The 'Must-Have' Collection.
 

Leaving all subjective preferences aside (I, for instance, will not mention Dan Simmons) it is evident that there are some books that just need to be read by everyone.
I believe it would be nice to encourage more people to read by mentioning some of those classics everyone should have knowledge about, and even alluding to them in general posts.
A perfect example of what I mean is the talk of A Clockwork Orange some time ago. Omega even spoke Nadsat. And I still remember an old member (cool guy) called Korova; guess from what book that is.
So anyway, there must be many books we can think of that everyone should have read or have a trivial knowledge about. Think of this as a practical expansion of our bookshelves.
I shall name some that I believe everyone should read (not by my taste, but by content):
-The Bible (at least to a certain extent)
-Gulliver's Travels
-A Clockwork Orange (seems recurrent enough around here and is not that long)
-Dracula (boring, but obviously important)
-Macbeh
-Edgar Allan Poe in general
-The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Wuthering Heights'- By Charlotte Bronte
"Collected Poems"- Dylan Thomas
"Idylls of the King"- Tennyson
"Frankenstein" - Mary Shelley
"Mists of Avalon" and "The Forest House"- Marian Zimmer Bradley
"Their Eyes Were Watching God"- Zora Neale Hurston
"Finn McCool"- Morgan Llewellyn
"The Last Unicorn" and "A Fine and Private Place" - Peter S. beagle
"The Little Country" and "Someplace to be Flying"- Charles de Lint
"American Jezebel" - Eve laPlante
"Fried Green Tomatoes" - Fannie Flagg (seriously)
"Merchant of Venice" - Shakespeare
"The Jew of Malta" - Marlowe
"A Separate Peace" - John Knowles
"The Decameron" - Boccaccio

Damn! And I was hoping to read all of the books in this thread before going to college.:p
But, reducing the list, which ones would you say are more archetypal and important in regard to their meaning?

EDIT: Speaking about meaning, there's also the book of The Wizard of Oz, which is nothing but a metaphor on populism.

"The Princess Bride" I think it may be out of print now, but the unabridged version was damn funny. I also recommend:

anything by Caleb Carr

The "Necromancer" series

"Cause of Death" great if you're studying forensics

"Dorian Grey" was already mentioned, but also good

"The Price of Priviledge" read this if you're getting annoyed by my rants about evil preps

Oh, that's good, I should have included a small line about why it would be important to read the writings I mentioned.

"Wuthering Heights'- By Charlotte Bronte- this is the ESSENTIAL Gothic Love Story of Catherine and Heathcliffe. You shouldn;t leave high school without reading this one

"Idylls of the King"- Tennyson- as well as his Arthurian Legends, he is one of the most prolific and melodic of his genre. Loreena McKennit sang his "Lady of Shallot"

"Their Eyes Were Watching God"- Zora Neale Hurston- this one is basically a woman finding herself (an Oprah Book club selection, ahem...), but it is such an eye openern and such a tragic tale that I think everyone should read it. But I read it when I was 17 and hated it, I read it last year, at 28, and cried like a baby. I think it depends on where you are in life

"The Last Unicorn" and "A Fine and Private Place" - Peter S. beagle- Beagle is essential fantasy to me. fast reads, elegant, hysterical, and heartbreaking. The Last Unicorn is almost a poem.

"Merchant of Venice" - Shakespeare and "The Jew of Malta" - Marlowe
Two very similar tales by contemporary playwrights.... All of Shakespeare is a must, as in all of Marlowe- but the handling of the "Other", the Jew is different- makes you wonder what teh AntiSemitism is, if it is, if it is now or just telling of the time

"A Separate Peace" - John Knowles- a high school read, but all the same, it make me understand quiet and consequences better than any prior book

"The Decameron" - Boccaccio. This is, aside from Vasari's "The Lives of The Artists", Veronica Franco's Love Poems, Castigliones "The Book of the Courtier", Martin Luther's reformed Bible, and of course, Machiavelli's "The Prince", the Ultimate Renaissance read...

... a group of kids in isolation during the plague, telling tales to pass the time. Think Gruesome Chaucer.

1984
A good dictionary
A clockwork Orange
Dracula

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Read it and you will understand why I nominate it for the list.

The Illustrated Man by Bradbury. It's a gorgeous collection, with a nifty 'theme'.

Good Omens By Pratchett and Gaiman. Because it's brilliant.

Animal Farm by Orwell. Like 1984, but a quicker read.

A good poetry collection. Doesn't matter which.

The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, to experience beautifully dark poetry.

"Crimson Kiss" - Trisha Baker
not the best written, not deep and thoughtful, cliche'd vampire sh*t; It was a gift from a friend and it helped me get through a hard series of events. It's one of those quick reads that'll make you blush to read in the same room as your parents.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Divine Comedy" by Dante Alighieri (Basic knowledge of)
"The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, Arabian Nights" by ?

Oh, and I must not forget:

"Night" by Elie Wiesel

Night and the Thousand and One Nights I agree with immensely.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Because it's a classic, because of its influence on dark romance stories and because it's a damn good thriller.

Belljar by Sylvia Plath. Because it's a major work within literature that deals with mental illness, and because Plath's fiction should be known as well as her poetry.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Because of its vital influence on horror and because no one else mentioned it yet. It deserves to be up there with Dracula and Frankenstein.

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Because it's the best classic within the Noir genre that I can think of.

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet - A must because of its renown, its literary value and its influence on other surreal/dual realities stories.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Should be obvious why. Because of literary value and renown.

Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Deserves a mention because Tennyson's Arthurian legends and Mists of Avalon have been mentioned, and this is by the original author of the Arthurian legends (as original as it gets anyway, I realize Malory may have had other sources)

Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. Both books are equally important in my opinion. A must because they're stories that most people have heard of, but few have actually read, and because Hugo was a brilliant writer.

Faust by Goethe. Because Dr. Faust is an archetype in literature and because the story is a classic.

Good thread.

Brave New World-Huxley
Fahrenheit 451-Bradbury
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf-Albee

Gone with the wind - an interesting study of character and the female side of adultry and lust while providing a gloriously vivid picture of the pre-, during, and post civil war South

None have mentioned

The Hitch hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Discworld books - Terry Pratchett

These should be read when you need a break from Poe et al and something to tickle your funny bone.

Apart from that, let me add that if you haven't read fairytales since your childhood, you're missing out big time.

Yeah, I like fairytales. A lot of them are good even now.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
and some of E.E. Cummings experimental poetry.
I'd also wager a bit of Blake and Yeats wouldn't hurt.

robert frost's poetry is not exactly gothic, but good nonetheless

Perfume - the story of a murderer by Patrick Süskind

History of Bestiality by Bjoerneboe...