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#21
08-13-2007, 11:52 AM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
[ QUOTE ]
Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter [/ QUOTE ] 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 
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#24
08-13-2007, 03:35 PM
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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.
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#25
08-13-2007, 03:39 PM
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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.
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#27
08-13-2007, 10:44 PM
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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)
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#28
08-13-2007, 11:26 PM
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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.
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#29
08-13-2007, 11:32 PM
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Re: A lifetime of must reads
[ QUOTE ]
Gödel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter [/ QUOTE ] 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: [ QUOTE ] 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. [/ QUOTE ] 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: [ QUOTE ] 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. [/ QUOTE ] 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..... [ QUOTE ] 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. [/ QUOTE ] 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.
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