5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

This can be different than what you think are the greatest 5 books, so this isn't a GOAT (greatest of all-time) but a post about books that you feel are important and should be read by all, maybe that goes hand in hand...oh well. Here's my list:

1. Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy (Greatest living American author)

2. Ulysses- James Joyce (Not many books rival the impact that this one had on literature. There is even a day--Bloomsday--celebrated in honor of the main character. The banned publications, errors, incredible vocabulary of 30,000 words and its introduction of "stream of conciousness" writing makes this book as important as any book ever)

3. The Alchemist- Paulo Coelho (Inspirational, each line seems to have wisdom and he seems to do it without pretention)

4. In Cold Blood- Truman Capote (Greatest Non-fiction book ever written)

5. Johnny Got His Gun- Dalton Trumbo (The essay on war at the end is something everyone, IMO, should read. Plus his background and his genius make this book a must read)

List your additions...

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. A great book by a great writer, making science and its methods accessible while capturing the sense of wonder.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

That is a good list. I would like to know how many out there have read "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy? It is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest novels and pieces of history together and should be required reading by anyone who considers themselves well read. But perhaps the length throws some people off.

So throw that and "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevsky onto the list as well.

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I tried to like In Cold Blood and I simply hated the book and found it torturous to read and I gave up after about 100 pages. I really wanted to like the book and I just couldnt. The book moves at such an incredibly slow pace and I kept waiting for there to be some payoff..some buildup or something worthwhile. I can't think of another book that I didnt finish.

I mean this is all seriousness - what is so good about this book?

funny - I asked Mrs. Utah if this post sounded stupid and she confessed that she couldn't make it through the book either.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

1. Huckleberry Finn
2. Crime and Punishment
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. The Catcher in the Rye
5. The Fountainhead

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
I tried to like In Cold Blood and I simply hated the book and found it torturous to read and I gave up after about 100 pages. I really wanted to like the book and I just couldnt. The book moves at such an incredibly slow pace and I kept waiting for there to be some payoff..some buildup or something worthwhile. I can't think of another book that I didnt finish.

I mean this is all seriousness - what is so good about this book?

funny - I asked Mrs. Utah if this post sounded stupid and she confessed that she couldn't make it through the book either.

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I was greatly dissapointed, also. As far as true crime goes, Helter Skelter is light-years better.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

The Bible

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Utah- I love the way Truman Capote writes and I am not in the minority here, this doesn't mean you have to though and there is nothing wrong with not liking ICB. I can't stand Ayn Rand and it seems that everybody and their brother worships the ground she walks on, this is fine as art is impartial. As for "In Cold Blood," the first time I read it I found myself completely attached to sociopaths and murderers and finding it within myself to have feelings for these cretins, b/c of Capote. I loved the relationship between Truman and the killers and the effects and changes you see amongst everyone in the book. I never found this book to be boring and found it very emotional to be honest, I read it a second time and felt the same way.

Lets see your list!

pokerspite- That is your opinion but I just can't see how that can be correct, even if you think it is better there is no way it is "light years" better, could you maybe exaggerating a little bit? I obviously don't think "Helter Skelter" is as good as ICB but we all have our interests.

Give us your list as well!

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

tdarko,
I've been known to use a bit of hyperbole.

Anyhow, though Bugliosi certainly isn't the writer that Capote is, his story is just way (maybe not light years) more interesting. For that genre, I just think its a much better book. This certainly is a matter of opinion and not fact.

I'll submit my list manana. It's getting late.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Paulo Coelho

This guy has a gigantic section in the book store. Ive picked up a couple of them and they have all looked terrible.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

KKF,

Usually you should read the book before making the judgement but just so you know typical inspirational and books with bits of wisdom sprinkled throughout are the exact types of books I usually hate and stay away from. This book is different, it isn't forceful or cheesy, it is extremely well-written and applies to many walks of life. I have read a couple of his other books b/c of "The Alchemist" and they are good as well but not even remotely as good as "The Alchemist." It is a quick read and well worth it. It is the only "inspirational" and/or book that many claim as "life-changing" (I think people saying books change their lives is kind of weird) that I have ever liked.

~td

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

I hate to sound like a broken record but <u>To Kill A Mockingbird</u> ,of course. (This saves Tannebaum and Kidcolin from having to post it anyway.)

