several series/trilogies/quintents)
Any of the Shannara Series (Terry Brooks)
The Wheel of Time Series
The Fey Cycle – by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tolkien (nuff said)
Hickman & Weiss Dragonlance Cycle
Hickamn & Weiss Deathgate Cycle
Anything by Raymond E. Feist
Michel Moorecock’s “Elric” and “Eternal Champion” series
Pretty much anything by Michael Crichton
Pratchett’s Diskworld Saga
Stephen R. Lawhead – Pendragon Cycle
Horror
1. Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus
1592 Perhaps the best realization of the oft told story of selling out to the Devil and the consequences thereof.
2. William Shakespeare The Tragedy of Macbeth
1606 Crime, guilt, prophecy, witches, and madness in one of the essential works of the Western Canon.
3. John Webster The White Devil
1612 Supernatural badness (there are only two “good” characters in the story) with poisoning, murder, ghosts, vampires, witchcraft, Satanism, etc.
4. William Godwin Things As They Are; or: The Adventures of Caleb Williams
1794 Written by a political radical, wherein the terror is in the political situation.
5. Mattew Gregory Lewis The Monk: A Romance
1796 Censored in its time, perhapsthe first modern horror story in English.
6. E.T.A. Hoffmann The Best Tales of Hoffmann
1816 Epoch collection of dark fantasy, featuring the pre-Frankenstein story, “The Sand-Man”, exploring the horror of science and artificial life.
7. Jane Austen Northanger Abbey
1817 Subversively gentile tale of Gothic horror.
8. Mary Shelley Frankenstein
1818 The horror of man attempting to make Man, truly philosophical Gothic horror.
9. Charles Maturin Melmoth the Wanderer
1820 Tale of un unquiet spirit wandering the Earth, and encountering all manner of frightful, sometimes almost Swiftian, horror.
10. James Hogg The Privat Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
1824 A Scottish Calvinist is lured to the Dark Side of persecution and murder by a doppelgänger.
11. Edgar Allen Poe Tales of Mystery and Imagination
1847 The source document in which Poe defines the horror that lurks in the human condition.
12. Nathaniel Hawthorne Twice-Told Tales
1842 The masterful American tales of horror, the supernatural, and even scence fiction.
13. Jeremias Gotthelf The Black Spider
1842 A woman reneges on a pact with the Devil, culminating in a horrible unnatural Birth.
14.Eugène Sue The Wandering Jew
1844 Retelling of the legend of the Jew cursed by Jesus.
15. Herman Melville The Confidence Man: His Masquerade
1857 A supernatural master of disguise who preys on the passengers of a Mississippi river boat. Deeply disturbing, if not overtly horrific.
16. J. Sheridan Le Fanu Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bertram-Haugh
1864 Classic ghost story of Gothic melodrama.
17. Robert Louis Stevenson The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1886 Study of the conflicting good and evil duality of Man.
18. H. Rider Haggard She
1887 African explorers discover a Lost City ruled by an immortal white queen.
19. Robert W. Chambers The Queen in Yellow
1895 Collection of linked short stories built around a play which Dooms those who see it. Immensely influential, from Lovecraft to Raymond Chandler.
20. H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau
1896 The ur-biotech novel, the tale of a modern Frankenstein, wherein Darwin meets Swift meets Mary Shelley.
21. Bram Stoker Dracula
1897 Stoker didn’t invent the vampire story, but herein he did codify it as the essental 20th century horror archetype.
22. Henry James The Turn of the Screw
1898 Ghost stories which welcomed the elements of psychology into literature.
23. Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
1902 A man who goes to the end of the world to witness the power of the Dark Side taking over a man’s soul.
24. Bram Stoker The Jewel of Seven Stars
1903 Excellent tale of the supernatural possession of a girl by an ancient Egyptian queen.
25. M.R. James Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
1904 Perhaps the most influential writer on modern horror, his stories both suggestive and downright nasty.
26. Arthur Machen The House of Souls
1906 Masterful tales of often occult horror, explorations of the “secret of things”, the secret underpinnings of reality.
27. Algernon Blackwood John Silence, Physician Extrordinary
1908 Supernatural mysteries solved by a detective Doctor.
28. G.K. Chesterton The Man Who Was Thursday
1908 “A Nightmare”. A group of anarchists named after days of the week, led by the satanic Sunday.
29. William Hope Hodgson The House On the Borderland
1908 Guy nis projected into a vastly distant Dying Earth future, in a story that is one of the most important influences on H.P. Lovecraft.
30. Ambrose Bierce The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce
1909 Another extremely influential work of suspence and horror, with such classic tales as “An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge”.
31. Oliver Onions Widdershins
1911 (The title means “counterclockwise”). A collection of classic ghost stories with strong psychological components.
