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Original poster

OK - I want new things to read. Please can you list two books- one classic, one modern- you think everyone shoulf read.

194 replies

seeker · 22/10/2008 22:45

I'll start. Pride and Prejudice and The Kite Runner, by Khalid Hosseini.

OP posts:
Benjy · 06/11/2008 23:30

Sentimental Education - Flaubert
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey

I also really enjoyed Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisted.

Kitsilano · 06/11/2008 22:22

Modern - Any Human Heart - William Boyd

blueshoes · 06/11/2008 22:17

Another modern: The Devil Rides Out - Dennis Wheatley

blueshoes · 06/11/2008 22:15

Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier (love Rebecca too)
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

gigglewitch · 06/11/2008 22:02

sorry haven't read much of the thread - tis huge

classic - Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I love it

modern - anything by Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy is fascinating. Though long, you get totally lost in it. His book 'An Equal Music' is my favourite book of all time

lacarte · 06/11/2008 21:54

The Great Gatsby
Nights at the Circus
Midnight's Children

Now I wish I had the time to re-read all of them ...

BoffinMum · 06/11/2008 21:50

Haven't read whole thread but how about Lessing's The Fifth Child and P D James Children of Men for reminding mums about the point of it all ...

apollo11 · 06/11/2008 21:44

well, lots of classics i like have been mentioned, so i'll go for
LORD OF THE FLIES (william golding)
and on a lighter note, those of you who grew up in the 80's will appreciate
STARTER FOR TEN (david nichols). (the film is absolutely crap, but the book's hysterical)

muchostinky · 06/11/2008 21:39

Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
and
Little Women or Jane Eyre

Urtica · 06/11/2008 21:20

The Rabbi's Cat for modern, absolutely.

Reading Lolita in Tehran isn't fiction but you won't put it down easily.

Mary Renault's Theseus novels(The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea)may send you to Graves -- whose myths aren't, I think, intended to be read through.

The Fagles Odyssey is wonderful, and even better listened to -- Ian McKellan is the reader, recording is rotten but then they all are.

inaudiblemum · 06/11/2008 20:50

I've been looking at www.spread-the-word.org.uk which has really different recommendations of books you're not likely to have heard of. The comments from the public make you want to buy about half a dozen straight away.

Nighteyes · 06/11/2008 20:03

Hi have you really read most of these OP wow. I was trying to think of a couple not mentioned so apologies if they have been.

Classic: Farenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Modern: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Playdough · 06/11/2008 19:55

Classic: It's already been recommended but I'd second Middlemarch.

Modern: Anything by Helen Dunmore. But please avoid Mourning Ruby if you are pregnant, unless hormones aren't affecting you.

suey2 · 06/11/2008 19:49

really MUST read American pastoral

suey2 · 06/11/2008 19:47

fab thread! Many of my faves have been mentioned. But how about:

The tenant of wildfell hall
The nice and the good?

Couldn't finish the corrections myself: too much misery: same with tess and jude the obscure

FeelingLucky · 06/11/2008 19:39

Classic:
Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
or
The Rainbow (DH LAwrence)

Modern:
Atonement (Ian McEwan)

barbarianoftheuniverse · 06/11/2008 19:37

I'm going to save this thread.

Worst Journey in the World- Apsley Cherry Garrard

Cider With Rosie- Laurie Lee

thecatbrighton · 06/11/2008 19:34

just remembered that actually Gabriel Garcia Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude is just too good to not read - my bro can't finish it because he doesn't want it to ever end

thecatbrighton · 06/11/2008 19:30

I think Salman Rushdie is amazing and would nominate Shame as a classic and

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye as a contemporary

Or are they both classics?

Jux · 06/11/2008 18:37

Jane Eyre
1984 or Animal Farm

ellenmary · 06/11/2008 17:41

the counte of monte christo alexander dumas
magician raymond e fiest..

phantasmagoria · 06/11/2008 15:49

lovin this thread.
Middlemarch
The Corrections (Jonathan Safran Foer).

I love SO many of these

SweetPea99 · 05/11/2008 15:28

For a good read:
Classic: Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn - except that in the book he doesn't say 'my dear')
Modern: The Shipping News - Annie Proulx or One Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

rachels103 · 29/10/2008 20:03

Just flicked through the rest of this ... didn't consciously make mine correlate as hadn't read it all...but they do (both written from POV of children)

rachels103 · 29/10/2008 19:59

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The God of Small Things - Arundhati (sp?) Roy

Enjoy

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