Books I think everyone should read

[Coemgen]

I was recently approached by a friend who was complaining about not having any good books to read for pleasure. So, being a bibliophile of some renown around here, I was persuaded to write a list of books I would recommend to my friend. After much reflection, I provided the following list, which constitutes a fairly good list, though necessarily incomplete, of books which I think everybody ought to read:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
  
• Father Arseny, by Vera Bouteneff
  
• Orthodoxy, by G. K. Chesterton
  
• The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis
  
• King Solomon's Mines, by H. Ridder Haggard
  
• The trial and death of Socrates, by Plato
  
  
• Euthyphro
  
• Apology
  
• Crito
  
• Phædo

[ardchoille]

Oohh, I, Robot, by Isaac Aasimov, I'll have to read that one.. I loved the movie. And I love Sherlock Holmes stories

[McMurdo]

A fine list, I've read about 5 of them, as you say it is necessarily incomplete might I add

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Heart of Darkness by Josef Conrad
and
The Metemorphosis by Franz Kafka

Edit:
I forgot
On the Road by Jack Keroack
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
and almost anything by Charles Bukowski.

[Jerry]

If you are going to include Heinlein, "Methuselah's Children", as well as the rest of the Lazarus Long series should be included. But, this is just my opinion, and yours might be different.

[Finn]

The Blackcocks Feather by Maurice Walsh
Rebels by Peter De Rosa
Enders Game by Orson Scott Card

[sharpdressedscot]

"Morte D'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory (it's a bit biased, actually very biased, but it's a good read.)
"Illiad" by Homer
"Aeneid" by Virgil
"Odyssey" Homer

[andyfg]

Anything by Iris Murdoch.

[ThreadBbdr]

I wouldn't stop with the "Hobbit", go on to the "Lord of the Rings".

And for mysterys, the "Chronicals of Brother Cadfael" by Peters. - gotta love a Welshman!

[Coinneach]

The Greek Passion by Nikos Kazantzakis (I think it's better than Zorba, The Greek)

The Annotated Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass) by Lewis Carroll with annotations by Martin Gardner

At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien (by a writer, for writers, about creativity and the creative process...one of the most interesting and frustrating books...I'm still reading it and know I will have to read it again one day)

Essays of E. B. White by E. B. White

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (a far more incredible story than that Broadway musical can convey)

[James MacMillan]

Early on I was afflicted with the incurable disease of reading. It is a progressive illness that only gets worse and worse as time goes by. So many books so little time!

There are just too many books to list individual titles.

Among my current all time favorites authors are:

Robert Heinlein
James Fenimore Cooper
Aurthor Conan Doyle
Rudyard Kipling
Alan Dean Foster
WEB Griffin

and on and on and on and on......