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.

A Fine Balance

To Kill a Mockingbird

Shakespeare on Toast -' wonderful and easy and then (if you don't alreadly) you will get it.

Troube is, all this has just made me want to re-read things - I've read most of the listed books but not for a long time. I'm going on holiday tomorrow and I am now going to take Brideshead Revisited as a re-read and I'm going to read Middlemarch again when I come back. Then start on all the others......!

Jude the Obscure;
Prince of Tides (the film was crap, but I couldn't put the book down)

So sorry cyteen!

There really are some brilliant books here - I'll be taking note of a few. In cold blood - Truman CApote is coming in for lots of praise from a friend at the mo...a busy time ahead!

Thank you Lilo

DEFIATELY Jude the Obscure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who cares about a modern when you've got a tremendous classic like Jude!!!

Frankenstein, the ultimate Halloween story especially how it was originally told as an off the cuf ghost story....GENIUS!!!

Classic 1984 as pertinent now as then
Modern white teeth cracking read

Can't praise 'In Cold Blood' enough. It changed my view on life...

never heard of that Chloe, what's it about? Is it like 1984/Animal Farm type?

By Truman Capote (same guy as 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'). It's a story that follows a true event where a family were killed in Canvas. Capote followed the story avidly, becoming involved with the two men who were eventually charged with the killings. It's horrifying and shocking, but a tale told with great empathy. I was only 17 at the time, but was deeply affected by it. I recommend it to my AS/A2 Literature students now!

Classic - Tolstoy's 'The Death of Ivan Ilych', which is so absorbing (and short!) that you'll get through it in a couple of sittings.

Modern - Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty'. I started re-reading it this week, and had forgotten how brilliant it was.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

and

The Rotters Club and the Closed Circle (they HAVE to be read together, TCC is the sequel, so count as one)

THe Grapes of Wrath

The boy in the striped pyjamas

i thought of two 'linked books yesterday and was convinced that someone would ahve put them on

Tale of Two Cities

A Prayer for Owen Meany

"It's a far, far better thing.............." [sob]

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Remains of the Day

'The woman in white' Wilkie Collins &
'Beloved' Toni Morrison

or

'David Copperfield' Dickens &
'Fingersmith' Sarah Waters

Georgimama Lorelli's secret????? Wasn't that the one in which a grief stricken man tries to teach a dog to talk?

V weird book

If not, ignore me and write me off as v weird Mumsnetter

arg, only one of each? So difficult!

I think it would have to be...

Emma, Jane Austen

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky (written in 1940s but only recently published)

Classic:
Anna Karenina
or
Therese Racquin (or anything by Balzac, actually)
or
Bleak House

Modern:
The Corrections (Jonathan Frantzen)
or
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon, I think)
or
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)

Yes it is! I loved it!

To Kill a Mocking bird

The Time Travellers Wife