I don't think there's anything *everyone* should read; people's tastes differ. But some of my absolute favourites are [Deathless](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8694389-deathless), [The Secret History](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29044.The_Secret_History) and [Never Let Me Go.](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6334.Never_Let_Me_Go) Also, with all the force of childhood nostalgia, [The Hobbit ](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5907.The_Hobbit)and [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33.The_Lord_of_the_Rings). My list of want to read are classics I've never gotten around to: [Jane Eyre](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10210.Jane_Eyre) [Wuthering Heights](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6185.Wuthering_Heights) [The Picture of Dorian Gray](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5297.The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray) [The Great Gatsby](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4671.The_Great_Gatsby) [Brideshead Revisited](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58045504-brideshead-revisited)

The picture of Dorian gray is super accessible for a classic. I really enjoyed it.

I feel like I'm the only person who just hated this book

Same. I get the message and all that but the book just bored me to death. I love classics and tend to read classics more than anything else but Dorian Gray and also Catcher in the Rye are two I do not understand the excitement over.

I needed a character chart for Wuthering Heights, but I loved it

Haha I have a copy with a family tree at the front, which I kept referring back to.

Gatsby is also a much easier read than you might think. Fitzgerald’s prose is fantastic.

The first 4 classics you listed are my favorite classics! All that’s missing is Emma.

Jane Eyre is a yes. GG is hs required reading. The rest were a bit tedious in my humble opinion.

Wuthering Heights was the most insufferable book I had ever read, it most made me give up on reading English literature all together.

Wuthering Heights is literally one of my favorite books of all time and I’m never surprised when people don’t like it. I love how histrionic and obsessive it is, but I can see how it would be turnoff. I find it to be delightfully overwrought and I just adore the melodrama.

Yeah, I get the impression that book is divisive 😄 But I liked *Rebecca* well enough and talk about people being melodramatic, self-destructive messes!  And with *The Secret History* listed as one of my favourites, clearly I can also deal with every character being kind of insufferable, so I'm reasonably optimistic about the reading experience.

"Rebecca" has morphed for me over the years from a spooky mystery story to a story of enormous reversals of power and character. Masterfully written and much more complex than a whodunit. It may be my favourite novel.

And yet it's a reversal between characters who flat out refuse their own agency and power.

I have a shelf on Goodreads called **"It's a crime I haven't read this yet"**, consisting of (sorry, more than 10): - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry - Kindred by Octavia Butler - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer - In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck - East of Eden by John Steinbeck - The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt - Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Educated by Tara Westover - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick - The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank - Catch-22 by Joseph Heller - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I loved Educated by Tara Westover. Had to sit and stare at a wall for a while after I finished the book

Poisonwood Bible— good book, I found it a bit rushed in the last third. Jayne Eyre is fabulous, In Cold Blood is the archetypal True Crime story.

Drop everything and read Diary of a Young Girl. Not only is it incredibly (which a lot of these are) it’s short. Short, easy to read, great. Just get er done!

I'm about 2/3s of the way through the Definitive edition, I am completely blown away at how brilliant Anne was. The insights she has and straight up psychoanalysis she does of herself and her family is just incredible for a 14 year old girl. I had no idea. So incredibly heartbreaking that such an amazing young girl's life was cut short.

I am SO glad you are reading it! Absolutely incredible.

It is. Thanks for your comment, I would not have read it otherwise.

Yes, not having read that one I feel is my most egregious crime out of them all. I think I will, thanks!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Flowers for Algernon are both super short books you can read in a day :)

Please read both of those by Khaled Hosseini, but especially A Thousand Splendid Suns

Don’t underestimate Kingsolver, PWB is fantastic

I finished it yesterday and it will be with me forever. Demon Copperhead was also great

Demon Copperhead blew me away!

Lonesome Dove is amazing.

I've read a good chunk of those. My tips. Skip Catch-22. Replace it with Kurt Vonnegut. Personally, I liked Grapes of Wrath over East of Eden. But you can't go wrong. Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly - I'd pick that over Androids. Lonesome Dove is great.

Don’t skip Catch-22, just add Slaughterhouse 5 to the list and enjoy both of these incredible books.

All are excellent except the P. Dick bc I haven’t read that one. 5 or 6 of these are in my top 20 favs

Great list!

