A Camus Reading List

Get uncomfortable with the absurdity of human existence and the essential Camus reading list.

Camus’s take on the essential absurdity of human existence can be equal parts crushing and liberating, part humor and part grief, part possibility and part entropy. Whatever it is, it’s never boring, and if you’ve got a teen who enjoys critical thinking, Camus’s writing can be a bridge to more academic philosophy. These books are a good place to start.

THE STRANGER

Meursault is an existential protagonist who acknowledges that there is no inherent meaning in life — but unlike Camus himself, this antihero isn’t inspired to try to make meaning. Instead, he makes the people around him uncomfortable and afraid by refusing to engage in accepted social behaviors, such as mourning the death of his own mother. The brutal, blunt language reinforces the blunt, brutal reality of a meaningless existence, setting the terms of a philosophical discussion that continues today.

THE PLAGUE

The darkness of human existence is present again in The Plague, but so is the radiance and nobility of human goodness. When an epidemic quarantines an Algerian city, the residents are forced to confront their morality, their relationships, and the meaning of life.

THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

Confronted with meaning- less existence, man must learn how to live with death at the end of it—no easy task, and one that requires an absurd hero. Enter Sisyphus, the Greek figure doomed to endlessly push a rock up a hill, starting the process anew each day. Camus’s essays in this collection embrace the complex and baffling nature of life without underlying meaning.

CALIGULA

In Camus’s weird drama, his absurdist philosophy plays out through the life of the infamous Roman emperor, who realizes when his beloved sister dies that all humans ultimately die miserable at the end of meaningless lives. Caligula responds with the cruelty and violence that would ensure him a page in history, using depravity to battle his philosophical desperation.

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