An unbiased (but incomplete) list of things to read before you die.

[mbillie1]

Kafka - The Trial
This is probably my favorite book, although that dubious distinction is far from definite. The story feels massive and significant. A man is arrested but not jailed, on trial but without access to the court, all for a crime he is never told of. The essential book by Kafka, more mature than The Metamorphosis and more polished than The Castle, this is something that can haunt you; the murkiness of the court, the only half-comprehensible parable of the gatekeeper told by the priest... nobody has offered a completely acceptable explanation of what Kafka is talking about and the best I can do is quote the book: "The right understanding of any matter and a misunderstanding of the same matter do not wholly exclude each other."

Hemmingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls
It has become fashionable to be overly critical of Hemmingway. He is talked about as being too masculine, too gung-ho, too curt, and any of a number of other criticisms that reek of pathetic attempts at political correctness. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a masterpiece through and through. Easily his best work, despite the praise for The Old Man and the Sea, it has everything that represents the bset in his writing. From the introduction to Robert Jordan, the messiness and absurd cruelty of war (and its simultaneous neccessity and occasional nobility, in Jordan's eyes at least) to maybe the best last sentence in literature, this is a must-read. A masterpiece.

Saramago - Blindness
Haunting, written in Saramago's strange way without quotation marks, difficult to follow at first but then impossible to put down, this is a terrific book. The entire city (save one woman) goes blind, can see only a milky white, society more or less falls apart. Although his writing isn't as graphically violent as other writers, the brutality in the story is terrifying. A rare mixture of story, feeling and mood.

Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Maybe the quintessential 20th century Soviet novel. Bitingly sarcastic, funny, this is one of the strangest and most enjoyable books I've ever read. The devil and his entourage come to Moscow and raise all sorts of mischevious hell. This isn't some bland religious allegory though; the story has elements of Faust combined with the sort of humor that only comes from Russian authors. A giant black cat leaps on a chandellier with a pistol and shouts "I challenge you to a duel!" This ought to be required reading. Spare yourself Pushkin and Tolstoy; after Dostoyevsky, this is the best thing written in Russian.

Thompson - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Deranged and funny, this is just fantastic. This is probably one of the first things that comes to my mind when I think of great American writing. Most people are vaguely familiar with the story-a journalist and an attorney go on a drug binge with a red convertible and wreak havoc in Vegas-but the book is definitely worth reading even if you saw and disliked the movie. It's amazing (and fortunate) that Thompson lived as long as he did.

Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
The more philosophy I read the more I am convinced that this is the most (and maybe only) interesting and well-written philosophy book there is. The first section tersely and with unmatched clarity and accuracy sums up western thought through the late 1800s. Though not as expansive as The Gay Science or as personal as some of his later books, Beyond Good and Evil presents a softer front. The characteristic harshness in Nietzsche's writing is softened just enough to make his arguments effective, and present enough to make the book pleasurable to read. Attempting to talk about philosophy without having read this book is like attempting to clean a theater with a toothbrush - you just aren't properly equipped.

Murakami - Kafka on the Shore
Although The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is at least equally popular and South of the Border, West of the Sun may be more personal and moving, this is in my opinion the best of Murakami. It's strange (as all of his books are) and reads almost like a dream, but it's powerful and compelling in addition to unusual. He's called "post-modern," which is just a vaguely veiled pejorative, and not even an accurate one at that. Kafka on the Shore is a smooth, readable story that weaves in and out of the comprehensible and dabbles with metaphysics and values as well as sex, violence and war. Like most of his stories, he doesn't tie up every loose end, but it's less noticable than in his other work. Murakami has become one of my favorite writers lately, and this is where I recommend starting (although South of the Border, West of the Sun is my favorite of his books) as well as being an unqualified masterpiece in its own right. A terrific book.

Derrida - H.C. for Life, That Is to Say . . .
I know, Derrida is this and that. He's unreadable. He makes no arguments. He's unneccessary or irrelevent. But this book is not. This is at once a moving tribute to Helene Cisoux and a personal memoir of their friendship; it is compelling in a way that non-fiction usually is not. More than anything, in this book you get a sense of how wrong most of Derrida's critics (and proponents) are about him. The typically Derridian play on words/sounds in the title is lost somewhat in translation, but he explains it (more or less) in the first few pages of the book. Readable and unreadable, I will unpopularly say that this is the most important book Derrida wrote. You should read it, perhaps, it should be read, etc...