I agree with Huck Finn too , btw.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

[ QUOTE ]
That is a good list. I would like to know how many out there have read "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy? It is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest novels and pieces of history together and should be required reading by anyone who considers themselves well read. But perhaps the length throws some people off.

So throw that and "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevsky onto the list as well.

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Yeah, read both of these. War and Peace is worth reading, but only once. Crime and Punishment I read many years ago, and do intend to read again. 'Brothers Karamazov' would also be worth adding, as we're getting Russian here.



Huck finn is a great suggestion too.


My own 5 are smaller, and consist of things I read and read again, and definitely lower brow than some of the suggestions here. Note mine are inspired roughly equally by the ideas and knowledge about the way the world works as much as the writing.

1. 1984
2. Lord of the Flies
3. Silas Marner
4. Dune
5. Different Seasons - (this is the Stephen King collection containing Shawshank Redemption, The Body (made into 'Stand By Me'), and Apt Pupil, each of which I consider significant works about different aspects of the human condition.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

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1. Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy (Greatest living American author)


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While I absolutely loved All the Pretty Horses, I have tried and failed to read BM at least 3 times.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Nice list, especially Blood Meridien and Ulysses, but I'd prefer Moby Dick (how can you understand BM without it?) or Huck Finn.

For non-fiction, I'd go with Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey or Stop-Time by Frank Conroy, perhaps the greatest memoir ever written.

Walden defies categorization: it's non-fiction but better read as a novel, and it's certainly America's Bible. Every American should read Thoreau. ("We can string telegraph poles coast to coast, but what if no one has anything to say to each other." Did he forsee the advent of the cell phone?)

Poetry, sticking in the American grain: Leaves of Grass or Frost for beginners, but it seems that every American poet I've talked to (and I've talked to quite a few) has been deeply influenced by Wallace Stevens, so read his collected poems.

Drama: Oedipus Rex (when you find out who you are do you pluck out your eyes or do you smile?) or King Lear, a play so terrible in its depravity that it was performed for over two hundred years with Nahum Tate's alternative "happy ending." This is the only work of fiction that leaves me shaking.

Special Mention: I am a devoted reader of the personal essay, and as I get older, it's become my favorite form of literature. Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay is a fine collection. For one essay, though, try to find William Nack's essay on the death of Secretariat, a beautifully written, ultimately moving look at the great horse. It's one of the few pieces of writting that moved me to tears.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

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The Bible

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Agreed a great peice of fiction

alchemist is a must

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Lets see your list!

[/ QUOTE ]The humor in the book I chose just struck me as I was about to write this.

My favorite book of all-times is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I thought the book was brilliantly written, very entertaining, gripping, and had valuable things to say. I can't think of another book off the top of my head that meets all those qualities. I can think of books that meet some of these criteria (e.g., "Into Thin Air", and "of Mice and Men") but not all.

The book is centered around lists - which I thought was funny because this is a thread about lists [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] So, if you like lists then this is a great book. Of course, the lists are simply a vehicle to convey something much deeper.

The book starts:

"My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:

1. Alison Ashworth
2. Penny Hardwick
3. Jackie Allen
4. Charlie Nicholson
5. Sarah Kendrew

These were the ones that really hurt.......

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann (Greatest writer of the 20th century)
The Capital - Karl Marx (Influenced one of the systems for society)
Faust - Goethe (The most important piece of fiction ever written)
The Bible (That's were Western culture is build on. A must read even for atheists.)
The Art of War - Sun Tzu (This is how you deal with everybody in society)

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

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Walden defies categorization: it's non-fiction but better read as a novel, and it's certainly America's Bible. Every American should read Thoreau. ("We can string telegraph poles coast to coast, but what if no one has anything to say to each other." Did he forsee the advent of the cell phone?)

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Or the Internet? We are saying something important to each other right now, eh John?!

Anyway, I second Walden. I have read it at least twice and no doubt it deserves one more read before I pass on from the living into oblivion and the worms and grubs feast on my flesh.

Under the lash of a guilty conscience, I read Moby Dick years ago. I agree with your assessment, it’s just that personally; I prefer Twain. Cannibalism in the cars and so forth. By the way, The Library of America put out a two volume set of Mark Twains “Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays" covering his entire career, 1852 – 1910. I consider this an essential for every American to read.

