In no particular order:

The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
A Season in Hell by Arthur Rimbaud
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu
The Red Night Trilogy of William S. Burroughs (Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads, The Western Lands)
On the Road: The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac
Book of Haikus by Jack Kerouac
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain

I finished reading Love’s Executioner by Irvin Yalom recently, and it has immediately become one of my favorites! Yalom is one of the foundational thinkers behind Existential Psychotherapy, and the book is a collection of ten case studies presented in a short-story format revolving around themes of love, grief, and authenticity.

It’s pretty refreshing to read case studies where the therapist doesn’t present themselves as an all-seeing, all-knowing genius; Irvin Yalom is very open about his uncertainties and mistakes with his clients. The cases he presents are fascinating, and he does a great job of illustrating his philosophical and therapeutic principles throughout. I highly recommend it for anybody interested in psychology, the human condition, or personality-centered short stories!

A few of my favorite poets that come to mind:

Charles Baudelaire

Arthur Rimbaud

Paul Verlaine

Ezra Pound

Gregory Corso

Sappho

Sylvia Plath

Li Bai

Dostoevsky is one of my all-time favorites! The Idiot made me weep the first time I read it.