Great Books that are must-read ?

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Instaed of being without any proper guidance and kids starting to waste their brain cells on isabel allende or murakami haruki.

What are the Great Books that must read during their lifetime ?

I hear it's a good 'un.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Rock-Roll ... 1520167296

The WaterFire Saga by Jennifer Donnelly. One of my favorite series' ever.

yes they r better than isabel allende or murakami haruki but what are the classics that sublimate , transcendent , catharsize.. etc

So kids say in rural india or mexico can read on phones or tabs etc obviously they r all reading fifty shades of grey.pdf rn

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Moby Dick - Melville
The Sound and the Fury - Faulkner
Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
Tristram Shandy - Sterne
Complete works of Sir Thomas Wyatt

Middlemarch - George Eliot
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë (classic Bildungsroman, although Villette is a far greater novel)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Rob Roy - Sir Walter Scott
Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
A Vindication of the Rights of Women - Mary Wollstonecraft
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
The Diviners - Margaret Laurence
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

No particular order *

Harvard university released a list of the most intellectually important books in history in 1909:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

Britannica produced a similar list some time later:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_B ... tern_World

There have been "intellectually-important" works issued since the early 20th century.

How can anybody just dismiss, out of hand, works produced after the early 20th century?

“Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story; others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.”

I believe a lot depends on the reader and context in which the book is read.

I mentioned quite a few on my list. To list only 20C and forward I would also include:

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Márquez
Hana's Suitcase, Karen Levine
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery

Last edited by IsabellaLinton on 19 Feb 2019, 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

^^^I agree with that.

To me, "War and Peace" was a substantial work----but it was also a substantial soap opera, too.

I noticed the Harvard anthology included Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne. I read a lot of Browne at university. It is intellectually significant but not on my "holiday reading" list. His Psuedodoxia Epidemica is quite good fun though (seriously) but you should read Albertus Magnus' Book of Secrets first... to help put it in perspective.

My holiday reading list... mostly sci-fi by the likes of Neal Asher. Not intellectually significant, sadly.

Has anyone here read Possession, by AS Byatt (1990)?

I absolutely adored it. I'm having to drag myself away from a reread, because I have other books to finish first.

The novel follows two modern-day academics as they research the paper trail around the previously unknown love life between famous fictional poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Possession is set both in the present day and the Victorian era, contrasting the two time periods, as well as echoing similarities and satirising modern academia and mating rituals. The structure of the novel incorporates many different styles, including fictional diary entries, letters and poetry, and uses these styles and other devices to explore the post-modern concerns of the authority of textual narratives. The title 'Possession' highlights many of the major themes in the novel: questions of ownership and independence between lovers, the practice of collecting historically significant cultural artefacts, and the possession that biographers feel toward their subjects.

@Trueno
I agree with making our reading list accessible. I tried not to include anything ancient or overly academic.

Ooh you mentioned the Idiot (who was not an idiot at all)! ! I am convinced that Prince Mishkin had Autism!
Also in Great Expectations Pip’s sister might have had ASd mixed with bipolar or borderline personality (I thought). That’s why Joe, understanding it was beyond her control, getting angry n overwhelmed by her burdens etc, wAs so forgiving

Actually in David Copperfield the man that David’s aunt looks after, Mr Dick, had ASD too in my opinion

My fave books that I think ppl who enjoy good writing wd like are-

ali and nino by kurban said
Road to makkah by mohammad asad
Hard times by charles dickens above his other books (bcuz i think it has a very concise almost theatrical aspect compared to his other works but retains profound insights n character development)
wuthering heights by emily bronte
The giver by lois lowry (even though classified as children’s fiction it is good enough to be appreciated n appropriate fr adults too)
Every book by stephen leacock