What are some "essential" books to read?

Question

When I was a small child I was an avid reader, and then I got to be a young teenager, and shamefully for me, it wasn't considered "cool" so I just sort of stopped...

Anyway now I'm 17 and getting back into reading!

What are some essential books, that everyone should read?

(I've already read Lolita, Birdsong, Perfume, An Awfully Big Adventure and a few more things...)

Answer 1

The Bible - it is our life's manual

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

Robinson Cruseo by Daniel Defoe, the first English novel

Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, a masterpiece of adventure writing

Answer 2

These are the most recent books I've read:-

Swan by Frances Mayes

Flight of the Archangel and Cecily by Isabelle Holland

The Chase by Louisa May Alcott

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Almonds and Raisins by Maisie Mosco

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

Sister of My Heart, Arranged Marriage, The Lives of Others and Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Lisa of Lambeth by Somerset Maugham

I found them quite interesting, especially since they all differed from the book I'm used to reading.

However, here's a standard list which I would advise anybody:-

Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

The Mill on the Floss, Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner by George Eliot

Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop, Little Dorrit, Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, A tale of Two Cities and Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

The Grapes of wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl,Tortilla flat by John Steinbeck

Tess of the Duberville, Jude the Obscure, The return of the Native, Under the Greenwood tree, A Pair of Blue eyes,The Mayor of Casterbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

Villette, Shirley, The Professor,and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Agnes Grey, The tenant of Windfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Alchemist, The Devil and Miss Prym, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept and Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Diary of Anne Frank

Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth and any other play by Shakespeare

The Fall of the House of Usher, The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart and other stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway

The Sound and the Fury and Light in August by William Faulkner

All Quite on the Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque

Night by Elie Wiesel

Black Boy by Richard Wright

The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Canterville Ghost, Salome, Vera Or The Nihilists,The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Oedipus Rex and Antigone by Sophocles

Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malroy

Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Moby d**k by Herman Melville

The Lost world by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Time Machine by H.G.Wells

Roll of Thunder, Hear my cry and Let the Circle be Unbroken by Mildred Taylor

A Grain Of Wheat, Matigari and Devil on the Cross by Ngugi

Things Fall Apart and Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe

The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook by Dorris Lessing

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London

A Room with A View and A Passage to India by E.M.Forster

Love in the Time of Cholera and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez

A House For Mr Biswas and Mr Stone and the Knights companion by V.S.Naipaul

The Guide, The English Teacher, Waiting for the Mahatma and Malgudi Days by R.K.Narayan

Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton( It's nothing like the film, it's a million times times more interesting)

A Streetcar named Desire, The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennesse Williams

All My Sons, Death of A Salesman, The Crucible and A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

The Reef, The Custom of the Country, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mary Barton and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

To the Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

power and force its on kenectics as a lie detector {factul}, any steven king dean koonts conversations with god and a couple on alcimemy that you will have to find

Answer 4

Well, I am personally a fantasy girl, so I would suggest:

'Ingo' (tetraliogy; The Tide Knot, The Deep & The crossing of Ingo) Helen Dunmore

"Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet Of Samarkand" (Trilogy; The Golem's Eye & Ptomely's Gate) by Jonathon Stroud

"Septimus Heap: Magyk" (sept...? I dont know, seven books, Flyte, Physik & Queste [more to come]) Angie Sage

"Pellinor: The gift" (Tetraliogy:The Riddle, The Crow & the Song [I think]) By Alison Croggon

"Uglies" (Trilogy: Pretties & Special [Plus a related book by the same author, Extras]) By Scott Westerfeld

"Fearless" By Tim Lott

"Artemis Fowl" (Six Books; ~ Artic Incident; ~ eternity code; ~ Opal Deception; ~ Lost colony & ~Time paradox) By Eoin Colfer

"My Story" (Too many to list, [not fantasy btw]) {Several Authors}

"Missing Persons; The Rose Queen" (Tetraliogy: Chocolate Lover; Ventian Policeman & unsuspecting gourmet) by M.E.Rabb

"The Chain of Charms; The gypsy crown" (Six books; The silver horse, oh, I'm too tired to list them all.) By Kate Forsyth

Anything By Diana Wynne Jones

"Stormbreaker" (Alex rider series, ugg, sleepy) Anthony Horowitz

"Parvana" (Trilogy? Sequel A: Parvana's Journey [From Parvana's view] Sequel B: Shauzia [from Paravana's friends view])

"Dragonkeeper" (Trilogy; Dragon of the Purple Dragon & Dragonmoon) by Carole Wilkonson

"Juggling With Manadrins" (a sequel, Shooting the moon) By V.M.Jones {Not Fantasy}

"Angel's in Pink: Kathleen's Story" (Trilogy: Raina's Story & Holly's Story) by Lurlene McDaniel {Not Fantasy}

Ugg! I'm sleepy, thats all I got!

Answer 5

Anything by Faulkner "Sound and the Fury", "Sanctuary", and "As I lay dying" are all great. I would also recommend "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath and "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin.  

Answer 6

really depends what kind of stories you like.

I am a huge reader so will just give you a few things as they come to me

To kill a mockingbird

The corrections, Jonathan Frantzen

We need to talk about Kevin

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

The Book of illusions - Paul Auster

There are lots of great websites that will help you find books you like based on what you've already read and enjoyed - amazon is the obvious one!  Or else why not talk to yr favourite teacher at school and see if they have any suggestions?

Happy reading!

Answer 7

The Alchemist. You will love it.