What the hell. Here's my list of literature everyone should at least try (in no particular order):
Homer: both the Iliad and Odyssey
Sophocles: Oedipus the King (read it - far better than you might think)
Plato: The Apology of Socrates
Sappho's fragmentary poems (the translation by Anne Carson titled If not, winter is especially good)
Dante: Inferno
Shakespeare: at least one tragedy, one history, one comedy and one of the final "problem plays"
John Donne: a bunch but if none else Elegy XIX To His Mistress Going to Bed
Philip Larkin: he didn't write much; read the complete poems (if nothing else, look at "Born yesterday")
T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "Return of the Magi", "Hollow men"
Ernest Hemmingway: A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Herman Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
George Orwell: Any and all of the essays, but especially "Shooting an elephant" and "A hanging"
Stendahl: Red and Black
James Joyce: A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man
Andre Dumas: The Three Musketeers
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
I'll shut up, except to say that although I agree with some of the people on the thread that reading "great books" just because they're considered great is stupid, these books were all a joy. I remember them each pretty happily and return to a few of them now and again and just browse through for awhile. Some "great" books really are great, and if you're reading for yourself (not as a forced assignment), they're often well worth the effort (because, yes, none of them reads like a magazine article).
The Journey of the Magi. Dare I conjecture that you were thinking of the Return of the Jedi? :-)
(More seriously, I'd put the Republic ahead of the Apology, and the Waste Land ahead of Prufrock, much though I like Prufrock. Also, for the benefit of anyone wanting to lookg things up: Hemingway; Stendhal; Alexandre Dumas. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm only bothering to quibble because I think your list is a good one.)
Those spelling errors are pretty awful. I can't fix it any longer sadly, but thanks for catching them. I need to proof better online. I also appreciate the quibbles: it makes for better conversation.
As for the Magi, I think I just had that title wrong. I am not enough of a Jedi fan for that to be it (unconsciously maybe...). As you can see from the spelling, I made the list too quickly and without checking things. But I think I've always had that title wrong. Here's my real guess: when I first studied that poem, our entire focus was on the finale (when the magi return home "no longer at ease."). So I guess that's what stuck in my head.
I picked the Apology over the Republic because I prefer Plato in his Socratic phase to him in his Platonic phase. Also, the Apology is about 20 odd pages, while the Republic is many hundred.
I think The Waste Land is completely overrated, but love Eliot's other poetry.
I hereby retract my Star Wars slander. I think TWL is rather uneven; the Fire Sermon section seems to me very fine indeed. On reflection, though I'm not convinced TWL is better than Prufrock, so I retract that too. (The Four Quartets are better than either. But long.)
> George Orwell: Any and all of the essays, but especially "Shooting an elephant" and "A hanging"
YES. Those are fairly short essays, and pretty entertaining; look on Google or something and I'm sure you'll find them. They're remarkable for showing you how government oppression feels to the oppressors.
What about Paradise Lost by Milton? The Aeneid by Virgil? Candide? Anna Karenina? War & Peace? And I prefer the Count of Monte Cristo over the Three Musketeers. The entire Divine Comedies, not just the Inferno.
Also liked to know why people think whatever author or book should be read.
I guess I should make it a proper blog post if I wanted to give proper reasons. I was worried it was too long already, but maybe I'll do that.
As for your counter-suggestions and additions, that's part of what makes this game interesting: we will all make different lists. (By the way, I love nearly all of Dumas.)
Homer: both the Iliad and Odyssey
Sophocles: Oedipus the King (read it - far better than you might think)
Plato: The Apology of Socrates
Sappho's fragmentary poems (the translation by Anne Carson titled If not, winter is especially good)
Dante: Inferno
Shakespeare: at least one tragedy, one history, one comedy and one of the final "problem plays"
John Donne: a bunch but if none else Elegy XIX To His Mistress Going to Bed
Philip Larkin: he didn't write much; read the complete poems (if nothing else, look at "Born yesterday")
T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "Return of the Magi", "Hollow men"
Ernest Hemmingway: A Clean Well-Lighted Place
Herman Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
George Orwell: Any and all of the essays, but especially "Shooting an elephant" and "A hanging"
Stendahl: Red and Black
James Joyce: A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man
Andre Dumas: The Three Musketeers
Samuel Beckett: Waiting for Godot
Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
I'll shut up, except to say that although I agree with some of the people on the thread that reading "great books" just because they're considered great is stupid, these books were all a joy. I remember them each pretty happily and return to a few of them now and again and just browse through for awhile. Some "great" books really are great, and if you're reading for yourself (not as a forced assignment), they're often well worth the effort (because, yes, none of them reads like a magazine article).