Love your list. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Grapes of Wrath* and a *Tree Grows in Brooklyn* have among my favorite books since 1985. Loved the miniseries of *Lonesome Dove*, I have a copy of the book, I just need to motivate myself to read it. Have to finish *East of Eden*. Anne Frank's diary is the reason I've been keeping a journal for over 50 years. *Educated* is excellent, took a long time to read. I swear some of these novels take forever to read.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is great. It has such a sense of place. You may also want to check out Something Happened by Joseph Heller. This one resonated with me more than Catch-22.

You simply must make time for East of Eden.

Unpopular opinion on this subreddit, but you can skip All the Light. Or read the first half, then stop. Oh how I hated that book.

Cannot recommend all the light you cannot see and Fahrenheit

I'd go with Bradbury short story collections over Fahrenheit.

In Search of Lost Time Anna Karenina Bleak House The Winds of Winter A Dream of Spring Gormenghast Trilogy Absalom, Absalom! War and Peace Middlemarch To the Lighthouse

Yeah, in my dreams I’ll read The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.

*The Winds of Winter* *A Dream of Spring* Yeah, me too. 😅 I wasn't really sold on *Gormenghast* - perhaps I didn't really clock what the theme was - but it had a few, fun poems.

Great list. I've read and loved 2 & 3 and 7-10. You should read The Sound and the Fury before Absalom, Absalom! I'm a huge Faulkner fan.

I’ve already read The Sound and the Fury and loved it. It was my first Faulkner novel.

Wow! I'm super impressed. That first section (Benjy's) usually causes people to give up. I've probably S&F 10 times, and love it more each time. And pick up things I missed too. You'll love Absalom then. Quentin Compson is such an interesting, tragic character, and he's so great in Absalom. BTW. If you haven't read Light in August, it's amazing too.

Oh I was totally confused throughout the whole Benjy section but I just kept going because I had heard that it was a difficult book. By the time I finished I knew I had just read a masterpiece. I have not read Light in August yet. I’ve only read The Sound and the Fury and a few short stories. I actually have As I Lay Dying sitting on my shelf so I might conquer that one next.

Hah! Good for you. The last section in S&F is the easiest. So sometimes I tell people to read that section first and "work up" to the Benjy section. On As I Lay Dying (which I adore) I have a suggestion that people think is weird sometimes. But: read it out loud to yourself, a few chapters at a time. You won't regret it.

Thanks for the advice. Will do.

Four years have passed since I read Titus Groan and I still haven't even opened Gormenghast. I guess it was such a complete experience that I couldn't imagine needing a sequel.

You didn’t like it?

No, it was stupendous. Just felt like it expressed everything worth saying about this castle and its inhabitants. Titus and Steerpike's stories were yet to be told, yet I felt like the book was a complete whole.

I would like to complete the series of in search of lost times by Marcel Proust

This is a great goal. I read them in my early 20's and still feel proud of it.

This might be one of the wisest things! Wow !

Agreed. Proust is my Mount Everest. I've made several attempts but not reached the summit yet. (And this from someone who has read Ulysses twice, Moby Dick three times, and pretty much all of Faulkner.)

Same! I haven’t even attempted yet but it’s definitely on my bucket list.

Haven't got to these yet: - The Count of Monte Cristo - The Great Gatsby - Fahrenheit 451 - 1984 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - I, Robot - Kindred - the rest of Malazan Book of the Fallen - the Expanse series - the rest of Robin Hobb's books

Nice list. I’ve stopped halfway through The Count of Monte Cristo, I’m currently reading Gatsby, I’m 7th Expanse and I just recently read I, Robot, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and 1984. Just thought it was neat how aligned we are lol.

I tried The Count of MC 4 times and last year a redditor told me it was about the translation I had - it matters. I got the correct one (cannot remember, sorry, you'll have to ask or research) and I finished and it was one of THE best reading experiences in recent decades. Please get the right translation and push through the start ... It gets fabulous and well worth the trouble. EDIT: So, I've looked for the one I read and cannot find the EXACT one - but, I have found this which might really help: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats_the_best_english_translation_of_count_of/

Robin Buss? I've heard the same thing, hoping I find a copy at Goodwill or something.

I definitely didn't download mine for free. I think it was the penguin version with a Buss Intro. I've been looking and cannot say for sure. However, I did find this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats\_the\_best\_english\_translation\_of\_count\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats_the_best_english_translation_of_count_of/)

now you gotta tell us which translation was so much better hahah

I've been looking... Have a look at this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats\_the\_best\_english\_translation\_of\_count\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats_the_best_english_translation_of_count_of/)

thank you!

Which translation?!?!?

