Must Reads.

[ceelo]

I've started to put together a list of novels, mainly classics, that I have wanted to read in the past but haven't gotten around to it, but feel as though they are 'must reads' so to speak.

If you could put a list of 5-10 books together that you consider someone with an interest in literature 'must read',
what would they be?

[The Comedian]

Walden (non-fiction)
Selected poems of John Keats (poetry)
King Lear (drama)
Count of Monte Cristo (novel)
The Razor's Edge (novel)
Selected Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (short fiction)
My Antonia (novel)

That's what comes to mind at the moment. . . .

[stlukesguild]

Dante- Divine Comedy (poetry)
Cervantes- Don Quixote (novel)
Montaigne- Collected Essays (non-fiction)
Shakespeare- Hamlet (drama)
Sophocles- Oedipus Rex (drama)
J.L. Borges- Labyrinths (short stories)
Italo Calvino- Cosmicomics (short stories)
Gibbons- The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire (history/non-fiction)

[mortalterror]

1.The Book of Job- Anonymous
2.The Iliad- Homer
3.Oedipus Cycle- Sophocles
4.Metamorphoses- Ovid
5.The Bhagavad Gita- Vyasa
6.300 Tang Poems
7.Shahnamah- Firdawsi
8.Divine Comedy- Dante
9.The Tragedies- Shakespeare
10.War and Peace- Tolstoy

[iamnobody]

1. Crime and Punishment-Dostoevsky
2. Les Miserables-Victor Hugo
3. Don Quixote-Cervantes
4. A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens
5. Silas Marner-George Eliot

[Blasarius '33]

Must-read novels for someone already interested in literature, hmm....

Candide, Voltaire -- If I was numbering them this would probably get the #1 spot.
My Antonia, Cather -- SECONDED!! Even though this book doesn't make my top ten it's easily the one I re-read most often.
Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky -- Natural-born watershed novel.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Sterne -- Whenever I give this book as a gift it's always with the warning: If it's too weird put it back on the shelf, but go back to it every so often in case it clicks someday; it will be worth it.
The Confidence-Man, Melville -- Same as above.

[mal4mac]

Tolstoy - The Cossacks
Dickens - Nicholas Nickleby
Montaigne- Selected Essays
Shakespeare- Hamlet
Hardy - Jude the Obscure

[JBI]

1.The Book of Job- Anonymous
2.The Iliad- Homer
3.Oedipus Cycle- Sophocles
4.Metamorphoses- Ovid
5.The Bhagavad Gita- Vyasa
6.300 Tang Poems
7.Shahnamah- Firdawsi
8.Divine Comedy- Dante
9.The Tragedies- Shakespeare
10.War and Peace- Tolstoy
If you are going to toss the 300 Tang poems, you aught to add the rather untranslated 300 Song Lyrics, and the Earlier Book of Songs, Lyrics from Chu and Yue Fu collections, as each is as important as the 300 poems (in truth, Song Lyrics are as widely read as Tang poems).

Still, I would say Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei, I think that's how it is translated) would be the definitive, it certainly is the most crazy novel ever written, and predates all the decadent and picaresque, Byronic and Naturalistic books by centuries.

[mortalterror]

If you are going to toss the 300 Tang poems, you aught to add the rather untranslated 300 Song Lyrics, and the Earlier Book of Songs, Lyrics from Chu and Yue Fu collections, as each is as important as the 300 poems (in truth, Song Lyrics are as widely read as Tang poems).

Still, I would say Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei, I think that's how it is translated) would be the definitive, it certainly is the most crazy novel ever written, and predates all the decadent and picaresque, Byronic and Naturalistic books by centuries.

The idea was to be representative and essential, while limiting the curriculum to 10 volumes. Had I more space, I'd include

1.The Odyssey- Homer
2.The Oresteia- Aeschylus
3.The Aeneid- Virgil
4.The Ramayana- Valmiki
5.The Arabian Nights- Various
6.The Masnavi- Rumi
7.Jerusalem Delivered- Tasso
8.Don Quixote- Cervantes
9.Dream of the Red Chamber- Xueqin
10.Madame Bovary- Flaubert

[JBI]

Best throw Genji and Borges on there

[Gregory Samsa]

Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
Hunger - Knut Hamsun
Essays - Michel de Montaigne
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
The Stranger - Albert Camus
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[breathtest]

I'd say, for someone who wanted to get a wide range of literary knowledge, from different forms, styles etc.:

