NFR: English classics?

[ffcbulgaria]

Hey there!

I've come across an english bookstore here in Vienna that has a range of english classics on sale.
I've been pondering for some time on reading some of those and it would be cool if all of you could reccomend me a few titles. I know there are all those lists and charts of the top all time classics but for me personal opinion would be more valuable.

Obviously can't afford 100s of books, but most likely 3-5 :)

Cheers

[Berserker]

Does it have to be an English writer or somebody exiled here?

[Scrumpy]

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Heroine meets hero and hates him. Is charmed by a cad. A family crisis – caused by the cad – is resolved by the hero. The heroine sees him for what he really is and realises (after visiting his enormous house) that she loves him. The plot has been endlessly borrowed, but few authors have written anything as witty or profound as Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Cruelty, hypocrisy, dashed hopes: Jane Eyre faces them all, yet her individuality triumphs. Her relationship with Rochester has such emotional power that it's hard to believe these characters never lived.

David Copperfield
Charles Dickens
David's journey to adulthood is filled with difficult choices – and a huge cast of characters, from the treacherous Steerforth to the comical Mr Micawber.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy discover the land of Narnia and the malevolent White Witch. The novel uses Christian iconography in Aslan's dramatic sacrifice and resurrection. Edmund's transition from self-interested schoolboy to heroic young man is also resonantly spiritual.

The Railway Children
E. Nesbit
Nesbit's classic, made famous by the 1970 film, tells of how Bobby, Phyllis and Pete, missing their beloved father, adapt to a poverty-stricken life in the country, helped by Mr Perks, the Old Gentleman, and by waving to the train.

Winnie-the-Pooh
A.A. Milne
The Silly Old Bear, with his friends in Hundred Acre Wood, is more than a British institution. A.A. Milne created a life philosophy with the trials, triumphs and tiddley-poms of the honey-loving, always kind-hearted Pooh.

Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling
The boy wizard's dealings with the forces of adolescence and evil have sold more than 350million books in 65 languages. The Harry Potter phenomenon has its detractors, but the success of special 'grown-up' covers, allowing commuters to read Rowling without shame, tells its own tale.

The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
Lonely and miserable trying to clean his hole, Mole ventures outside. He meets Ratty, Toad and Badger, and embarks on a new life defending Toad Hall from the weasels, protecting Toad from himself and messing about in boats.

1984
George Orwell
So persuasive and chilling was the world summoned up here that 'Orwellian' has entered the language as shorthand for government control. Chilling, wry and romantic, it is above all a passionate cry for freedom.

The Day of the Triffids
John Wyndham
Shifty Soviets and the clipped vernacular make this a Fifties horror story. But as humans cope with disasters (mass blinding by meteor shower; ruthless walking, flesh-eating plants) the tale becomes taut, terrifying, and far from ridiculous.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It's one of literature's most wonderful ironies that Conan Doyle himself became a spiritualist so soon after creating the most famously rational character in all literature.

Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
From Istanbul to London, Hercule Poirot's little grey cells rattle away to improbable effect as he untangles the mystery of the life and violent death of a sinister passenger.

On the Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
No other book has so transformed how we look at the natural world and mankind's origins.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Originally broadcast on Radio 4, this quotable comedy about a hapless Englishman and his alien friend proved that sci-fi could be clever and funny.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Lynne Truss
In an attempt to stamp out poor punctuation, Truss compiled a lively and useful account for all those in doubt about how to use an apostrophe.

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
Winston Churchill
Taking us from Caesar's 55BC invasion to the Boer War's end in 1902, Churchill's four-volume saga makes the proud, but now-unfashionable, connection between speaking English and bearing 'the torch of Freedom'.

[Travers Barney]

You frighten me Scrumps.

Booked up for the blue scouse.

Might still do the mackems away.

coyw