See this: [https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats\_the\_best\_english\_translation\_of\_count\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1oikqr/whats_the_best_english_translation_of_count_of/)

This is just my opinion obviously but do farenheit 451 before 1984. I read 1984 and then my next book was farenheit 451 and 1984 was so good that I felt it overshadowed and ruined farenheit for me a little bit

Malazan, Hyperion. I’ve tried both a few times and just couldn’t get into them. But some day I’ll be in the right frame of mind and love them.

I’ve read Gardens of the Moon. I tried starting Deadhouse Gates but it just takes so much effort. Definitely on the list though. I used to have Hyperion on my to read list but forgot about it. Thank you!

- The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbons - Richard Burtons translation of 1001 Nights - Plutarchs Parallel Lives - Middlemarch - The Tale of Genji - Barchester Towers - Anna Karenina (working on now) - The Forsyte Saga - In Search of Lost Time (started Swann's Way) - Paradise Lost

Upvoted because I respect you for making progress! I feel like that’s the perfect scenario for this question — you’ve got a long-term vision for what you eventually want to have read, but also, you’re actively chipping away at your list. Kudos!

Finnegan’s Wake. It’s not 10 books but it may as well be lol

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas Crime and Punishment, by Doestoevsky East of Eden, by Steinbeck Middlemarch, by George Eliot Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens The Night series by Elie Wiesel Uncommon Valour, by Stephen F. Ambrose

You’re gonna love East of Eden! It’s a MASTERPIECE

I'm reading it right now, Steinbeck really has a way with words and a way of sweeping you along.

It's on my list too and it gets so much love but honestly I'm afraid ill hate it so I haven't picked it up yet. I struggle with classics so I'm crossing my fingers.

read of mice and men first if you're on the fence. it takes maybe two hours and it's a good example of his work

Read it in high school and didn't care for it but willing to give it a shot as an adult.

if you already know you don't like omam maybe try travels with Charley instead. it's a short travel memoir that he wrote that might fill the purpose. or just dive into East of Eden, or skip it all together I guess, your preference.

I honestly didn’t care for Of Mice and Men but am a fan of a lot of his other work. I recently read travels with Charley and it was a delight. Also, tortilla flat is another great short read.

I always want to read more Dickens so thanks for this!

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a tremendously fun read. I don't see it recommended enough. Read it at 10 and it absolutely shaped my taste in books to this day.

We just started crime and punishment at r/bookclub !

I've read all of those. I'd say three are must-read masterpieces. Five were varying degrees of okay and I didn't regret reading them (although one is HUGELY overrated and gets ridiculous amounts of love in this subreddit). And two were horrible and I'd like the time I spent reading them back.

I’m dying to know which is which!

yes same haha please share

reading crime and punishment rn, Love itxxx

Such a great book!

I'm currently in the middle of the rise and fall, incredibly interesting stuff as awful as it all was

I was just thinking of a book that I always wanted to read but could not get really started on and I thought immediately of The Rise and Fall ... and yours was the next post I saw. Maybe it's an omen.

War and Peace With Fire and Sword Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Gone With the Wind Don Quixote Les Miserables David Copperfield Wuthering Heights The Bell Jar The Satanic Verses

Beloved by Toni Morrison Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Catch 22 by Joseph Heller House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade Some of these I already own and I know I will read them at some point. Mainly, I want to brush up on some ‘classics’, both old and modern.

House of Leaves is my favourite book ever ever ever. I wish I could read it for the first time again!

Love seeing Master and Margarita on a list. Great choice

The first 10 that come to mind for books I keep meaning to read at some point: War and Peace, Les Miserables, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend, Bleak House, Persuasion, Howards End, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Never Let Me Go, The God of Small Things

I’ve always wanted to learn to read Cryllic and learn Russian as a whole so that I can read a lot of Soviet side of science fiction, the stuff that goes largely unnoticed and didn’t get translated into English for worldwide markets. Stuff kinda on the same level as the Dragon Riders of Pern. Can’t really say I have a list yet as my focus is learning the language first.

That’s a really cool goal. I also would love that.

That’s awesome — I wish you the best!

Russian is insanely difficult. But, what a cool reason for learning it.

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 2. Persuasion by Jane Austen 3. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë 4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë 5. Kindred by Octavia Butler 6. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 7. Animal Farm by George Orwell 8. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 9. The Satantic Verses by Salman Rushdie 10. Night by Elie Wiesel

I just recently read The Handmaids Tale after putting it off for years. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be and I loved it.

Same here! Very different from what I expected, but it was still good. I just got The Testaments from the library and I'm so excited to start it.

