I watched a progamme on telly last week which tried to suggest 50 films which a person must see before they die. I had seen almost all the films but their inevitable no.1 if- you- only- watch- one- film- ever choice reminded me that I hadn't read Heart Of Darkness yet so I wondered what the literary equivelent would be. Feel free to suggest as many or as few as you like.
2006-07-28 03:00:40 · 41 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
Hmm... 9 answers and no one has said Ulysses yet, you guy's are worring me now lol!
2006-07-28 03:06:54 · update #1
In answer to some peoples answers: it's just a bit of fun love, don't get too upset. I just asked what your opinions are not what mine should be!
2006-07-28 05:24:16 · update #2
invisible man by ellison
catch 22 - heller
of human bondage - maugham
on the road - kerouac
slaughterhouse-five - vonnegut
things fall apart - achebe
naked lunch - burroughs
the grapes of wrath - steinbeck
catcher in the rye - sallinger
100 years of solitude - marquez
narcissus and goldmund - hesse
anna karenina - tolstoy
crime and punishment - dostoevsky
ulysses - joyce
heart of darkness - conrad
the stranger - camus
the metamorphosis - kafka
the sound and the fury - faulkner
the prophet - kahlil gibran
there are more that i'll remember later and be mad that i didnt put them on here. good question.
2006-07-28 03:42:09 · answer #1 · answered by Ollie Tabooger 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Hi - I don't know if you're after Fiction or Non-Fiction so I will suggest some that I have found truly valuable from both sides. I also don't know what age group if any you had in mind so here goes nothing - they are in no particular order or age grouping!
By the by I had just spoken to my sister yesterday about her having to read Ulysses!!
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins
Dirt Music - Tim Winton
1988 - Andrew McGahn
Just about anything written by Dean Koontz
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
Chocky - John Wyndham
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Charlotte's Web - EB White
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Z for Zachariah - Robert C O'Brien
Ordinary People - Judith Guest
I have more but maybe that's enough for now
2006-07-28 05:07:46 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well for what its worth I think these are definitely the books you should read before you die!! They are all classics and most are still in print today even though they were written up to and over 100 years ago.
Robin Hood...by Paul Creswick
White Fang, The Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire and other short stories...by Jack London. Go here to read some of his short stories online he was a master of short stories and has many.. http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/
The Yearling...by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Kidnapped and Treasure Island....by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Good Earth...by Pearl S Buck
The City of Endless Night....by Milo Hastings
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy...by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The Lost World and Sherlock Holmes...by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Jungle Book and Kim...by Rudyard Kipling
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...by Mark Twain
King Solomons Mines..by H. Rider Haggard
Lost in the Barrens, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be and Owls in the Family....by Farley Mowat
The Chronicles of Narnia..by C.S Lewis
Anne of Green Gables...by LM Montgomery
The Three Musketeers...by Alexandre Dumas
The Blackcock's Feather...by Maurice Walsh
Dune....by Frank Herbert
The Lord of the Flies...by William Golding
Emma...by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre...by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights...by Emily Bronte
Le Morte de Arthur (translation)...by Sir Thomas Malory
Tarzan of the Apes..by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Collected Verse of Robert Service..by Robert Service
Tess of the d'Urbervilles..by Thomas Hardy
edit
Bambi...by Felix Salten
PS I have read every single one of these books and I would not be the person I am today without them, all of them are on my bookshelf and I read them over now and then because they are still just as powerful even after all these years and I never get tired of reading them all again!!
2006-07-28 18:37:40 · answer #3 · answered by Kelly + Eternal Universal Energy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A Course in Miracles
The Upanishads
The Legend of Gilgamesh
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey
Virgil's The Georgics, if nothing else but try to get all his writings.
Dante Allighieri's Divina Comedia
The meditations of Santa Teresa de la Cruz.
Herodotus' and Thucidides' Histories
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Oxford American or English Dictionary
Don Quixote
Les Miserables
Faust by Goethe
Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas
How Things Work, complete set
Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia
The Jerusalem Bible and King James Bible to compare
John Le Carre's Coming in from the Cold and
The Constant Gardener
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
The Tin Drum, Gunter Grasse
Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse
The Tragedies and Comedies of Shakespeare.
The Kalevala
Chronicles of the Conquest of Mexico, by Bernal Dias de Castillo
The Constitution of the United States of America
Calculus, by Loomis
Geometry, by Euclid
Manual on Television Repair
The Reader's Digest Encyclopedia on Home Repair
A set of language tapes and books for Hebrew, Greek, Persian, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi
A collection of National Geographic maps, as updated as possible.
Chilton's Guide to the vehicle of your choice.
Rob van der Plas' Bicycle Repair, Step by Step
The Koran, in Arabic, and one in English;
Arabic-English dictionary
The Torah, in Hebrew, and a Torah in English.
A good manual on farming and another on animal husbandry.
2006-07-28 03:31:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving
Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold
The Secret Life of Bees- Sue Monk Kidd
2006-07-28 03:06:35 · answer #5 · answered by Wild seed 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
These are my personal favs:
The Bible, of course
Jane Eyre
The Odyssey
Black Cross by Greg Iles
Gone With the Wind
The Street Lawyer - John Grisham
Fried Green Tomatoes
Crime and Punishment
Cold Mountain
Spandau Phoenix-also by Greg Iles
Beach Music
2006-07-28 04:59:32 · answer #6 · answered by brandiwhine 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving (If you've seen the movie Simon Birch, that movie was based off this book, but the book is so much better!)
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Harry Potter - JK Rowling (all)
2006-07-28 04:30:00 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Okay, lets put aside the Bible, the Tora, the Quran, the Inshila, and the like (though I think everyone should read ALL of them regardless of religious belief). That being said, I think you should read everything of interest from "The Essencial Calvin and Hobbes" to Einstein's theories. Anything that expands the mind and provokes origional thought. As it is said, "A mind once expanded by a new idea never again retains its origional shape".
As for my Favorites......
Calvin & Hobbes
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 4 book triolgy
The Final Question by Issac Asmov
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Aesop's Fables
The Sonets of Shakesphere
From Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne
A Connecutt Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Diary of Anne Frank
and of course.....Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
2006-07-28 03:18:06 · answer #8 · answered by rahkokwee 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I guess it depends on what you like to read. Here are some of my favorites:
1984, George Orwell
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Leaves of Grass (poetry), Walt Whitman
Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
The Devil's Arithmetic, Jane Yolen
2006-07-28 08:20:26 · answer #9 · answered by gdglgrl 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Books and movies are like anything else.
The only reason its a must see is because you would want a sense of belonging.
Almost everybody loves Star Wars and it would be a sin to say otherwise.
Well I am saying it sucks and not worried about what people think.
There is no such thing as best, so do not be fooled by marketers preying on weak minds.
What would happen if your fav book is not very popular? Let's say it only sold 2,000 copies instead of a book like Lord of the rings that sold millions.
Just because everybody does it and agrees does not make it better.
You will have to learn to think for yourself and make your own judgements.
2006-07-28 03:06:39 · answer #10 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
100 Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez
Crime and Punishment - Dostoyevsky
The Illiad - Homer
The Bible (actually, Hemingway recommended that people who wanted to learn how to write narrative had to read the Bible, so this is not a religious opinion)
Platero y Yo - Juan Ramon Jimenez (don't know the title in English)
2006-07-28 06:39:07 · answer #11 · answered by cmm 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