I'm going away for 6 months soon, actually in 12 days so very soon. I don't suppose I'll play any CC or read any forums whilst im gone so while I'm here I may as well say an early, see ya! Not that this is a leaving thread, the funny farm can live on without just another bleedin' heart liberal in the ranks
and besides I'll no doubt come back at some point.
And so to the point of my post, I'm figuring this is a good opportunity to read some books I really ought to have read. You know lots of trains and airports and hopefully hammocks over the next 6 months should provide ample time. A friend said don't waste it, learn something, so I'm going to annoy my girlfriend and learn the harmonica, and I'm going to read some books I really ought to have read.
I've got a list coming along nicely but I was hoping to get some more ideas. I'm not necessarily looking for your favourite books, or favourite authors, and not just Western Canon style entries either. I want the books that helped shape culture, or broke boundaries, were way ahead of the time etc. Any ideas most welcome. My list (in a vaguely chronological order) to take (or at least pick up along the way) so far (which I may keep up to date depending if anyone gives a shit about my literary education) is as follows:
Paradise Lost - John Milton
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Don Quixote de la Mancha - Miguel de Cervantes
Gullivers Travels - Jonathan Swift
For whom the bell tolls - Ernest Hemmingway
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Animal Farm - George Orwell
1984 - George Orwell
Lady Chatterley's Lover - D H Lawrence
Catch-22 - Jopseph Heller
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
I don't want to read any fantasy or sci-fi really, I have read way too much before and I don't want non-fiction. I've been thinking of maybe some Dickens for example but wouldn't know which to pick...