Top 3 "must read before you die" books please!

[McDreamy]

I am going to give up the tv (except for The Apprentice and Brothers and Sisters ) and i want to read more - I love reading but just don't get the time (because I watch too much tv in the evenings )

Anyway I digress - I want to know which books I MUST read. What would you say are the must read books of a life time?

[Sunshinemummy]

Will need to think about this but my first choice would be East of Eden by John Steinbeck.

[slayerette]

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

[LittleWonder]

The Book Thief Mark Zusak
the Road home Rose Tremain
the Moonstone Wilkie Collins

[NigellaTufnel]

What's Bred in the Bone - Robertson Davies
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

[Itsjustafleshwound]

What interests you ? Fiction? Autobiographies?

As long as you are enjoying the books !

Opinion on what is a 'must read' book is so divided and life is too short and there are too many books in the world to be ploughing through a book because it is a so-called 'must read'..

[McDreamy]

I totally agree with you Itsjustafleshwound, I'm not suggesting I'm about to plough through every single book mentioned, I just want to know what others feel are there must read books and hopefully I can pick out a few to read and feel "better read" - whatever that means

[steamedtreaclesponge]

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

Persuasion - Jane Austin

Kim - Rudyard Kipling

ooh and can I add a fourth one?

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

[steamedtreaclesponge]

Will be keeping a close eye on this thread - am currently compiling a must-read list for myself and need some more suggestions!

[Nighbynight]

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

[Itsjustafleshwound]

Have you looked in the Books section of this website - many suggestions ...

[MegBusset]

Catch-22
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Wuthering Heights

[janeite]

Well if I knew I was going to die next week I would spend all of this week reading:

• the complete works of Jane Austen
• The Green Mile
• Ballet Shoes
• Charlotte Sometimes
• Daddy Longlegs
• Tom's Midnight Garden
• Waiting For Godot and Endgame
• The complete works of Larkin and Ibsen
• Isable Allende's 'Paula'
• Of Mice And Men
• and I'd finish with some Bill Bryson.

But I am a VERY fast reader!

[CDMforever]

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Girls by Lori Lansen
The House of Spirits by Isabelle Allende

[CDMforever]

How could I forget - Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.

[hackneybird]

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

The Northern Lights Trilogy by Phillip Pullman

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Crimson and The White by Michel Faber

This Human Season by Louise Dean

[Molesworth]

If This Is A Man/The Truce by Primo Levi

[Jux]

The Deptford Trilogy, Robertson Davies

Persuasion, Jane Austen

[NigellaTufnel]

good to see another Robertson Davies fan. He is woefully overlooked.

[retiredgoth2]

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi



Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut



A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes

[janeite]

Yes to 'A Handful Of Dust' - genius!

[notnowbernard]

To Kill A Mocking Bird

[BodenGroupie]

Everything by Wilkie Collins

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - I stayed up all night to finish it.

A Town Like Alice

[Sunshinemummy]

Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels

Silk by Alessandro Baricco

[Sunshinemummy]

Also if you're at all interested in football All Played Out by Pete Davies is fab.