32. E.F. Benson The Horror Horn: The Best Horror Stories of E.F. Benson
1912-34 A lesser known (and under appreciated) but highly competent and important seminal horror writer.
33. David Lindsay A Voyage To Arcturus
1920 Earther is dumped by aliens into a strange interior journey on a surreal planet, a spiritual horror story.
34. Franz Kafka The Trial
1925 Horror springing from the disquieting New Politics of the twentieth century, the paranoia of totalitarian thought.
35. James Branch Cabell Something About Eve
1927 The eleventh part of Cabell’s gigantic metafiction, in which a guy strikes a deal with a demon so as to pursue Adventure, chiefly with dangerous women.
36. E.H. Visiak Medusa
1929 A madman on an abandoned pirate ship leads his rescuers towards monstrous Evil.
37. Guy Endore The Werewolf of Paris
1933 Classic twentieth century take on the werewolf archetype.
38. Marjorie Bowen The Last Bouquet: Some Twilight Tales
1933 Classic ghost stories of a romance novel-ish cast.
39. Alexander Laing The Cadaver of Gideaon Wyck
1934 Bizarre medical experiments and demented happenings, in an influential early medical thriller.
40. Sir Hugh Walpole (ed) A Second Century of Creepy Stories
1937 The hands down best horror anthology of stories to this point in time. Many, many classics.
41. C.S. Lewis The Dark Tower and The Day After Judgement
1938 An incomplete novel without an ending, of a parallel world featuring both Lewis himself as narrator and Ransom (from Perelandra).
42. Dalton Trumbo Johnny Got His Gun
1939 Blinded, deafened and made speechless by a battlefield injury, a quadruple amputee who can still reason faces being put on display as a carnival sideshow lesson on the horrors of war.
43. H.P Lovecraft The Outsider and Others
1939 The first book of Lovecraft’s stories, a collection spanning his entire career that is one of the most important horror works of the twentieth century.
44. Clark Ashton Smith Out of Space and Time
1942 The second important Arkham House collection, an excellent selection of stories from Smith’s imagined worlds.
45. Fritz Leiber Conjure Wife
1943 Great story of witchcraft among faculty wives.
46. Cornell Woolrich Night Has a Thousand Eyes
1945 The most supernatural of Woolrich’s stories, with a detective trying to prevent a Prophecy from occuring.
47. H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth The lurker at the Threshold
1945 Mostly Derleth’s work, the systematic portrayal of the Cthulhu Mythos. Eldritch.
48. Paul Bailey Deliver Me From Eva
1946 Lawyer marries the daughter of a Mad Scientist and all sorts of horrific events follow. Tongue in cheek (probably…) pulp-ish fun.
49. Boris Karloff (ed) And the Darkness Falls
1946 Extensive 1940’s collection of classic tales.
50. August derleth (ed) The Sleeping and the Dead
1947 Excellent collection of bothe classic UK ghost stories and some of the best of the American Weird Tales school.
51. Walter Van Tilburg Clark Track of the Cat 1949 An really interesting Gothic Western that touches on mythology and psychology.
52. Sarban The Sound oif His Horn
1952 Tour de force story of an alternate world of a Nazi victory.
53. William Golding Lord of the Flies
1954 Crashlanded schoolboys form a Civilization that reverts to barbarism.
54. Richard Matherson I Am Legend
1954 Filmed as The Omega Man, a moldern recasting of the vampire legend, as aregular guy battles the Things that were once his fellow humans.
55. Ray Bradbury The October Country
1955 Tne definitive easily availabler collection of Bradbury’s early horror work, culled from Arkham House’s Dark Carnival.
56. Joseph Payne Brennan Nine Horrors and a Dream
1958 Classic collection of Weird Tales material, originally published by Arkham House.
57. Robert Bloch Psycho
1959 The important modern codification of the pscho killer archetype.
58. Nigel Kneale Quatermass and the Pit
1959 Great science fictional horror of a buries five million year old Martian spaceship in London.
59. H.P. Lovecraft Cry Horror!
1959 Re-titling of the classic Ther Lurking Fear, which introducede H.P. to the UK popular reading public.
60. Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House
1959 Excellent and highly influential (especially to film) story of a bunch of folks spending a night in a haunted house.
61. Philip K. Dick The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
1964 Wildly psychedelic story of bread-and-circuses drugs that create artificial realities.
62. Jerzy kosinski The Painted Bird
1965 A Boy alone wanders the horrors of Nazi dominated Europe.
63. J.G. Ballard The Crystal World
1966 One of four metaphorical disaster stories by Ballard in the early 60’s, about a world turning to Stone.
64. Robert Aikman Sub Rosa
1968 A very Interesting set of ghost stories which feature ambiguity and disturbingly strange events.
65. Kingsley Amis The Green Man
1969 A pub owner starts seeing ghosts, in a story that is both literate and an inspiration (a bit) of John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty.
