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.

Thanks everyone - got a lovely long list here. Any more recommendations welcome.....

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe ( can't remember author.
all the What Katy Did books
all the My naughty Little Sister books
Light on Snow by anita Shreve
Marian Keyes book for "MacDonald's for the mind"

fried green tomatoes was fannie flagg

Thanks alexsmum! never noticed before but it sort of sounds like a made-up p*ss-take name.

The original Winnie Ther Pooh books. For you, not your kids. They are lovely, with such gentle yet clever humour, they make me chuckle even now.

Anything by Mark Twain, esp. Tom Sawyer - again for you, not the kids.

1984 by George Orwell, yes I was made to read it but it is still very very good.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Jane Eyre
anything by Noel Streatfeild
ditto Anne Tyler
ditto Mary Wesley
ditto Margaret Atwood
lots of Kingsley Amis
Dodie Smith
F Scott Fitzgerald
Danny the Champion of the World and others by R Dahl
E Nesbit - 5 children & it, phoenix & carpet etc
Bill Bryson (not exactly classic but huge fun and educational)
Elizabeth Bowen
Deborah Moggach

(loads of other stuff but can't think just now )

Hmmmm. Struggling to think as all my childrens books (ie ones saved from my childhood) are in storage at the moment. Off the top of my head (apols for repeats)

*Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Graham)
*Tom Sawyer (had this on story tape read by Bing Crosby and was just amazing; v upset that tapes no longer work)
*Narnia books
*Mrs Pepperpot books
*Flat Stanley
*All Enid Blyton (pc or not!!)
*Anne of Green Gables series
*Littlenose books were good from my 7yo memory but can't really comment as an adult

• Sherlock Holmes books (A Conan Doyle)

Reading Dahl with ds1 at the moment (5) which he is really enjoying. HTH

the joy luck club by amy tan

Catch 22
Closing Time
The Catcher in the Rye
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Hobbit
Lord of The Rings trilogy

and for amusement The Gobbler - Adrian Edmondson.

Pride and Prejudice - Austen
Persuasion - Austen
To kill a mocking bird - Lee
The Woman in White - Collins
The Woman in Black - Hill
Rebecca - Du Maurier
The Hobbit - Tolkein
His Dark Materials - Pullman
The Earthsea Trilogy - La Guin
Left Hand of Darkness La Guin
Margret Atwood - almost anything...
Wind in the Willows

All books beside bed for easy access:
Dark Materials Trilogy
Wild Swans
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
Ovid
Moll Flanders/Roxana/Journal of the Plague Year
Pamela-Richardson
Les Liasons Dangereuses
Adam Bede
North and South
The Wanderer-Fanny Burney (currently neglecting my daughter as I am desperate to know what happens)

For YOU, VVVQV (eek sorry have just seen how long this is :

All of Jane Austen
Great Expectations
David Copperfield
Oliver Twist
Jane Eyre
Wuthering Heights
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby
Bonfire of the Vanities
I Claudius and Claudius the God (Robert Graves)
The Secret History (Donna Tartt)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
A Place of Greater Safety (Hilary Mantel)
Eight Months in Ghazzah Street (also Mantel)
War and Peace (Tolstoy)
Madame Bovary (Flaubert)
Far from the Madding Crowd (Hardy)
North and South (Mrs Gaskell)
1984 (Orwell)
The Group (Mary McCarthy)
The Deptford, Salterton and Cornish Trilogies (all Robertson Davies)
The Balkan and Levant Trilogies (Olivia Manning)
The Golden Gate (Vikram Seth)
all of the Tales of the City series (Armistead Maupin)
The History Man (Malcolm Bradbury)
Brick Lane (Monica Ali)
House of Sleep, What a Carve-Up!, The Rotters' Club and Closed Circle (all Jonathan Coe)
Edited highlights of Samuel Pepys' Diary
The End of the Affair and Brighton Rock (Graham Greene)
The Twelve Caesars (Suetonius, Graves translation)
All of Alison Weir's excellent historical biographies
Collected Poems of John Donne
Seamus Heaney & Ted Hughes: The Rattlebag
Cider with Rosie (Laurie Lee)
Testament of Youth (Vera Brittain)
Goodbye to All That (Robert Graves)

