English Reading
Check out the Penguin Graded Reader's series if you're looking for books by level.
The following books are not listed in any particular order but are recommended for students aged around 8-12. I'm working on a more level-specific list that I will post soon.
Black Beauty
Stuart Little
Old Yeller
The Trumpet of the Swan
The Chronicles of Narnia (Series)
Nancy Drew (Series)
The Land of Stories (Series)
Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking-glass
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler
The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
The Cricket in Times Square
The Boxcar Children (Series)
Peter Pan
The Bronze Bow
The Primrose Railway Children
The Swiss Family Robinson
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
The One and Only Ivan
Little House on the Prairie (Series)
The Book Thief
The Magic Tree House (Series)
A Bear called Paddington
Watership Down
Coraline
Mathilda
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Witches
The Light in the Woods
The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Princess Bride
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler
French Reading
The following books are not listed in any particular order but are recommended for students in the A1/A2 levels.
Tout le bleu du ciel
Le Petit Nicholas (a children's series; don't read it if you know you will be bored)
The following books are not listed in any particular order but are recommended for students in the B1/B2 levels.
La grammaire est une chanson douce
Chanson douce (a different and much darker book)
La Belle et la Bête (par Madame de Villeneuve)
Des Diables et des saints
Une Vie (par Maupassant)
Allumer le chat
Interested in Classics?
History
Primary Sources
[Roman] Suetonius
The Twelve Caesars - overview of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
[Roman] Cassius Dio
The Roman History: The History of Augustus
[Roman] Titus Livius (Livy)
The Early History of Rome - covers the time period from Romulus & Remus to Rome as a Kingdom to Rome as a Republic (“founding myth” + “revolution” + “constitution)
Secondary Sources
[British] Mary Beard
Emperor of Rome - based on Suetonius
Confronting the Classics - recommended for those with some preliminary knowledge
[British] Tom Holland
Pax
Rubicon
[American] Gilbert Highet
Poets in a Landscape - biographies of the most important Roman poets + literary analysis + history + travelogue
[Japanese] Nanami Shiono
Stories of the Greeks - a series based on Thucydides (Thucydides is too much for an introductory read, Shiono does a good job of synthesizing his material for a modern audience)
Stories of the Romans - a series from founding myth to fall
Ancient Literature/Historical Fiction/Mythology
Epics:
[Greek] Homer: Odyssey, Iliad
[Roman] Virgil: Aeneid
Plays - basically myths
Playwrights include [Greek] Aeschylus, [Greek] Euripides, [Roman] Seneca
[British] William Shakespeare: not particularly historically accurate, but obviously entertaining
Julius Caesar
Antony and Cleopatra
[British] Robert Graves (penguin classics translator of Suetonius)
I, Claudius - 80% historically accurate
[American] John Williams
Augustus - epistolary novel about the late republic/early empire
[Roman] Ovid
Metamorphoses - a lot of Greco-Roman myths woven together into a grand tapestry
[American] Edith Hamilton
Mythology - all the important Greco-Roman myths, plus some less well-known ones
[Modern Greek] Constantine P. Cavafy - Poems
[Modern Greek] Yannis Ritsos - Poems