Serious reading

[xealix]

Reading, I never took it upon myself to become into it while I was in school. I am just now starting to regret this, and I would like to hear recommendations of what books you in the FFR populace have found noteworthy. I don't care if they are books everyone has heard of, or books no one has heard of. Post the title, author, and genre here along with a reason you recommend the book. Hopefully people will take it upon themselves to read the books posted here.

I am starting this thread, because I will be starting college soon and I want to get to a point in which I feel confident in my knowledge of literature. Any help will be greatly appreciated.


Book List: All Books that have been suggested in this thread. They are in no specific order and I tried my best to keep from doing repeats. Updated to post 24 at the moment. Please tell me if any titles or italics are wrong.

Homer's: Illiad and Odyssey
Plato's: Republic
Virgil's: Aeneid
Euclid's: Elements
Sophocles': Oedipus Rex
George Orwell's: 1984 and Animal Farm
Chinua Achebe's: Things Fall Apart
John Steinbeck's:The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men
Albert Camus': The Stranger
Joseph Heller's: Catch-22
Anthony Burgess': A Clockwork Orange
F. Scott Fitzgerald's: The Great Gatsby
Ray Bradbury's: Fahrenheit 451
William Golding's: Lord of the Flies
Jack Kerouac's: On The Road
Kurt Vonnegut's: Slaughterhouse Five
JD Salinger's: The Catcher in the Rye
Aldous Huxley's: Brave New World
Lois Lowry's: The Giver
Marcel Proust's: A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Jostein Gaarder's: Sophie's World
Ayn Rand's: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem
Ernest Hemingway's: The Old Man and the Sea
Elie Wiesel's: Night
Alan Paton's: Cry, the Beloved Country
Leo Tolstoy's: War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Hermann Hesse's: Siddartha
Toni Morrison's: Song of Solomon
Robert Jordan's: Wheel of Time series
Bret Easton Ellis': American Psycho
JRR Tolkien's: The Lord of the RingsTrilogy, and the Hobbit
Stephen Hawking's: A Brief History of Time, andThe Grand Design
William Gibson's: Neuromancer
Neal Stephenson's: Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon
Richard Dawkins': The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and The Greatest Show on Earth
William Shakespeare's: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing
Douglas Adams': Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Stephen King's: The Stand
Frank Herbert's: Dune
James Clavell's: Shogun
Arthur Golden's: Memoirs of a Geisha
Jared Diamond's: Guns, Germs, and Steel
Yann Martel's: Life of Pi
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's: Freakonomics
JK Rowling's: Harry Potter series
Robert Ludlum's: Bourne trilogy
David Guterson's: Snow Falling on Cedars
David Sedaris': Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked
Barbara Kingsolver's: The Poisonwood Bible
Khaled Hosseini's: The Kite Runner
Margaret Atwood's: The Blind Assassin
Nick Hornby's: High Fidelity
Alice Sebold's: The Lovely Bones
Jeffrey Euginides': Middlesex
Laurie Halse Anderson's: Speak
Audrey Niffenegger's: The Time Traveler's Wife
Orson Scott Card's: Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow
Nicholas Taleb's: Fooled by Randomness
Norton Juster's: The Phantom Tollbooth
Alain de Botton's: On Love
Douglas Hofstadter's: Gödel, Escher, Bach
Alexandre Dumas': The Count of Monte Cristo
Dostoevsky's: The Brothers Karamazov
Baldwin's: Giovanni's Room
John Grisham's: The Chamber, and A Time to Kill
Cormac Mccarthy's: The Road
Katherine Dunn's: Geek Love
Oscar Wilde's: Picture of Dorian Gray
Vonnegut's: Sirens of Titan, and Cat's Cradle
David and Leigh Edding's: The Redemption of Althalus
Roger Zelazny's: The Book of Amber
Guy Gavriel Kay's: Tigana
Bernard Cornwell's: Sharpe's
Jim Butcher's: The Dresden Files
Terry Pratchet's: Jingo
Patrick Rothfus': The Name of the Wind
David Weber's: By Schism Rent Assunder
Neal Stephson's: The Baroque Cycle, and Diamond Age

[Phynx]

This particular book has no realistic form of educating anyone except that you might learn the meaning of some very.... ridiculously complex words lol. I just feel it's worth mentioning because of the sheer attraction of interest the book held with me.

Called "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and yes, it's like the movie but so much better(obviously). It's actually very interesting to read and really funny throughout a lot of it. It's my favorite recently read book so far.

[NFD]

if you're just reading hitchikers









rofl

[Phynx]

Originally Posted by NFD

if you're just reading hitchikers









rofl

?
Nah, I indulge myself into the sci-fi/fantasy genres. I don't read often but I read a lot real fast when I do. Hitchhikers is the second book of my sudden burst of reading atm. The first was Dragon War by Laurence Yep. It was kinda childish but was still a fun read.