Crime and Punishment - Dosto
Either 'the catcher in the rye' - salinger or 'ham on rye' - bukowski
'paradise lost' - John Milton
'1984' - Orwell
Ulysses - Joyce
A Shakespeare play, probably Hamlet
Some Hemingway short stories
'Sir Gawain and the green knight' or another poem from medieval literature
'Big Sur' - Kerouac
A jane austen novel
a dickens novel

I feel with lists like this you need to include a wide range of texts. most people would be able to find something they are interested in, and each of the texts were important in shaping literature through those periods and later.

p.s. i know it's eleven, i miscounted. I'm gonna keep it how it is though ha

[Alexander III]

Hmm, let me give this a go, Except mine will be "Must reads of western literature" as to be sincere I know jack about world literature. Also I will only put books I have read, as otherwise I would feel some form of guilt. Most of the lists are very modern centric ( last 200 years) which seems egotistical on our part deeming our last to centuries to be worth more than they are.


1) Homer -The Iliad ( I chose this over the Odessy as I find the figure of Achilles to be more important to subsequent lit than Odysseus, as the most intriguing, complex and loved character is the tragic hero, of which Achilles is the standard.)

2) Herodotus - The Histories

3) Aeschylus - The Oresteia

4) Catullus - Collected Poems (I put him here as he is one of the first great poets to reject the notion of the epic and the hero and focus on snippets of everyday life, to capture it precisley with what he himself called expolitum which literally translated means polished I suppose, but nonetheless is essentially the concept which Flaubert would later famously adopt of using the right word in the right place at the right time. Many may cite that there were many greek who did not go for the form of epic but made lyrics - however these were sung as songs so they were not created as Catullus' poems solely to be read, there is a strong historical contextual difference.

5) Virgil-The Aeneid

6) Ovid - The Metamorphosis

7) Dante -La Divina Comedia

8) Lord Byron -Don Juan (This may seem a confusing choice for many, however I think it is necessary to include Byron for the simple reason that European 19th century literature, up until the 60's, can only be seen trough the lens of Lord Byron. Everyone who could read had read some Byron, his influence shaped the thought and worldview of entire generation's, heck Russian literature was formed as a dialogue with Byron (Pushkin and Lermontov.) While he is not widely read nowadays, most people are unaware or unable to recognize the scope and immensity of Byron in the 19th century - all over europe he was the poet. As for why specifically Don Juan, I shall use the words of Sir Walter Scott " It has embraced every topic of human life, and sounded every string of the divine harp, from its slightest to its most powerful and heart-astounding tones." And Goethe "a work of boundless genius."

9) Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

10) Ezra Pound - The Cantos (I know this decision shall require a stern defense, but I have not the time now for it, but as soon as I can, I shall edit my defense of why I chose The Cantos.)

[mortalterror]

Best throw Genji and Borges on there

I don't really like either of them, but Genji would show up on a list of mine long before Borges. Why should Borges be essential like Homer or Dante? He wasn't even the best of anything in his own era. Hemingway, Akutagawa, and O'Connor wrote better short stories. Neruda, Eliot, Cavafy, and Lorca wrote better poetry, but I don't name them as essential. If I added another 10 items to my previous lists it would be

1.Medea- Euripides
2.Thyestes- Seneca
3.Meghaduta- Kalidasa
4.Gita Govinda- Jayadeva
5.Romance of the Three Kingdoms- Guanzhong
6.Canterbury Tales- Chaucer
7.Tartuffe- Moliere
8.Paradise Lost- Milton
9.Phaedra- Racine
10.Crime and Punishment- Dostoyevsky

[Buh4Bee]

The Stranger by Camus
The Odyssey by Homer
War and Peace by Tolstoy
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Roots by Alex Haley
Cacher in the Rye by Salinger
The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

[Venerable Bede]

This is kind of hard to decide on, but ones that I feel are essential are:

Gulliver's Travels (I found it fairly dry but it still good)

Iliad or Odyssey

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Paradise Lost (Haven't read the whole thing yet, but I'll get to it this summer)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (My personal favourite of the excellent Shelock Holmes mysteries)

At least one play by Shakespeare

A novel by Dickens (Haven't read enough of him to decide on the best)

Ivanhoe (This is probably the greatest historical romance ever written and is one of my favourite books ever)

The Aeneid

The Count of Monte Cristo (The best revenge thriller of all time; a definite must read)

[mal4mac]

A novel by Dickens (Haven't read enough of him to decide on the best)


I don't think that will help. He's so consistently good it's very difficult to decide on the best. Out of the 15 I've read the two that *aren't* competing for 'best novel of all time' are:

A Tale of Two Cities
Dombey and Son

"Tale" is a good novel, quite an exciting theme of course, but it is lacking the magic of the characters found in his other novels... But maybe read it - then you will be happy in the knowledge that are at least 13 better novels by him.