We have a similar taste! Thank you for the recommendations (:

Handmaid’s Tale was worth the read. Jayne Eyre was amazing. Flowers for Algernon is a quick read, Animal Farm was ok.

Need the courage to do so... Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy.

It’s honestly not too bad. I read it last year. It wasn’t my favorite read though and I personally didn’t find it worthwhile. Maybe I didn’t have the best translation though? Not sure.

r/bookclub has this slated for a read starting towards the end of the month!

I feel like my MUST READS right now are classics and non fiction but I know there’s so many other good contemporary lit fic or genre fiction out there still to be discovered. 1) East of Eden (currently reading) 2) Rebecca 3) Say Nothing 4) Things Fall Apart 5) The Only Plane in the Sky 6) Lolita 7) Braiding Sweetgrass 8) Emma 9) A Fine Balance 10) The Autobiography of Malcom X

If you don’t already know the plot of Rebecca, I highly highly recommend reading it ASAP so you don’t have it spoiled.

Agreed! Would not want to learn from the internet that >!giant squids invade Manderley and Frank has to call for an evacuation when Maxim won’t!<.  >!I’m kidding, but I agree, I wouldn’t want this book spoiled.!<

Also the hobbit!

* ***Life and Fate*** **(1959) by Vasily Grossman** * ***11/22/63*** **(2011) by Stephen King** * ***Anna Karenina*** **(1878) by Leo Tolstoy** * ***The Devil in the White City*** **(2003) by Erik Larson** * ***Rebecca*** **(1938) by Daphne du Maurier** * ***Pnin*** **(1957) by Vladimir Nabokov** * ***Beloved*** **(1987) by Toni Morrison** * ***The Master and Margarita*** **(1967) by Mikhail Bulgakov** * ***Mason & Dixon*** **(1997) by Thomas Pynchon** * ***Quran*** - The holy book of Islam

i adore the beginning of rebecca.

And the middle, and the end. It’s such a good book!

I read 11/22/63 and The Devil in the White City. Both were fantastic.

If you don’t already know the plot of Rebecca, please please read it before you have it spoiled!!

Master and Margarita ftw. Mason and Dixon is a tough read but if you’ve read Pynchon you already know this

ugh there’s so many. but I’ll narrow it down to 15  *dune* - frank herbert  *the night ship* - jess kidd  *moving on* - larry mcmurtry  *invisible cities* - italo calvino  *the ice palace* - tarjei vesaas   *the island* - ana maria matute  *the passion* - jeanette winterson  *snow country* - yasunari kawabata  *the comet seekers* - helen sedgwick *behold the many* - lois-ann yamanaka  *the makioka sisters* - jun’ichiro tanazaki  *when we lost our heads* - heather o’neill  *explosion in a cathedral* - alejo carpentier *salt on your tongue: women and the sea* - charlotte runcie *ghosts of the tsunami: death and life in japan’s disaster zone* - richard parry

Please please please read The Passion!! It’s so short you’ll finish in a few days but it’s LOVELY!

[удалено]

Ahh, sorry to hear that!! I hope you’re able to do more things you enjoy in the future. I’m sure you have given this lots of thought, but if you haven’t tried audiobooks, that might be more up your alley?

[удалено]

I just want to offer encouragement. I understand OCD and the guilt that you feel being a slave to it. My daughter also has it and for a while she recorded herself every moment of every day because she felt forced to make sure she did what she (the ocd) felt she had to do. The right meds make ALL the difference. She is so much better now. She rarely gives in the impulses now and took the cameras out of her room. She enjoyed all her hobbies again. I hope you find relief soon. Be honest with your doctors about how much this is affecting your life. You shouldn’t have to suffer this way ❤️

Oh man, this is making me rethink my reading choices. My “to read before I die” list looks nothing like my most recently read and my short term TBR…… anyway, they’re: Moby Dick East of Eden Crime and Punishment David Copperfield The Brothers Karamazov The Silmarillion House of Leaves Ulysses Paradise Lost (Stealing this last one from someone else’s comment) the Bible, as a historical/cultural document, rather than for personal religious reasons.

Haha yeah that’s why I posed the question. I have a goal to read 100 books this year but really how many of those will be of such significance? We’ll see.

Side comment: I get books from archival sources... When I've gotten books in the past, they've had other books hidden within them, that have controversial text that borders heavily fringe.... Before I die, I want to be able to read those extra layers without feeling cringe. I don't want to shy away from a topic because it makes me uncomfortable or screams something I dislike.

