What are your "MUST READ" books?

[nextnewface]

And one of the best series of all time: Anne of Green Gables.

Oh definitely! I've started to read the first book again this weekend I've been to "Green Gables" when I was younger, I remember I really enjoyed my visit

And Das Parfum (read it in French though) is really really good. Loved it!

 

[kawaii_elle]

milan kundera- the unbearable lightness of being
john kennedy toole - a confederacy of dunces

 

[seasecrets]

the virgin suicides by jeffrey eugenides
the sandman (comic book series) by neil gaiman
push by sapphire

 

[Colette_B]

dead souls by nikolai gogol
hamlet by william shakespeare
the violent bear it away by flannery o' connor
fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury
great expectations by charles dickens
men without women by ernest hemingway

 

[fashionmad]

It has been awhile since I have been truly inspired by a book. My top five, as frozen in time my sophmore year of college are

As I Lay Dying by Faulkner

The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when whe Rainbow is Enuf . . . by Ntozake Shange

Oh, and also A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

 

[dulcedeleche]

Oh, and I forgot Middlesex by Euginides. So freaking good.

 

[Fionuir]

To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
Diary of Anne Frank
Tomorrow, When The War Began- John Marsden
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
The Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger
White Teeth- Zadie Smith
Middlemarch- George Eliot

 

[Whitelinen]

Blonde
The Dharma Bums
Sylvia Plath's poetry
Hotel New Hampshire
Lolita

 

[Erin]

So many fantastic recommendations! I've added so many to my laundry list of books to read.

 

[faust]

add that to my list too, totally skipped my mind

 

[in the miso soup]

on the road & big sur
norwegian wood & the wind-up bird chronicle
100 years of solitude
ham on rye
in watermelon sugar
the sound & the fury
if on a winter's night a travler (for the experience of reading a good book in 2nd person)

 

[cheiby11]

Sylvia Plath's poetry

I really love her poetry! and also her diaries!

 

[justinelm]

Fashion related I'd absolutely recommend Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly "Du dandysme et de George Brummell" (Of Dandism and George Brummell) ; the Diary of Charles Baudelaire, J-K Huysmans "Against the Grain" (A Rebours) .
Anything by Sade (no comment).

And I want to put a living author there: anything by JT Leroy.

 

[Yanka]

ok, i might have posted here before, but nevertheless, here is my list of absolute favourites:
1) Gulag Archipelago - Alexander Solzhenitsin (just mind-blowing)
2) THE CASTLE and THE TRIAL by Kafka
3) Atomic Particles (atomised) by Michel Houellebecq
4) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (a book that is brilliant in so many ways, also funny as hell)
5) Hunger by Knut Hamson
6) Sophie's Choice - William Styron - A really good read, great story
7) It's me, Eddie - Edward Limonov, very honest, raw, dirty, if you liked Tropic of Cancer, well, its a much better choice
There are just so so many other books, Parfume (yes, briliant book), 1985 and, oh yeah, The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot - mind-blowing, totally anxiety-inducing, controversial and unproved, if you're into that.

 

[Hana_N]

I'd like to add a couple of Hans Christian Andersens fairy tales: The little mermaid, The shadow, the ugly duckling ...

Anthony Burgess: A clockwork orange
Homer
John Steinbeck
Hemingway
D. H. Lawrence
etc...

Lots more but most of them have already been mentioned.
Also there books that are part of the western canon, books that have helped shape the western world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_cannon

 

[Gavsman]

eragon- christopher paolini
eldest- christopher paolini

i loved the two books and the second one, i completed yesterday and they are a must read books

 

[mundodabolsa]

Oh, and I forgot Middlesex by Euginides. So freaking good.

SO freaking good.

No one has mentioned my all time favorite book, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.

Also White Teeth by Zadie Smith is fantastic, and I just finished On Beauty, also hers and also great.

 

[Zen]

Story of "O" :Pauline Reage
Return to the Chateau (story of "o"Pauline Reage
The f*ck Up:Arthur Nersesian
Suicide Casanova:Arthur Nersesian
Brave New World:Aldous Huxley
Parasites Like Us:Adam Johnson
Flatland:Edwin A. Abbott
Mishima (biographyJohn Nathan

 

[Josephine]

recent reads that i recommend:
*sophie's choice by william styron - amazing characters - so complex and real
*tuesday's with morrie by mitch albom- this book leaves you glowing
*tender is the night by f. scott fitzgerald - beautifully written novel about failure

 

[Little Star]

The Tomorrow Series - John Marsden (my favourite of all time)
Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (in french of course)
Looking For Alibrandi - Melinda Marchetta
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (a great classic)
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
The BFG - Roald Dahl
A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein (picture book)
The Little Blue Parcel - Norma Spelding (picture book)