For your dd, at some point in her reading career!:

The Narnia Chronicles
Katie Morag stories
Hairy Mclary stories
Milly-Molly-Mandy
Just William
Atticus the Story-teller
Britannia - stories from Britain's history
The King of the Copper Mountains (Biegel)
The Land of Green Ginger (Langley)
The Eagle of the Ninth/Brother Dusty-Feet (Rosemary Sutcliff)
Roger Lancelyn Green's volumes of myths, legends and fairy-story retellings
All of Noel Streatfeild
Anne of Green Gables novels
Finn Family Moonintroll series
High Wind in Jamaica (Hughes)
Emil and the Detectives, Lotte and Lisa (both Erich Kastner)
Dark Materials Trilogy
Diary of Anne Frank
The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Elizabeth George Speare)
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Kerr)
Charlotte Sometimes (penelope Lively)
Carrie's War (Nina Bawden)
Green Knowe stories (Lucy M Boston)
A Traveller in Time and A Country Child (Alison Uttley)
All of Philippa Pearce
The Secret Garden and A Little Princess (F Hodgson Burnett)

I forgot! 'A Tale of Two Cities' - 'tis a far, far better rest . . .

And 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'

Also 'The Scarlet Letter' and 'Moby Dick'.

I have a lot of poetry on my shelves, too.

And a few series, Sister Fidelma, Rebus (he rocks!) and Harry Potter .

Marina, you added some I am ashamed I forgot, esp I Claudius, The Secret History and The Twelve Caesars (which I actually carried around with me in my bag/pocket along with Ovid for about five years until my copy disintegrated and I had to buy another). I also forgot the plays of Aristophanes and Aeschylus.

I also remembered enjoying the Milly Molly Mandy books as a child, wish I had hung on to them.

Am loving this thread ...

How about:

Room with a view - EM Forster
Gone with the wind

I see someone mentioned Mrs Pepperpot too - I loved these - The Book People were doing a cheap set at christmas and I forgot to get it for dd... might see if they still have it !!

All of Evelyn Waugh (esp Decline and Fall)
Emma - Jane Austen
Complicity - Iain Banks
Perfume - Patrick Suskind (?)
1984 - George Orwell
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
The Alchemist - Paul Coelho
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Love in the Time of Cholera -
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer

Children's books:
The Lion the Witch and the wardrobe
Danny (Champion of the world)
What Katy Did
Little Women
The Borrowers
Five Children and It
The Secret Garden

has anyone mentioned Little House on the Prairie?

For adults and children.

otherwise, agree with Marina's list.

These aren't all "classics", but here is my list (will remember 100 others as soon as I post I'm sure...)

Any/all Jane Austen
Lord of the Rings
My family & other animals (Gerald Durrell)
Tale of 2 Cities (Dickens) I think it's the only book to make me cry (though Black Beauty I'm sure came close)
Any of the Barchester Chronicles (Trollope)
Anything by Vikram Seth
Any Mapp & Lucia books (EF Benson)
Any PG Wodehouse
Any Walter Scott - loved Ivanhoe

Children:
Narnia
What Katy Did
Chalet School
Milly Molly Mandy (DD just 3 loves this already)
Gruffalo if not already a classic will be I'm sure
Noel Streatfield books
Dr Seuss

catcher in the rye
couple of shakespeare
a Chaucer
volume of C20th poetry
wasteland
Story of Art
pride & prejudice
suitable boy
an Ian McEwan
Grapes of Wrath
Brave New World
an Oscar Wilde
a really good dictionary
some fun books - comic/Trollope whatever to taste

Wow! Lots more suggestions (huuuuuge and rather comprehensive list Marina - thanks for that)

Expat - what poetry do you have?

Hazellnut - is Gone with Wind a better read than film? (never sat down and watched it btw....)

Thank you to everyone else for suggestions

Agree with whoever said the Shakespeare is (probably) not for reading!

don't think these have been mentioned... for kids:
Just So stories (and other stuff by R Kipling), and Charlotte's web (terrific).

I haven't seen the film vvv but, from what I've heard its completely different - the film I hear is a love story - the book isn't really.

Has anyone mentioned the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge for your DD? They used to make me cry laughing as a child.