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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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