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25 Books You Must Read
In this hectic world in which we live in, there’s certainly something to be said for that rare quiet time in which nothing exists other than you and a good book. There’s something almost soul-cleansing about reading a book, exiting reality, washing away the digital grime we collect on a daily basis. The feel and smell of a paperback in your hands, it’s just a very ‘personal’ experience, one that you can easily lose yourself in once you turn that first page. Many of these have been turned into films and you’ve probably seen them so why read the book? Forget the movies, they can never truly put across what the author had in mind, for the full picture rather than a few brushstrokes you have to read the story as it was meant to be read. Although this is by no means a definitive list, here’s 25 you should really make that trip to Waterstones for…
Shogun - James Clavell
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Orlando - Virgina Woolf
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K Dick
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Robbie - Emil Pacholek
Trainspotting - Irvine Walsh
1984 - George Orwell
Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift
One Thousand and One Nights - Anon
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Alex Haley
The Lord Of The Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
So do you have any recommendations? Let us know how our list compares to yours and what we should be reading!
3:54 pm on March 4th, 2010
What’s “Robbie” by Emil Pacholik? Never heard of it.
Forgot about “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Dumbass or whatever he’s called. That’s a brilliant book.
4:04 pm on March 4th, 2010
Can I strongly recommend that everyone involved in ‘employment’ reads Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It: : Ressler & Thompson ISBN 978 – 1 - 59184 - 203 – 3.
Not the rubbishy airport book that you might expect but a really good look at running results-only businesses in which time-keeping, attendance and micro-management are totally ditched in favour of results and performance.
Right guid.
4:06 pm on March 4th, 2010
And Charlie & lola books are quite good too.
10:32 am on March 5th, 2010
One of my months highlights – the 39 steps newsletter.
Like your book list (the alchemist & my mate IW’s trainspotting are in my top10)
Recent favs – 1000 spendid suns, the book thief & the elegance of the hedgehog
Currently enjoying the earth hums in B flat
2:06 pm on March 8th, 2010
I forgot to add, any of the Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton. The stuff that childhood memories are made of, with lashings of lemonade pop.
8:16 pm on March 10th, 2010
I’ve read “Robbie” — it’s a brilliant collection of stories about a boy growing up on a farm in the Fifties.
Good to see it in fine company!
11:27 am on March 19th, 2010
The Faraway Tree series from the Blytonmeister was a firm fave of mine – tally-ho!