So in a different post, I found to my astonishment a number of people whose favorite books and literature are among my favorite. But in order to stop hijacking the other thread and having a book conversation it, I decided to just put up my list of literature I think is essential reading.

I am definitely interested in others to keep expanding my horizons.

My list:
Holy Bible
Common Sense - Thomas Paine
Declaration of Independence - Various
Articles of Confederation - Various
Constitution of the United States of America - Various
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
Anti-Federalist Papers - Various
Areopagitica - John Milton (A MUST for today with all the anti-free speech leftist/regressive movement going on).
Paradise Lost - John Milton
The Prince - Machiavelli
The Art of War - Sun-Tzu
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Beowulf - Unknown
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkien

How about some Stephen King's?
(Though I guess many people here have read a lot of his books.)
The Stand
Different Seasons

Isn't there a famous collection put together by Mortimer Adler and some other guy about "essential" Western reading?

Edit: Great Books of the Western World, collected by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins.

The Bible, Articles of Confederation and the likes are essential books for someone living in South Korea or China (for example)? I certainly don't think so.

1984, on the other hand, can definitely be put on the list, as it actually has some relevance.

Add to that other books, like Les Misérables or Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.

Mary Douglas - Purity and danger (also : Risk and culture)
PG Wodehouse - Right ho Jeeves
Stanley Cohen - States of denial
RL Stevenson - Treasure Island
Gerald Bronner - La pensée extrême
Albert Simonin - Le cave se rebiffe (the whole "max le menteur" trilogy, actually, as the ending is the best written ever)
Anthony Good - Anthropology and expertise in the asylum courts
George Arnaud - The wages of fear (and his "Le voyage du mauvais larron" is just as awesome)
Erving Goffman - The presentation of self in everyday life
James Kakalios - The physics of super-heroes
Arturo Perez-Reverte - Captain Alatriste (for instance)
Primo Levi - If it is a man
André Langaney - Les hommes passé présent conditionnel
JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit
Numa Sadoul - Interviews with Hergé and Interviews with Franquin
Noel Simsolo - Interviews with Sergio Leone
Victor Klemperer - Lingua Tertii Imperii
Jim Ottaviani - T minus (hey? it's a comic book!)
Pierre Clastres - Society against the state (and also his "chronicles of the guayaki indians")
Denis Robert - Mohicans
Umberto Eco - The name of the rose (or "Foucault's Pendulum")
Hannah Arendt - Eichmann in Jerusalem
Jorge Luis Borges - Fictions (for instance)
Ignacio Ramonet - Le chewing-gum des yeux
Roland Barthes - Mythologies
Marc Augé and Jean-Paul Colleyn - The world of the anthropologist (also everything by Marc Augé really)
Roger Moore - My word is my bond
Nathalie Sarraute - Pour un oui ou pour un non (hey? it's a theater play!)
David Graeber - Bureaucracy
René Fallet - La soupe aux choux
James Scott - Two cheers for anarchism

...uh, what is the adequate amount ?

Tangled (Tangled, #1) by Emma Chase
Never Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #2; Too Far, #2) by Abbi Glines
Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #1; Too Far, #1) by Abbi Glines
Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno, #2) by Sylvain Reynard
Motorcycle Man (Dream Man, #4) by Kristen Ashley
Seduction and Snacks (Chocolate Lovers, #1) by Tara Sivec
The Mighty Storm (The Storm, #1) by Samantha Towle
Claim Me (Stark Trilogy, #2) by J. Kenner

If there was a list of the most pointless things in the world, at the top would be making lists about things and calling them essential or must.
For instance, quite a lot of the world is outside the U.S., I know that might be hard to take, so why would we be interested in declaration of independence or any of the other U.S. centric documents on that list?

Second on the list would be achievements.

I don't feel like debating what's essential" and to whom, so I'll just suggest these

Walden- Thoreau
Left Hand of Darkness- Ursula LeGuin
Watership Down- Richard Adams
Small Gods- Terry Pratchett
The Once and Future King- T.H. White
The Killer Angels- Michael Shaara
The Naked Sun- Isaac Asimov

I don't know how "essential" they are, but I'm sure the world would be at least a little better if more people read those.

Ugh... Ender's Game...

I give you bonus points for Atlas Shrugged though.

- Dune series by Frank Herbert

- Prequel to Dune series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

- I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

- The Icewind Dale Trilogy by R. A. Salvatore

- The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore

Windows 10 EULA

Does your name come from the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ?

I know a lot comes from outside the US. I was born outside the US.

The reason for so many US based documents is because the writings and foundation for freedom, independence, liberty and self governance still matter today. What they achieved is astonishing. How much they have meant to the world is incredible. In 1776 the world was ruled by empires and monarchies, as it had been for thousands of years. In less than 250 years that has gone away. Republics, Democracies, Parliaments have formed and many use the U.S. Constitution as a base.

The U.S. also wrote Japan's Constitution following WWII and the Japanese have embraced it and experienced greater success ever since. You can also read how often Australia looked at US Supreme Court ruling as a guide to their own rulings and own governance.

Look at India and how much Federalism they have. Each state has very broad power away from the federal government. It was a British colony also.

I don't see them as U.S. exclusive. I find them, and what the U.S. has achieved, to be the greatest arguments for self-governance of all people.

No.

I have used it for years, I liked the thought of having magic and one day I was listening to the band Heart (the Wilson chicks rip!) and they have a song called Magic Man - about a stud. Thought it was perfect, wrote it as one word and used the letter "j" instead of "g" way back before all the leetspeak as a unique identifier because (this is way old now) on IRC when you left you never kept a handle so proper spelling or to generic names would be taken often. Same when ESPN.com would hold trivia contests online (yeah this was back when the community was small enough that maybe 30 people would be on ESPN.com) and 20 would be playing the trivia, but handles always changed.