66. Anthony Boucher The Compleat Werewolf, and Other Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction
1969 The cream of Boucher’s early 1940’s work for John W. Campbell, an excellent collection of wide-ranging stories.
67. John Gardner Grendel
1971 The tale of Beowulf, told from the standpoit of the monster. Excellent fantasy/tragedy.
68. William Peter Blatty The Exorcist
1971 The influential story that launched a thousand Catholic Fear horror stories and films.
69. John Brunner The Sheep Look Up
1972 The seminal ecological horror story of a ruined Earth.
70. Manly Wade Wellman Worse Things Waiting
1973 Beautiful illustrated edition from Carcosa Press of Wellman’s best work fro the pulps.
71.Robert Marasco Burnt Offerings
1973 New Yorkers move to the country and find themselves in a strange and disturbing house with a Little Old Lady Who Lives Upstairs.
72. Stephen King ‘Salems’s Lot
1975 King’s second book, in which he explores the Dracula material.
73. Harlan Ellison Deathbird Stories
1975 The essential Ellison stories from the 60’s and 70’s, in which Harlan gives the reader advice on how to read the book.
74. Hugh B. Cave Murgunstrumm and Others
1977 Awesome collection. Forty years of the best of Cave’s Weird Tales era output (including a couple of Cthulhu pieces).
75. Bernard Taylor Sweetheart, Sweetheart
1977 Supernatural murder mystery involving a malevolent female spirit.
76. John Farris All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By
1977 A seminal treatment of voodoo in a modern horror setting.
77. Stephen King The Shining
1977 Tour de force story of a writer’s descent into madness in a haunted hotel.
78. William Hjortsberg Falling Angel
1978 The basis for the film Angel Heart, an excellent urbanization of voodoo themes.
79. Whitely Streiber The Wolfen
1978 Interesting re-construction of the werewolf theme in an urban setting.
80. David Morrell The Totem
1979 A Wyoming policeman encounters the supernatural in a rationalized look at The Undead.
81. Peter Straub Ghost Story
1979 A successful modern homage to the classic ghost stories of James, Poe, etc.
82. Jonathan Carroll The Land of Laughs
1980 Couple researching an author find his mometown may be the creation of his fantasies. One of the greatest modern fantasies.
83. Richard Laymon The Cellar
1980 Violent, nasty story of a House with a Beast, a story both disturbing and subtle that takes a hard look at what is truly horrifying. The first of the Beast House stories.
84. Thomas Harris Red Dragon
1981 Magnificent and important work in the modern serial killer genre vs. the FBI Guy theme, which introduces Dr. Hannibal Lector.
85. F. Paul Wilson The Keep
1981 Lovecraftian story of an ancient horror unleashed by Nazi soldiers in a Romanian castle.
86. Deniis Etchison The Dark Country
1982 The essental collection of Etchison’s finely crafted American Gothic fiction.
87. Karl Edward Wagner In a Lonely Place
1983 Excellent collection of Wagner’s non-barbarian horror fiction
88. Tim Powers The Anubis Gates
1983 Truly great time travel thriller involving Coleridges London, ancient Egypt, and Souther California.
89. Robert Irwin The Arabian Nightmare
1983 A twisted Arabian Nights story along the line of The Sargossa Manuscript.
90. Iain Banks The Wasp Factory
1984 Horrific incidents in the lives of Scottish islanders, highly controversial at the time of it’s release. Banks’ first book.
91. T.E.D. Klein The Ceremonies
1984 Four people are fooled into easing the way for The Return Of The Elder Gods.
92. Robert Holdstock Mythago Wood
1984 Fantastical pocket Universe in an ancient patch of magical forest where Time and Space are distorted.
93. Michael Bishop Who Made Stevie Crye?
1984 Young widow and freelance writer encounters a weird typewriter repairman, and (often humorous) horror happens.
94. Dan Simmons The Song of Kali
1985 American poet in India encounters the Kali cult.
95. Clive Barker The Damnation Game
1985 Modern deconstruction of the Faust story in the Barker style.
96. Peter Ackroyd Hawksmoor
1985 Assistant to Sir Christopher Wren (based on the architect Nicholas Hawsmoor) melds his Satanist beliefs into the design of London churches, tied into a modern murder case involving an Inspector Hawksmoor and a 300 year old doppelganger.
97. Lisa Tuttle A Nest of Nightmares
1986 Great collection of Tuttle’s feminist and domestic horror stories from the early 80’s.
98. Charles L. Grant The Pet
1986 Confused adolescent copes by being able to will Creature of the Imagination into existence.
99. Robert McCammon Swan Song
1987 Post-nuclear war quest story even more ambitious than King’s The Stand.
100. Ramsey Campbell Dark Feasts
1987 The author’s own choice for the cream of his horror story output, an excellent collection.