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.

[thecatbrighton]

I think Salman Rushdie is amazing and would nominate Shame as a classic and

Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye as a contemporary

Or are they both classics?

[thecatbrighton]

just remembered that actually Gabriel Garcia Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude is just too good to not read - my bro can't finish it because he doesn't want it to ever end

[barbarianoftheuniverse]

I'm going to save this thread.

Worst Journey in the World- Apsley Cherry Garrard

Cider With Rosie- Laurie Lee

[FeelingLucky]

Classic:
Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
or
The Rainbow (DH LAwrence)

Modern:
Atonement (Ian McEwan)

[suey2]

fab thread! Many of my faves have been mentioned. But how about:

The tenant of wildfell hall
The nice and the good?

Couldn't finish the corrections myself: too much misery: same with tess and jude the obscure

[suey2]

really MUST read American pastoral

[Playdough]

Classic: It's already been recommended but I'd second Middlemarch.

Modern: Anything by Helen Dunmore. But please avoid Mourning Ruby if you are pregnant, unless hormones aren't affecting you.

[Nighteyes]

Hi have you really read most of these OP wow. I was trying to think of a couple not mentioned so apologies if they have been.

Classic: Farenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Modern: Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

[inaudiblemum]

I've been looking at www.spread-the-word.org.uk which has really different recommendations of books you're not likely to have heard of. The comments from the public make you want to buy about half a dozen straight away.

[Urtica]

The Rabbi's Cat for modern, absolutely.

Reading Lolita in Tehran isn't fiction but you won't put it down easily.

Mary Renault's Theseus novels(The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea)may send you to Graves -- whose myths aren't, I think, intended to be read through.

The Fagles Odyssey is wonderful, and even better listened to -- Ian McKellan is the reader, recording is rotten but then they all are.

[muchostinky]

Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
and
Little Women or Jane Eyre

[apollo11]

well, lots of classics i like have been mentioned, so i'll go for
LORD OF THE FLIES (william golding)
and on a lighter note, those of you who grew up in the 80's will appreciate
STARTER FOR TEN (david nichols). (the film is absolutely crap, but the book's hysterical)

[BoffinMum]

Haven't read whole thread but how about Lessing's The Fifth Child and P D James Children of Men for reminding mums about the point of it all ...

[lacarte]

The Great Gatsby
Nights at the Circus
Midnight's Children

Now I wish I had the time to re-read all of them ...

[gigglewitch]

sorry haven't read much of the thread - tis huge

classic - Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I love it

modern - anything by Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy is fascinating. Though long, you get totally lost in it. His book 'An Equal Music' is my favourite book of all time

[blueshoes]

Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier (love Rebecca too)
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

[blueshoes]

Another modern: The Devil Rides Out - Dennis Wheatley

[Kitsilano]

Modern - Any Human Heart - William Boyd

[Benjy]

Sentimental Education - Flaubert
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey

I also really enjoyed Decline and Fall and Brideshead Revisted.

[SweetPea99]

Any Human Heart - I second that. Brilliant.

[duckyfuzz]

madame bovary

the golden notebook

[lowlife]

non-classic: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

classic: 1984

[nkf]

MI just has to be my book swap partner.

Classic - The Woman in White
Modern - Bonfire of the Vanitites

Or

Classic - Jane Eyre
Modern - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

[InNeedOfSleep]

Room with a view (I can't be the first to recommend this?)
and for winter Tenderness of Wolves, Steff Penney (couple of years old.) Happy Reading....What did you choose?