There are countless Graham Greene courses, tutorials, articles available online, but for some, having a book is still a necessity to learn. This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. The Quiet American (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (2004)
“I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused,” Graham Greene’s narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous “Quiet American” of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas.As young Pyle’s well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler’s motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has…
2. The End of the Affair (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (2004)
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead…” ”This is a record of hate far more than of love,” writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of , and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles. Now, a year after Sarah’s death, Bendrix seeks to exorcise the persistence of his passion by retracing its course from obsessive love to love-hate. At first, he believes he hates Sarah and her…
3. Our Man in Havana (2007)
MI6’s man in Havana is Wormold, a former vacuum-cleaner salesman turned reluctant secret agent out of economic necessity. To keep his job, he files bogus reports based on Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare and dreams up military installations from vacuum-cleaner designs. Then his stories start coming disturbingly true… First published in 1959 against the backdrop of the Cold War, Our Man in Havana remains one of Graham Greene’s most widely read novels. It is an espionage thriller, a penetrating character study, and a political satire of government…
4. The Heart of the Matter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (2004)
“Wilson sat on the balcony of the Bedford Hotel with his bald pink knees thrust against the ironwork…” Graham Greene’s masterpiece, tells the story of a good man enmeshed in love, intrigue, and evil in a West African coastal town. Scobie is bound by strict integrity to his role as assistant police commissioner and by severe responsibility to his wife, Louise, for whom he cares with a fatal pity. When Scobie falls in love with the young widow Helen, he finds vital passion again yielding to pity, integrity giving way to deceit and…
5. The Human Factor (Penguin Classics) (2008)
Maurice Castle is a high-level operative in the British secret service during the Cold War. He is deeply in love with his African wife, who escaped apartheid South Africa with the help of his communist friend. Despite his misgivings, Castle decides to act as a double agent, passing information to the Soviets to help his in-laws in South Africa. In order to evade detection, he allows his assistant to be wrongly identified as the source of the leaks. But when suspicions remain, Castle is forced to make an even more excruciating sacrifice to save himself. Originally published…
6. The Power and the Glory (1978)
In one of the southern states of Mexico, during an anti-clerical purge, the last priest, like a hunted hare, is on the run. Too human for heroism, too humble for martyrdom, the little worldly ‘whiskey priest’ is nevertheless impelled towards his squalid Calvary as much by his own compassion for humanity as by the efforts of his pursuers. A baleful vulture of doom hovers over this modern crucifixion story, but above the vulture soars an eagle — the inevitability of the Church’s triumph….
7. Brighton Rock (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (2004)
“Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him…” Graham Greene’s chilling exposé of violence and gang warfare in the pre-war underworld is a classic of its kind. Pinkie, a teenage gangster on the rise, is devoid of compassion or human feeling, despising weakness of both the spirit and the flesh. Responsible for the razor slashes that killed mob boss Kite and also for the death of Hale, a reporter who threatened the livelihood of the mob, Pinkie is the embodiment of calculated evil. As a Catholic, however, Pinkie is convinced that his retribution…
8. Complete Short Stories (Penguin Classics) (2005)
Affairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.” This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico…
9. The Ministry of Fear: An Entertainment (Penguin Classics) (2005)
For Arthur Rowe, the trip to the charity fête was a joyful step back into adolescence, a chance to forget the nightmare of the Blitz and the aching guilt of having mercifully murdered his sick wife. He was surviving alone, outside the war, until he happened to win a cake at the fête. From that moment, he is ruthlessly hunted by Nazi agents and finds himself the prey of malign and shadowy forces. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of…
10. Twenty-One Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) (1993)
In ’The Basement Room’ a small boy witnesses an event that blights his whole life. Like the other stories in this book (written between 1929 and 1954), it hinges on the themes that dominate Graham Greene’s novels—fear, pity and violence, pursuit, betrayal and man’s restless search for salvation. Some of the stories are comic—poor Mr Maling’s stomach mysteriously broadcasts all sorts of sounds; others are wryly sad—a youthful indiscretion catches up with Mr Carter in ’The Blue Film’. They can be deeply shocking: in ’The Destructors’ a gang of children…
11. The Comedians (Penguin Classics) (2005)
Three men meet on a ship bound for Haiti, a world in the grip of the corrupt “Papa Doc” and the Tontons Macoute, his sinister secret police. Brown the hotelier, Smith the innocent American, and Jones the confidence man—these are the “comedians” of Greene’s title. Hiding behind their actors’ masks, they hesitate on the edge of life. They are men afraid of love, afraid of pain, afraid of fear itself…For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With…
12. Monsignor Quixote (Penguin Classics) (2008)
When Father Quixote, a local priest of the Spanish village of El Toboso who claims ancestry to Cervantes’ fictional Don Quixote, is elevated to the rank of monsignor through a clerical error, he sets out on a journey to Madrid to purchase purple socks appropriate to his new station. Accompanying him on his mission is his best friend, Sancho, the Communist ex-mayor of the village who argues politics and religion with Quixote and rescues him from the various troubles his innocence lands him in along the way. Published in 1932, Monsignor Quixote is Graham Greene’s last religious novel, a fond homage to Cervantes, and a…
13. The Third Man (1999)
Rollo Martins’ usual line is the writing of cheap paperback Westerns under the name of Buck Dexter. But when his old friend Harry Lime invites him to Vienna, he jumps at the chance. With exactly five pounds in his pocket, he arrives only just in time to make it to his friend’s funeral. The victim of an apparently banal street accident, the late Mr. Lime, it seems, had been the focus of a criminal investigation, suspected of nothing less than being “the worst racketeer who ever made a dirty living in this city.” Martins is determined to clear his friend’s name, and begins an investigation…
Best Graham Greene Books that Should be on Your Bookshelf
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Genesis and download some graham greene books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Graham Greene: Political Writer
Author(s): Michael G. Brennan
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, Year: 2016, Size: 1 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1583677
Language of Ethics and Community in Graham Greene’s Fiction
Author(s): Martín Salván, Paula
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2015, Size: 1 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1685972
Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene's Adventures in Haiti and Central America 1954-1983
Author(s): Bernard Diederich, Richard Greene, Pico Iyer
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers, Year: 2012, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 1022581
New Jersey: A History of the Garden State
Author(s): Maxine N. Lurie, Richard Veit, Michael J. Birkner, Howard Gillette, G. Kurt Piehler, Brian Greenberg, Larry Greene, Graham Russell Gao Hodges, John Fea, Paul Israel, Marc Mappen
Publisher: Rutgers University Press, Year: 2012, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1052820
Graham Greene and the Politics of Popular Fiction and Film
Author(s): Brian Lindsay Thomson
Publisher: , Year: 2009, Size: 771 Kb, Download: pdf
ID: 575599
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are absolutely hot items according to Los Angeles Times, others are drafted by unknown writers. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.