Wilde - The Soul of Man
My favorite essay. Very different from Wilde's other stuff, at least from his fiction and drama. This is an intensely Romantic essay, idealistic and hopeful, but still with the biting wit that makes Wilde fun to read in the first place. You will either brutally disagree with him or you're probably way too idealistic, but either way it's well-written and important in understanding what real idealism is. "Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt."

Eliot - The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
Maybe the best poem ever... certainly one of them. Someone I respect very much called it "A eulogy for modern man," and I always liked that description. This is just one of the greatest poems you will ever read. If nothing else he ever wrote compared to this (and nothing does, by the way) he would still be an immortal for this poem. I have read this probably a hundred times or more and it never gets old. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

Borges - The Aleph and Other Stories
Borges is amazing. I was tempted to put his complete fictions in here, but it felt like a cop-out. This is a collection of short stories ranging in length from two paragraphs to fifteen or twenty pages. It contains some of his best work, including "The Immortal" and "The Witness." Also "The House of Asterion," randomly a huge personal favorite, with a minotaur's point of view of the myth of Theseus. Densely philosophical but still beautifully written, Borges ought to be considered one of the greatest writers of all time. He is by me, at any rate, and my word is gold as far as I'm concerned. You should feel the same way.

Poe - The City in the Sea
Another poem, not so famous, this time by Edgar Allen Poe. You can probably just find the text of this online if you try. I think this is his best work. Not much else to say I guess, it's short enough that if you've read this post you might as well go ahead and read the poem and see for yourself.

ee cummings - "is there a flower(whom" and "life is more true than reason will deceive"
Cummings' poems are very rarely titled, so the first line of the poem serves as the title in most tables of contents and indeces. Cummings is easily the greatest American poet of all time. I think these are his two best, but really any book of his is highly recommended.



There's probably a lot more that I'm forgetting and when I remember them I'll post them. So you'd better get reading [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Also, feel free to move to EDF if you think this belongs there.

[MortalWombat]

Any piece of paper that requires your signature.

[wtfsvi]

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Eliot - The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
Maybe the best poem ever... certainly one of them.

[/ QUOTE ] Yes. This poem is awesome.

[jackflashdrive]

Tom Wolfe - A Man in Full

[Claunchy]

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] For Whom the Bell Tolls. Easily my favorite Hemingway. I've never heard anyone say any of those criticisms you listed, but if I did I would probably assume that person sucked.

The only Derrida I've ever really bothered to try to read was Speech and Phenomena, and well, yeah, pretty much all the stuff you said. I'll have to give your recommendation a shot.


Anyway, I got one for now; I may come up with more later:

Raymond Carver - Where I'm Calling From
Just a fantastic collection of somewhat minimalist short stories. He develops his characters very well in a short time.

Oh, and in before 10 people say Ender's Game. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Kimbell175113]

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Poe - The City in the Sea
Another poem, not so famous, this time by Edgar Allen Poe. You can probably just find the text of this online if you try. I think this is his best work. Not much else to say I guess, it's short enough that if you've read this post you might as well go ahead and read the poem and see for yourself.

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For those too lazy to google

good stuff, billie

[RoundGuy]

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Thompson - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

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This is the only one on your list that I have read. I'm 43.

I find that a bit disconcerting, and sad....

[XXXNoahXXX]

good list. i'll add some later.

lol at an "unbiased" list of book recommendations.

[gumpzilla]

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Raymond Carver - Where I'm Calling From
Just a fantastic collection of somewhat minimalist short stories. He develops his characters very well in a short time.

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I'm generally not a huge short story fan, but there are a bunch of winners in here. Salinger's Nine Stories is also quite good in that regard.

I sometimes wonder about literary education. I think a lot of books that get hailed as classics aren't really put together to be embraced by teenagers. It's a lot easier to appreciate some things when you have a bit more context to put them in, or experience to compare it to.

[mbillie1]

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lol at an "unbiased" list of book recommendations.

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my word is as good as god, ldo