I'm looking to create a list where each item in the list will include a title followed by an author/name.
Obviously I could easily do that using any sort of basic document class (article, or paper come to mind) however I was wondering if there is a specific document class which is made specifically for lists.
Here is a simple solution that you could build on. You can use a \parbox for the authors and titles. By specifying that all the parboxes are the same width, they will align as though in a table. (EDIT You can also use a tabular: see below.)
There is no limit on the length, as each \work entry is treated as a paragraph and TeX will break between them as needed. You can control the spacing between entries by changing the \parskip (e.g., \usepackage{parskip}).
You could also make separate boxes for last name and first name, or apply other styling (e.g., all the last names in bold).
\documentclass{article}
\newlength{\authorwidth}
\newlength{\titlewidth}
\setlength{\authorwidth}{0.25\linewidth} % adjust as desired
\setlength{\titlewidth}{0.25\linewidth}
\newcommand{\work}[2]{%
\noindent
\parbox[t]{\authorwidth}{#1}%
\parbox[t]{\titlewidth}{\emph{#2}}\par%
}
\begin{document}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book}
\work{Jim Doe}{Small Book}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book}
\work{Jim Doe}{Small Book}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book}
\work{Jim Doe}{Small Book}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book}
\work{Jim Doe}{Small Book}
\end{document}
EDIT
For more customization, define a generic command to set up the boxes and then use that to make specific commands with formatting.
\newcommand{\pair}[2]{%
\noindent
\parbox[t]{\authorwidth}{#1}%
\parbox[t]{\titlewidth}{#2}\par%
}
\newcommand{\pairHeader}[2]{%
\pair{\textbf{#1}}{\textbf{#2}}\smallskip%
}
\newcommand{\work}[2]{%
\pair{#1}{\emph{#2}}%
}
\begin{document}
\pairHeader{Author}{Title}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
...
@egreg is right, though, that if the boxes are more than one line then there is not enough space after them, unless you fix the spacing manually as he demonstrates. But perhaps this isn't a concern.
EDIT 2: TABULAR VERSION
To fix that alignment problem, instead of using parboxes, you can use a one-row tabular environment for each row. With tabularx you only need to specify the width of the first column. This does produce "Underfull \hbox" warnings, though.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tabularx}
\newlength{\authorwidth}
\setlength{\authorwidth}{0.5\linewidth} % adjust as desired
\newcommand{\pair}[2]{%
\noindent
\begin{tabularx}{\linewidth}{p{\authorwidth} X}
#1 & #2\\
\end{tabularx}\par%
}
\newcommand{\pairHeader}[2]{%
\pair{\textbf{#1}}{\textbf{#2}}\smallskip%
}
\newcommand{\work}[2]{%
\pair{#1}{\emph{#2}}%
}
\begin{document}
\pairHeader{Author}{Title}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book}
\work{Jim Doe}{Small Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book with a long title that will use two lines}
\work{Charles Louis Xavier~Joseph de~la Vall\'ee~Poussin}{Small Book}
\work{Adalbert Uthor}{All about authors}
\end{document}
For such an application I wouldn't use longtable; just boxes for coping with long titles (or authors with long names).
Some tricks are however necessary for getting correct and uniform vertical spacing (see How to keep a constant baselineskip when using minipages (or \parboxes)?)
\documentclass{article}
\newlength{\authorwidth}
\newlength{\titlewidth}
\setlength{\authorwidth}{0.3\columnwidth} % adjust as desired
\setlength{\titlewidth}{0.6\columnwidth} % adjust as desired
\newcommand{\work}[2]{%
\noindent
\parbox[t]{\titlewidth}{%
\raggedright\itshape#2\par
\xdef\titledepth{\the\prevdepth}%
\xdef\titlelines{\the\prevgraf}%
}%
\hspace{\dimexpr\columnwidth-\titlewidth-\authorwidth}%
\parbox[t]{\authorwidth}{%
\raggedright#1\par
\xdef\authordepth{\the\prevdepth}%
\xdef\authorlines{\the\prevgraf}%
}%
\par
\prevdepth=\ifnum\authorlines>\titlelines\space\authordepth\else\titledepth\fi
\medskip
}
\begin{document}
\work{John Doe}{Big Book}
\work{Jane Doe}{Bigger Book with a long title that will use two lines}
\work{Charles Louis Xavier~Joseph de~la Vall\'ee~Poussin}{Small Book}
\work{Adalbert Uthor}{All about authors}
\end{document}
Having a \work macro allows to separate input and formatting; the formatting can be changed at will in the definition of \work.
(I was clearly inspired by Andrew Cashner's answer, but did a few improvements and changes.)
After setting title and author name, I save the depth of the last line and the number of lines, to be used after setting the boxes in order to get uniform spacing. Forced new lines in the title or in the author name should be marked by \\, not by a blank line.
I strongly doubt that there's a LaTeX document class out there that "does" just the type of list you're interested in. I must confess to be entirely unaware of a LaTeX package that does just this -- and nothing else.
At any rate, it's not difficult to set up a longtable environment to do what you're interested in. A longtable can span many pages. By using (a modified form of) the p column type for both columns, titles and names will wrap automatically if their lengths exceed the allotted column widths. Feel free to fine-tune the widths of the columns and the information given in the header.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{longtable} % for 'longtable' environment
\usepackage{booktabs} % for \midrule and \bottomrule macros
\usepackage{array} % for \newcolumntype and \extrarowheight macros
\usepackage{ragged2e} % for \RaggedRight macro
\newcolumntype{P}[1]{>{\RaggedRight\arraybackslash}p{#1}}
\setlength\extrarowheight{1ex} % provide a bit more space between entries
\usepackage{lipsum} % for filler text
\begin{document}
\begin{longtable}{@{} P{0.4\textwidth} @{\hspace{0.05\textwidth}} P{0.55\textwidth} @{}}
Title & Author's name\\ \midrule \endhead
\bottomrule \endlastfoot
x & y\\
x & y\\
\lipsum*[2] & \lipsum*[3]\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
x & y\\
\end{longtable}
\end{document}
