Essential Reads?!

Just wondered what books everyone considers to be essential reads and why?

I'll put mine up when I don't have an essential disertation to write !

Sarah xx

The wrong boy - Willy Russel. F*cking hilarious book.

"But I was wasting my breath so I shut up and let him laugh. What can you say to a Philistine who's into Phil Collins and Dire Straits and other such frivolity? I've got my Walkman on now so at least I can't hear him laughing. The only saving grace in having a lift from him is that he's so fat he makes me feel really thin. It's not that I'm obese or anything, not any more, Morrissey. But even though I'm not fat nowadays, I sometimes forget and still think of myself as being corpulent. And I hate having to look at pictures of me when I was fat. Photographs are just like computers - they never tell the truth. It's like that picture of Oscar Wilde, Morrissey, you know the one where he's got those boots on and he's leaning against that wall. And if that was the only surviving picture of Oscar Wilde everybody'd think he was a fat person, wouldn't they? But Oscar Wilde wasn't fat, not on the inside. And I wasn't fat, not on the inside, I wasn't. It was just a phase I was going through. And probably it was just a phase that Oscar Wilde was going through and he couldn't help it just like I couldn't help it. They used to call me Moby D*ck! When we moved to Wythenshawe and they put me in that comprehensive school where I didn't know nobody and it was already the middle of term by the time I started, I walked into the classroom and Steven Spanswick looked up and said, 'F*ckin' hell, it's Moby D*ck!'

And everybody in the classroom started laughing, even the teacher!"

"The world according to Garp" by John Irving.

A truely amazing book. Complex, emotive and many other words a professional book critic (which I am not) would use.

Good topic. I presume you want fiction books/novels.

I recommend the following:

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Waves, To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Unbearable lightness of being - Milan Kundera
Nausea - J P Sartre
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Anything by Jorge Lois Borges

Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell- To me this book is ingenuis in how it identifies external control in our lives and how this can impact upon relationships, despite fighting 'the system'. Flawlessly written, un-put-down-able (!) and imaginative

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte- I know it's been said before but this has been a favourite of mine since I was 11, when i started reading it whilst skiving from P.E! Just a less conventional love story. Characters who aren't super beautiful or wonderfully charasmatic but yet something very endearing about them.

The Glass Menagerie- Tennesse Williams. OK, this is strictly a play, and quite American-ised but it's very poignant. I love books that use someone a little bit quiet, withdrawn and socially awkward as a leading role!

The curious incident of the dog at night-time. I can't remember the author But I find this book tackles Asperger's Syndrome in a funny yet enlightening way. It always cheers me up, which is why i have read it 3 times!

The Great Gatsby- F. SCott Fitzgerald. I read this book recently and i liked its slant on social classes- On how everyone was striving to portray a certain lifestyle, yet they were unsatisfied with their mundane reality. Worth a read

The time traveller's wife- Audrey Niffengger. I love this book! The structure, the plot, the amazing romance plot that pre-dominates all the absurdities...! I love books that are different and have something creative and imaginative to offer...and needless to say, I was delighted to find another unconventional romance story- I do like them, hehe!

It's great to get some essential read reccommendations- I'll be hunting down some of the books that have been mentioned

Sarah xx

Don DeLillo - White Noise - Hard to explain but really enjoyable in it's description of the mudanity of life and its porttryal of how much the media has invaded our lived to the point nothing seems real unless it's on TV.

Paul Auster - The Country of Last Things
Dark and very disturbing at times, but fantastic distopian novel.

Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose, heavy going at first but worth the initial struggle for a tale of intrique and murder in a monastery.

MG Lewis - The Monk, a real old fashioned Gothic tale.

I also happen to love bothe Dracula and Frankenstein, having studied them at uni. There are many many others I could list, but will leave it at that for now.

Quote: TinyShine

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte- I know it's been said before but this has been a favourite of mine since I was 11, when i started reading it whilst skiving from P.E! Just a less conventional love story. Characters who aren't super beautiful or wonderfully charasmatic but yet something very endearing about them.

That's exactly what I love about it too

Books I'd recommend-

The World According to Garp - John Irving
Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder
High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
The Hunt For Red October - Tom Clancy
The Stand - Stephen King

Books to avoid at all costs -

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Ulysses - James Joyce
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

I think that's what killed Joyce for me doc. If I'd just picked it up randomly and read it I could have taken my time and looked things up. But studying it means doing it at a certain pace. I just ignored it for my coursework and exams at uni. I did other books on my course.

Oooh, I like Of Mice And Men too.

Quote: Gin_N_Milk

Oooh, I like Of Mice And Men too.

When I was reading it I didn't like it. But when it finished I felt as though I'd enjoyed it. It's a strange one. I saw the film too, which helped the book make more sense (not that it is particularly complicated).

My favourite shakespeare play is Twelfth Night I think it's because it's kind of amusing and easier to read than some of the others. And also it's so far fetched and i love things like that because they make me giggle! Easily amused...

Sarah xx

Birds of prey by Wilbur smith is absolutely fantastic, i also reckon the rats trilogy is essential reading youll never want to go into an underground station again!