BOOKS and FILMS: Coming of Age or Absolute Must read/see

[S1ur]

I have an idea for my sister's 21st birthday. I want to put together 21 films and/or books that are absolute must haves. Possibly including some great coming of age ones?

Phew. Can you help?

Please post suggestions for

A) Book on your top 21 list

B) Film on your top 21 list

C) any coming of age book/film you can think of.

D) any random thoughts you have about this idea.

D1) Lovely idea
D2) What sort of coming of age person is she? 1. Romantic? 2. Dynamic? 3. Deep-thinking?

My top all-time favourite coming-to-terms with the world books are Gorky's trilogy My Childhood, My Youth and My Universities. But they suit Category 3 above best.

She is an actress and energetic and funny and slightly flighty on surface but also quiite emotional and deep thinking under that.

One book she used to love was the Lovely Bones. So not adverse to a little serious. I think she'd appreciate a mix of modern excellent reads with some classics.

so maybe some of this sort of thing,

Brave New WOrld
1984
Roots
Wild Swans
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mockingbird

Trouble is there are so many!

And maybe some less hard going greats. Damn mind blank.

Films

erm,

Think it should include a Marilyn Monroe one cause she is a fan but probably doesn't have one, maybe not even seen one all through. Fan of Icon I think.

Possibly coming of age like Breakfast club

What a lovely idea Slur!

For C) I'd have to add Father and Son, by Edmund Gosse, and I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. Also the Mitford classics Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, plus, if you can find them, Love Letters and Love is Blue, the war memoirs of norty Joan Wyndham

Why not also have D) - 21 plays she ought to have on her shelves - The Seagull and A Month in the Country for starters

Films I think she might not have got round to seeing and should include Les 400 Coups, The Seventh Seal, Some Like it Hot and All About Eve

HTH

Gone with the Wind.
A Star is Born (Judy Garland)
Frost in May by Antonia White
Dusty Answer by Rosamund Lehmann

i capture the castle by dodie smith and the greengage summer by rumer godden.

Plays - yes, clever Marina.

Sharman Macdonald, When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout.

John Byrnes's Slab Boys Trilogy (though that's obviously got a male slant)

They order these things better in France ... so,

Alain-Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes

and Sterne's Sentimental Journey, perhaps

also - very well-known in the States & hardly known out of it [odd] Henry Adams's The Education of Henry Adams is a marvellous thing. Goes beautifully with Edmund Gosse.

Did anyone say Testament of Youth?

Testament of Youth, of course

If you are doing it super-canonically, you have to have your great big doorstep of Wordsworth in there.

can you believe - that was actually a cross-post????!

And speaking of Rosamund Lehmann Invitation to the Waltz is a good coming of age one as well.

Two minds with but a single thought, Bink.

yy excellent keep them coming thank you very much

I am veering towards getting whloe family in on this to spread cost and also because they are shite disorganised and will otherwise end up giving her a new look voucher.

So yes.

Books
Films
Plays

Fab!

Another thing, Slur, my DH just turned 40 and was given a selection of books published the year he was born - also an LP and some stamps from that year. It was a great present.

ooh yes birth year could chuck that in there.

when was that then

1987

will google for stuff from that year.

Porkies 1 and 2, but not 3.

Porkies 1 and 2, but not 3.

Sorry. I'm bored.

Ah yes the classics

1987 releases include Full Metal Jacket so I think that one is def in.

I need more more mroe. Please.

Favourite books/classics/modern greats you know the kind of thing.

And the same for films.

....

And plays.

TIA

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What a lucky sister!

i'm neither great on classics nor plays!

some coming of age films: The ice storm, whale rider, ciderhouse rules (and novel), walkabout, stand by me, american pie (!), beautiful thing (and play), rebel without a cause, roman holiday, cinema paradiso, the year my voice broke, city of god, st elmo's fire and all the brat pack movies, virgin suicides, to sir with love, stealing beauty, bright lights big city, persepolis

not really coming of age but an element of it: amelie, secretary, spirited away, the rocky horror picture show

plays: the glass menagerie, as you like it, educating rita,

books: great gatsby, the lover, jane eyre, portrait of the artist as a young man, siddhartha, color purple, i know why the caged bird sings...

bump
please don't let me kill another thread...
a girl could get a complex...

Aw thanks Toodle! That is an excellent list.

that christian slater one, pump up the volume? plus True romance and ferris buellers day off
books watership down
empire of the sun , also recall Mrs frizby and the rats from Nimb , read all isac asimovs as a tweenager, great intro to sci fi and the beginnings of a long term affair with all things geeky

Oh and Blade Runner
2001 space odyseey
breakfast at tiffanys
dirty dancing
west side story

books
201 days of sodom , marquis de sade, electric cool aid acid test, one flew over a cuckoos nest both book and film