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.

[nuttymum303]

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway (classic)

Beautiful Lies - Lisa Unger (I am obsessed with this book at the moment)

[CandleQueen]

I Capture The Castle by Dodi Smith (well, it's a classic for me!)
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

[janeite]

Seeker - I agree entirely with your choices in the OP.

Can I also add a non-fction? "Paula" by Isobel Allende.

[MrsTweedy]

Pah, was going to say Woman in White & Case Histories but ahundredtimes beat me to it.

So it's:
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson

Only theme is they both made me cry

[Wheelybug]

three men in a boat
birdsong

[FattipuffsandThinnifers]

Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) or Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

[Wheelybug]

or Cider House Rules...

[beforesunrise]

Staying On by Paul Scott

Notes from an Exhibition

[frisbyrat]

The Aeneid.
Vurt by Jeff Noon

[Dottoressa]

Classic: Return of the Native
Modern: The Line of Beauty (or Birdsong. Both are magnificent).

[georgimama]

What's wrong with Brideshead Revisited?

Classic - Middlemarch. It's just so, so... someone help me describe Middlemarch. I love it.

Modern, my modern probably is a classic, Brideshead Revisited or The Great Gatsby.

Really modern, no one's read it, Lorelli's Secret. I lent it to someone and never got it back. Need to get another copy. Brilliant book.

Notes on a Scandal? Similar to Middlemarch in a funny way.

[SancerreHead]

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - M Pirsig (I think thats his name) - Classic.

Modern - you probably have them all listed already

[SancerreHead]

OK, that woud probably be, by everyone elses definition 'modern' not 'classic'

[HollyGoHeavily]

The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

Behind the scenes at the museum - Kate Atkinson

[ThursdayNext]

Hmm, today I think I'll choose:

The Fountain Overflows trilogy by Rebecca West

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

[latermater]

Glad others rate Middlemarch - not sure what adjective is georgimama - delectable, maybe? A treat. A box of chocolates without the calories or orange cremes. One of those books you don't want to end, despite its impressive length.

Have to add a sneaky extra vote for Decline and Fall while I'm at it.

So what are you reading first seeker?

[Ellbell]

Well, others have put Primo Levi under 'classic', but I'm going for

Classic: Dante's Inferno (yeah, yeah, I know I'm sooooooo predictable )

and

Modern: Primo Levi's If This is a Man (which references Dante directly in the 'canto of Ulysses' chapter)

[pollywobbledoodle]

modern: book thief/birdsong
classic: the magus

[mumof2222222222222222boys]

There are a lot of contenders for my modern one already mentioned, so I'll go for The Corrections by J Franzen which I read recently. It is about a hideously disfunctional family and is a love or hate it book. It certainly kept me going!

Classic...more difficult. Just bought The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge which I read as a child and loved. Will I still love it? We'll see! I really enjoyed a lot of French stuff (dates from my A level) Dangerous Liaisons - Choderlos de Laclos. Where do you stop??

[cyteen]

Gah mumofmanyboys you just pipped my classic suggestion - I was popping on here being all smug, thinking 'no one will have suggested Les Liaisons Dangereuse yet'. Absolutely brilliant book, repays a second and third reading too.

Modern: The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty. It falls apart a bit towards the end but is a fantastically sustained black comedy up until then. His second novel, Tuff, is also excellent in a completely different way - dreamy and sad and , well, tough.

BTW I love The Little White Horse too.

[LackaDAISYcal]

The Magus by John Fowles
or
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

What constitutes a classic? ie is anything pre 1900 classic and everything else modern?

what about modern classics?



and thinking about it, there are dozens more I could list

[SixSpotBonfire]

Hangover Square

The Grass Arena

[MadBadandWieldingAnAxe]

Madame Bovary

The Great Gatsby (but, if that's too classic to be modern, then Oryx and Crake)

[PrincessButtercup]

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

[snarky]

The Glass Bead Game - Hermann Hesse

Religion and the Decline of Magic - Keith Thomas

and The Water Babies - Charles Kingsley