What are YOUR bookshelf must haves........? I need educating........................

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

Exactly what it says in the title.....

Im not an ardent book reader, but want to start reading the 'classics'(and DD who will be 3 soon loves her books already).

I have read:
Alison in Wonderland,
Wuthering Heights,
The Hobbit,
Jane Eyre,
Of Mice and Men,
Romeo & Juliette,
A Midsummer Nights Dream

Most of these at school - read Midsummer Nights Dream in years 8, 9 and 10 at school - they didnt seem to think it mattered...

What do think i should add to my list? For adults and children.

(must add - i have read one or two Lee Childs, Jeffrey Deaver and Tess Gerritsen but i dont deem them 'classics')

MMMM I find most 'classics' awfully dull so I would go for some talked-about books rather than Classics

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If you must have a classic then go for The Lord of the Rings trilogy as you have read The Hobbitt. So much more that had to be taken out of the films.

Yes - you want books that make you LOOK well read rather than actually having to read the boring ones

e.g. American Psycho

Such as....? MP

Ive never read any Enid Blyton or Beatrix Potter books either - are they worth bothering with for DD???

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My 3 year old LOVES Enid Blyton

Magic Faraway Tree - all been read to her. Try these for starters

They will do your head in but more interesting for her than Beatrix Potter

Have seen the film......... I find books totally different though - like Sleeping With the Enemy and The Bone Collector - books were much better

Black Beauty
Heidi
Little Women
What Katy Did

for children.

I wouldn't bother with the Railway Children - the writing is tortuous (tried reading it to the dds but we gave up!)

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Anna Karenina - Dostoevsky
(both good love stories)

Will think of more later

Personally never liked B Potter much but loved Enid Blyton, all through childhood. Dd does too.

I would add:
To Kill a Mockingbird (completely forgotten the author, sorry)
Far from the Madding Crowd - Hardy
Streetcar named Desire - Tennessee Williams
Macbeth
The Wind in the Willows
Peter Pan
Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

Anyone read "A Moveable Feast"?

Great Expectations
Jude the Obscure
The Catcher in the Rye
Three Men in a Boat
Madame Bovary
Lolita
Room With a View
Perfume
Cold Comfort Farm
Brave New World

are some of my favourites

I would recommend:

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre (I know you've read it but read it again!!!!!!)
Great Expectations - charles dickens
A Room with a View - EM Forster
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
1984 - George Orwell
Any of the Dorothy L Sayers 'Lord Peter Wimsey' books
The Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories - A Conan Doyle

For children (girls!) What Katy Did - susan coolidge
Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfield
for an older girl - Friday's Child - Goergette Heyer (it's the perfect regency romance style esy to read novel but also well written and witty).
For older girls and boys, any of the PG Woodhouse books (Jeeves and Wooster off the telly!)
A bit of a motley collection but I found all these readable and interesting, and I go back to them.

1984, To Kill A Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men all feature on mine. My 'Uni' books live elsewhere (I have a very intelligent looking PC desk ), and my currents are scattered around: the shelves consist almost entirely of old favourites- What Katy Did, Little Women, Heidi, Lords Of The Rings, Around The World in Eighty Days....

And my very treasured copy of The Silmarillion, given by DH.

Oh and Candide is bloody funny and quite intellectual to have on your coffee table.

Stephen King-Green mile( lot more missed from the film.)
David Pelzer- My Story
Lorenzo Carcaterra- Sleepers.
Some hard going books on my shelf.

WhatKaty Did crossed pot- thought i was the only one!

Have Ballet Shoes up there too, Jayne Eyre, Tess, Enid Blyton- all

DH's contribution is a book on HTML and some electrical regulations.

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
The Yellow Wallpaper - sorry brain mushed
Anything by David Lodge
Anything by Graham Greene
I know Why the caged bird sings - Maya Angelou
Lolita - Nabakov
The Great Gatsby - Scott Fitzgerald
Brave New World - Huxley

Dear me my brain is much I'm afraid, this is the best I can come up with

Green Mile was good!

Have bought Little Women to read......

Remains of the Day
Birdsong
Madame Bovary
Anna Karenina

People should definitely NOT recommend anything that they have only read because they were forced to at school

Thomas Hardy and his BORING 100000 pages on the Dorset Countryside is boring