Ten Favorite Novels

I'm not sure if I can come up with 10, but here goes, my top favorite books I think everyone should read. (I guess I'm narcissistic) ;)

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
4. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
5. Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
6. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
7. Beowulf unknown
8. Iliad and Oddysey by Homer (I'm acutally in the process of reading these now)
9. Republic by Plato (I haven't read this one yet, however my sister said it was one of the greatest books she ever read)
10. The Illustrated Book of Signs and Symbols by Miranda Bruce-Mitford

Why look at that, I did manage to dredge up ten.

Adolescent- Actually, Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina. It's wonderful, but I don't know if I would put it on a "must read" list... but that's just my opinion!

Has anyone read The Mysterious Stranger by Twain? I found it very twisted but oh so fabulous!

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Originally Posted by higley

The Pilgrim's Progress- John Bunyan

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I just received this book from a pastor I know. So you liked it very much then Higley? It's not that long, maybe I can squeeze it in before Christmas break is over.

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Originally Posted by grace86

I just received this book from a pastor I know. So you liked it very much then Higley? It's not that long, maybe I can squeeze it in before Christmas break is over.

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Oh yes it's lovely. :) Very much enjoyed it; reads like a dream.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Carcía Márquez
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
1984 by George Orwell
Night by Elie Wiesel
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Mrs.Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Giles Goat-Boy - John Barth
Don Quixote - Cervantes
Lord Jim - Conrad
Tulku - Peter Dickinson
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Gibbon
God Knows - Joseph Heller
Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
The Other Wind - Ursula le Guin
The Road Back - Erich Maria Remarque
Candide - Voltaire

.

1984 by George Orwell
Beowulf
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
brave new world by Aldous Huxly
the kite runner by Khaled Hosseini
the heart is a lonely hunter by Carson Mccullers
the catcher in the rye by J.D Salinger
great expectations by Charles Dickens
the trial by Franz Kafka

my recommendations:

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Death in Venice and Other Stories (Thomas Mann)
Ten Little Indians (Sherman Alexie)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

1] Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen.
2] Her Mother’s Daughter – Marilyn French.
3] 1984 – George Orwell.
4] Beloved – Toni Morrison.
5] Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy.
6] Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov.
7] 100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
8] Mill on the Floss – George Eliot.
9] Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte.
10] The Diary of Anne Frank.

1. Persuasion- Jane Austen
2. Hellfire- Mia Gallagher
3. The Alchemist- Paulo Coelho
4. East of Eden- John Stienbeck
5. Utterly Monkey- Nick Laird
6. Merlin Trilogy- Mary Stewart
7. Artemis Fowl- Eoin Colfer
8. His Dark materials- Philip Pulman
9. Deirdre of the Sorrows- J.M.Synge
10. Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

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Originally Posted by livelaughlove

Adolescent- Actually, Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina. It's wonderful, but I don't know if I would put it on a "must read" list... but that's just my opinion!

Has anyone read The Mysterious Stranger by Twain? I found it very twisted but oh so fabulous!

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Yes, sorry I meant Tolstoy ;), ever cared to read War and Peace? I'm hacking through that right now.

I'm an adolescent too...
Anyway, these books aren't all classics, but they are must-reads:
(in random order)

Any of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam (Persian poetry)
The Pickwick Papers by Dickens
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
Any of Emily Dickinson's poems
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
and, of course, the Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by livelaughlove

Adolescent- Actually, Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina. It's wonderful, but I don't know if I would put it on a "must read" list... but that's just my opinion!

Has anyone read The Mysterious Stranger by Twain? I found it very twisted but oh so fabulous!

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I love Anna Karenina but agree that it's not top 10 (though War and Peace may very well be).

And yes, The Mysterious Stranger is great.

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1984 (and Animal Farm for that matter) by George Orwell
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) by Marcel Proust
The Odyssey by Homer
The Trial by Franz Kafka

Somewhat of a Generic list, but what can you do...

1. Brothers Karamazov
2. Mary Called Magdalene
3. White Nights
4. The Trail
5. Padre Pio
6. The Count of Monte Cristo
7. A Tale of Two Cities
8. The Autobiography of a Yogi
9. The Adolescent
10. The Idiot

ten is definitely not enough...i would think you should start with the bible and the odyssey and the illiad...then shakespeare...those things are very often echoed in later literature, so if uve not read them u won't understand things fully. then things like dickens, austen, thoreau...as for contemporary literature, have a look at the nobel prize winners for lit.