Это пустое занятие. Во-первых, ТОР-10 книг человечества уже составлены (Библия, Коран, и т.д.)

Что касается художественной литературы, то тут сколько людей, столько же будет и списков. Пример с западных сайтов на вопрос:

Если бы вас попросили составить список из лучших 10 книг, что бы вы в него включили?

(из первого списка читал 6 книг: 2 - Ильфа и Петрова, на англ.- Сэлинджера, Шекспира, Голсуорси и Хемингуэя)

If you were asked to make up TOP 10 Books, what books and authors would you include to this chart?

So this is my Top 10 Books:

1. Hear the Wind Sing / Haruki Murakami - The book is about nothing and everything at the same moment, from the very first pages the reader involves to the routine life of a main character and joins the speed and melodious rhythm of a big city.
2. The Little Golden Calf / Ilf and Petrov – If you are seeking something to amuse yourself, you are at the right way. Laughing to the death is guaranteed!
3. The Twelve Chairs / Ilf and Petrov – Every sentence is like a saying, every passage is like an anecdote. The ice broke up, ladies and gentlemen!
4. The Collector / J. Fowles – A fascinating novel which reveals drama and horror… surprises and frightens at the same time.
5. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer / P. Süskind – A stunning novel that makes you feel not only the smell of your perfume but also the smell everything that surrounds you.
6. The Catcher in the Rye / D. Salinger – While reading this book the reader lives the life of this miserable and cynical teenager. You feel as if you his friend who to tries to save him from great troubles.
7. Hamlet / W. Shakespeare - It is a tragedy that all actors seem to crave to perform. You may see many characters like these in “Hamlet” around you today.
8. The Forsyte Saga / J. Galsworthy – the author gives a vivid depiction of the English society of that period of time. The magnificent style of the whole book is just one more reason to read the book up to the end.
9. The Old Man and the Sea / E. Hemingway - With "The Old Man and the Sea," it is so easy to see why Hemmingway was awarded the Nobel Prize. This short novel is fierce, full of vibrant energy and humanity, all the while being a slave to the realities of finite power, of the inability to struggle against something greater than yourself.
10. Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris) / E. Zolya - It is an excellent view of the food markets and the people who work in and around this very small section of Paris. It is a sometimes sad and sometimes comical view of the shortcomings of everyday working people - just as true today as when it was written.

А это другой человек:
Из этого списка ничего не читал, и не собираюсь...

1. American Gods/ Neil Gaiman
2. Neverwhere/ Neil Gaiman
3. Enders Shadow/ Orson Scott Card
4. The Talisman/ Stephen King / Peter Straub
5. In Legend Born / Laura Resnick
6. Lightning/ Dean Koontz
7. Stormbringer/ Michael Moorcock
8. The Dresden Files / Jim Butcher
9. The Codex Alera / Jim Butcher
10. legend of the drow / R.A. Salvatore

А этот человек считает, что приведенные ниже книги вообще перевернут вашу жизнь:
Лично я читал из этого списка на англ. "Улисса" Джойса и Диккенса: замечательно, конечно, но не скажу, чтоб особо повлияли на жизнь...

Ten Books That Will Change Your Life
•  Ulysses by James Joyce What else. Everytime I read this I find something new, and am inspired to write more, to explore more, to think about my own life (and my family) in broader terms. This is the book of books. It isn't easy, but unlike a quick easy "airport novel" or "beach read" it keeps repaying the effort of reading.
•  Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco Forget about Dan Brown. When it comes to the mysteries inherent in religious orders like the Templars or the Rosiecrucians, Eco is impossible to beat. Add a dash of literary panache, and more erudition than you ever encountered in one renaissance man, and a great, engaging story that raises as many questions as it answers. I've read it three times and that just isn't enough.
•  A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson Okay, this isn't fiction. It isn't self-help either, but by god Bryson has a way with words. He's a true master at turning science into poetry and illuminating the absolute beauty, mystery and richness inherent in the universe around us. I wrote a whole poetry book after reading this I was so inspired.
•  Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan You need to read this one in full colour. This is a big, funny, sprawling, heady, monster of a novel masquerading as historical fiction. It's not. It's literature pure and simple, and will leave you breathless at its alchemy. Also a rocking good story set in a Tasmania prison.
•  Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey Does this one surprise you? It won a Booker Prize, and well deserved too. I read it during my first labour, so was a little emotional, but it was so beautifully written I only stopped when the contractions were 3 minutes apart! Despite having a wonderful cast, a great director, and a lovely setting, the film was awful, but the book is magnificent. A true testimony to the literary power of one of our greatest modern authors. Reads like a romance. But its about so much more than this one relationship -- it's about real love, about loss, about hunger and addiction. All of Carey's work is good, but this one is beyond good.
•  History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes Like Carey, Barnes is one of our modern literary masters. Everything he's written is worth reading, but this book is life-changing. Like every book on the list here, it's very funny, and often challenging, innovative, and linguistically rich. The book works on multiple levels -- and tells a number of disparate stories (including Noah's Ark from the point of view of a woodworm) which come together in a kind of firework display of meaning.
•  Orxy and Crake by Margaret Atwood or maybe The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, or Alias Grace. But I really liked Orxy and Crake because, despite being a distopia, bordering on sci fi (which I normally wouldn't like), there's so much here about who we are now. Also I couldn't stop laughing, but it was never ridiculous, and always moving, intense and scary.
•  Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie but this could also be The Satanic Verses or The Moor's Last Sigh. Rushdie is so heady -- his work is full of sensual, almost purple richness -- the characters speak a language which is near made up and the scenes border on magical realism, but always rooted in great, almost epic heroines and heroes, and a kind of Bollywood humour. Always, always, the work is underscored by a great love for humanity in all its quirky freedoms.
•  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Picking and choosing now that I'm near the end of my list is hard -- there are so many good books out there. But Marquez' work is so distinctive. In many ways, it follows Rushdie's in illuminating just how vast the human potential is. But the sensuality is of a very different kind. More fruit and less spice.
•  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Dickens is a wildcard here and deliberately so, but there's something so modern about Great Expectations. Perhaps it's the maturity of his narration, or the way in which the Magwitch's pain is tranformed into something glittery. Like the other books on this list, the humanism, the love of the quirky, and the absolute clarity of the writing to say things it never said before makes all of Dickens worth reading (but I have a particular fondness for this book -- you could also check out Peter Carey's Jack Maggs as a follow up).

Отредактировано Elion (2009-12-01 11:57:20)

Никогда не встречал этих имён. Хотя это и не значит, что они не могут быть очень важны для какого-нибудь читателя.

тогда напишите те книги, которые школьники должны прочесть.

Пустое, если просто перечислять книги и авторов. Интересно было бы узнать, что именно читатели думают о избранных ими книгах. Призываю отметившихся в этой теме дать хотя бы краткую рецензию хотя бы об одной книге.

Совсем другой разговор.

Или все таки хокку (発句) ?

(Шучу: по-моему, все варианты употребляются...)

Кунц и Муркок - довольно известные фантасты. Хотя лично меня не впечатляют...

"Все" -- это кто?

"Американец - это не гражданство, а диагноз" (Юлиан Семенов) - 

Похоже на прикол. Английский язык русского типа.