What are some classic books that you should read before you die?

Question

Any good book suggestions would be helpful... :)

Answer 1

Some books you should read would include:
-all of William Shakespeare
-Paradise Lost by John Milton
-The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
-Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (and her other 5)
-David Copperfield; Great Expectations; A Tale of Two Cities; A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens' novels (and all his others)
-Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (and all the rest of his)
-The poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron
-The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (and Mere Christianity; The Screwtape Letters; The Great Divorce; A Grief Observed)
-The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien (and The Hobbit)
-The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston LeRoux
-Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (plus others of his like The Master of Ballantrae)
-Silas Marner by George Eliot
-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
-Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
-Little Women; Little Men; Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
-The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm; Hans Christien Anderson; Beatrix Potter; Aesop's Fables; Mother Goose
-The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
-Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
-War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (and Anna Karenina)
-Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (and The Idiot and others)
-The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (and his other books)
-The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving

There are SO MANY more, that it's impossible to type it all out. You might be interested in the site http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.22845/Books that gives the 1001 books you should read before you die. There's also a book by that name http://www.amazon.com/1001-Books-Must-Read-Before/dp/0789313707 (probably with varied suggestions).

Answer 2

The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Sallinger
Hero by Will Hobbs
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Sallinger
Any Shakespeare book is a great read, as well.

Answer 3

Classics :

Any Shakespeare, for your modern English influence

The Miller's Tale by Chaucer for your middle English influence

Any Beowulf for your old English influence

Some Greek influences like Aristotle (not my favorite) or Homer (long winded) or Plato (Plato's The Statesman is the original version of Robert Pirsig's ever popular Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

Fyodor Dostoevsky for your Russian influence (note that Crime and Punishment was originally written from inside the Gulag by candle light and released over the Russian pirate radio airwaves as each chapter was written. The only other author I know of to release a book by chapter as it was being written is Stephen King's The Green Mile. Ironically, that too is about a prison).

Contemporary Classics:

A Confederacy of Dunces (postumous nobel prize winner John Kennedy Toole)

The Charm School (Nelson Demille - this one kept me up all night reading. Couldn't put it down)

Answer 4

Jane Eyre, all the Sherlock Holmes books, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Bean Trees and the others she writes, Animal Farm, and for fun all the Star Trek novels written by Peter David!

Answer 5

Catch-22, Joe Pitt, Hemingway, Hunter Thompson, Watchmen

Answer 6

Here's a few off the top of my head:

Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jayne Eyre

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Handmaid's Tale

Lord of the Rings trilogy

Dune

Don't read Shakespeare - go see it - they were written as plays, not books, and make more sense on stage!

Answer 7

It depends on what kind of books you like to read but I suggest Twilight. After you finish that then read the next book after it New Moon and then Eclipse [its a series]. They're by the author Stephenie Meyer. Keeps your heart racing when you get into it. Hope this helps!

Answer 8

Old Yeller
Pride and Prejeduce
Gone with the wind
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
Mice and Men
The Theif Lord
The Color Purple
Annie and the Green Gables
Romeo and Juliet
The Outsiders

Answer 9

if you are an english speaker there are at least thirty-five wonderful plays by william shakespeare. but if possible it is better to see them in a theatre (or on tv, or film).

everybody should read homer's odyssey (and probably the iliad too): everything else comes after those two works, and nearly everything else was influenced by them.

once you have those basics down you should read what appeals most to you. some people love austen, some prefer bronte. some people love dickens, for others george eliot turns the key.

Answer 10

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
some Shakespeare (Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet,...)
The Divine Comedy - Dante
Petrarka's poetry
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger