"Classics"

[Timinator]

Also, have you read the Bible? Even if you aren't Christian it's pretty important, and helps to understand a lot of classic literature. You don't need to read it all, but Genesis, Exodus, Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, the Gospels and Revelation are some of the more important books.

Stumbles into thread.  When I looked at the bible when I was young it was a good factor in helping me decide I was an atheist.  Maybe that's part of why I'm such a religious and cultural heathen

[TheMikrobe]

Well for me the Bible was always either something foreign and impenetrable or a symbol of a weird and oppressive belief. But now I find it quite interesting, and I don't think it should be mocked for its claim to authority while being full of contradictions, violence, sexism and general lack of sense. Knowing it is essential to understanding a lot of (Western) history and literature, and some of it is actually really interesting to think about in the context of when it was written and in comparison to Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Mesopotamian records. It will appear on every academic literature reading list, although not always on popular lists of top-100 books to read before you die.

I also personally find it interesting how different religious groups choose to interpret it (and mockery is sometimes called for there).

[Godji]

Godji has good taste!

TBF, most of the authors I listed every single French student has read at some point or another, you can hardly go through your scholarship without having read those, so not all were by choices
Those I enjoyed the most in the list are Voltaire, Balzac, and Camus. Actually not a huge fan of Hugo, which is a very un-french thing to proclaim, and Zola is unbearable (which on the other hand seems to be a very popular opinion among anyone who isn't a litterature teacher).

For a slightly more recent author,maybe out of the "classics" definiotion we just discussed, I realize we didn't mention Saint-Exupéry. Le Petit Prince of course, but Vol De Nuit too.

[narsica]

Also Steppenwolf, which I liked better than Siddhartha.

Philistine.

[Disco-neck Ted]

Thomas Hardy is worth a read. I enjoyed the writing in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but the subject matter is a little grim. If you weren't already planning to plow ahead with so many Russian authors, I might not recommend Tess. 

Shakespeare is good to the point that reading a play then seeing it live and circling back to read it again can be worth it. Or, same process in reverse order. For example, some of the innuendo in Othello wasn't obvious to me until I saw accompanying hand gestures in a play.

[Melchior]

Interesting subject. I find the classics...difficult. I am spoiled by modern writing I think.

However, I have read:

Moby Dick – Herman Melville
The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
Dracula – Bram Stoker
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Animal Farm – George Orwell

All of which I enjoyed except Harper Lee and Orwell.  I am not a connoisseur by any means.

I have War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Paradise Lost and a couple others that I can't get into. Read most of the Bible also.

Never got into Shakespeare and it wasn't taught when I was in school.

A lot of the books strike me as THIS IS AN IMPORTANT BOOK, rather that this is fun to read!, which is fine for school, but not for my leisure.