My imaginary "required reading" list (novels, notebooks, ebook)

[lolagranola]

These books are among my "favorites", but not necessarily in my top 5. They have shaped my thinking and views, and they are the books that I would require to be read by all if I had that kind of power!!

In no particular order:

Elani, Nicholas Gage
The Lorax, Dr Seus
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
Endurance, Alfred Lansing
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, LLL
There is No Me Without You, Melissa Faye Green
Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsen
Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel
Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser

Does anyone else have such a list? Do you wish people would just read what you tell them, so they could know what you know!?

[Mooseketeer]

The Prince by Macchiavelli
The Republic by Plato
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Anything by Ambrose Bierce
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
All my Sons by Arthur Miller
Travels with Charley by Steinbeck
1984 by Orwell
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar wilde
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
The entire bibliography of Emile Zola
Shantaram by Roberts
Anything by Guy de Maupassant
Animal Farm by Orwell
Down and Out in Paris by Orwell
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham
Farewell to Arms by Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
The Plague by Camus
The Stranger by Camus
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
Anything by PG Wodehouse
Anything by Chekov
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky
Pretty much anything by Tolstoy
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Crime Passionel by JP Sartre
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer
Aesop's Fables
Cicero's speeches
Julius Caesar's "Gallic wars"
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Fly by Kafka
Pretty much anything by Jules Verne
Rob Roy by Walter Scot
South by Ernest Shackelton
Moomins series by Tove Jansen
Pretty much all of Mark Twain
To begin with... all these I cannot imagine not having read. I would have missed so much.

[FlightAttendant]

Wow, what a list, Mooseketeer! You certainly have hit many of the true classics. A few books you mentioned are ones that I have been meaning to read but havent yet....this may spur me on to get them from the library. Thanks

[karibear]

I've read a lot of the ones on your lists, but I gave up creating lists for myself long ago. I really don't want my friends to read all the same things I do, we have somewhat different tastes and while I give them recommendations, they also recommend things to me that I wouldn't otherwise have considered.

[cpg35223]

Pretty great list. Repped you for it.

I don't have time to add much, but you gotta love a list that include P.G. Wodehouse, probably one of the most underrated writers in the English Language. Vanity Fair is also my favorite novel without question. I must have read it eight different times.

I'd humbly add the following:

Any three plays by Shakespeare, preferably a tragedy, a comedy, and a history.
Jonathan Swift.
Journal of the Plague Year by Defoe. Why nobody considers him to be the first English novelist is beyond me.
Brave New World by Huxley. I think his dystopian vision is actually more chilling and accurate.
Almost anything by Evelyn Waugh, but Scoop has to be one of the funniest novels of all time.

Originally Posted by Mooseketeer

The Prince by Macchiavelli
The Republic by Plato
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Anything by Ambrose Bierce
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
All my Sons by Arthur Miller
Travels with Charley by Steinbeck
1984 by Orwell
The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar wilde
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
The entire bibliography of Emile Zola
Shantaram by Roberts
Anything by Guy de Maupassant
Animal Farm by Orwell
Down and Out in Paris by Orwell
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham
Farewell to Arms by Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway
The Plague by Camus
The Stranger by Camus
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck
Anything by PG Wodehouse
Anything by Chekov
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky
Pretty much anything by Tolstoy
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Crime Passionel by JP Sartre
Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
The notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
The Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer
Aesop's Fables
Cicero's speeches
Julius Caesar's "Gallic wars"
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Fly by Kafka
Pretty much anything by Jules Verne
Rob Roy by Walter Scot
South by Ernest Shackelton
Moomins series by Tove Jansen
Pretty much all of Mark Twain
To begin with... all these I cannot imagine not having read. I would have missed so much.

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Pretty great list. Repped you for it.

I don't have time to add much, but you gotta love a list that include P.G. Wodehouse, probably one of the most underrated writers in the English Language. Vanity Fair is also my favorite novel without question. I must have read it eight different times.

I'd humbly add the following:

Any three plays by Shakespeare, preferably a tragedy, a comedy, and a history.
Jonathan Swift.
Journal of the Plague Year by Defoe. Why nobody considers him to be the first English novelist is beyond me.
Brave New World by Huxley. I think his dystopian vision is actually more chilling and accurate.
Almost anything by Evelyn Waugh, but Scoop has to be one of the funniest novels of all time.

How could I forget Swift and Defoe !? Doh !
Thanks for reminding me. I would also probably add most of Robert Louis Stevenson's works too as well as Jack London, Conrad, Melville etc.. So many great books , so little time...

So many bad books too sadly.

[lolagranola]

So many great books , so little time...

That is one reason I like to listen to BOT. Can listen while making dinner or ironning, besides what I am "reading". Though the selection isn't as great.

My (imaginary) required reading is compiled of titles that changed my perspective on life.

Oh, and how could I have forgotten!! THE POISONWOOD BIBLE!! Belongs right up there at the top!

[Mooseketeer]

Originally Posted by lolagranola

That is one reason I like to listen to BOT. Can listen while making dinner or ironning, besides what I am "reading". Though the selection isn't as great.

My (imaginary) required reading is compiled of titles that changed my perspective on life.

Oh, and how could I have forgotten!! THE POISONWOOD BIBLE!! Belongs right up there at the top!

I will have to look "The Poisonwood Bible", I am afraid I never even heard of it until you mentioned it.