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Poetry, sticking in the American grain: Leaves of Grass or Frost for beginners, but it seems that every American poet I've talked to (and I've talked to quite a few) has been deeply influenced by Wallace Stevens, so read his collected poems.


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As I become older and my mind more closely resembles a ceramic bowl filled with warm mush instead of a plastic one filled with rigid crispy corn flakes, my predilection for Eastern poetry grows. I think I now prefer Po Chü-I to any Western Author.



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Special Mention: I am a devoted reader of the personal essay, and as I get older, it's become my favorite form of literature.

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Ditto. Though I would lean more toward say, Bertrand Russell's Unpopular Essays, a small but potent collection of excellent writing. But the family is vast and pickings ripe and various.

I think it impossible to cull out 'the best' but certainly it is fun to try and all that are mentioned are worthy of consideration. We all have favorites.


I find it odd that works of old are scarce on lists, for example say, Metamorphoses by Ovid.

-Zeno

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

The Bible
Huck Finn
Walden
Moby Dick
On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius


^

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; Crime and Punishment.

Just a personal preference.

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the power of now by eckhart tolle.

it's basically just buddhism wrapped up in a nice western package. he is very good at writing about it.

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Don Quixote -- Cervantes

Basically the first modern novel, and very very funny. There's a new translation out by Edith Grossman which is extremely readable.

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Hagakure - It's a snapshot of a life most people today couldn't imagine living.

Meditations - Many people could use a shot of Stoicism in their daily lives.

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For A New Liberty - Murray N. Rothbard
The Gulag Archipelago - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heilein

Right now I can't think of what might deserve to be a fifth.

And diebitter,

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Silas Marner

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You are one sick bastard. I hated that book in 8th grade.

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Silas Marner

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You are one sick bastard. I hated that book in 8th grade.

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You've probably grown into it by now. Try it again.

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In Search of Schrodenger's Cat - An accessible book about quantum physics. Even if you're not interested in science per se, you should be interested in what modern science has to say about the nature of reality.

Sophie's World - A primer of the history of Western philosophy, told in the context of a frame story (so it is not at all dry).

Neither of these are "great works" but can and should be read by anyone who is intellectually curious about the world around us.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

I'll submit Emerson's Essays, especially Self-Reliance. It changed my thinking more than anything else I read in high school.

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

That haven't been mentioned:

1. Canterbury Tales. Yes, in Middle English. You get used to it after a while and once you do, you are ready to read the seminal work of Western Fiction. Alternately bawdy and sublime, each tale is unique and the Wife of Bath's Tale is only one showstopper.

2. The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose. It gets worse, for this one you have to do calculus, but it's infinitely rewarding to actually understand the mathematics behind modern physics.

3. Book of Secrets by Osho. Tantric methods for enlightenment. Indispensable.

4. The Frontiersmen. Simon Kenton was a badass.

5. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Whether you read it chronologically as history or just to enjoy Gibbon's intricately florid prose, this is easily one of the major accomplishments in any field. Still the gold standard.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Zeno,

At least with the internet--or at least here--we're forced to communicate through writing. Perhaps chat rooms are closer to what Thoreau had in mind.

I was lucky in that I didn't read Walden until grad school. If I had to read it in high school, it may have been ruined for me.

Last night I watched Cowards Bend the Knee, a film by Guy Maddin, who used A Squeeze of the Hand, a chapter title in Moby Dick, for one of the chapter titles in his film. I loved the allusion.

Speaking of allusions, I saw a building company at work, and on the side of one piece of equipment was the company's name: Edifice Wrecks. I guess reading good literature helps for some stuff.

You might also be interested in a volume of poetry called World Poetry, which features poets from around the world, both ancient and modern. I'll check to see if Po-Chu is included if I can find it in my double-stacked bookcases.


You're right about the personal essay; the selection is vast, and I do love many of the classics. The first of the personal essayists, Montaigne, is still among the best, but in my collections of essays I always find some great stuff I've never read. Since I never read Agee's A Death in the Family, his "Knoxville: Summer 1915" blew me away. Here's an excerpt:

We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville Tennessee in that time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.

... It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the tress, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt: a loud auto: a quiet auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber. A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew.

Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.

Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes...

Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.

