I should have read...

[Jeane]

Moby Dick..and after three times I restarted some months ago and keep reading and reading but still not finished.

[Jessica]

I feel I should have read To Kill a Mockingbird by now, but for whatever reason, I went through K-12 and then four years of college without ever having to read it.

I'm thinking about picking it up along with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close next time I borrow books from work.

[Kathy]

Moby Dick, Grapes of Wrath, and Lord of the Rings (I've read The Hobbit already). Sherry, like you, I keep telling my son that I am going to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[Ashley]

Harry Potter. I feel like the only one who hasn't read those books.

[Stef]

Ashley,

welcome to the club. I too haven't read any Harry Potter book so far. And I doubt that I will ever read them.

There are a lot of book I should have read but haven't read yet. They are just too many to list them here. Maybe one day I find the time to read them. But with the economic crisis I might no longer have enough money to buy new books and then I will finally read all those books I bought but never read.

[Heather]

Jane Eyre is the one that really stands out for me. I'm really hoping to get into it by the end of the year though.

[Jess]

War and Peace, 1984, The Grapes of Wrath

I know I should, I just seem to always find something more intriguing to read.

[Chloe]

Fiona, do you know if there's a general order for John le Carre's Smiley books? I've read a lot of le Carre but am only now just starting to dive into his back catalog for his older spy novels. I read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, where Smiley was a peripheral character, and have Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on my to-read stack but don't want to read it if it isn't the first Smiley book.

[Justine]

More Steinbeck (I read Grapes of Wrath in high school and the only thing I remember is that it made me want to be a truck driver...I read Of Mice and Men when I was about nine so I have no idea about that either). But I moved to Salinas, CA this year, so it's something I need to make myself do.
Jane Austen/The Brontes: On my TBR. I have a hard time reading books that take place pre-1950 because it all looks like the wild west in my head. Or in a different country because their landmarks mean nothing to me.

[Vicki]

Definitely Pride and Prejudice or anything by Jane Austen for that matter... I also like many should have read To Kill a Mockingbird.

For a different reason I should have read Amber Spyglass, since I read the first two.. but during a dinner out several people starting discussing the book and after knowing all that happened I lost motivation :( I shall return to it someday.

[Chloe]

Thanks, Fiona, that will help a lot. Like I said, Smiley had a very very small role in ...in from the Cold. He's talked about a lot as the bane of the Stasi's existence and they talk about some things that Smiley did which soured him on the British service, which is what made me think that there were Smiley books before that one which laid out the whole kerfuffle. That's it, I'm asking my dad. He's read them all, he should be able to help us.

[Jaime]

There are many books that I feel I should have read by now...Pride and Prejudice, 1984, Catch-22, Of Mice and Men are just a few...

[Maria]

great topic!

surprisingly, i've read a large amount of the ones people have cited so far. i really liked Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the HP books.

i was so-so on 1984 (liked it, but was a bit much) and The Chocolate Wars. HEmingway (that I've read) was alright, but not something i understood all of the fuss about.

i could not stand Things Fall Apart. just not my cup of tea.

all of that said, i think the one book that i've never read that i "should" read is A Tale of Two Cities. tried it twice, will never try again. i literally handed it bqack to my senior English teacher in high school, i was that serious about not reading it.

the talk of books you "should" read reminds of something a professor i had once said. he told us that there are "highbrow" and "lowbrow" books, and that the only ones truly worth reading where the "highbrow" ones. he lumped anything written before 1960 as a "highbrow" book, and totally wrote off all other things. he asked our class to name a great author, and one of the responses was Stephen King. i'm not a fan, but i understand where that comes from. i swear, that professor almost ran the poor kid out of class, telling him that people like King and Tom Clancy and others of that ilk are not true authors, they produce only trash that "mindless" people read to make themselves feel better, because they are reading. i could not believe that he was saying it then, and i still don't believe it 11 years later.

[Jeane]

And there she goes!!!! Go Fiona, just let them know!

[Petra X]

I have the Old Man & the Sea sitting waiting to be read forever. I can't face it. My kid did it in school and said its single virtue was that it was short.

[Vicki]

Maria, I have to teach Things Fall Apart this year. I remember reading it in college and not being too thrilled... Now I have to entice 50 juniors in high school with it. I hope I can find some more redeeming qualities on my second read.

[Jenna]

I have never read The Grapes of Wrath, and any Jane Austen. I also have a TON of Jane Austen books on my shelf and have yet to read a single one. I should probably get on that soon.

[Lynai]

mine would all be classics: Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, and all of the Anne of Green Gables sequels.

[Connie]

Anna K; it's been sitting on my bookshelf forever. Somehow it just seems daunting.

[Marsha]

I haven't read ANY of the Russian authors. I'm thinking of starting with Anna K.

[Julianne]

My Sis and I were just talking about this on the ride home from the beach last night

To Kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
Charles Dickens (take your pick-I've only read A Christmas Carol)
Ernest Hemingway (see above, Dickens)

I just read my first Jules Verne, so I won't put his other great works in here.

[Melissa]

I was hoping you had done some posting on here, Julie!

To Kill a Mockingbird
Catch-22
A Clockwork Orange
Catcher in the Rye
Anything by Jane Austen
A Tale of Two Cities
Of Mice and Men

Really, I'm just naming a lot of books that are "classics" that I missed out on in high school.

[Lisa]

I only recently read Jane Eyre and Wethering Heights. I was inspired to read them after being introduced to the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde. He refers to many of the classics in his books.

Still haven't read many of the other classics. They are sitting on my bookcase waiting for me.

[Kellie]

I should have read....whatever book I haven't read. :)

[Maria]

kellie, i like your comment! i feel the same way, if i think i "should" read it, it goes on my list. if not, the heck with it.

i forgot to add in my original reply that in college, i bought a book called 100 Banned Books. great reading in and of itself, it has case stories on the top 100 banned books of all time, broken down into categories based on why they were challenged. anyhoo, it's a great resource for finding some suggestions for those "should" reads!

[[deleted user]]

Utopia. Especailly since I bought it three years ago.

[Cheri Howard]

Well I sheepishly admit there a lot of books that I should've read by now, but the top 5 that I'm MOST embarrassed about not having read are:

Pride & Prejudice
Dickens in general, particularly Great Expecations
The Grapes of Wrath
1984
The Color Purple

[Cheri Howard]

Actually, scratch The Color Purple, I'm much more embarrassed that I haven't read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged!

[Melissa]

Oh my gosh! There's too many! I've read very few classics. I should definitely read more Steinbeck, I should have read Dracula, I should have read To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. There's more, but I'll stop, it's embarrassing.