I"m jumping aboard, too.

[camwyn]

First the BBC hundred important books, or whatever the list is. If it's in boldface, I've read it.

1984, George Orwell
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy Ah, the 'Masterpieces of Continental Fiction' course that was actually 'Three Books By Russians and Three Books By French Guys'. I covered this sucker in the space of two hours, thirty eight minutes, and still got an A+ on the final.
Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
The BFG, Roald Dahl
Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
Bleak House, Charles Dickens
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Um. . . well, I started on it.
Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Catch 22, Joseph Heller
The Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger This seemed a lot more impressive when I read it in seventh grade. When I read it in college I had some trouble understanding how it had seemed so terribly vulgar or forbidden way back then. Nice depiction of a near-mental-breakdown, more like.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Given a good long read it's so not the treacly thing people seem to think. Dickens can be a very scary writer – but it isn't the ghosts who're scary, it's the conditions he's writing about, the just plain real stuff.
The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Read it in high school. Absolutely loved it.
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens – Crap, I think I was SUPPOSED to have read this, but I never did.
Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
Dune, Frank Herbert
Emma, Jane Austen
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
The Godfather, Mario Puzo Never saw the movie, though.
Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Holes, Louis Sachar
I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
Katherine, Anya Seton
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
The Lord Of The Rings, JRR Tolkien
Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
Magician, Raymond E Feist
The Magus, John Fowles
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Mort, Terry Pratchett
Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
On The Road, Jack Kerouac
One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Perfume, Patrick Soskind
Persuasion, Jane Austen
The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
Pride And Prejudice, Jane Austen
The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher – Ooo-er. High school reading assignment. I'm not sure if I've forgiven Mrs. O. for this yet. At least it was better than that A Summer Birdcage crap one of the other teachers assigned.
The Stand, Stephen King
The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens – Trying to read this book was like pushing my brain through molasses. I swear, I read the first two chapters five times before realizing I'd never get anywhere. So I stopped. Nyah.
Tess Of The D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Twits, Roald Dahl
Ulysses, James Joyce Again, ooo-er. I should have learned from trying to read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for school. I started on Ulysses, my brain exploded three pages in, and I gave it back.
Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
War And Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Watership Down, Richard Adams - I still swear in Lapine.
The Wind In The Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne
The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

And now, SF/Fantasy. This is Locus magazine's poll, done in 1998.

Dune, Frank Herbert
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
Neuromancer, William Gibson - Not so cool as I thought it was going to be.
Startide Rising, David Brin
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh
Ringworld, Larry Niven
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Way Station, Clifford D. Simak
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon – No, sadly. Although I did read Odd John, which anyone who is a serious fan of X-Men should do if they want to see where that damn Homo Superior term came from. It ain't as pretty as Magneto makes it out to be.
Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg
The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke - First book – amazing. Second book – I threw it over my shoulder four chapters in and never looked back.
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
City, Clifford D. Simak
Cyteen, C.J. Cherryh
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Double Star, Robert A. Heinlein
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
The Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein
Last and First Men, Olaf Stapledon
Ubik, Philip K. Dick
Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith
The Witches of Karres, James H. Schmitz
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Have Space Suit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov
"Riverworld" series, Philip Jose Farmer

Fantasy Novels
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
"Earthsea" series, Ursula K. Le Guin
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
"Gormenghast" series, Mervyn Peake
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Little, Big, John Crowley
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
"The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant", Stephen R. Donaldson
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
"The Belgariad", David Eddings
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
"The Dying Earth" series, Jack Vance
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum – I read one of the other Oz books, not the first one. It was the one with Mombi the head-swapping witch and the genderbending princess.
Dracula, Bram Stoker
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle – I own it, I haven't read it yet.
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Stand, Stephen King
Watership Down, Richard Adams
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison
Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
"Alvin Maker" series, Orson Scott Card - Well, the first three, anyway.
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
Witch World, Andre Norton
"The Fionavar Tapestry", Guy Gavriel Kay
Deryni Rising, Katherine Kurtz
"Discworld" series, Terry Pratchett
"Elric" series, Michael Moorcock
Replay, Ken Grimwood
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
"Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series, Fritz Leiber
The Incomplete Enchanter, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp