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I'd suggest Dune by Frank Herbert

Gotta get something by Kazuo Ishiguro on there! I suggest Never Let Me Go or The Remains of the Day

The Color Purple

The Three Musketeers

A Clockwork Orange

Slaugherhouse-Five

Dangerous Liasons

Garlic Ballads by Mo Yan

Remains of the Day by Kazuou Ishiguro

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Would be my suggestions to add to the list

I would add The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I would also strongly advocate for removing The Alchemist. Seriously, that book is atrocious.

The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

No Toni Morrison or Willa Cather?

A Confederacy of Dunces! So good

The Marriage Plot by Eugenides

On Beauty by Zadie Smith

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michsel Chabon

Tomorrow Tomorrow Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Wolff

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Interview with the Vampire / The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

I would lose Alchemist, Hunger Games and The Help and Twelve Years a Slave. If you want a slave narrative, read Sojourner Truth.

Remembrance of Things Past is overlooked a lot. Complex, delicious sentences that need to be savored more than once. A storyline that is stunning and contemporary. It’s a real shame that this beauty has fallen away.

Oh, man, how did I forget Clockwork Orange? It's iconic

Catcher in the rye

Added!

What is the worst thing about The Alchemist?

I’d keep it! The Alchemist isn’t for everyone but a lot of these books are divisive. I liked the book.

Which books of theirs do you recommend?

I love a lot of these books! But a few might not be old enough to be a classic. I feel like even modern classics probably need to have a decade or two to age into that position.

White Fang by Jack London

Edit: sorry, I thought you were just asking for classics. Ignore the idiot everyone!

and while you're at it, Call of the Wild

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I'm not going to lie.. I struggled with Les Miserables thousand pages, and online resources say that in total Remembrance of Things Past is over four thousand pages long. If I were to read it, It might only be the first volume of the set

Did you read all 7 volumes, and how long did it take if you did?

Added!

As a brazilian, in my opinion, you should take The Alchemist out of the list and put The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (also known in the US as Epitaph of a Small Winner) by Machado de Assis in its place. Paulo Coelho is very popular in the world but not really seen as this great author, Machado de Assis is considered by many the best and most important writer from our country.

Nothing against Paulo Coelho, you can read The Alchemist, but Brazil has lots of great authors and he is not even close to the top.

I remember liking White Fang in school, and honestly it would be nice to reread it. I'm adding both to the list!

As I Lay Dying is a must

XD that's good, they really are great books.

Fair! I'm not gonna lie, I did exclude books that I personally have some issues with. So, it would make sense that others feel the same way about some on my list. A lot of these books were referenced multiple times on various sites, so surely, they mean something to someone

I'll keep the Alchemist, unless a convincing argument can be made otherwise

Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar.
The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges.

Depending on how modern of classic you are looking for, I’d add

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (late 70s) The Fellowship of the Ring (50s) Brideshead revisited (1945) And Then There Were None (1939) Phantom of the Opera (1910)

I also second The Picture of Dorian Gray, Virginia Woolf and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (it’s a 2000s book)

I'm adding both! Never Let Me Go appeals to me more from first impressions, but The Remains of the Day is seemingly more significant based on my searches(?). So, both have been added

Fiction:

• Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I'd choose this over Great Expectations)
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino
• The Shipping News - Annie Proulx
• Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf (I'd choose this over A Room of One's Own)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
• The Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
• I, Claudius - Robert Graves

Non-fiction:

• The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
• Annals of the Former World - John McPhee

Plays:

• Travesties - Tom Stoppard
• Angels in America - Tony Kushner
• Faith Healer - Brian Friel

Poetry:

• Complete Poems of W. B. Yeats
• Complete Poems of W. H. Auden

With all due respect to The Hunger Games and The Help - they aren't classics.

As much as they are classic, having 2 books of the same author seems too much (of course is your list). I'd drop one of them and add something by E.A. Poe

Remains of the Day has been added.

Garlic Ballads seems interesting. I mean, who doesn't love a banned book?

I think the argument is that it's not "literature", it's more like a fable in the self-help section. I enjoyed it when I was young, but it's not at the same level of the other classics. And it's pretty short, so it doesn't feel like a good dive in a world.

Mr. Dumas, Dickens, Ishiguro, and Tolkien are up there multiple times too lol

But, I am adding and removing as the thread continues, and duplicates will be the first thing to go as I sort through suggestions

Number 35 is the GOAT

Valid criticisms, has been updated with some changes

🤣🤣🤣 If Stephen Hawking had written The Gunslinger, it might have actually been readable.

Not making fun, I'm sure it was just a typo or something. I'm just laughing at the idea of Hawking writing fantasy.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. It’s not my favorite of his, but definitely the most culturally significant.

The Yellow Wallpaper by CPG is a short story, in case you didn't realize. You really should add Lonesome Dove and probably move it to the top of your queue because it's the greatest novel ever and that is a fact lol.

Noted and added!

Cannery Row

I think Oliver Twist deserves to be on this list too! Also, you should share your Good Reads if you use it. To keep track of your progress and reviews of each book!

Honestly you're probably right. I love things like that, so might as well

Madam Bovary?

For Morrison, Beloved is the most famous but Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon are also great

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I would add:

Perfume by Patrick Süskind Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Ulysses, The Sound And The Fury, Frenkenstein, Dracula

Edited: formatting

Oh I second Beloved!!!

The Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula K LeGuin. Incredible feminist scifi, truly ahead of its time.

Sunset Song- Lewis Grassic Gibbon. One you might not know at all. It's the story of a farm girl during WW1, written in a synthetic version of the Scots language. It's not hard to read at all though. A story of perseverance during difficult times, and our connections with the land. Chris Guthrie is one of literatures best heroines, up there with Lizzie Bennet and Jane Eyre!

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, or Greenmantle by John Buchan. Or Our Man In Havana by Grahame Greene. I didn't see any spy fiction on your list!

You should put 1Q84 tbh

I might be biased cause i'm German but i'm quite surprised that you don't have Faust on your list. Can also recommend Nietzsches thus spoke Zarathustra, if you enjoy philosophy.

I've been really underwhelmed by the two Ishiguri books I've read, and I really wanted to like them. 🤷‍♀️

Are you reading the english translation or the original French of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex? This is quite a heavy philosophical read.

Also, which edition/translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh are you planning to read?

I would also suggest Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory, there should be plenty of english editions around

That's okay. I'm sure more than a handful of these will leave me the same way, but first I have to try them out to know

I'd say you need some more female speculative fiction representation. Ursula K. LeGuin (novels most commonly suggested: The Left-Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word for World is Forest. Short story: The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas) and Octavia Butler (my faves are Parable of the Sower and the Xenogenesis trilogy) are two kick-ass authors.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Pedro Paramo by Huan Rulfo

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

I did see Faust on some of the lists, but had never heard of it before. Surely this is a sign I'll be missing out without it. Added!

Is it based off the Orwellian 1984 or is that just coincidence?

Added!

I love classic short stories. I tutor community college and love talking about them with students that come in, although they don't do much literary analysis in their classes. Worked on a paper for The Yellow Wallpaper today, in fact!

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Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. LeGuin

The Shining - Stephen King

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Same. Short stories are one of my favorite mediums of lit. A community college professor got me into them actually, by recommending and reading a Raymond Carver story out loud in class.

Have you read Madeline Miller's little short story called Galatea? It's 20 pages and vaguely reminds me of The Yellow Wallpaper. It's a retelling of the Greek myth of Pygmalion.

I haven't read that! Is it available anywhere online? A lot of short stories are.

I have read Circe, though!

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check out this site: https://www.thegreatestbooks.org/

It's already done what you've done in taking every significant list out there and compiling a master list. Might help you fill yours out. I used it to find recommendations from specific centuries. It's also nice to see your percentage read.

Do not read the Lord of the Rings before you read the Hobbit.

I remember seeing this same exact list on Facebook a couple years back I saved it and am trying to finish it, seems like you made a couple of changes to the original... Here's the original list if anyone's interested

📚 I found this list of 100 books everyone should read before they die. I put a ✅ by the ones I’ve read. Clearly I have a lot of reading to do.

