Okay, this began as a lark on Facebook where someone tagged me in a “BBC thinks you’d have read only 6 of these books” list. So we ticked and marked and then decided to come up with a list of our own that we think people must read in their lifetime. The one in italicized bold are the ones that I’ve been planning to read but never got around to it. Feel free to add your own suggestions!
- To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
- Catcher in The Rye – JD Salinger
- Memoirs of A Geisha – Arthur Golden
- Chronicles of Narnia (how could you grow up without this)
- The Secret Garden – Burnett (not the adult version!)
- Emma – Jane Austen
- Hamlet – Shakespeare
- Othello – Shakespeare (Needed for the truths of life!)
- Watership Down – Richard Adams
- Mathilda – Roald Dahl
- My Uncle Oswald – Roald Dahl (He wrote for adults too, you know)
- Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (we all need to trip out sometime)
- The Hobbit
- Lord of the Rings
- Harry Potter series (if you started it, no matter what you thought of the last one, you finished it too!)
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
- Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
- Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain (how come this wasn’t on the original BBC list?! Didn’t you want to paint a fence after you read this)
- The Kite Runner
- The Woman in White (if only for the phrase!)
- The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (if only for the way he structured the book)
- Lord of the Flies (never been so creeped out!)
- The Name of The Rose – Umberto Eco (ultimate mystery novel)
- Lolita
- Love in the time of cholera – Marquez
- Santa Evita
- On The Road – Jack Kerouac
- Vanity Fair (Saw the movie. Was curious.)
- The Color Purple – Alice Walker
- Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad (okay reading this was a pain for college but it is impressive)
- At least ONE book of Wheel of Time
- His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
- Robinson Crusoe (Because we all need to dream of being on a deserted island)
- Uncle Tom’s Cabin
- Carrie – Stephen King
- Pet Cemetary – Stephen King (you need to know what is being scared)
- Perfume (To live through your imaginary senses)
- Shantaram (A beautiful glimpse of Mumbai)
- Never Let Me Go – Ishiguro
- War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
- Nancy Friday’s books (every woman needs to read it at least once. Why? Read it!)
- The Girl In The Dragon Tattoo Series
- The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri
- Sea of Poppies – Amitav Ghosh (some day I’ll get around to it)
- Perfect Hostage (bio of Aung San Suu Kyi)
- The Accidental Billionaires
- Dreams from my father – Barack Obama
- Eat, Pray, Love (Yes. Read it.)
- Interpretation of Dreams – Freud
- The Great Gatsby – Fitzgerald
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You have my second most favorite book listed first…..”To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is beyond being good….Scout has always been one of my favorite characters of all times…..I am amazed that you do not have the best book in history written….even listed. Of course that is my opinion….None other than….GONE WITH THE WIND…by Margaret Mitchell. I have always dreamed of writing a book comparable to her masterpiece. Maybe one day….I will make my dream come true. I am also shocked you do not have any of the Godfather series listed…..not a classic….but well-written and most entertaining reading and watching…..I could go on and on….but I will mention my own two novels….The Gully and now the upcoming …..”Beyond Belief”….both are Family Saga’s….that one will not forget easily. Thank you for letting me comment….Peggy Inez, Author and Storyteller.
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Hi Peggy,
Yeah I forgot to include Godfather and I guess it can be called a classic in a manner of speaking.
And Gone With The Wind… we were forced to read some excerpts in school that sort of ruined the rest of it for me, so that explains the absence of the book.
I’ll definitely check out your books soon!!!
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