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Standalone Books in Order
Below you'll find the complete list of Standalone books in publication order. This is generally the recommended reading order for the series.
Reading order verified: March 2026
Quick Answer
What order should I read the Standalone series? Start with "The Grass Is Singing" (1950) and follow publication order through all 38 books.
The complete Standalone reading order is listed below in publication sequence.
Publication Order

The Grass Is Singing
1950

Retreat to Innocence
1956

The Golden Notebook
1962

A Man and Two Women
1963

Winter in July
1964

The Black Madonna
1966

Particularly Cats
1967

Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
1971

The Summer Before the Dark
1973

The Memoirs of a Survivor
1974

The Good Terrorist
1985

Playing The Game (With: Charlie Adlard)
1994

Love, Again
1995

Old Age of El Magnifico
2000

The Sweetest Dream
2001

The Cleft
2007

Alfred and Emily
2008

The Old Chief Mshlanga
1952

The Day Stalin Died
1958

Report on the Threatened City
1972

Through the Tunnel
1989

Adore
2003

An Old Woman and Her Cat
2013

Five
1954

The Habit of Loving
1957

To Room Nineteen
1958

Fourteen Poems
1959

African Stories
1965

Nine African Stories
1965

The Temptation of Jack Orkney
1972

Stories
1978

The Story of a Non-Marrying Man
1979

The Real Thing / London Observed
1991

The Doris Lessing Reader
1991

Spies I Have Known
1995

Play With A Tiger
1996

Problems, Myths and Stories
1999

The Grandmothers
2003
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