5 books a prospective English lit degree student should read and have an opinion on...

[shoppingbagsundereyes]

My niece is choosing her a level options. She loves English and says she wants to do an English degree. Other than her set texts she doesn't read though. I have an English degree and at her age read obsessively, working my way through Hardy, Lawrenc, Austen etc. every book I offer dn she says is boring.
So some suggestions please so that I can make her a book list.

For poetry I would suggest Dylan Thomas, Shakespeare's sonnets, Walter de la mer, Tennyson. Wordsworth and, some modern poetry
As far as literature goes I would suggest American literature like the great gatsby, Edith Wharton, harper lee and Toni Morrison. As far as English literature is concerned I would recommend Jane Austin, Thomas hardy, the Brontes, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Gaskell Dickens.
My daughter has an English teacher who has never read any classics. She does not encourage reading and quite frankly is crap at her job. If your neice is not a reader of the classics then she really shouldn't be teaching english