#50 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Babies havin’ babies? Not on Nanny’s watch. At least, not out of wedlock. That’s why she insisted that her 16 year old grand daughter, Janie, get married right away. Nearly twenty-five years and two marriages later, Janie returns to her home after having left with Tea Cake, a man twenty years her junior. Janie is alone and the playa’ hatin’ neighbors want to know why. As she tells her story to her friend, Phoeby, we learn not only about the tragedy involving Tea Cake, but about the events that have helped Janie live by what seems to be her motto: “To thine own self, be true." In other words, “Do you.”

#49 M.Butterfly by David Henry Hwang

This play is based on a true story, believe it or not. For how could Rene Gallimard not have known that Song Liling, the woman he loved for twenty years was really a man? Song creates the fantasy of the perfect woman: She is beautiful, seductive and wants only to fulfill her man’s every desire. Or so Gallimard thinks. Song is a spy for the Chinese government and Gallimard’s position as a French diplomat is the target of her “womanly wiles”. Gallimard claims to have had no idea that his painted lady was no butterfly at all. Not so hard to believe; every fool in love is eager to be deceived.

#48 A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Gene returns to the Devon School, site of the angst of his teenage years. He is older, but the school looks younger, varnished and gleaming. Equally varnished are Gene’s memories of Phineas, his best friend while at the Devon School. Finny, an adroit charmer and natural athlete, makes life look easy. He is everything Gene is not. When an accident involving Gene, a high tree, and a questionably clumsy Phineas puts an end to his physical prowess, Gene must ask himself a hard question: Did he cause Finny’s fall on purpose? Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between a friend and a frenemy until you’re falling out of the tree.

#47 Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

It’s sort of like the show Seinfeld, but with more songs and pine trees. Pooh is the Jerry of the book, as he always breaks even and never comes to any harm. He and his friends, Piglet, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, and Roo also spend the day visiting each other’s apartments (that is, tree houses) and muddling through the absurdities that fill their lives. But this book, unlike that show, is not about nothing. It is about friendship, imagination and the wonder of childhood. Pooh could give Jerry a few lessons on dealing with life’s little Heffalumps with a “hummy” song, a smackerel of “hunny,” and a quiet stroll though the woods.

#46 The Iliad by Homer

There are names for women like Helen of Troy, and by the tenth year of a most bloody and unceasing war, she has called herself every one. Every day, men have their limbs slashed, eyes gouged, throats cut, skulls smashed and corpses defiled, all because of her. The war starts when she, already married to Menalaus of Sparta, ran away with Paris of Troy. The Greeks launch a thousand ships to get her back. When the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus get involved, it quickly turns into a battle between the mortal and immortal: an unfair match. All this fuss over one woman. She’s beautiful, yes, but can she cook?

#45 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Long before Maury Povich came on the scene to reveal paternity, people just had to take the mother’s word for it. The problem in this novel is that Hester Prynne isn’t talking. Her husband cannot be the father of her child, because he is thought to be two years at the bottom of the sea. Rather than leave the confines of her strict Puritan town, she stays and is forced to wear the letter “A”, for “adultery”, upon her chest. So who is the father? One who speaks eloquently about the Heavenly Father, and who suffers unimaginably in hypocrisy and shame. His secret letter “A” is the agony within his heart.

#44 The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

First there was the land and the land was good. Wang Lung is a poor farmer in China before the revolution, whose love of his land rules his life.   Wang sweats through sunshine, rain and harvest time, reaping the crops from his good and fertile land. Then Wang Lung chooses O-Lan, a slave woman from the majestic house of Hwang, to be his wife.   She is no beauty, with her big feet and big hands, but she works and bears sons, and brings prosperity to Wang Lung's house.  But as Wang Lung’s wealth grows, so do his troubles.  In the end, the land remains, planted with seeds of deceit and greed.