Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

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:
Thefearlessfreak · 24/10/2008 20:27

This reply has been withdrawn

This post has been withdrawn due to privacy concerns

Litchick · 24/10/2008 20:32

Oldie but goodie - Crime and Punishment.
New ( ish ) - The Secret History by Donna Tartt.

Bink · 24/10/2008 23:15

One of those lovely threads you actually HAVE to post on before reading everyone else's - apart from the OP, which I couldn't avert my eyes off.

James Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain - for my classic one.

Helen Simpson, any of her collections of short stories (Hey Yeah Right Get a Life is looking at me) - for my not-yet classic one.

Bink · 24/10/2008 23:22

Now, having looked at everyone else's, how about Madame Bovary (yes I know other people have proposed it) plus (here's the shtick) then Posy Simmonds's first marvellous classic re-imagining Gemma Bovery

Or, what about doing non-fiction? Let's say Gibbon, Decline & Fall ... followed by, well, I was going to say The Feminine Mystique, but they have notalot in common. Anyone suggest anything that matchingly pairs with D&F?

TwoIfByScream · 26/10/2008 01:44

Classic - On The Beach, always makes me incredibly sad when I read it.

Recent - Through A Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder, written simply but with such hidden depths and very comforting in a strange way. It did make me cry but I won't spoil it by saying what or why.

Saturn74 · 26/10/2008 01:50

Nicholas Nickleby
The Book Thief

Cauldronfrau · 26/10/2008 01:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tigermoth · 26/10/2008 08:37

Modern - The Rotters Club
Classic - Cranford

christiana · 26/10/2008 08:59

Message withdrawn

edam · 26/10/2008 09:02

Alan Bennett, the Uncommon Reader - beautifully written, as always, lots of suggestions for other stuff to read, and a fascinating picture of how reading fiction changes you. (And quite funny as he's rumoured to have turned down a knighthood.)

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte - my favourite book.

edam · 26/10/2008 09:03

Or, if you want to explore what literature means, Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road.

SalLikesCoffee · 26/10/2008 09:35

Modern: The Gate by Francois Bizot. Beautiful, intelligently written, infinitely sad.

Classic: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

RunningGirl · 29/10/2008 19:39

Rebecca
Life of Pi

kalo12 · 29/10/2008 19:44

of human bondage - somerset maughm

Nectar in a sieve - karmala markandala

soyabean · 29/10/2008 19:46

OK am trying to go for two that haven't yet been suggested
Classic (well its not very modern) The Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers
Modern Vernon God Little
Theme in common I think

So many good suggestions so far.

Troutpout · 29/10/2008 19:50

All mine are already up there

classic:
Jane Eyre
To kill a mockingbird
or the woman in white

modern:
A prayer for Owen Meany
the red tent
the time travellers wife

naturalblonde · 29/10/2008 19:53

To Kill A Mockingbird
The Catcher in the Rye

The Secret History

BBBeeast · 29/10/2008 19:54

classic: of mice and men
modern: restraint of beasts

mine match!

BBBeeast · 29/10/2008 19:54

classic: of mice and men
modern: restraint of beasts

mine match!

rachels103 · 29/10/2008 19:59

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

Enjoy

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)

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

phantasmagoria · 06/11/2008 15:49

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

I love SO many of these

ellenmary · 06/11/2008 17:41

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

Jux · 06/11/2008 18:37

Jane Eyre
1984 or Animal Farm

Swipe left for the next trending thread