If you could make everyone read one book...

[ztaprincess]

If you had the chance to make everyone read one book what would it be? What is the one book that you thought was so great or that taught a valuable lesson or just make you love to read that you would put on a world wide summer reading list if you could.....


As much as I want to say harry potter...i am not going to because I wouldn't know which one to make everyone read....so I am going to go totally back to my elementary days and say

The Little Gymnast by Sheila Haigh.

[Bloomwood]

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

btw - I never saw the Oprah produced movie. Just read the book!

[mel7dog]

OMG ztaprincess I LOVED the Little Gymnast! I seriously read it over and over, at least 20x. I was convinced I was meant to be a gymnast and mad at my mom for not "giving me the chance" :rolleyes: LOL

[southerner]

Catcher in the Rye
The Five People you Meet in Heaven

a Judy Blume book




okay sorry! I couldn't pick just one :D

[daydreamer]

The Grapes of Wrath

[ejs]

Tuesdays with Morrie

[tenofcups]

I haven't read this in years, but I think it would be:

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

I've pulled it out of my bookcase to re-read again and I'm hoping it lives up to my memory of it.

[Cohl]

Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver. This book, when I read it when I was teenager, has a profound affect on me. I have since re-read it as an adult and still loved it!

[LittleFredPunkinHead]

Watership Down

[Irish Elf]

Books I think everyone should read (in addition to all the classics)
Shadow of the Wind
The Secret History
The Aeneid

[dreamgirly]

Mommy Dearest (Joan Crawford story)

another vote for Tuesdays with Morrie

also Terms of Endearment. :)

[chefker]

I second Watership Down

also Roots

[endymion411]

a fine balance
the god of small things

[wander_woman]

To Kill a Mockingbird.

[Asha]

i am going to be the boring one here...

the pedagody of the oppressed by paulo freire

[msnicolea]

rebjc I read that in graduate school and I can honestly say that it changed my life--a remarkable book! Great recommendation!

My favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It is the most amazing, beautiful story and I am always pushing it on people!

And all women (actually, men, too) should read the Feminine Mystique.

[Guinness]

This is a kids book, but good for adults too.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

[dionysia]

Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Di

[Bloomwood]

dionysia I totally forgot about that book. It was so enlightening.

[1MegMeg]

....My favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It is the most amazing, beautiful story and I am always pushing it on people!...

Me too! :D

[southerner]

I read Owen Meany a looong time ago. Refresh my memory, whats it about?

[emmjay]

I would say Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. That completely changed the way I look at the world.

[kemaji]

The Hobbit

[msnicolea]

Here's a brief synopsis, from Amazon:

Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.

The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo

[southerner]

thanks msnicolea as soon as I read the first line about a dwarf boy, I remembered it. I should re read it!

[Vishenka69]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

[KarenS]

Anne of Green Gables

[laura]

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

[VASLP]

I second The Five People you Meet in Heaven . That little book touched my heart and made me think about my everyday interactions with people differently. I work as a Speech Pathologist in a hospital and I've noticed that when I'm having a down day the thought of that book reminds me that what I'm doing touches so many people beyond just my patients.

[houseblend]

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

[maggieb]

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol

[incognita07]

I second Catcher in the Rye.

Anita

[Asha]

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol

wonderful book!! it was required reading by my education dep't in college.

[Muppetpinchess]

Mists of Avalon

[Brandy]

Savage Inequalities was great... I read it for Child Advocacy.

"Queen Bees and Wannabes" by Rosalind Wiseman is one of the most amazingly accurate books I've read about teenage girls. I recommend it about 10 times a week to different people.

[jillybean_247]

They Cage the Animals At Night, by Jennings Michael Burch.

[YesImCrazy]

I also have to say The Awakening. I've read it twice and am getting ready to read it for the third time.

[Amy_6405]

The Hobbit and the entire Lord of the Rings series. I have read these books so many times

[gayle]

The Tao of Pooh

[Amuse Bouche]

I'm going to say the Wrinkle in Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle. OK, it's four books (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters) but they do come in a box set!

[Purple]

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

[Asha]

i started reading "watership down" as a suggestion of one of the pp. ok, i can't get past this just being a story about rabbits though i know there must be some deeper meaning. is this supposed to be an allegory? if so, about what? perhaps, that will help me appreciate this book a little bit more.

[emmjay]

IIRC, the author of Watership Down said it was just supposed to be a children's story about rabbits without any deeper meaning. I think some people consider it a political allegory but I don't remember exactly what the parallels are (I haven't read it in years!).

Anyway, since the author also said it was just a story about rabbits, you are in good company! :)

[catch]

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=yV1W6HICg5&isbn=0743254430&itm=16) by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

One of the best books I've ever read.

