WHAT OUR EXPERTS RECOMMEND

We're not silly enough to offer a list of must-read books without first seeking serious help.

That's why we asked a diverse group of Southern Nevada readers this simple, but not simply answered, question: What books -- fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, plays, poems, essays, young adult or children's books, or any other variation of the written word -- should everybody read before they die?

Their responses yielded a wide-ranging, fascinating collection of works both well-known and as-yet unfamiliar.

Here they are. Feel free to make the appropriate notations on your own personal lifetime reading lists.

Robyn Carr, novelist (The Virgin River and Grace Valley series): "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller; "The 9/11 Commission Report" by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks; "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy; "The Shell Seekers" by Rosamunde Pilcher; the Twilight Saga series ("Twilight," "New Moon" and "Eclipse") by Stephenie Meyer.

David Damore, associate professor of political science, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas: "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water" by Marc Reisner; "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West" by Wallace Stegner; "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad; "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Bishop Dan Edwards of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada: "The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality" by Belden C. Lane; "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene; "God's Silence" by Franz Wright.

Amy Ellwood, professor of family medicine and psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine: "Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living" by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler; "Tuesdays with Morrie" by Mitch Albom; The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling; "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein; "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath; "The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy" by Viktor E. Frankl; "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger; "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway; "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck; "Our Town: A Play in Three Acts" by Thornton Wilder.

Dayvid Figler, attorney/author/essayist: "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" by Michael Chabon; "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn; "White Noise" by Don DeLillo; "Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy" by Dave Hickey; "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" essays by Joan Didion; "Selected Poems" by James Tate; "Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death" by Kurt Vonnegut; "Maus: A Survivor's Tale," a two-volume graphic novel series by Art Spiegelman.

Mae Giaimo, branch manager, James Gibson Library, Henderson Libraries: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell; "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole; "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Sheriff Douglas Gillespie, Metropolitan Police Department: The Mitch Rapp series of espionage novels by Vince Flynn: "The Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic" by William Bratton with Peter Knobler; "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't" by Jim Collins.

Terry Goodkind, novelist (The Sword of Truth series): "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

Carolyn Goodman, head of school, The Meadows School: "The Ugly American" by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick; "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin.

Oscar Goodman, Las Vegas mayor: "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville; "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger.

Jenny Harms, seventh-grade English teacher, Canarelli Middle School: "Where the Red Fern Grows" by Wilson Rawls; "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton; "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee; "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck; "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger; "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker; "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou; "Annabel Lee," a poem by Edgar Allan Poe; "Aesop's Fables."

Patrice Hollrah, director of the UNLV Writing Center: "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" by Louise Erdrich; "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston; "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven," a short story collection by Sherman Alexie; "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss.

Padmini Jambulapati, seventh-grade reading teacher, Smith Middle School: "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen; "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote; "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" by Art Spiegelman; "Pale Fire" by Vladimir Nabokov; "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison; "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller.

Heather Murren, co-founder and chairman of the board, Nevada Cancer Institute: "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott; "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand; "The Educated Child: A Parent's Guide From Preschool Through Eighth Grade" by William J. Bennett.

Allyson O'Brien, reference librarian, Gibson branch, Henderson Libraries: "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck; "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.

Dr. Alan Rice, pediatric endocrinologist, assistant professor at the University of Nevada School of Medicine: "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman; "The Citadel" by A.J. Cronin; "The Civil War: A Narrative," a three-volume series by Shelby Foote; "Katherine" by Anya Seton.

Kevin Scanlon, reference librarian, Henderson Libraries: "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak; "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson.

Wendy Starkweather, director of user services, UNLV University Libraries: "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion; "Paradise" by Toni Morrison; "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood; "Open Secrets" by Alice Munro; "The House of the Spirits" by Isabel Allende; "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave" by Frederick Douglass; "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" and "A Death in the Family" by James Agee; "Death of a Salesman" (play) by Arthur Miller; "Macbeth" (play) by William Shakespeare; "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain; "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen; "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Daniel Walters, executive director, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District: "The Education of Henry Adams" by Henry Adams; "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain; "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner; "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Border Trilogy ("All the Pretty Horses," "The Crossing" and "Cities of the Plain") by Cormac McCarthy; "The American West as Living Space" (essays) by Wallace Stegner; "Waiting for the Barbarians" and "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee; "In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture" (essays) by George Steiner; "How to Read and Why" by Harold Bloom; "In Patagonia" by Bruce Chatwin.