The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there... They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine, ... with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth lying on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the of hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her; and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home; but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.


I hope someone else finds this as exquisite and moving as do I.

John

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

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I hope someone else finds this as exquisite and moving as do I.


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The passage brought back a grand memory of a summer evening spent long ago, when my great uncle and aunt from Seattle visited our home. Some particulars are different but the overall feeling is so similar as to be uncanny. Anyway, a wonderful post. As a thank you here is some Po-Chu:




Long Lines Sent To Ling Hu-Ch'u Before He Comes To Visit My Tumbledown Home



No esteem for the stately caps and carriages of consequence,
in love with woods and streams, I go out and doze, perhaps,


drunk beside the pond. I've stopped trying to save the world,
just wonder herb paths, keep my fishing boat swept out.


Serving the poetry master with writing-brush and inkstone,
I'm steadied by music and my friend, the immortaity of wine,


but for lofty sentiments, I stay close to things themselves:
green moss, rock bamboo-shoots, water lilies in white bloom.




.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Zeno,

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Anyway, I second Walden. I have read it at least twice and no doubt it deserves one more read before I pass on from the living into oblivion and the worms and grubs feast on my flesh.

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If both of you are recommending Walden then it has to be something that should cross everyones path.

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Under the lash of a guilty conscience, I read Moby Dick years ago. I agree with your assessment, it’s just that personally; I prefer Twain.

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I thought JC's assessment was spot on as well but I too prefer Twain, Huck Finn and Watership Down are the two books that turned me onto Literature.

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1. Blood Meridian- Cormac McCarthy (Greatest living American author)

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tdarko,

I've avoided reading this because I've heard McCarthy compared to Faulkner, who I really don't enjoy. Accurate?

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Home Buying for Dummies

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

In no particular order:

1. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
2. The Grapes of Wrath
3. Lord of the Flies
4. The Autobiography of Malcom X
5. Common Sense

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Jake,

It is true that his writing is "faulkneresque" but I don't think this means you wouldn't enjoy the book. The book has an immense amount of brutality to it but the language softens the blow delivered to the reader, the characters are dynamic, the novel shows comparisons with <u>Moby-Dick</u>, the language has an Old Testament influence to it and there are a ton of biblical and religious references and qualities within the novel. I have read on this forum that the Judge (character in this book) is everything that Deadwood wished Al Swearengen was and we all know how bad ass of a character he is!

I know that when you say you don't enjoy Faulkner that you find him long-winded and/or boring and though McCarthy has been linked to him it has been as a compliment and I don't think you would dislike this book b/c I don't know of any that have (though, of course this isn't to say everyone is going to like the book).

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Jake,

It is true that his writing is "faulkneresque" but I don't think this means you wouldn't enjoy the book. The book has an immense amount of brutality to it but the language softens the blow delivered to the reader, the characters are dynamic, the novel shows comparisons with <u>Moby-Dick</u>, the language has an Old Testament influence to it and there are a ton of biblical and religious references and qualities within the novel. I have read on this forum that the Judge (character in this book) is everything that Deadwood wished Al Swearengen was and we all know how bad ass of a character he is!

I know that when you say you don't enjoy Faulkner that you find him long-winded and/or boring and though McCarthy has been linked to him it has been as a compliment and I don't think you would dislike this book b/c I don't know of any that have (though, of course this isn't to say everyone is going to like the book).

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Thanks. I'll pick it up at the library this week.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Right now I'm reading "The Rise of American Democracy - Jefferson to Lincoln" by Sean Wilentz. The book's focus is on the politics of the time.

What is fascinating to me is that everything happening today has an event/movement that took place during the time frame covered in this book. The ebb and flow of civil liberties, military intervention, religious awakening, political deals, rationalizations for government action (slavery then and take your pick for now)...

There really appears to be nothing new. It is just dressed up differently. What puzzles me is that those pulling the "wool over the publics eyes" don't realize /care that sometime in the future (50 years or more) they will be "found out" by historians with no vested interest in their findings.

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

I would like to nominate
"The Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud.
"The Bible" King James version
"Emersons's Essays"
The Collected Plays of William Shakespeare
"Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce

Re: 5 Books Everybody Should Read
 

Slaughterhouse-Five
Travels With Charley
For Whom The Bell Tolls
The Stranger Beside Me
Ghost Story