In a Straight Dope thread a reader asked the question "Which five books should everyone read before they die?" There were a lot of interesting responses, some of which I've read, but most of which are foreign to me. Of course, most of the stuff I read are in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Detective genres, with a couple of thrillers and classics thrown in.
This was hard for me to pare down (having read so many books!), but here's my list.
1. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. One ring to rule them all. Probably influenced most of the fantasy writers who came after; you can read this book, and you've read 80% of the other fantasy novels out there.
2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Revenge literature at its best.
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes is arguably the greatest detective who ever lived; even if you haven't read any of the short stories (although I think "The Red-Headed League" was a topic in one of my ELA classes back in Zobel) chances are you've read Hound.
4. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Together, Gaiman and Pratchett have written some of the best stories I've ever read. It's impossible for me to pick one from each without going over my limit, so I cheated and picked a classic that both of them wrote.
5. The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. A great space opera if there was ever one. Probably the best "hard" science-fiction novel I've read.
Others that I could have interchanged are The Da Vinci Code, which is quite schlocky but is necessary reading just to find out what all the fuss was about; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, to get a taste of one of the greatest cultural phenomenons in literature; Ten Little Indians, to sample Hercule Poirot and Dame Agatha Christie's work; Foundation, Asimov's best work; and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, because the late Douglas Adams was a genius.
What's your list?
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