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[Fedora.Pirate]

Post the books which you think everyone should read at least once, just to have read them because they're so significant. This is not meant to be a list of your favourite books. For example you might put Harry Potter down because of it's shear popularity and how often it's referenced in Pop Culture, but not because you thought it was a brilliant read. I hope that makes sense.
For me it'd be:
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The number of time this has been referenced in this forum alone should be enough. If you haven't read this, you've made writing Essays for English twice as hard for yourself, you can reference this for almost anything political.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. Such a confronting novel, the film is often referenced in Popular Culture, now see where it all started. If nothing else you'll at least come out with an arsenal of interesting quotes.

I'm sure there's more, I just can't think of them at the moment.

[kiki]

there are a number of books that come to mind in regards to 'culturally significant'.

so here's my list...

Maurice by E.M Forster - for you lazy people out there it's also a movie. given that it was written in 1914 - the subject matter is scandalous, and so deeply personal that he didnt publish it, it wasnt until he died that it was published. its considered by many scholars (particularly from cambridge, not hard to see why either!), as one of his inferior works. id argue its possibly his best, doing something autobiographical using his unique literary style and using literary techniques without getting caught up in OMG ITS ME, is something rare.



The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. If there's ever a time in your life that you'd like to understand the term 'character development' this is the book to read. I don't like it purely because in a literary sense it's fantastic, but because its a social critique of America in the 1920's, the jazz age!



Holding the Man by Timothy Conigrave - deeply personal and emotional, close to home and socially significant in the context of australia today. it was published in 1994, it details a relationship of Tim's and is not only a beautiful love story, it has a strong notion of criticism of australian society for that era, which still in a minor sense, exists today.