<p>Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.</p>
<p>Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham - a must!</p>
<p>A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole</p>
<p>The entire McMurtry Trilogy
The Last Picture Show
Texasville
Duane’s Depressed</p>
<p>Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series especially Memnoch the Devil</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, I didn’t think I’d get so many great suggestions :D</p>
<p>Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope, which is where “ellemenope” came from.</p>
<p>To Kill a Mockingbird
Pride and Prejudice
The Mysterious Stranger and The Diary of Adam and Eve by Twain (bet you didn’t know he could be subversive)
The Chosen
The Great Gatsby
The Bean Trees
The Grapes of Wrath</p>
<p>And, just for fun,
Anything by Alexander Dumas
The Once and Future King
Tolkien
All of Bill Bryson</p>
<p>If you have read most of the top list in school - which you should have - feel free to skip to the lower list</p>
<p>I have so many…but one everyone keeps telling me I <strong>have</strong> to read is “The World Is Flat” – I kind of know what it is about - but haven’t had a chance to actually read it yet.</p>
<p>My favorites are Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, but I also really liked The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (it’s a bit of a downer though–capitalist-machine-oiled-with-the-blood-of-the-workers type fare). Oh, and I, Claudius by Robert Graves was great (if you like the political intrigue of a scheming imperial family, which who doesn’t?)</p>
<p>Edith Wharton book(s) of short stories. So beautifully crafted they took my breath away!</p>
<p>Anything by Barbara Kingsolver.</p>
<p>over30, I really enjoyed the “Bean Trees”</p>
<p>but I would like to suggest:</p>
<p>Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan</p>
<p>Siddhartha -Herman Hesse
The Metamorphosis and The Trial -Franz Kafka
Native Son -Richard Wright
Heart of Darkness -Joseph Conrad</p>
<p>Just finished “Life on the Color Line” ’ The true story of a white boy who discovered he was black’ by Gregory Howard Williams. Moving, wonderful book about race relations/rising from the ashes/class divides.</p>
<p>Faline2 I love your suggestions! Quite a few of my favorites.</p>
<p>I also suggest Julia Child’s book “My Life in Paris” She had a wonderful appetite for life and food and it’s on display in this sweet book.</p>
<p>Somerset Maugham - everything he’s written. Jennifer Lauck 'Blackbird" (if you like memoirs). </p>
<p>Ernest Hemingway two short stories that are among my favorites, Quite moving and short</p>
<p>-The short happy life of Frances McCumber (sp?) </p>
<p>-The Snows of Kilimanjiro.</p>
<p>Thinking about books that go beyond “I enjoyed them” to they put at least a dent in my life:</p>
<p>CANDIDE, Voltaire
THE LAST OF THE WINE, Mary Renault
THE PERSIAN BOY, Mary Renault
STAND ON ZANZIBAR, John Brunner
LORD OF LIGHT, Roger Zelazny
WHAT’S BRED IN THE BONE, Robertson Davies
THE PERFECT SPY and TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY John Le Carre</p>
<p>non-fiction:
ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS, Judith Woititz
QUEST FOR THE PRESIDENCY: 1992 various eds.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME (about Myers-Briggs) Keirsey & Bates
THE REAL MAJORITY, Scammon & Wattenberg</p>
<p>off the quick top of my head…patrolling the bookshelves would produce others</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>As some of you know, in my day job I’m a real estate agent. Looking at other people’s bookshelves is always an interesting Rohrshach test. It’s a pity that about fifty percent of homes don’t have any. Or maybe a small one by the bed.</p>
<p>yup,i also recommend ‘the five people you meet in heaven’,apart from that,probably:tuesday with morri.
pride and prejudice</p>
<p>In the “To Each His/Her Own” Department: I think Rand is a decent storyteller, but I just can’t take her descriptive passages, and as I get older her characters make me either giggle or scratch my head. Then again, my dad was a true Rand disciple who thought the principles of objectivism could certainly be applied to child-rearing. (This would explain a lot, if you knew me IRL.) </p>
<p>A few books that haven’t yet been mentioned:</p>
<p>“Random Family” by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (non-fiction; provides a lot to think about re the underclass in America)
“The Secret History” by Donna Tartt
“Excellent Women” by Barbara Pym (and anything else by her, as well)</p>
<p>I just reread “The Fountainhead”, which I read in my 20’s when I wasn’t even a reader. Worth all those pages.</p>
<p>These books were mentioned & I read them when my S had to for HS. Great messages:
“Things Fall Apart”
“Cry the Beloved Country” (Oprah picked it up)
“The Kite Runner”</p>
<p>My all time favorites:
“The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen
“When Nietzche Wept” by Irvin Yalom ***amazing book. I’m rereading this summer
“The Poisonwood Bible” by Kingsolver
"stones from the River"by Ursula Hegi
“My Name is Asher Lev” by Chaim Potok</p>
<p>Happy Reading!!</p>
<p>Thanks, Frazzled; I’ve been hoping some Rand afficionados would speak up.</p>
<p>My clearest memory of an “objectivist” viewpoint was when in ethics class, taught by a wonderful world-renowned ethicist, the objectivist classmate detailed why, if someone was drowning in front of him, it was not his obligation to save him, even if no risk at all was entailed. Everyone else just looked at him…</p>
<p>I guess it’s a viable viewpoint, just not one I can fathom myself.</p>