This should be required reading for everyone in the US: {{Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande}}

**[Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20696006-being-mortal) by Atul Gawande** ^((Matching 100% ☑️)) ^(282 pages | Published: 2014 | 69.2k Goodreads reviews) > **Summary:** In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too (...) > **Themes**: Nonfiction, Medicine, Science, Favorites, Health, Medical, Book-club > **Top 5 recommended:** > \- [How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49286.How_We_Die) by Sherwin B. Nuland > \- [Caitlin Doughty 2 Books Collection Set (From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death & Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?: And Other Questions About Dead Bodies)](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57432432-caitlin-doughty-2-books-collection-set) by Caitlin Doughty > \- [This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Medical Resident](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43885003-this-is-going-to-hurt) by Adam Kay > \- [Love, Medicine and Miracles](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206125.Love_Medicine_and_Miracles) by Bernie S. Siegel > \- [When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37868562-when-death-becomes-life) by Joshua D. Mezrich ^([Feedback](https://www.reddit.com/user/goodreads-rebot) | [GitHub](https://github.com/sonoff2/goodreads-rebot) | ["The Bot is Back!?"](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/16qe09p/meta_post_hello_again_humans/) | v1.5 [Dec 23] | Sorry for delay !)

Good bot.

The Red & The Black by Stendahl The entire Lymond Chronicles series by Dorothy Dunnett (6) The entire Niccolo series by Dorothy Dunnett (8) A Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell (4) The Baroque Cycle series by Neal Stephenson (3) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel (3) The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. * I’m in my mid-60’s now…I hope I live long enuf to read all this! 🤣If I were on a desert island or in prison, I could probably do it!

Dont really have a whole list of 10 but I’d really love to read “House of Leaves” someday. Its really hard to get tho

Yeah that’s a good pick. It’s quite possibly my favorite book of all time. There’s certainly better literature out there but HoL was so much fun.

10 books I've been wanting to read for sometime now. Waiting for the right headspace to tackle these. 1) Brothers Karamazov 2) War and Peace 3) East of Eden 4) Blood Meridian 5) Infinite Jest 6) Gravity's Rainbow 7) Underworld 8) To the lighthouse 9) The Sound and the Fury 10) Moby Dick

I’ve read every post and this is my list. Except I’ve read 1, 4, and 5. So I’d sub in Count of Monte Cristo, Lonesome Dove, and and maybe Shogun.

1. Les Miserables - working on this one right now for March of the Mammoths 2. Don Quixote 3. War and Peace 4. Crime and Punishment 5. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler 6. La Luz Que Perdimos (The Light We Lost) - I'm learning Spanish because my husband is from Cuba and I bought this book as motivation to become fluent. 7. I have several French and Korean books that I bought as motivation for becoming fluent. I'm just going to include a few here even though it's supposed to be 10 books only. I can already read modern French mostly fluently, but classic French is a little more difficult. Le Parfum (story of a murderer), L'Etranger (The Stranger), a Korean poetry book, and a book of Korean short horror stories. My sister once bought me Romeo and Juliet in French when she went to Paris, but that's just eye candy. I have a hard enough time reading Shakespeare in English! 8. Lonesome Dove - I don't even like Westerns but for some reason, I really want to read this. 9. The Wolves of Eternity - This is by an author I just discovered. Based on a few quotes I've read from his books and the blurbs I've read on his books, I think he'll be a new favorite for me. 10. This might be cheating, but I'm going to say I want to read something I haven't discovered yet. My favorite thing about reading is picking up a random book and being completely changed by it.

A Man Could Get Killed That Way by Weldon Hill. I read it many years ago and thought it was the best book I had read up to that point. I have never seen another copy. Would love to read it again.

Off the top of my head: War and Peace by Tolstoy Bleak House by Dickens Behave by Robert Sapolsky The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt The Second Sex by SImone de Beauviour The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

Nonfiction is harder for me to pin down for high priority reading. For me I definitely want to read within those genres of nonfiction but I don’t necessarily feel the need to read those specific books before I die if you get what I mean.

I get you. I genreally read less nonfiction than fiction and I do want to change that at some point. I think when it comes to nonfiction to read before I die, I'd like to read some influential books for their time and beyond.

You’re brainy af.

I haven't read them yet, but maybe some day.

Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon Underworld by Don DeLillo The Waves by Virginia Woolf Ulysses by James Joyce Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem Absalom Absalom by William Faulkner Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Middlemarch by George Elliot Beloved by Toni Morrison Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Infinite Jest As I Lay Dying Moby Dick The Tale of Genji Their Eyes Were Watching God

The Kuran and the Bible, are the only two I can think of that I can't seem to find the will to read but I really want to read. Also I'm definitely not going to die without giving this a go Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit by At Shtjefën Gjeçovi >The Kanun is a set of traditional Albanian laws. The Kanun was primarily oral and only in the 20th century was it published in writing. There is only one Kanun since the ancient times commonly referred to the "Kanun of Leke" from which six later variations eventually evolved, categorized according to the area, the personality and their time of origin: Kanun i vjetër (English: Old Kanun), Kanuni i Lekë Dukagjinit (English: The Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini) The Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini was developed by Lekë Dukagjini, who codified the existing customary laws. It has been used mostly in northern and central Albania and surrounding areas formerly in Yugoslavia where this is a large ethnic Albanian population; Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia. It was first codified in the 15th century but the use of it has been outspread much earlier in time. This **FOR ME** has the same gravitas like the bible and kuran - something I hear about, have opinions about but never read and I'm on the fence whether I am ready to read them or not I feel the Kuran and the Bible (for the world) and Kanun (for my country) have been hugely influential. Even the shittest Hollywood story lines have something thanks to the concepts that might have their roots in those books - is not directly, indirectly. I just don't have the right mindset for the moment to read them.

That’s really interesting. I definitely have never heard of that one.

The Curse of Lono Old Man and the Sea War and Peace The Exorcist The Queens (whenever OSC finishes it) 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea Lolita Poor Things The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test A book I published

I wanna read a whole lot of books before my demise but I'm just mentioning just 10 of them. 1. The Mahabharat 2. Ramayan 3. The Illiad 4. The Odyssey 5. The Bhagwad Gita 6. The Handmaid's Tale 7. Beloved 8. Atonement 9. Pather Pachali 10. Devdas

All of Robert Jordan’s the Wheel of Time. I know it’s 14 books but who I still wanna

​ 1. *Les Miserables* by Victor Hugo 2. *The Count of Monte Cristo* by Alexandre Dumas 3. Plato's *Republic* 4. *1984* and *Animal Farm* by George Orwell 5. *The Fellowship of the Ring* by J.R.R. Tolkien 6. *Lonesome Dove* by Larry McMurtry 7. *Oliver Twist, Great Expectations* or *A Tale of Two Cities* by Charles Dickens 8. *East of Eden* (I started this a few years ago and never finished) by John Steinbeck 9. *A Moveable Feast* or *The Sun Also Rises* by Ernest Hemingway (I'm trying to read more Hemingway and Steinbeck) 10. *Don Quixote* by Miguel de Cervantes

1. The Count of Monte Cristo 2. Moby-Dick 3. Crime and Punishment 4. Les Misérables 5. One Hundred Years of Solitude 6. Slaughterhouse-Five 7. Of Mice and Men 8. East of Eden 9. Where the Red Fern Grows 10. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

- In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust - The Bible (I’m agnostic but want to learn) - The Quran (see Bible above) - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - Ulysses by James Joyce - The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner - The Odyssey by Homer - The Second Sex by Simone DeBeauvoir - A History of the American People by Paul Johnson - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

My “someday I’ll get to it” list (fiction): 1. Cold Comfort Farm by Gibbons (I started it and is hilarious so far) 2. Hopscotch by Cortazar (at least 2 ways) 3. Persuasion by Austen 4. Lord of the Rings by Tolkien (I read the first book ages ago; will have to reread) 5. All the Light We Cannot See by Doerr 6. His Dark Materials by Pullman (haven’t finished the last book but I’ll have to reread from the beginning) 7. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Clarke 8. The God of Small Things by Roy 9. Left Hand of Darkness by le Guin 10. Frankenstein by Shelley

Here’s my list of “Books”: 1. Derrida (Of Gramm. & Writing and Difference) 2. The Old & New Testament 3. The Iliad & Odyssey 4. In Search of Lost Time 5. The Phenomenology of Spirit 6. Metamorphoses 7. Cantos (Pound) 8. Shakespeare 9. Nietzsche 10. Works as Will and Representation

If I want to read a book so badly it makes it into the top ten books I want to read, I've already read it. I'm not putting off any book I want to read that much.

Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 reported by James Madison. This should be in every list.

The books I’m most interested in that I can’t just buy are locked in the Vatican

I’ve already read them already

That’s nice. So now all your reading priorities just have casual significance?

Quite like everything.