A lifetime of must reads
 

Lately i've really rediscovered a love for reading. Unfortunately, my literary knowledge is adequate at best.

What books would you guys consider must/great reads that have to be done in a lifetime.

Please include anything and everything: Fiction, non fiction, biography, philosophy, science, history, etc etc.

Let me know what i'm missing.

Also, if this thread has already happened (seems like the type that would around here) then my bad and please remove.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Cat In The Hat

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Diceman - Rhinehart
Under the Skin - Faber

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu. Read various translations and contemplate about 1,000 times or so.

The Prince; by Niccolo Machiavelli

The Art of War; by Sun Tzu

All I Ever Really Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarden; by Robert Fulgham

Enjoy

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

the corrections - johnathan franzen
midnight's children - salman rushdie
something by anton chekhov
something by alice munro

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Not saying you want to read everything on the list, but googling for Harold Bloom's "The Western Canon" could be helpful. (It's a list of great books.)

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

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Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

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I almost bought this book. Wasn't quite sold on it. What did you like best about it?

Also, I am in the middle of reading a book by Carl Sagan called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. It walks you throgh time from the beginning of the universe to the present brushing over a very wide range of topics (biology, mathematics, sociology, psychology) to give a better understanding of why the world is the way it is today.

So far its a solid book. Carl Sagan is not an expert on all of these topics but it says he did a ton of research and he definitely gives his interpretation of things from a somewhat unique perspective.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

"Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter"

He didn't ask for books that take a lifetime to read.

Seriously,

I am Charlotte Simmons Tom Wolfe
Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt
Germs, Guns, and Steel Jarrod Diamond
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Peter Nichols, "A Voyage for Madmen" (solo-around-the-world race, it's so awesome)

Backstory on Wikipedia (spoilers)

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

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Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

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I almost bought this book. Wasn't quite sold on it. What did you like best about it?


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I just found it really enjoyable to read. I read it ~10 years ago I was like 14 or 15, so at the time everything seemed super deep and like "woah." Someone else can chime in as to whether it has that same effect once you get past the teenager stage, but I have a feeling it does, although probably to a lesser extent.

If your interests are diverse and you can find beauty in a lot of different subjects you'll enjoy the book. For me he took a bunch of subjects that I didn't know much about (musical composition theory, mathematical set theory, human vision, buddhism, etc), presented them in ways that were really interesting, and tied everything together as it went along. The way things were tied together was super fun.

I dunno, I'm having trouble describing it adequately. I'm sure part of my love for the book was due to my age at the time, but I really think anyone who considers themselves to be an academic/intellectual/renaissance man type person will enjoy it.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Thomas Sanchez's Mile Zero
Nabakov's Lolita
City of Angels by Greg Bear
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Andrew Vacchs' Burke novels

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Influence: Science and Practice (Robert Cialdini)

It talks about influencing people.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

In no particular order (except for the 1st one)...

Catcher In The Rye.....the ultimate
Slaughter House Five....my favorite Vonnegut but all are worth reading
Siddhartha.....become one with yourself my friend
Night....powerful powerful sh*t
Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.....don't need to be a hippie to appreciate these 20 pages of gold
Skinny Legs And All.....very creative characters and intelligently written. Also Jitterbug Perfume deserves a nod if we are talking Tom Robbins
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close....moving in so many ways. One of the best 'newer' books.
Plato Complete works....this one might take you a while so I would start as soon as possible [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

If you want good advice, I think you need to tell us more. There are thousands of excellent books in the English language, and you can't read them all. What are your current favorites? What are you trying to accomplish? What do you like (action, dialogue, characters, philosophy)?

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

if you're into philosophical fiction:

the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky
crime and punishment by dostoevsky
the plague by albert camus
the stranger by albert camus
man's fate by andre malraux
the gospel according to jesus christ by jose saramago (recently won the nobel prize)


interesting/intellectual reads:

anything by milan kundera, but especially the unbearable lightness of being and the book of laughter and forgetting.

anything by haruki murakami. i really liked sputnik sweetheart and the wind-up bird chronicle

j.m. coetzee- waiting for the barbarians
" "- disgrace
" "- slow man

these are also semi-philosophical novels.

orhan pamuk-snow

he recently won the nobel prize. the book is about a wandering poet's search for god and love and his attempts to reconcile the western and eastern aspects of his identity. GREAT BOOK. (for me, at least.. i'm persian).

k, that's all i can think of for now. these books aren't the easiest of reads, but they are definitely worth the effort.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Catch-22

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

I forgot to add Guns, Germs, and Steel. Amazing book that won a nobel prize. It asks the question, 'why is the world the way it is (in all facets)' and then goes about in trying to answer that question.

