This thread is prompted by H.H's excellent inquiry here.

Name the works (no more that five), recognized as "Great Literature", that you would most highly commend as vital reading for an educated person.

(Let's exclude the Bible, as that would surely be on many lists of "vital literature".)

Just off the top of my head, here we go:

_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ - Twain

_Their Eyes were Watching God_ - Hurston

_To Kill a Mockingbird_ - Lee

_Pride and Prejudice_ - Austen



I can't decide on another one. I chose each of these because they poignantly convey a valuable part of the culture and philosophy of their time while still being well-written and engaging. IMHO, the best reason to read a book is because you find it enjoyable in some way. The best reason to recommend a book is because it changed you in some way. All of these meet this criteria for me.

That is exactly the kind of thing I meant, CW.

Well good - I'm glad! Welcome to the board, btw. Tell us more about yourself! Your profile is sadly empty.

More about myself:

• I am trilingual, speaking Hebrew, English and Russian.
  
• I live in Israel, and although Ensligh is not my mother tongue, I learnt it at an early age and have a great love of it. In fact, most of my reading is done in english.
  
• I was seriously considering taking a liguistics or linguistics- related B.A, but finally decided against it. It will have to wait for the next time around.
  
• I have recently began to staudy Latin by my own. For those of you who know it, you can imagine what an uphill battle it is, none the less it is very interesting.
  
• That's about it, really.
  

One more thing: the initials of my nickname are those of my favourite literary character. Can you guess who that is?

Um... Horatio Hornblower?

Henry Higgins (or should I say 'enry 'iggins)? It would seem to tie in with language.

Hugh Hefner? Hubert Humphrey?

Welcome, HH! How nice to have someone from Israel here.

BTW, CW, what do you know about people thinking that Capote really wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird?" I recently heard a wonderful discussion on that on NPR. They interviewed a professor who was quite persuasive that Capote didn't really write it, and I guess they've recently found some letters by Capote that is also quite persuasive.

I'd think Shakespeare...maybe Hamlet or King Lear, but many of them. I agree about Pride and Prejudice. I love The Sound and the Fury, by Faulkner. How could you manage to live without reading Carroll? Life is made so much more pleasant when I read A.A. Milne's poems.

Kalleh, I'd never even heard of that myth about Capote before, but in searching I found this article about his letter. Pity that Nelle Harper Lee isn't trusted enough to have written it herself. It's always been one of my favorite books, and I'm glad to know she did it alone.

I"d never heard the rumor before, but I wouldn't have believed it. I have read before that Atticus Finch was based on her father, Scout was based on her, and Dill was based on Capote.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of my favorite novels.

Tinman

The professor on NPR also was very persuasive that Capote couldn't possibly have written it. He said the persona was completely different in this book as compared to Capote's books and that it is almost impossible for authors to change their personae. Actually, I think he said "impossible," but I have a hard time thinking that something like this would be "impossible."

Humbert Humbert?

Yes, we have a winner! The initials of H.H is Humbert Humbert, the main character of Nobokov's Lolita. I adore the persona of the European finding America difficult, not to mention some of his other...pecularities shall we say.
Arnie - 5 bonus points

Oh for heaven's sake...Arnie doesn't need any more points. He wins everything! In our Wordplay forum, he gets all our bluffing game words right, and now he is even getting the first lines of books right!

Great name, H.H! [I bet Arnie wouldn't have guessed that there's only one period. ]