📚Help me make this list better. What’s missing from it and what should be removed?

1. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
2. 2. "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
3. 3. "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank✅
4. 4. "1984" by George Orwell✅
5. 5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling✅
6. 6. "The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien✅
7. 7. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. 8. "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White✅
9. 9. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien✅
10. 10. "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott ✅
11. 11. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
12. 12. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
13. 13. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell✅✔️
14. 14. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
15. 15. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
16. 16. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak✅
17. 17. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
18. 18. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins ✔️
19. 19. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett ✅
20. 20. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis ✅
21. 21. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
22. 22. "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
23. 23. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
24. 24. "Night" by Elie Wiesel
25. 25. "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
26. 26. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle✅
27. 27. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
28. 28. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
29. 29. "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
30. 30. "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
31. 31. "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett
32. 32. "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens✅
33. 33. "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
34. 34. "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
35. 35. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling ✅
36. 36. "The Giver" by Lois Lowry
37. 37. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood
38. 38. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
39. 39. "Wuthering Heights" Emily Bronte
40. 40. "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
41. 41. "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery✅
42. 42. "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain
43. 43. "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare
44. 44. "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larrson
45. 45. "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
46. 46. "The Holy Bible: King James Version" ✔️
47. 47. "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker✅
48. 48. "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
49. 49. "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
50. 50. "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck
51. 51. "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll✅
52. 52. "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
53. 53. "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
54. 54. "The Stand" by Stephen King
55. 55. "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon✅
56. 56. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" by J.K. Rowling✅
57. "Enders Game" by Orson Scott Card ✔️
58. 58. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy
59. 59. "Watership Down" by Richard Adams
60. 60. "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden
61. 61. "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
62. 62. "A Game of Thrones" by George R.R. Martin
63. 63. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
64. 64. "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway
65. 65. "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (#3) by Arthur Conan Doyle
66. 66. "Les Misérables" by Victor Hugo
67. 67. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling✅
68. 68. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
69. 69. "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne✅
70. 70. "Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge" by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
71. 71. "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis
72. 72. "The Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett
73. "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins ✔️
74. 74. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl
75. 75. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
76. 76. "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
77. 77. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
78. 78. "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
79. 79. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
80. 80. "The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel" by Barbara Kingsolver
81. 81. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
82. 82. "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger✅
83. 83. "The Odyssey" by Homer
84. 84. "The Good Earth (House of Earth #1)" by Pearl S. Buck
85. 85. "Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3)" by Suzanne Collins
86. 86. "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
87. 87. "The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
88. 88. "A Prayer for Owen Meany" by John Irving
89. 89. "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
90. 90. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
91. 91. "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
92. 92. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
93. 93. "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien
94. 94. "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse
95. 95. "Beloved" by Toni Morrison
96. 96. "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
97. 97. "Cutting For Stone" by Abraham Verghese
98. 98. "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster
99. 99. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
100. 100. "The Story of My Life" by Helen Keller

I would recommend the city of dreaming books and the 13 1/2 lives of captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. It’s just fantastic in its pure wording. And especially city of dreaming books is a big Hommage to literature itself!

I’d remove it personally. Very overrated.

Although I have to admit that these are no typical classics. Anyways, some insanely good books!

The Handmaids Tale was published in 1985.

Personally I hated Catcher in the Rye.

I, Robot is a great read but it's a collection of related short stories. Follow it up with the Robot series as well as Foundation. All in the same universe.

Hemingway has a fantastic collection and I would say at least include For Whom The Bell Tolls.

I would add Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy.

I see you have Anna Karenina. Resurrection is much shorter and I would recommend reading it first.

I would also add The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I just re-read The Lord of The Rings series and Dune, so I’m glad to see them on the list. Great reads.

Perfume, and The Master and Margherita are novels that I also recommend

Put it in instead of The Alchemist

I'd suggest Middlemarch by George Eliot and North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (honestly, I'd recommend all of their works, both are brilliant authors, but these are the books that most often get recommended and put onto these types of lists)

The Phantom of the Opera

OP, have you perchance read The Count of Monte Cristo already? Since I can see the three musketeers, but not that one.

