Book recommendations?

[Carol]

Carol earlier:
> 
> > "Werther" greatly influenced the English Romantics and their
Victorian successors. It's a classic Bildungsroman. Wasn't it the
first novel in that genre, Miles?
> >
> > Carol, who read it in English for a course in Romanticism
> 
> Miles:
> Well, not really a Bildungsroman, since it ends with the suicide of
the main character ;), so it's not a story of becoming mature, but of
refusing to do so. <snip?

Carol responds:
My mistake. I was thinking of the Wilhelm Meister novels, especially
the first one, which is generally regarded as the prototypical
Bildungsroman. It's been a very long time since I took that class!

Miles: 
> I'm afraid that most people in the English and German speaking
countries are  not that much aware of the connections of our
literature traditions. Many English classics mentioned here or
elsewhere I've never heard of, I read only few in translations and
even fewer in the original - while I know quite a lot of German
classics (at least considering my generation).

Carol:
Maybe it's a failure of modern education, at least in the U.S.
Languages, literature, and history before the Civil Rights movement
are out of fashion here, with the emphasis placed on
"multiculturalism" and on "important" subjects, such as math and
science. Or that's the impression I got when I was still teaching
freshman composition.

Miles: 
> Speaking of traditions, upthread
> 
> Carol wrote:
> > I have reread and would recommend the Bible (must reading for
anyone who wants to be culturally literate with regard to Western
culture regardless of religion or the absence thereof, and for sheer
beauty and poetry and effect on Western culture, I would recommend the
King James version. If your concern is an accurate translation, try a
more recent one).
> 
> Miles again:
> English speaking countries are not the only sources of "Western
culture", and Bible translations are important for the development of
many modern languages in "our" countries. I don't doubt you know this
well enough, I just sort of stumbled over your generalization. What I
think is true for the King James translation and English, is maybe
even more true for German and the Martin Luther translation. Luther
and his "High German" variation from Saxony became standard for
orthography and punctuation, and is the source for modern German since
today. <snip>

Carol responds:

Yes. I realized how that remark must sound and corrected myself later
in the thread:

"I'm just stating that the King James Bible, specifically, is a
literary and cultural treasure even for those outside the Christian
faith, and its impact on British and American language and literature
is probably incalculable. I'm talking about the beauty of the language
and the importance of this particular translation to Western
civilization (I should amend that to the culture and literature of
English-speaking countries)."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/36403

To be clear, I meant that the Bible is an important cultural influence
on all of Western culture, and the King James translation is
particularly influential in English-speaking countries. I certainly
didn't mean to exclude other important translations! Unfortunately,
many of us on this list don't read German, so we can't read the German
translation despite the importance of Martin Luther to the Protestant
tradition, but we can all read English and consequently appreciate the
beauty of the King James translation.

Carol, who thinks that new languages should be taught to children of
six or seven, whose brains are more receptive than those of teenagers
to that sort of learning