Required reading

[MrB]

I don't know if this has been asked before, but do you think there are a number of books out there in storyland, that it is our responsibility, nay our duty to read, or at least attempt to read. You know the books I mean, those that have been with us from childhood, or those that are known about the world over, the very famous (or indeed infamous) books by the greatest Authors.

What would be in your list, would it include many books from the SF/F genre ?

post your lists (if you can be bothered !)

Catch22
On the road
To kill a Mockingbird
King Solomons Mines
LOTR
Treasure island
Of mice and Men
War of the Worlds
20,000 leagues under the sea
Moby Dick
Tom Sawyer
Dracula
Frankenstein
Call of the Wild
The moon is a harsh mistress
Dune

to name but a few !!!!

[MrB]

Moby Beep ?!?!?!?!

[Brys]

I haven't read much outside of speculative fiction, but I'll give it a try anyway:
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
The Trial by Franz Kafka
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
A Scanner Darkly by PKD (you know who I mean, but the censor won't let you see his whole name)
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Those are a few I can think of at the moment.

[jandy]

There are way too many - I agree with many on MrB's first list - not all, but that's personal opinion. I would add:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (actually all the Narnia Chronicles, but at least this one)
Farenheit 451
East of Eden
The Good Earth
Foundation
The Wizard of Oz
Stranger in a Strange Land
Three Musketeers
Jane Eyre
The Woman in White
Atlas Shrugged
Anne of Green Gables
A Lesson Before Dying
A Christmas Carol
The Handmaid's Tale
at least one of Toni Morrison's books
1984
Gone With the Wind

OK, I need to stop - I could keep going and going and going

[SchoolTheOld]

I'd like to add:

Gulliver's Travels,
The Scarlet Letter,

and Something of Dickens's (as much as I cringe).

I have so many things that I absolutely must read. I've been required to read many on the list so far through school. Would you guys care to add a few poets to this list? I have no idea where to start with them...

[Dragonfleet]

Hmm:

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
Of Mice and Men
Robinson Crusoe
The Odyssey
Illiad
Macbeth
The Hobbit
Jurassic Park
Starship Troopers (Hey, the book was alright!)
Predator: Cold War
Tom Clancy - The Hunt for Red October
Tom Clancy - Patriot Games
Tom Clancy - Red Storm Rising
The Lost World
Journey to the center of the earth
Stephen Baxter - Mammoth
Stephen Baxter - Evolution
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Peter Goldsworthy - Maestro
George Orwell - Animal Farm
John Marsden - Tomorrow when the war began
Erich Maria Remarque - All Quiet on the Western Front
Isobelle Carmody - The Obernewtyn Chronicles
Sara Douglass - The Axis Trilogy

The Jack Aubrey series by Patrick O'Brien.

Recently I found a large book on Conan. Looked kinda interesting, I might pick it up later.

That's all that comes to mind atm.[/i]

[InvisibleRabbit]

House of Leaves
I'm not sure of the author. You can just type it up on google.com and it will be there.
It is a great book and very hard to read until you actually get into it. It inspired me in a lot of ways.

[DannoE]

Just to add a few:

- Legend and The Swords of Night and Day from David Gemmel
- The Honor Harrington Series from David Weber
- Pride of Baghdad from Brian K. Vaughn and Nicko Henrichon
- The Artesia series from Mark Smylie

Well, that's a start. The last two are graphic novels. Artesia (http://www.aspcomics.com) especially is well worth your time and money.

[NeoScribe]

I can only think of three at the moment:

Dinotopia Lost (might wanna read the picture books first though)
Battle Royal (that book takes gratacious voilence to a whole new level)
The Brothers War (sank continents and shook the skies!)

[Magus]

Hmmmmm... listos de Magus?

I can do that.



In alphabetical order (by title), any lengthy works (novel, novella, play, epic-poem) that I think would be appropriate and would actively petition for their inclusion in a Junior High / High School curriculum (I'd be more than willing to support any of the following if anybody wants me to):



The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by: Mark Twain

Animal Farm by: George Orwell

Antigone by: Sophocles

Beowulf

The Brother's Karamazov by: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A Christmas Carol by: Charles Dickens

Crime and Punishment by: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Dune by: Frank Herbert

Fahrenheit 451 by: Ray Bradburry

Frankenstein by: Mary Shelley

Gulliver's Travels by: Jonathon Swift

The Great Gatsby by: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hamlet by: William Shakespeare

Heart of Darkness by: Joseph Conrad

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by: Douglas Adams

The Hobbit by: J.R.R. Tolkien

The Inferno by: Dante Alighieri

Jayne Eyre by: Charlette Bronte

Julius Caesar by: William Shakespeare

Jurassic Park by: Michael Crichton

The Long Walk by: Stephen King

The Lord of the Rings by: J.R.R. Tolkien

The Metamorphosis by: Franz Kafka

A Midsummer Night's Dream by: William Shakespeare

Le Morte D'Arthur by: Thomas Mallory

Needful Things by: Stephen King

A Prayer for Owen Meany by: John Irving

Pride and Prejudice by: Jane Austin

Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by: Stephen King

Romeo and Juliet by: William Shakespeare

The Running Man by: Stephen King

'Salem's Lot by: Stephen King

A Tale of Two Cities by: Charles Dickens

The Things They Carried by: Tim O'Brien

The Three Musketeers by: Alexandre Dumas

To Kill a Mockingbird by: Harper Lee

The War of the Worlds by: H.G. Wells

[berry]

Well MrB I think there are definitely books out there that it is our duty to read, if not our duty to read then certainly books that changed my outlook and made the scope of the world wider or just used their language so beautifully that the words became art. Obviously not forgetting that some made me laugh, a lot! You have already named some of my favourites but I’ll attempt a list of my own.

Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Steppenwolf – Herman Hesse
Glass bead game – Herman Hesse
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
Catch 22 – Jospeh Heller
Gormangast – Mervyn Peake
Lord of the Rings – As if you don’t know
Dirk Gently’s Holistic detective agency – Douglas Adams
I know why the caged bird sings – Maya Angelou
Island – Aldous Huxley
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
1984 – Greorge Orwell
Only Forward – Michael Marshall Smith
The Oddesy - Homer
The world according to Garp - John Irving
Lullaby - Chuck Pulanick

Now I’m at the end of the list it seems terribly short and I know there are many more that deserve a mention but this will do for now.

P.S MrB kudos for the Spaced reference.

Berry

[Magus]

I was actually reading The World According to Garp a little while ago. I kept having to put off actually reading it because I had other things I had to read at the same time (among them, ironically, A Prayer for Owen Meany). I finished the chapter that ended with Garp's short story when he was in Europe (I believe it was "The City Where Marcus Aurelious Died" ). It was definately good, and when I finish it I assume that it'll make its way along to my list. It was, at least up to the point that I had read to, not quite at the same level as A Prayer for Owen Meany.

I agree with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Lord of the Rings (If you couldn't tell from my own list). The rest, alas, I have not read.