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.

I loved What Katy Did- I read it so many times as a child.

MP! Its kinda why im put of by Shakespeare......

Aw, MP, Jude is lovely, as is Tess

off even....

Shakespeare just DON'T bother with it

See a play if you must but reading it is TERRIBLE

anyone who says otherwise has rosy-tinted memories of their A-Levels

Reading Thomas Hardy makes me want to take drugs

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lol!

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Great site here - list of classic novels together with cheats guide irreverent plot summaries
novels in a nutshell

Yes - i read The Hobbit and Jane Eyre at school and thought they were great. Thats saying something for me.

Read othello last year, first ever Shakespeare and I loved it. Am I odd?

at Thomas Hardy getting slated! Jude is one of my all time favourites, as are all the others on my list, not just stuff I was made to read at school...

Yellow Wallpaper was Charlotte Perkins Gilman (but I did have to go to the shelf to find out!)
David Copperfield
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins for an engaging read
The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas for a cracking good story
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo for pathos
Hardy for depression
Henry James to renew your dislike of the man
Roald Dahl for nostalgia
Jane Eyre, of course (oh Mr. Rochester!)
For children:
books by Max Velthujis (Frog in Love, etc)
Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein - silly poems, great illustrations
Dr. Seuss - Yertle the Turtle
Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn
Arnold Loebel -Frog and Toad stories
Shirley Hughes - anything
Richard Scarry - Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, and others
Books illustrated by Korky Paul (Winnie the Witch and others)
Just found a good one at the library the other day - Alphabets are Amazing Animals by Ravishankar and Pieper. Great woodcut illustrations and fun text.
(whispers) Quite like the books by Madonna - The Adventures of Abdi and others.
Somebody stop me! I could go on..

What is the Battle for Christabel like?

"Classic Classics"
Vanity Fair by Thackeray
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Emma or Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Franny - did some Thomas Hardy poetry at GCSE - thought it was great - but never could get my head round the novels - a bit too slow and plodding for me

More contemporary classics:-
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (very good true crime type book)
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Anything by Kazuo Ishiguro (except the Unconsoled - but again maybe I am just a pleb and completely not getting it....)
Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

rofl at "Henry James to renew your dislike of the man". He's not that bad in small doses!!

Passage to India by E.M.Forster
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Primo Levi - If this is a man/The Truce (heavy going though, as about his imprisonment in Auschwitz during the war, then return home after liberation)

"slow and plodding"

I'm actually upset about this, I feel like someone has kicked my favourite kitten or something

maybe I is just a pleb who doesn't appreciate it. and I thought his poetry was fab!

Swan's Way
Shakespeare's plays . . . all of them
East of Eden
The Great Gatsby
Jane Eyre
The Bible

Thanks Lockets.
Sorry mummytosteven, but I still say harumph to James. Would like to read Ishiguro but never have - what is best to start with?