A partially autobiographical, partially allegorical, partially historical book written a long, long time ago that chronicles the rise and fall of several cultures, and their struggles with the forces of Hatred, Love, prejudice, oppression, slavery, jealousy, anger, envy, greed, and demagoguery.
People today have fashioned their lives (and sometimes their clothing) after this book. Several movies exist based on this book
The Bible
You were expecting
Star Wars IV: A New Hope?
Song of the South?
House of Leaves bogs down tremendously in the middle with numerous branching, circular footnotes and text inserts. It borders on being difficult to navigate or even find one’s own place.
Be yourself.
Moby Dick
“Equal parts ghost story, political intrigue, doomed romance, and murder mystery…” These are real quotes from the advertising material for a current production of HAMLET (Writer’s Theatre in Chicago), cracked me up totally.
A Hiker’s guide to America.
In this remarkable series of books, you will travel from the Eastern Atlantic coast, to Maine in the West.
Across deserts and through forrests, you will read of an America you never dreamed existed. Along the way there are ghost towns to be explored, small communities almost frozen in time, and unbelievable landscapes.
This is a wonderous account of one man’s journey, the people he meets along the way, and most of all, America.
5 stars.
The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King
Charming side-story about the children befriending a local retarded man.
(yes, Mockingbird; tho Song of South shows you were getting there. 
A fictionalized investigation of the overriding and determinate role of seasonality and weather in human relations.
A Song of Ice and Fire
A couple more non-original ones:
The Wizard of Oz.And:
Anthony and Cleopatra (I think. Possibly Macbeth. Supposedly uttered by a theater-goer during the Victorian era.) And, somewhat in similar vein, there is, of course
While the book boasts a magnificent cast of colorful characters, from our protagonist the aardvark to his eventual confrontation with the zebra, I found the writing to be lacking in cohesion. The plot was difficult to determine, and at times I got the sense that the author felt a desperate urge to impress us with his knowledge of common and uncommon terminology alike.
You owe me a keyboard, or at least some wipes.
Oh, that’s good! Best one yet, IMO!
A man must choose between his older sibling and the woman he loves. In the end, he realizes that his love for his family member must take precedence.
1984
Funny, I thought it was just another dry and boring story about a haunted house.
The author jumps from one topic to another, and gets bogged down with endless moralizing, often contradictory. The main character - often heard from but rarely seen - seems to be everywhere at once, defying logic. And the book’s at least ten times as long as it needs to be.
The Bible.
I for one don’t think this review misses the point at all. The damn things were pretty much just a window dressed love story IMO.
Oh, you got me there, you Collectivist!
Not only did this book offer no new insights into our hobby, would it kill the publishers to include basics like Scottish timetables, a check list of current rolling stock or perhaps some nice illustrations(like the re-engineered class 57) ?
Hrm, I haven’t read them, but from my viewing of the movie and from what my wife confirms is more explicit in the first book, the “love story” is basically manufactured by the protagonist in order to get support from the audience. Is this not so?
A morality tale that will teach children the consequences of gluttony.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The paranoid author’s dystopian view of the future, mercifully, has been proven to be completely obsolete.
1984
Literally, (ouch) There are at least a dozen “major” authors. (Moses, David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the Major Prophets)) and an equal number of “minor” authors (The minor Prophets, Jude, and James).