I'm not as well-read as I think I should be - what books should I have read by now?

[CambridgeBlue]

I consider myself fairly intelligent but when I think about it I haven't read a lot of the 'classics' (not adult ones anyway, read far too many children' classics!) apart from those I did at school. For example I am embarrassed to admit I've never read any Jane Austen.

I read all sorts from fairly low brow chic lit to historical stuff, biographies etc but I tend to choose books that I know I will enjoy rather than giving anything a bit more challenging a go.

What sort of thing would be on an 'ought to have read' list?

[HeeHiles]

Read some Dickens! Love his stuff!

[DuchessofMalfi]

Hardy - read Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It's very readable, wonderful story. I loved it. Also The Mayor of Casterbridge.

[LeBearPolar]

Maybe vary nineteenth and twentieth century classics, so that you can temper the heavyweight Victorian Novel with something lighter but equally literary.

Sooooooo - nineteenth century:

Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jane Eyre, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Silas Marner, The Turn of the Screw...

Twentieth and twenty-first century:
The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, The Color Purple, Lord of the Flies, The Handmaid's Tale, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, The Remains of the Day, The English Patient, Persepolis, A Passage to India, Heart of Darkness...

[cuddybridge]

great lists but personally Id skip Heart of darned and Silas Marner, unless you are in to literary masochism

[cuddybridge]

Heart of Darkness, but damned does seem apt, give it a miss

[LeBearPolar]

Heart of Darkness has some fabulous writing in it. But it's actually 1899 so needs moving to my other list!

[mrsdavidbowie]

I've got an English degree and haven't read Jane Austen.
I prefer American literature.

[LilAnnieAmphetamine]

Jane Eyre / Tess of the D'Urbervilles / Sons and Lovers / The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath / Oliver Twist are all readable and a good introduction.

I detest Austen and I consider myself pretty well read. I am an American Lit junkie too. Try anything by Willa Cather plus Catcher in the Rye or The Grapes of Wrath.

[ihaveabookaddiction]

Beloved by Toni Morrison is a modern classic. Absolutely fantastic.

[fishcake84]

The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas. Modern stuff by John Irving, he is my utter favourite.

[AuntieStella]

If you can't face Dickens, try Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair'

Classic porn, try Cleland's 'Fanny Hill'

Also try some PG Wodehouse, DL Sayers, some Sherlock Holmes, an anthology ofthe romantic poets, Jane Eyre followed by Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea" (st.ory of Bertha).

[LilAnnieAmphetamine]

YY to Beloved. Also anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
A Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
Invisble Man by Ralph Ellison.
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (play).
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.
The Colossus of Marousi by Henry Miller
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.
The heart is a lonely hunter by Carson McCullers.
The Shipping news by Annie Proulx.

[CambridgeBlue]

Thank you, lots to think about here - my Kindle is about to get very full!

[LEMmingaround]

The best bit being that kindle classics are free

[Smartiepants79]

A brave new world.
1984
To kill a mockingbird.

[messyisthenewtidy]

House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

[MollyBdenum]

As well as the classic novels, you should read The Oddessy, The Aeniad, Beowulf, The Prince, Plato's Republic and the Mort D'Arthur.

[IsabellaofFrance]

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.
I love Sense and Sensibility and think its much better than P&P, as is Mansfield Park.
Agree with Charles Dickens, Great Expectations is, well, great .
Agree with Hardy, Trollope's stuff can be good too.
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Anything by George Eliot, but Middlemarch is great

[MsTwankeyToYou]

Don Quixote (Cervantes), Jane Eyre (Bronte), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy), Sense and Sensibility (Austen), Frankenstein (Shelley), A Tale Of Two Cities and Bleak House and Great Expectations (Dickens), Light in August and As I Lay Dying (Faulkner), The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome (Wharton), USA Trilogy (Does Passos), Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), Money: A Suicide Note (Amis), New York Trilogy (Auster), Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (Foer), Oblivion: Stories and if you have a lot of time on your hands also Infinite Jest (Wallace), The Corrections and Freedom (Franzen), Thank You For Smoking (Buckley), Cloud Atlas (Mitchell), Atonement and Enduring Love (McEwan), Waterland (Swift).

A lot of those are modern, and also American. However, I've recommended them because IMO they're exceptionally well written, insightful, influential, and highly respected works of litereature, so should hopefully fit the bill.

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

Keep Lord of the Flies until Christmas, put it on your fire (or rip it up and use it to light candles if you don't have a fire place)

It's vile!

[DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen]

Nooooooooo,I loved reading it at school!

I recently read The Bell Jar, it's incredible.

[LeBearPolar]

Lord of the Flies is incredible. Not, obviously, if you like your literature fluffy and safe, but as an insight into humanity it's rarely been bettered.

[LilAnnieAmphetamine]

And check out the Persephone backlist. It's lovely.

[ElephantsNeverForgive]

LOTF is clearly going to be depressing from page 1.

And yes I do like my literature 'safe' not necessarily fluffy, but I like at least some of the nice characters to survive and be happy and the bad guys to die.

I can't see any point in reading books that are as miserable as real life!

[NerfHerder]

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot