I was at The Upward Call and came across this list of books that British librarians believe are the books every adult should read before they die:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann MartelMiddlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

I was surprised that the Name of the Rose wasn’t on the list, it was an excellent book and well worth slogging through the first 100 pages to get to the interesting part. I agree with the author that the first part of the book was necessary to set the tone of the book.
I was also surprised that A Tale of Two Cities wasn’t on the list, though they probably didn’t want to make it an all Dickens list. I really believe that this book should be on the list because it is such a wonderful story of selflessness and sacrificial love, something our society needs to think about (we are sooo self-centered, only thinking about what’s in it for me).

But I was not surprised to see that the Bible was on this list since it is the greatest literary work ever created, what other work has so many authors, over such an expanse of time and cultures and yet shares a common theme? Also, so much of the really great literature presupposes a knowledge of the Bible that it would be impossible to get the true meaning of the author without a knowledge of it.
Read the article here.
(Link for article via The Crusty Curmudgeon)