[MelodySoul]

"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult

[AmyAmy]

I have to agree with the Poster who said The five people you meet in Heaven

I would also add to the list Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

I feel that both books really made me look at my life and realize whats worth living for and why.

[libelle]

I have two: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith and Roots by Alex Haley.

I love this thread because I am ALWAYS looking for new books to read!!

[Asha]

thanks, emmjay!! quite a lengthy children's book! though, i could see it being a good read aloud before bed. i could see all the different characters and names being confusing for the kids to keep up with. also, i think it's a bit scary for young kids and today's older kids wouldn't want to read a story about rabbits.

[kcgray]

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah was a great, great book I've read it twice

I think someone on page one said..
"Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston

I saw the movie and it was good also.

Also,right now I'm reading The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger and its a good book in a comedic sort of way.

I love this thread because I am ALWAYS looking for new books to read!! I couldn't agree more, I've read so many books.

I will be back often

Trina

[DallasLady]

1984, George Orwell

[gantry_g]

I second the recommendation for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (read it for the first time in high school and definitely had a great influence on me)
and add: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

[lisapremiere]

a fine balance
the god of small things


I second A Fine Balance. I tried to get my DH to read it and he couldn't get past the first 50 pages. I was bummed, because that book REALLY moved me like I haven't been moved by a book in a long time.

[lisapremiere]

One Hundred Years of Solitude

[MichelleRenee]

zta, if you are reading this I have to know if you are talking about the book I think you are talking about. I have been trying to remembe the title of a book I read over and over as a kid and I think that's it! Is it about a little girl named Anda who watches gymnastics on TV and decides she wants to be a gymnast and starts taking classes?

I can't believe I was just thinking about this book the other day, trying to figure out the title, and by chance I read this thread and might have found it....

[mommy2AlliWill]

"My favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It is the most amazing, beautiful story and I am always pushing it on people!"


Me three! My favorite book ever & I wish everyone would read it. The characters were so real to me & I could not stop reading.

[MichelleRenee]

I forgot to post my book...

"On the Occasion of my Last Afternoon" by Kaye Gibbons. It was actually assigned to me my senior year and everyone hated it but me! It is a little bit of everything: history, romance, drama... all wrapped up in one. a great love story!

For anyone who is just looking for a good book to read, I highly recommend all of Nicholas Sparks' books. The movies are nothing compared to the books and each book had a huge effect on me. Last summer I started reading them and every time I finished one I moved on to another. Very moving.

[Baxter78]

A Widow for One Year by John Irving. It was the first Irving book I read, and it started me on my now year-long kick of trying to read all of his novels!

My favorite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It is the most amazing, beautiful story and I am always pushing it on people!

msnicolea: I feel the same way! It was the 2nd Irving book I read.

[hera54]

The East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
It's such a powerful book with so much depth and the characters are so memorable.

The Alchemist by Pauolo Coelho.....(Actually, anything by Paulo Coelho is really inspiring and very insightful). He is such an interesting writer and I learned so much from reading his books that it helped me with my depression.

I also love Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.

Sorry..I know we're only supposed to choose 1 :p but it's hard to narrow it down to just one cause I'm such a book worm.

[justHB]

Only one? I couldn't possibly.

- The Cider House Rules
- Gone With the Wind
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Mists of Avalon
- The Great Gatsby
- Pride & Prejudice
- Their Eyes Were Watching God

I think I could go on, and on, and on.

[MsRo]

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=yV1W6HICg5&isbn=0743254430&itm=16) by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

One of the best books I've ever read.

I read this book about a year ago and really enjoyed it as well.

[MidwesternGal]

I have to weigh in with two books, and they're both considered "kids books."

One is Where the Red Fern Grows. Every single person should read that book. Everyone!

The second book is called Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. It is about a young boy (around 12?) who is orphaned when his parents are killed. It is light-hearted, but messages about acceptance and race, and simply being a good person abound. I haven't read it since I was about 18, but it is fantastic. I first read it in fourth grade.

[rosa727]

"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - the deepest "children's book" I have ever read.

and

"The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz - a non-fictional account of a group of men who escape from a Siberian prison and walk to freedom.

[Natasha]

I have a long list, but the book at the top of it is The Diary of Anne Frank. Her optimism amazes me to this day, and makes me want to think good things about people. I read this book once a year, and push it on everyone!

[Ferris]

"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery - the deepest "children's book" I have ever read.

I so agree!!

Also I love Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. It's another childrens book and it won the Newberry medal for writing. It's about a orphaned african american boy, who's mom died and he goes in search of the man he believes to be his father. It's very funny and actually made me giggle out loud.