[Venerable Bede]

Actually, A Tale of Two Cities is the only Dickens novel I've read so far. I thought the ending was superb, but the first large chunk of the novel seemed to have no direction. The tension in the plot picked up in the last quarter or so of the novel.

I plan to read more Dickens over the summer. Which of his other novels would you recommend the most?

[kiki1982]

I'd also go for the Austen novel. If you don't want to do obvious P&P, do Persuasion.

Wuthering Heights - Brontë, the strangest and most original combination of supernatural and reality ever. Monte Cristo but times two. Reads like a train too.

Cyrano de Bergerac - Rostand, though don't bother if not in French. It totally loses its brilliance in another language.

Can't agree on Dickens. I still do not understand how people don't get bored to tears. Go for Hardy instead. Tess of the d'Urbervilles was sad, but Jude the Obscure was strangely upsetting. Far from the Madding Crowd was a little more uplifting.

A Saramago, a personal mantra. His prose is beyond anything, to me at least.

[Playtime]

I can only speak for European, American, and Russian Literature unfortunately but:

The Metamorphoses - Ovid
The Divine Comedy - Dante
The Canterbury Tales - Chaucer
King Lear - Shakespeare
Don Quixote - Cervantes
Madame Bovary - Flaubert
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
In Search of Lost Time - Proust
Absalom, Absalom! - Faulkner

[capar]

The Pearl - Steinbeck
Catcher in the Rye - Salinger
Red Badge of Courage - Crane
Henry V - Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald
Watership Down - Adams
1984 - Orwell

[Mr.lucifer]

I'd also go for the Austen novel. If you don't want to do obvious P&P, do Persuasion.

Wuthering Heights - Brontë, the strangest and most original combination of supernatural and reality ever. Monte Cristo but times two. Reads like a train too.

Cyrano de Bergerac - Rostand, though don't bother if not in French. It totally loses its brilliance in another language.

Can't agree on Dickens. I still do not understand how people don't get bored to tears. Go for Hardy instead. Tess of the d'Urbervilles was sad, but Jude the Obscure was strangely upsetting. Far from the Madding Crowd was a little more uplifting.

A Saramago, a personal mantra. His prose is beyond anything, to me at least.
People have different reactions to works no matter how praised they are.

[Buh4Bee]

I agree with The Great Gatsby, for sure. I was going to put down Watership Down, but it is classified as a child's book or young adult fiction. Despite this category, it is a book everyone should read. I read it 2 summers ago as an adult and I was deeply moved by the story.

[mal4mac]

Actually, A Tale of Two Cities is the only Dickens novel I've read so far. I thought the ending was superb, but the first large chunk of the novel seemed to have no direction. The tension in the plot picked up in the last quarter or so of the novel.

Yes I think he gets gets a bit lost in France, London is his place! I have just read Barnaby Rudge, which is intriguingly similar - it has the Gordon Riots at its centre, perhaps the closest to the UK came to a revolution in the 18th century. Also, the characters are superb - especially the bird... Then again, it doesn't have much direction. I didn't care, because the characters are so good. Maybe Great Expectations or Oliver would be a better bet for you.

Don't listen to kiki on Dickens :) She has a blind spot, like my blind spot for Proust, the Bible, and late Joyce....

[fb0252]

Western Cannon--to start things out in the must read selection process.

Hamlet
Mr. S English history plays and Roman history plays.

Canterbury Tales
Montaigne
Goethe Faust as translated by Walter Arndt in the Norton Edition
(Goethe Poet and The Age by Nicolas Boyle as best biography ever written.)
Quixote

War and Peace
Middlemarch
Brother's K
William Meister's Apprenticeship

i had same reaction to Bleak House by Dickens. Slow almost dumbed down beginning. Dickens writing for me has a certain power over the long haul. unable to get the lofty position of Divine Comedy. blasphemy, i know. Original plot, but in truth, if not Dante, somebody would have written this at some point, possibly much better, imvho.