Last Edit: 7 February 2010
The Bible
No-one could be considered truly well-educated without a solid knowledge of mankind's greatest book, the Bible.=) To date, I've read through the complete scriptures 12 times in 6 different English translations, and am working through another. I have at least 2, and up to 4 different readings in progress at any given time these days, so as you can see, Bible reading is something I've come to do a lot of!
New World Translation: easily the best available, 8th read through in progress: Genesis - 2 Chronicles 30
2009-2013 congregation reading: Genesis-Judges 19
New International Version
Good News/Today's English Version
New Living Translation
(Stephen Byington) Bible in Living English
Contemporary English Version
New Century Version: Genesis - Leviticus 19
The Message: Matthew - Revelation, the complete Christian Greek Scriptures, (New Testament).
I've decided not to read the Hebrew Scriptures in this version as I can't say I've enjoyed much of the Christian Greek section. There is only one translator and what he believes clearly colours his work - and not necessarily with the shades of truth either! I've compared certain passages with 2 Greek interlinears and he's definitely manipulated certain 'inconvenient' parts to reflect his own theology. Not recommended.
Classic Literature
20th Century
Brent-Dyer, Elinor M - 37 of the 62 Chalet School books, The School By the River
Burnett, Frances Hodgson - The Secret Garden
Fitzgerald, F Scott - The Great Gatsby
Forster, E M - A Room With a View
Ishiguro, Kazuo - The Remains of the Day
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Montgomery, Lucy Maud - Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars/Willows, Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, The Blue Castle
Nesbit, Edith - The Railway Children
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Ransome, Arthur - Complete 'Swallows and Amazons' series
Rhys, Jean - Wide Sargasso Sea
19th Century
Alcott, Lousia M - Little Women and Good Wives, about half of Little Men.
Austen, Jane - complete novels, including fragments and juvenilia, Sanditon completed by someone else and 2 lots of Pride and Pejudice from Darcy's angle (20th/21st C, of course and not really JA).
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth - Lady Audley's Secret, Aurora Floyd, The Doctor's Wife
Brontë, Anne - Agnes Grey, The Tennant of Wildfell Hall plus some poems
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, The Professor
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights plus some poems
Burney, Frances - The Wanderer (see also 18th Century list)
Collins, Wilkie - Almost all fiction in print (except Iolani, which I haven't got to yet): Armadale, Basil, The Biter Bit & Other Stories, The Black Robe, Blind Love, The Dead Secret, The Evil Genius, The Fallen Leaves, The Frozen Deep, The Guilty River, The Haunted Hotel, Heart and Science, Hide and Seek, I Say No, Jezebel's Daughter, The Law and the Lady, The Legacy of Cain, Man and Wife, Miss or Mrs, The Moonstone, Mr Wray's Cashbox, My Lady's Money, The New Magdalen, No Name, Poor Miss Finch, A Rogues Life, The Two Destinies, The Woman in White, The Yellow Mask & Other Stories
Conan-Doyle, Sir Arthur - complete Sherlock Holmes works
Dickens, Charles - Great Expectations, Bleak House, Hard Times
Elliot, George - Middlemarch
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Gaskell, Elizabeth - Mary Barton, Ruth, My Lady Ludlow, Cranford, North and South, Wives and Daughters, Cousin Philis, The Moorland Cottage and Other Stories, Sylvias Lovers
Gissing, George - The Odd Women
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the Durbervilles, Under the Greenwood Tree
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers
La Fanu, Sheridan - Uncle Silas
Oliphant, Margaret - Hester
Perkins Gilman, Charlotte - The Yellow Wallpaper
Trollope, Anthony - The Warden, Barchester Towers, Dr Thorne, Framley Parsonage
Verne, Jules - Journey to the Centre of the Earth
Wells, H G - The Time Machine
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Ernest, Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, Salome (which I did NOT like!)
Wood, Ellen - East Lynne
18th Century
Burney, Frances - Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla (see also 19th Century list)
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Godwin, William - Caleb Williams
Goldsmith, Oliver - The Vicar of Wakefield
Hays, Mary - Memoirs of Emma Courtney
Haywood, Eliza - The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless
Lennox, Charlotte - The Female Quixote
Radcliffe, Ann - Romance of the Forest, Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian
Richardson, Samuel - Pamela, (Clarissa in progress - ad infinitum!)
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley - The Rivals, St Patricks Day, The Duenna, A Trip to Scarborough, The School for Scandal
Pre-18th Century
Jonson, Ben - The Alchemist
Shakespeare, William (perhaps.... and perhaps not....who really wrote those plays, I wonder...) - Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure.
History
Hibbert, Christopher - Queen Victoria, A Personal History (in progress)
Language related
Teach Yourself Linguistics (in progress)