Some gems not yet specifically mentioned:

- the Murphy/Molloy/Malone Dies trilogy by Samuel Beckett Parts of it are hard going, and the message is often bleak, but it is also very funny, and, I believe, uplifting.

- If This Is A Man, Primo Levi Primo Levi's account of his experience as a prisoner in Auschwitz is amazing. One of the most surprising things to me was how in even such an extreme system of us (prisoners)and them (guards), different social levels existed and moral choices for those caught up in it were never simple.

- At Swim Two Birds, Flann O'Brien Hilarious parodies of all the various genres of Irish Literature and some great characters.

- The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler A great insight into the relationship between science and culture. Even scientists confronted by reliable facts are imprisoned by their own beliefs. Copernicus spent most of his life trying to fit the data he collected about the movements of the planets into the belief that they moved around the earth rather than the sun. - The Dead, James Joyce His greatest short story. John Huston made a wonderful film of it in which his daughter Anjelica is brilliant.

- Football Against The Enemy, Simon Kupar Great articles about the interaction between football and politics in various parts of the globe. His account of the Stasi persecution of a completely apolitical East German fan of Eintracht Frankfurt shows how absurd that regime really was.

I'm surprised, by the way, that nobody has mentioned Catcher in the Rye. Has it fallen out of favour?

A great subject for a thread. When do we get to talk about plays?