The full lists
Earlier in the week, I posted three lists of ten books that children should read before they finish school. I have since discovered that there are in fact, seven lists. Here they are.
PHILIP PULLMAN
Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens (or other good anonymous ballads)
First Book of Samuel, Chapter 17 (the story of David and Goliath)
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A good collection of myths and legends
A good collection of fairy tales
J. K. ROWLING
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
ANNE FINE
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Once and Future King by T. H. White
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stiff Upper Lip (or any other Jeeves book) by P.G. Wodehouse
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bedier
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hound of the Baskervilles (or another Sherlock Holmes story) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
A Shame to Miss, 1, 2 & 3
ANDREW MOTION
The Odyssey by Homer
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Lyrical Ballads by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
MAGGIE GEE
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Red Queen by Matt Ridley
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Go Tell It On The Mountain James Baldwin
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley
High Windows Philip Larkin
Cat’s Eye Margaret Atwood
VICTORIA GLENDINNING
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Far from the Madding Crowd or Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Some poems by W.B.Yeats , T.S.Eliot and Philip Larkin
A novel by Ernest Hemingway
A novel by Graham Greene
A novel by J.G. Ballard
A novel by Evelyn Waugh
A novel by Martin Amis
A novel by Margaret Atwood
© The Royal Society of Literature 2006.
BEN OKRI (10½ Inclinations)
There is a secret trail of books meant to inspire and enlighten you. Find that trail.
Read outside your own nation, colour, class, gender.
Read the books your parents hate.
Read the books your parents love.
Have one or two authors that are important, that speak to you; and make their works your secret passion.
Read widely, for fun, stimulation, escape.
Don’t read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
Read what you’re not supposed to read.
Read for your own liberation and mental freedom.
Books are like mirrors. Don’t just read the words. Go into the mirror.
That is where the real secrets are. Inside. Behind. That’s where the gods dream, where our realities are born. 10½) Read the world. It is the most mysterious book of all.
© Ben Okri 2006. All rights reserved.