The Prisoner of Zenda

The Four Feathers

Macbeth

King Lear (then watch the movie ‘Ran’ for Kurosawa’s take on it)

The 39 Steps

Also, pick up some myths and fairytales.

Glad to see The Three Musketeers and Dangerous Liaisons, they are so much fun!

I couldn't find a pdf anywhere unfortunately. And Kindle wants $10.99 for it. A 20 page story. That's insane. But check your DM here and I may be able to help you :)

A child called It-and the other two books

Lord of the flies

Any 'Arsène Lupin' novel by Maurice LeBlanc, they're French classics of detective fiction. If anyone recommends 'Romance Of The Tree Kingdoms' by Luo Guanzhong please ignore them, reading the book by itself is difficult and tricky, instead I recommend the podcast by John.

Alamut by Bartol

That’s a fine list. My only comment would be that I don’t think you need two Jack London

I’d consider adding, Paradise Lost, Lolita and In Cold Blood

Omg no Camus or Austen? This is outrageous

After you read “The Odyssey”, wait 6 months and then read Charles Frasier’s “Cold Mountain”.

Other books that stuck with me:

“Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe

“Eat a Bowl of Tea” Louis Chu

“There Eyes We’re Watching God” Zora Neale Hurston

“A Suitable Boy” Vikram Seth (very long)

“Collected Poems” Langston Hughes

“Pillars of the Earth” Ken Follett

“The God of Small Things” Arundhari Roy

“Another Country” James Baldwin

“A Fine Balance” Mistry

Could be a job to whittle things down to 100. Could add Kipling, Zola, Proust, Flaubert, Balzac, D.H.Lawrence, Chekov, Virgil, Camus, etc. etc.

Having no Middlemarch in there is a straight-up crime though.

Just to be forewarned, a couple of those texts are probably going to be pretty dry, heavy going. Reading The Bible cover-to-cover is no joke. The Second Sex isn't riveting, and it's long. A Room of One's Own (while an important text) is essay-writing Woolf, rather than language-loving, exhuberant Woolf. Still, fun to see how it goes. Probably worth keeping a log of what you've read and what you liked / disliked.

If you're reading them in order, swap the positions of "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" so that you read them in the right order (both chronologically and in the order they were written)

Honestly the Alchemist is short enough you might as well give it a go just don't expect it to be the life changing read that it's advertised as. It's a really simple book and some people love that though it didn't do much for me.

Celine bro. Journey to the end of the night is a masterpiece. Also something from Camus as well.

Stoner - John Williams

The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (my personal favorite. Some of the most beautiful writing and the way the story is told will be unlike anything else on the list)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The House Of Spirits by Isabel Allende (magic realism at its finest)

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. (If you want to do a religious book without doing a religious books but more for general spiritual philosophy.) .

For Christianity I'd recommend anything by C.S. Lewis. Like, literally anything.

Night by Elie Wissel. (Which, IMHO, should be required reading for life.)

I, Robot is a great read, enjoy!

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‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus

‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad

’Three Men in a Boat’ by Jerome K. Jerome

’The Löwensköld Ring’ by Selma Lagerlöf

’Candide’ by François Voltaire

‘The Crying of lot 49’ by Thomas Pynchon

‘Silas Marner’ by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

‘The Pearl’ by John Steinbeck

‘The Grass is Singing’ by Doris Lessing

‘Stoner’ by John Williams

‘The Bell Jar’ by Sylvia Plath

’The Process’ by Franz Kafka

‘The Devil and the Good Lord’ by Jean-Paul Sartre

’A Burnt Child’ by Stig Dagerman

I noted that you’re up for some light reading with ‘The Second Sex’ by Beauvoir; I’d suggest you make a day of it and add ’Phenomenology of Spirit’ by G. W. F. Hegel and ‘Process and Reality’ by A. N. Whitehead - you know - to keep yourself occupied.

Made me think of some other classics that just never seem to end.

‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ by Thomas Pynchon

‘A Critique of Pure Reason’ by Immanuel Kant

You NEED to add The Godfather by Mario Puzo. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. It’s excellent!

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The Godfather by Mario Puzo needs to be on both OP’s list and this one, it’s excellent and one of my favorite books ever

Highly recommend adding a Christie novel and imo And Then There Were None is the best one.

If you're doing non-fiction, Into Thin Air.

A Christmas Carol

Jonathan Livingston the Seagull

Zorbas

East Wind West wind

Jamilla

My favorite C. S. Lewis books are the first two in the Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra.

I'd suggest Middlemarch, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Beloved. No love for le Guin? If you're interested in Sci-Fi you should at least read The Left Hand of Darkness.

Personally, I wouldn't waste your time with The Stand and The Alchemist. If you must read King, I'd suggest one his books that are actually readable like The Shining or Different Seasons. I would pick Foundation over I, Robot for Asimov. It's a better book and more influential, I, Robot just has the name recognition from that Will Smith film.

Edit: When it comes to Hamlet. I strongly advise you don't just read it, you watch it. It wasn't written for you to read it was written for actors to perform to you. Watch a production first. Same goes for any Shakespeare or really any play for that matter.

2005 seems a bit more recent than most "classic" novels.

The Magus by John Fowles

I've read 26 of them. Feelsokman

'The Stranger', absolutely.

Maus by Art Speigelman

Pulitzer prize winning graphic novel.

Follows the story of the authors father who was an aushwitz survivor.

Great list - tons of excellent books on there!

Watchmen by Alan Moore (the only graphic novel to make Time Magazine's list of the 100 best books of the 20th century, and with good reason - it's incredible).

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Agree you need James Baldwin!

Or Silas Marner by George Eliot

Master and Margarita by Bulgakov should be on your list. It's great book

Keep the Alchemist and judge for yourself. Good luck with 100 books!!

And My Antonia by Willa Cather!

That looks awesome. I would recommend spacing out Monte Cristo and East of Eden - just my two cents

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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

No Oryx and Crake? Margret Atwood is a national treasure.

Middlemarch

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett

I feel like this list could definitely benefit from more women!

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, but only after you read Jane Eyre

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

I hope at least a few of these will interest you!

Where's your African literature? Need to add Chinua Achebe or Ben Okri or Wole Soyinka.

I'd also suggest something by Salman Rushdie, perhaps Midnight's Children.

Beloved - it's a masterpiece!!

The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks

I’ve read both and The Remains of the Day was way better.

Kindred, by Octavia Butler

Goodreads description:

>The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given...

ETA: Wow, I've read 36 of those (and given up on a few others). It's a really good list, but some are much longer/more dense than others. Funny seeing The Second Sex and The Old Man And The Sea on the same list. One you could finish on a long train journey, the other... you can't. Unless the train is taking you to Siberia.

Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton is one I love and was very important for obvious reasons. Begs the question if a book from 1990 can be a classic yet. One of my favorite movies of all time but the book is so much better.

Suggesting A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul. Considered one of the great Caribbean classics by a Nobel prize winner.

quicksand and/or passing by nella larsen

the heart is a lonely hunter by carson mccullers

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

rubyfruit jungle by rita mae brown

not without laughter by langston hughes

plum bun by jessie fauset

the violent bear it away by flannery o connor

the house of spirits by isabel allende

oreo by fran ross

Good list but I would switch out The Stand for The Shining. I would also replace a lot of the childrens books with some more Faulkner, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc…

Its not for everyone, thats for sure

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. Many would recommend his more famous work, The Name of the Rose, but I think this one is much more readable.

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies.

Impressive list. I think I need to start reading more.

Fahrenheit 451

I kind of chuckled at the 15 page story followed immediately by frank Heberts thicc tome

Cloudsplitter The Gambler (Dos, not Rogers) Spring Sonata (If you can find this it's a great read. It's by Bernice Rubens. It tells the story of a baby who decides not to be born, and stays in the womb for years, keeping a diary and becoming a celebtated violinist, among other things.)

If you’re going to read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” you have to read “Through the Looking-glass” too. I recommend Martin Gardener’s annotated version of the combined texts.

Hi there. Per rule 3.3, please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!