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

I absolutely love Wuthering Heights, the atmosphere and tragic love story. I also loved Jane Eyre and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. For a bit of light relief The Importance of Being Earnest is also great.

I'd recommend books like 1984, Lord of the Rings, Catcher in The Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird as more modern 'classics' too.

Ooh this has made me want to cosy up on a windy, rainy day and re-read Wuthering Heights (again)!

It's funny really, the idea of an 'improving' book but I do think challenging preconceptions about certain forms of literature is an 'improving' thing in that therein lies the path to broader mindedness.

I recall being given Jane Eyre to read and groaning at the thought of having to. I was blown away by the courage of Bronte- she addressed aspects of life that other women and men did not. From slavery to religious hypocrisy, the right of people to be paid a fair days wage, how women's appearance influences the way others respond, the standing of governesses and teachers to the plight of orphans in the 'care system' I found it pretty timeless.

I can tell you things I've read that I think expanded my horizons at different stages for different reasons.

At around 17/18:
Vanity Fair
Lord of the Rings
Gormenghast
Hamlet

In my 20s:
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Great Hunger, Cecil Woodham-Smith
Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas
The Voices of Morebath, Eamon Duffy
Paris After the Liberation, Artemis Cooper and Anthony Beevor
The World we have Lost by Peter Laslett

In my 30s:
Brighton Rock
War and Peace (just keep going anyhow through the first few chapters, I survived by thinking of it as a spoof of nineteenth century novels, then after a bit you suddenly find you have been swept away by it).
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
and i know it's a Mumsnet perennial but it's there for a good reason - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

I don't know what to think about the Jane Austen thing. I re-read them all every year or so, so they don't change me in any way, I know them too well. But I guess I find more and more echoes of my own badness in them. I think actually that Emma is both the most openly nasty and the most enlightening. They are all pretty dark, Persuasion used to be my favourite but Mansfield Park is now. The way she simply writes horrible endings for so many of her characters - and horrible living endings, she doesn't kill anybody important, they have to go on living and being tormented, the way we all do. She is a vivisectionist.

Is Brave New world worth rereading, I did it for Eng lit. And despite getting an A I can't really remember it.

I just remember getting very cross with the 'cloning' because the science is all wrong.

I would strongly suggest not reading books just* because you feel you have to

Gah!!!

I would strongly suggest reading books because you feel you have to. By all means try all that have been mentioned above, but don't feel you should like all of them, even if you're 'supposed' to like them. Books are so subjective, I for one dislike The Great Gabsy, found it tiresome and uninteresting.

I reread LOTF earlier this year, having first read it at school. It is vile, repulsive, a horrifying depiction of what can happen when society breaks down.

But I like it very much, and class it as a favourite novel which I shall want to read again and will keep for my DC when they are old enough to appreciate it.

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

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!

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

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.

Nooooooooo,I loved reading it at school!

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

A brave new world.
1984
To kill a mockingbird.

The best bit being that kindle classics are free

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.

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).

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

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