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

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Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

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i also read this when i was fifteen and was also like "whooooah dude that is fkin awesome" [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] Very fun & mind-expanding, kinda like drugs at that age....

some personal favs, with a distinct literary fantasy/scifi bent:
The Name of the Rose / Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
If This Is a Man/The Periodic Table - Primo Levi
The Once & Future King - TH White
Narcissus and Goldmund - Herman Hesse
Gormenghast series - Mervyn Peake
Don Quixote - Edith Grossmann translation
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Mark Twain's autobiography.

Heart of Darkness.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Faust
Farewell to Arms
MacBeth
1984

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Anyone reading The God Delusion should also read something like Schleiermacher's On Religion or Kierkegaard Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, Either/Or, any of that.

Brothers Karamazov for sure. Also The Death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy was awesome and it's a short story so you can read it in a day no problem.

Farewell to Arms is a good call but I liked All Quiet on the Western Front better though it wouldn't take too long to just read both.

Vonnegut I really liked God bless you Mr. Rosewater, though Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five are both awesome. I wasn't a huge fan of Breakfast of Champions, though you could read it in a day easily. Any recommendations for other vonnegut?

Also I'm really interested in Russian literature besides the classics Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Les Chants de Maldoror by Isidore Ducasse (Comte de Lautréamont), one of the first Surrealist / Satanist works and a huge influence on Surrealism.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Things i would add that i absolutely loved:

Brave New World
Blink
Bringing Down the House
Anything by Hemingway
All Quiet on the Western Front

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

I've read very very few books at least twice. The only ones I can think of right now are:

Heart of Darkness
As I Lay Dying (probably my favorite)
The Smartest Guys in the Room (Enron book, I don't care how guilty he may be, I really like a lot of Jeff Skilling's ideas)

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Other good Vonnegut choices are Sirens of Titan and Player Piano

There have been several great suggestions so far, but one I haven't seen yet is John Irving.

A couple of my favorites are The World According to Garp (obv), The Hotel New Hampshire, A Widow For One Year, and A Son of the Circus.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

[ QUOTE ]
Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

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is it possible to have a straight man crush?

or, in less "flammatory" words...its too bad none of my friends have read this...

oh, just saw this:

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I just found it really enjoyable to read. I read it ~10 years ago I was like 14 or 15, so at the time everything seemed super deep and like "woah." Someone else can chime in as to whether it has that same effect once you get past the teenager stage, but I have a feeling it does, although probably to a lesser extent.


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This is true. I reread it recently, and its not quite as "woah" as the first time, but its still impressive for reasons you basically list here:

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If your interests are diverse and you can find beauty in a lot of different subjects you'll enjoy the book. For me he took a bunch of subjects that I didn't know much about (musical composition theory, mathematical set theory, human vision, buddhism, etc), presented them in ways that were really interesting, and tied everything together as it went along. The way things were tied together was super fun.


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Exactly. You sit there reading it and think "you know what, if he was smart, he would have written that last passage with the syllabic pattern of a haiku because--wait...oh [censored], he did!? Damn........i wonder what else is going on here.....

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I dunno, I'm having trouble describing it adequately. I'm sure part of my love for the book was due to my age at the time, but I really think anyone who considers themselves to be an academic/intellectual/renaissance man type person will enjoy it.


