OK - I want new things to read. Please can you list two books- one classic, one modern- you think everyone shoulf read.

[seeker]

I'll start. Pride and Prejudice and The Kite Runner, by Khalid Hosseini.

[liahgen]

the red tent, (does that count as classic? )

call the midwife

[thisisyesterday]

oooh hard.

I have lots of classics. erm
probably either "1984" or "if this is a man"

i don't read a huge amount of modern stuff but will have a think on it!

[Salleroo]

Wilkie Collins 'The Woman in White'

The Time Travellers wife

[beansmum]

Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

American Pastoral - Philip Roth

[SixSpotBonfire]

Jane Eyre

The Secret History

[beansmum]

ooh and Papillon - Henri something

[beansmum]

Charriere?

[snice]

Anna Karenina
Birdsong

[SixSpotBonfire]

DH's suggestions:

The Brothers Karamazov

Fever Pitch

[ElfOnTheTopShelf]

The Catcher In The Rye
Rachel's Holiday

My fave classic and not so classic

[latermater]

Middlemarch, and

Birds of America (short stories by Lorrie Moore). American Pastoral great too, but Lorrie Moore is way more entertaining and I feel redeemed by Sebastian Faulks recently including it in his "20 immortal books I own" or some such list...There is a collected short stories out too. I am going to start reading it again as soon as I've finished it - and I never do that.

[KittyFloss]

1984 or catch22 (wasn't sure if that was a classic)

Good Omens, my favourite book ever ever, or The Handmaid's Tale.

I'm obviously not very good at the one thing lol.

[nellynaemates]

Agree with 1984.

Was about to say Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse 5" but now thinking Margaret Atwood "Handmaid's Tale" after reading Kittyfloss's reply.

Undecided!!

[RubyShivers]

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

The Republic of Love - Carol Shields

(or White Teeth - Zadie Smith )

[justneedsomesleep]

Rebecca
Time Travellers Wife

[plantsitter]

Vanity Fair and The Crimson Petal and the White (am obsessed by this book)

[Eniddo]

Brideshead Revisited, evelyn waugh
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, haruki marakumi

[OrmIrian]

Bleak House
WOman on the edge of time - Marge Piercy

[OrmIrian]

Madge, not Marge

[Bucharest]

Or Vida- Marge Piercy.

We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Hmmm. Classic? Lady Chatterley' Lover.

[mazzystartled]

The Periodic Table/If This Is a Man - Primo Levi
The Corrections - Jonathan Frantzen

[motherinferior]

The weather in the streets (Rosamund Lehman)
Wise Children (Angela Carter)

[motherinferior]

Oh no, actually, I'd say my 'classic' should be Bram Stoker's Dracula.

[Eniddo]

ooh but you have to read Invitation to the Waltz first mi. love both of them.

how about:

Greek Myths, robert graves
Cazalet Chronicle, elizabeth jane howard