What are your "MUST READ" books?

[dulcedeleche]

I just picked up Veronica at the airport, and it's so absolutely good. And of course you guys would like it b/c it's about an Ex-model, and her memories of New York and Paris and the people she knew. It's by Mary Gaitskil, the same lady who wrote Secretary, yes, the one the movie was based on.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons - Bill Watterson

 

[jennifer~]

The Scarlet Letter

The Mysteries of Udolpho is also memorable. I have yet to embrace a lot of contemporary authors, but I'm taking recommendations from this thread.

 

[sanja]

All Danielle Steel books

 

[vogueness]

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - brilliant

 

[kissmesweet]

Nora Roberts
Montana Sky
Angels Fall
Carolina Moon

Danielle Steel
The House
Sisters

William Shakespeare
Hamlet
Othello
Macbeth
The Taming of the Shrew
Romeo and Juliet
Mid Summer's Night Dream

JK Rowling
The Harry Potter Series

Zoey Dean
The A-List Series

Jessie Elliot
Girl's Dinner Club

Deanna Kizis
Would You?

William Makepeace Thackeray
Vanity Fair

Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensiblity
Mansfield Park
Emma
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey

The Bronte Sisters
Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte

I looooove this list!

 

[ChrissyM]

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - brilliant

I agree ....love that book

 

[BaroqueRockstar]

naked- david sedaris
so funny and brilliant!

 

[darylkronenberg]

L'Etranger par Albert Camus
La Nausee (Sartre)
Dieu et la Science (Jean Guitton)
Du Cote de Chez Swann (Proust)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
Risibles Amours (Kundera)

A very enlightening book, albeit biased a bit against Christian religion, is The History of Western Philosophy by Russell. It's a shame it wasnt updated later to include existentialism.

 

[Candice89102]

Speak - Laurie Halse Anderson
Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
Annie On My Mind - Nancy Garden
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neal Hurston

 

[darylkronenberg]

Even though we have a thread like this I'll post again, just because i love literature


The Little Prince - Exupery
Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
The Fall - Camus
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Kundera
Immortality - Kundera
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson
Catcher in the Rye - Salinger

These are the absolute faves, tier 2 is much bigger

aaaaarrrrrgh! The Unbearable Lightness of Being!! I have it in Frenhc, but I lent it to my friend and she hasnt returned it yet!! I plan to finish all Kundera, I read L'Ignorance as well, superb book really.
Have you read La Peste (The Plague) by Camus?

 

[vogueness]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of my top 10 books ever. get it back from your friend so you can read it

I found The Plague a brilliant disturbing book
Have you read Camus' L'Etranger?

 

[darylkronenberg]

oh!! thank you for the tip, ill surely get it back!
L'Etranger is my all time favorite book! I will read it again this summer I hope.
I read the Plague during the war in Lebanon this past summer, withe the embargo imposed, so you can imagine, i was living every moment of the book.

 

[ruthie]

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
It is only like 110 pages, so it doesn't take much time to read at all, but mostly it is just such a powerful book. There are so many symbols and things to think about when you read it. It is one of my all-time favorites.

 

[Multitudes]

Some of the books I return to again and again ...

Charles Baudelaire Les Fleurs Du Mal
Stéphane Mallarmé Collected Poems and Other Verse
Andre Breton Nadja
Marcel Proust À La Recherce Du Temps Perdu
William Burroughs Naked Lunch & Nova Express
Maurice Blanchot La Part Du Feu, L'espace Littéraire, Le Livre À Venir & L'entretien Infini
Roland Barthes Fragments D'un Discours Amoureux
Fyodor Dostoevsky Notes From Underground
Franz Kafka The Castle, The Trial, Metamorphosis and anything you can get your hands on!
Samuel Beckett Collected Fiction and Short Prose
Walter Benjamin Das Passagen-Werk
Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri Empire & Multitude
Gilles deleuze & Felix Guattari Mille Plateaux, Le Pli: leibniz Et Le Baroque & Francis Bacon: Logique De La Sensation

I know I have left some out! ...

 

[eternitygoddess]

Nora Roberts
Montana Sky
Angels Fall
Carolina Moon

Add Honest Illusions.

 

[eternitygoddess]

I don't understand some people's posts in this thread. I thought a "MUST READ" means a book that is IMPORTANT, ENLIGHTENING, SIGNIFICANT, in some cases LIFE-CHANGING. Did I misunderstand the point of this thread? What's with all the Dan Brown

I have to second that. I see a lot of good books here, but I don't really think they're the have-to-read-before-you-die-or-else kind of books.

 

[ChrissyM]

prodigal summer by barbara kingsolver... this book really made an impression on me when I read it years ago..

might be time for a reread...

 

[Party.in.Paris]

Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs Du Mal
Friedrich Nietzsche - Antichrist

 

[Bluestar07]

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - brilliant

YES!!!