Modern books are great, don’t get me wrong.  I love modern literature just as much as the next person, but the books in this list are old.  So old that perhaps they’ve fallen into some measure of obscurity.  The main thing that astounded me about these particular selections, though, was that they compelled me to turn the pages late (and I mean really late) into the night, just like a modern thriller would.  As you’ll see, however, especially with the first selection, is that these are anything but modern thrillers.  Try these if you feel a taste for something different coming on…I promise you won’t be disappointed.

1. Beowulf.  The new translation by Seamus Heaney, bilingual edition, is great.  OK, I know you’ve heard of this.  The movie that was made a while ago ensured that everyone heard about Beowulf.  The question is, for all the people who have heard of it, how many have actually READ it? It was composed somewhere between the middle of the seventh and the end of the tenth century of the first millenium, making it one of, if not the, oldest work in English literature.  It is required reading for English majors at the university level all over the world, but it is definitely worth reading for the non-English major also.  If you like action, heroes defeating villains and saving entire populations in the process, then dying brave and noble deaths, then this is the book for you. 
2. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis.  Lewis’s most famous work is, of course, the Chronicles of Narnia (also very good; if you read them, read the whole series, from The Magician’s Nephew all the way to The Last Battle) The Screwtape Letters, though, is a superb example of dark comedy, starring two devils whose job is to corrupt people on earth.  What makes it so funny, and slightly disturbing at the same time, is that the story is told from the devil’s perspective, not from that of a heroic human trying to stop them.  Whether you believe in the little red guys with horns or not, this is an excellent read. 
3. Carmilla, by Sheridan le Fanu.  This recommendation comes from my brother, who loves gothic literature.  It actually predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by about 26 years, having been published in le Fanu’s 1872 collection of novellas, In a Glass Darkly.  Although many of us consider Bram Stoker’s work to have been the “original” vampire story, Carmilla is only one of several excellent, although more obscure, stories that actually came before Stoker’s famous work.  I don’t want to give away all the good parts, but the general plot is this: a young, innocent woman named Laura becomes entangled with a beautiful female vampire named Carmilla.  Strange dreams, eerie old portraits and the first female vampire romance ensues…  
4. Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.  The title pretty much speaks for itself…the Bounty is a ship in the mid-1700’s with a severely discontented crew.  For anyone that likes adventure and the high seas, this is a good one.  If you love books like Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson), this is a perfect example of the genre.  There have been a couple movie renditions, although none in recent years.  The first was in 1935, starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, the second in 1962, starring Marlon Brando.  The more recent film “The Bounty” starring Mel Gibson, was actually not based on the Nordhoff and Hall book, but on another novel by Richard Hough, Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian.  Both novels are based on the same true story of the Bounty…
5. The Winter’s Tale, by William Shakespeare.  I love Hamlet and MacBeth and all the more famous of the Bard’s expansive collection, but this is by far my favourite of the bunch.  It is one of his much later plays, having been performed in 1610-1611.  He died in Stratford in 1616.  This is one of those great stories that has tons of danger and sadness but (eventually) ends happily.  Florizell and Perdita, the two lovers, have been overshadowed by the rock-star status of Romeo and Juliet, but I think the dialogue between them is even more beautiful than that of their two more famous siblings.  The general idea of the story is that Perdita is a lost princess living, unknowing of her true status, on a distant shore.  When she falls in love with Florizell, the prince of the country, all the drama starts.  Well, actually, there was drama in order to get Perdita to the distant shore, but I’m not going to give that away…you’ll just have to read it. 

A couple bonuses: If you read French, one of my favourite collections of poems of all time, in any language, is Charles Beaudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.  I would never suggest reading these translated unless you can help it, they’re so much better in the original French. 

As for the English side of little extras, have you ever picked up Grimm’s Fairy Tales? The original, in some cases very frightening, ones?  Cinderella is well-known (and, contrary to the Disney version, surprisingly gruesome), but my favourite is The Princess in Disguise.  This one is different from most of the other fairy tales in the book in that this princess is savvy and smart, saving herself (alright, she did have a bit of help from a handsome king…) from disaster.  Happy Reading!!