Following Laura's lead (her blog is in my list o' links), I'll include my list, too.
The overarching theme of the books is that of becoming, of characters gaining further insight and developing, which is a rather general thread, but I didn't want to be too specific on something that, given what I'm doing with my class, would end up being of tertiary importance anyway. The list:
Two Sherlock Holmes Adventures, leading into:
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Demian by Hermann Hesse
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The obvious odd one out is the Dostoevsky, in that the Underground Man doesn't develop, doesn't gain that additional knowledge of oneself, really, but the reader does this regarding his bad example. It'll be interesting to see what the students have to say about these. I aimed to include at least a few books not often seen on undergraduate class syllabi.
Having spent about 3 hours writing just now, I'm a bit fuzzed-out regarding brain activity and am hoping my late nap this afternoon won't keep me up much longer.
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