5 Books Everybody Should Read

[Zeno]

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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.




.

[tdarko]

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.

[Gunny Highway]

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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?

[Matt Flynn]

Home Buying for Dummies

[troymclur]

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

[tdarko]

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).

[Gunny Highway]

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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.

[ericd]

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.

[wren]

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

[Born 2 Loose]

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