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Sure, like lots of things, age matters, and depending on the subject, it might tilt you somewhat for or against something. But, if you haven't picked it up in 10 years I'd really recommend going back and doing it again. Without getting too snobby with the analogies, like wine and many other things, some things in life do get better, and change, with time. I would be surprised if you didn't enjoy it, perhaps for different reasons, all over again.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

second the Umberto Eco recommendation.

also....two recent novels that i found excellent:

House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski
Due Preparations for the Plague, by Jeanette Turner Hospital

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Some of my favorites:

Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Huckleberry Finn
To Kill a Mockingbird
all Kurt Vonnegut novels - favorites in order are Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle
Aazimov's Foundation series of novels
Aazimov's Robot series of novels
For Whom the Bell Toll's
The Old Man and the Sea
Crime and Punishment
David Copperfield
Catch-22
The Stranger
The Great Gatsby
The World According to Garp

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

[ QUOTE ]
"Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter"

He didn't ask for books that take a lifetime to read.

Seriously,

I am Charlotte Simmons Tom Wolfe
Angela's Ashes Frank McCourt
Germs, Guns, and Steel Jarrod Diamond
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, I've actually read three out of those four and hope to read Germs, Guns, and Steel.

I liked 'I am Charlotte Simmons" but if you want to read a better and more highly praised Tom Wolfe book read "Bonfire of the Vanities". It's the best book written about the eighties (and the worse movie adaptation).

~ Rick

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

[ QUOTE ]
Lately i've really rediscovered a love for reading. Unfortunately, my literary knowledge is adequate at best.

What books would you guys consider must/great reads that have to be done in a lifetime.

Please include anything and everything: Fiction, non fiction, biography, philosophy, science, history, etc etc.

Let me know what i'm missing.

Also, if this thread has already happened (seems like the type that would around here) then my bad and please remove.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have a lifetime to spare consider Patrick O'Brien's
20 volume historical fiction series on the British Navy in the early 19th century. The movie "Master and Commander" was based on this series.

Without a spare lifetime check out Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove. It's a timeless masterpiece that two great friends, a wife and girlfriend all enjoyed tremendously.

~ Rick

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

One thing I've noticed is that so far (including my own choices) there haven't been many books listed written by women.

If you want to get into their head and perhaps later into bed it's not such a bad idea to get an idea of the way they think and look at the world through their contemporary fiction.

Anne Tyler is probably my favorite recent woman author. She seems to have extraordinary insight into ordinary situations and people. I'd start with "The Accidental Tourist" but "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" and "A Slipping-Down Life" and "Breathing Lessons" and "Saint Maybe" also would be good choices.

Amy Tan is also very good.

Come to thing of it this is probably worth a thread of its own (but may be better placed on The Lounge where some thinking, smart women seem to post).

~ Rick

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Blueman, I didn't say he had to become a personal fan of Harold Bloom. You also misrepresent the canonical list quite a bit by quoting only the oldest section. The 20th century list includes the obvious Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemingway but also James Salter, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, Carson McCullers, Vladimir Nabokov, etc., etc., etc.

I have no idea what Bloom's conduct towards Wolf was, but I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't any worse than the way a typical OOT reader would behave towards Wolf.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

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I forgot to add Guns, Germs, and Steel. Amazing book that won a nobel prize.

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Diamond won the Pulitzer prize, not the Nobel.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

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I forgot to add Guns, Germs, and Steel. Amazing book that won a nobel prize.

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Diamond won the Pulitzer prize, not the Nobel.

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Hilarious...is what I meant [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

How about in no particular order: Enders Game(Orson Scott Card), Shibumi(Trevanian), The Stand(Stephen King), Dune and sequels(Frank Herbert), Master and Comander and 18 sequels(Patrick O Brian), The 5th Head of Cerubus(Gene Wolfe), The Lord of the Rings trilogy(Tolkien), Game of Thrones and sequels (George R.R.Martin), Startide Rising (David
Brin) Hornblower series(C.S. Forester), and my hidden treaure the Dread Empire books by Glen Cook (7 in all but start with Shadow of all Night Falling).

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

High Treason 2 by Harrison E. Livingstone - great read on JFK's murder, read it about 10 years ago

A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber, (or any Wilber book)
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn
The Book by Alan Watts
Remember Be Here Now by Dr. Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Dass)
any book by J. Krishnamurti particularly Think on These Things
any book by Osho

All of these books shaped me from a somewhat immature college kid into the man I am now. My life is so much better having read them, I recommend them all to anyone.

Re: A lifetime of must reads
 

Trueman Capote - In Cold Blood
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Virgil - The Aeneid