What books do you think are essential reading?

[JazzerMcCreary]

I’m turning 29 tomorrow. I’ve decided that as I’ve either done or have no interest in doing the typical ‘pre 30 bucket list’ activities, I’m going to try to read 30 new books over the next year.

So tell me, what books would be on your list?

Bin-fiction:
Bad Science
The life you can save
25 things they don’t tell you about capitalism
The age of surveillance capitalism

Fiction:
1984
The Metamorphosis
King Lear
The Master & Margarita
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Secret History
Anna Karenina

Non fiction not bin fiction!

Paradise Lost, The Remains of the Day, Night Watch, Heart of Darkness, The Screwtape Letters, The Hunting of the Snark and The Four Quartets. And that's a fairly disparate list if ever I saw one.

I think at least one Ian McEwan should be on the list, probably Atonement, but Saturday, Enduring Love and Solar are excellent.

Rose Tremain is great, and I'd include Restoration.

For humour, some Wodehouse; I prefer Blandings to Jeeves but if you're not laughing out loud in the first 3 pages of any of them, you've lost your sense of humour imo. My Blandings omnibus is my go-to book when I'm feeling low.

Also Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons, I think)

Also on my list would be:

The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)

Scoop! (Evelyn Waugh)

The Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)

At least one Graham Greene (my choice would be Brideshead Revisited, but I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, so Brighton Rock or The Honorary Consul)

Middlemarch

1984

Howard's End

Mrs Dalloway

The Buddha of Suburbia

The Tin Drum (this would actually make my top ten, and I wish my German was good enough to read it in its original language)

A John Le Carre, probably Tinker, Tailor etc

White Teeth

Cider With Rosie

And now for my shameful admission: I cannot, just cannot, read Dickens. Great characters, great stories but I lose the will to live during the long descriptive passages. I just can't get beyond the first 50 pages of any of them.

And I suspect that people might either be Hardy fans or Dickens fans. None of my Dickens loving friends can abide Hardy.

@PattyPan

Non fiction not bin fiction!

I was quite liking the concept of "bin fiction".

I was thinking of all the books I've read and thought afterwards "Well, there's a few hours of my life I'll never get back" and that I should have binned the bloody thing!

It's really hard to recommend books with no idea of what you like!
But I suggest everybody reads The Hobbit once in their lives.

I can't read Dickens either although often enjoy screen adaptations. And Hardy is too devastating for me. So I plump for Wilkie Collins. He knew how to write a page-turner!

I'm a Hardy lover, and I work in welfare rights. Every time I deal with a family struggling because of the benefit cap or the two-child rule, I think of Jude the Obscure.

Ah that's so sad. It's never good circumstances when a situation reminds you of a Hardy novel. Especially that one.

Great thread. What is essential? I love Bridget Jones Diary and thinks it's pretty essential.

I agree Wilkie Collins wrote some good stories. and also liked Middlemarch.

But most of the things people have suggested are mind-improving, you are allowed to read for pleasure and entertainment! That said, I do like Animal Farm and An Inspector Calls.

Last weekend I read a new book called Widowlands, which is a bit of a cross between Handmaid's Tale and SS_GB/Dominion/The Man in the High Castle. I really enjoyed it.

For non-fiction the geopolitical books by Tim Marshall are very interesting such as Prisoners of Geography.

And you may also enjoy Pieces of Me by Natalie Hart.

Trainspotting.

My absolute all time favourite.

The Book Thief.

@mrsnolasco

Trainspotting.

My absolute all time favourite.

Scottish writers almost deserve a list of their own imo.

You've got the classics in Stevenson and Scott, Conan Doyle and J M Barrie and modern writers like A L Kennedy, Alan Warner and Ali Smith. I'm a huge fan of Ian Banks and was really sad when he died, and I like James Kelman, too.

And Val McDermid and Ian Rankin are my two favourite crime writers, both Scottish, also Christopher Brookmyre (I think he's Scottish, I could be wrong).

I've just read Mayflies, by Andrew O'Hagan, which was excellent (funny, sad and ultimately quite uplifting), which I'd highly recommend.

Paulo Coelho The Alchemist
Marian Keyes Watermelon

‘Persuasion’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ by Jane Austin and ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte are two of my favourites. Also ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde is fantastic too. I love the classics!

Definitely 1984...the parallels with where our society is heading are chilling.

DeBrett's Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners.

Secret Diary of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend

OMG this - all of them!

Hahah @LakieLady I’ve felt the same! I don’t bother with most modern fiction now. There are so many classics that I can’t waste time on sub par books

@Coldilox

A Thousand Splendid Suns The Colour Purple Possessing the Secret of Joy I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Yes, yes and yes! Haven’t read Possessing the Secret of Joy and as we share the same taste, I’ll get onto it

I read a certain type of book - generally thriller / psychological thrillers:-

Here are some of the best off the top of my head:-

Blood Orange - Harriet Tyne
The Women - SE Lynes
The Wife Between Us - Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanan (all of theirs are brilliant).
Behind Closed Doors - BA Paris

Happy birthday! What a fab idea

I did not like The Binding at all, funny how different we are. It’s difficult to recommend without knowing your tastes but

The Handmaids Tale

Pillars of the Earth

The Sunne in Splendour

Circe

And the Shardlake novels are some
Of my favourites

On the thriller/psychological note some Barbara Vine too. My faves are A Dark Adapted Eye and Asta's Book.

All of them but I'll recommend some of my favourite novellas:

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Turn of the Screw - Henry James
A Hero of our Time - Mikhail Lermontov
Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Metamorphosis - Kafka
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Memories of my Melancholy Whores - Marquez
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata
The Lifted Veil - George Eliot
Clockwork Orange - Burgess
Do Androids Dream - K Dick
Beloved - Morrison
The Ballad of the Sad Café - Carson McCullers
Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
The Big Sleep - Chandler
The Talented Mr. Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson

Many of the above. My top 5 all time must reads:

Jane Eyre
Persuasion
The Handmaids Tale
To Kill a Mockingbird
David Copperfield

Also, more recently really enjoyed:

Where the Crawdads Sing
Hamnet
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Room
Behind the Scenes at the Museum (and everything by Kate Atkinson)
The Secret History