What classic books should I get?

[Zevico]

EDIT: For quick summaries of the books
"All quiet on the Western Front"
Tells the tale of World War One through the eyes of an alienated German soldier. An amazing book which fully describes the horrors of that war and of war in general in a narrative that was gripping (for me at least).
"Pride and Prejudice"
A comedy/romance written by the famous author Jane Austen, this book is at times very funny and is also well written.
"Don Quixote de la Mancha"
A parody of the "knight in shining armour" genre of the Middle Age's novel writers, this is probably the most famous book ever written by a Spaniard. It is quite funny and well written.
"Catch-22"
This is another anti war novel about the experiences of a pilot in World War Two. It is very dark, and has a lot of dark humour in it, but is very well written and a great read.

[molly bloom]

I would recommend for your perusal and purchasing:

Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year.

First writer in English to turn journalism into an art form. The ‘Journal’ still packs a punch even now. The economy of his style is aptly suited to describing the horrors of the plague run riot and the mounting death toll. All the more effective for not being sensationalized.

Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels.

Or a collection of his shorter satires, such as Tale of a Tub, A Modest Proposal, Battle of the Books. One of the very best satirists in the English language, with works replete with scatological references and mordant humour. Gulliver’s Travels is too often dismissed as a work for children, but it’s much more than that.

Mary Seacole: her autobiography.

Think of her as the black, unsung Florence Nightingale, she spent her own money treating the sick and wounded of the Crimean War. It’s a very touching insight into what it was like to be an outsider in Victorian society.

Charles Dickens: Bleak House.

A vast labyrinthine book, with mistaken identities, hidden children, hypocrisy, an interminable law case and a ‘murder’ mystery. Also possibly the first record in literature of a death from ‘spontaneous human combustion’.

Oscar Wilde: Collected plays, or The Picture of Dorian Gray, often found together with Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime.

The plays’ll make you laugh, the novellas will give you that fin-de-siecle, louche bohemian feeling.

Sophocles: The Theban Plays.

One of the bedrocks of European literature and culture, the playing out of the story of Oedipus and his family is haunting, melancholy, and gripping. After I read the Theban Plays the first time, and certainly after I first saw them performed, I felt exhausted, but exhilarated too.

James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

A marvellous portrayal of a crisis of faith, it has been said that if you’re a Catholic and read this book, you either have your faith reaffirmed or you reject it.

I love the way the language of the book develops, the way Joyce uses sounds and words to create pictures in the mind’s eye, the way he shows us the development of the young Stephen Daedalus from the baby speech infant of the first page, to the self-assured arrogant young bohemian of the last.

Henry James: The Turn of the Screw.

Or a collection of his short stories (with an emphasis on the ghost stories). I love the way the atmosphere builds up languorously in his ghost stories- the way a sense of dread or unease creeps up like sea mist out of a clear morning.

[Kropotkin]

Books by Joseph Conrad. Penguin Popular Classics sells cheap for instance. Titles like Heart of Darknessof cource, but also Nostromo or Lord Jim will do.

[Zylka]

Jane Eyre
Treasure Island
The Fountainhead

[mindseye]

When I read the thread title I immediately thought of Wuthering Heights, which I just read for the first time. Terrificl!


Some personal favorites you might like:

Thomas Hardy, Mayor of Castorbridge

Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now, The American Senator

[Zulu Elephant]

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Get some Robert Louis Stevenson. Christ knows why he's considered a kid's writer- he was the best and tightest plotter of the Victorian age.

"Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped" are the picks.

[Buck Birdseed]

Plato's Republic is utter proto-fascist excrement. Avoid!

If you want more Macchiavelli might I suggest Discourses on the first ten books of titus livius? That's his biggie, The Prince was just a calling card.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Plato's Republic is utter proto-fascist excrement. Avoid!

Yes, stay away from it. Complete crap.

Some more suggestions:
Herodot, Histories is great and easy lecture spicked with anecdotes. Perfect reading at night before going to sleep.

The naughty ballads of Francois Villon

The little prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Alice in Wonderland (if you want it more freaky, get Carrolls complete work and think about Michael Jackson)

[Ramo]

No one has mentioned the Ruskies yet? Check out Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Of the French, I don't believe Zola has been mentioned.

[Bereta_Eder]

Definitely Dostoevsky. "White nights and other short stories" (don't know exactly how it is translated in english).

[Verres]

Dante's Inferno

Try to get the whole of the Divine Comedy - purgatorio is possibly even better than the inferno.

[Kropotkin]

If we're to dive into the wast sea of good russian literature, we might as well add Gogol's "Dead Souls".

[Bereta_Eder]

Oh how could I forget?
Plato's Symposium, I think you'd find it... of particular interest Starchild

[Whaleboy]

Read the Meno for sheer sadistic comic purposes