Read Dream of the Red Chamber

Austen's witty romance of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy (1813).

A married woman, a cavalry officer and a train; "all happy families are alike".

A Tokyo dilettante and a geisha at a hot-spring town; Kawabata's Nobel novel.

The shining prince and the women of the Heian court; the first novel, written by a woman around 1010.

Wire-work swordplay across the bamboo forests of Qing dynasty China.

A lie by a 13-year-old in 1935 and Dunkirk; McEwan's best.

Four families and a mother's search for a husband for Lata in 1950s India; 1,349 pages.

Connell and Marianne from Sligo to Trinity College; Sally Rooney.