[xealix]

I know this is hard to ask, but I would enjoy keeping the trolls in this thread to a minimum. It is highly unlikely that everyone has read every book that you have NFD. I started this thread so that I could read the books I that stupidly chose to miss out on. That is something that I admit.

Edit: The book I will be reading next is "Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk. Who was the original author of Fight Club. Personally I love Fight Club, and I have no idea what to expect from this book, but it was given to me by a friend who knew I liked Fight Club, and I asked no questions. After I finish reading I will post more info.

[ddrfeline]

To be honest I never read Hitchhiker's Guide lol. I heard how good it was but...I don't know, I guess I was too reluctant to try it for whatever reason. Probably because I don't like sci-fi so I had assumed that I didn't like it. My sister always read books by Michael Crichton though and he writes about sci-fi.
I like John Grisham's books. Good suspenseful stuff. A Time To Kill and The Chamber I think are the best ones I've read so far.
Harry Potter is always good too if you haven't gotten the chance to get into those.
I used to be on a huge Stephen King kick, but that faded unfortunately. I guess I just don't like being spooked like I used to be...ah well.
Anyway, that's my list. It all depends what you're interested in and your level of reading though.

[devonin]

Ugh, I was highly disappointed by Chuck Palanhiuk. He's one of those authors who tries so incredibly hard to be edgy, and really doesn't pull it off. He's the literary equivalent of The Matrix. If you've -NEVER- thought about cartesian dualism, or the mind-body problem, etc etc, The Matrix could very well blow your mind. But if you've even taken some basic introductory philosophy, you look at it and go "Well yeah, obviously I'd thought of that." Chuck's the same way.

[All_That_Chaz]

These are all dense Russian books, heavy on philosophy
War And Peace by Tolstoy - book changed my life.
Anna Karenina by Tolstoy - makes sense of love.
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky - philosophical thrillride.

somewhat lighter reading
Giovanni's Room by Baldwin - love story of a confused man living in Paris, this is a horrible description, look the book up

actual light reading
High Fidelity by Hornby - It was made into a movie, and I love the movie, but the book was even better. It's the story of a record store owner and his self-centered journey of self-discovery and of figuring out love.

[Phynx]

Originally Posted by ddrfeline

Short version.

My mom wants me to dive into the Stephen King stuff. I dunno. I get this odd feeling that I will be disappointed if I start into them. Like he's overrated or something. I might be wrong, he might just be that good of a writer.

[MrRubix]

I've put together a short list (or three) that should help you on your way to your goal of being well-versed in literature, as you wanted. Some are easier reads than others, but honestly, you'll find all you need in the following lists if your goal is to have a pretty decent working knowledge of classical/modern-day literature (the following lists are, of course, just my opinion -- but I chose them for well-roundedness):

Check out some Greek works:
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Virgil's Aeneid
Euclid's Elements
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex

And then maybe look into the ol' literary canons:
George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men
Albert Camus' The Stranger (one of my favorites)
Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
William Golding's Lord of the Flies
Jack Kerouac's On The Road
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Lois Lowry's The Giver
Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem
Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea
Elie Wiesel's Night
Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Hermann Hesse's Siddartha
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon


Then check out some cooler stuff:
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, especially the first book, Eye Of The World
Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho
JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time
William Gibson's Neuromancer
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and The Greatest Show on Earth
William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing
Douglas Adams' Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Stephen King's The Stand
Frank Herbert's Dune
James Clavell's Shogun
Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel
Yann Martel's Life of Pi
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics
JK Rowling's Harry Potter series
Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy
David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars
David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin
Nick Hornby's High Fidelity
Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones
Jeffrey Euginides' Middlesex
Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak
Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow
Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness
Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (I *loved* this as a kid)
Alain de Botton's On Love
Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo

[MrRubix]

Originally Posted by devonin

Ugh, I was highly disappointed by Chuck Palanhiuk. He's one of those authors who tries so incredibly hard to be edgy, and really doesn't pull it off. He's the literary equivalent of The Matrix. If you've -NEVER- thought about cartesian dualism, or the mind-body problem, etc etc, The Matrix could very well blow your mind. But if you've even taken some basic introductory philosophy, you look at it and go "Well yeah, obviously I'd thought of that." Chuck's the same way.

I might somewhat agree with the rationale, but I have no problems with Chuck.

Yeah, philosophy is interesting. Yeah, it puts forth plenty of cool concepts such as the mind-body problem. The hard part is taking those cool concepts and packaging them in a creative, fun way.

We saw plenty of CG and mind + computer linkages in stuff like The Lawnmower Man, or even Tron. Such things are mindblowing because of the way they're put together. The mind-body problem by itself is a pretty nifty thought experiment, but it doesn't deliver the emotional impact that a well-crafted movie or book might.

Personally, I have no issue with Chuck Palanhiuk. To die-hard philosophers and academics, the underlying concepts/themes may cause a lot of eye-rolling ("Oh god, we all already know about this and have seen this sort of thing done to death a billion times elsewhere"), but at least Chuck is packaging the concepts in a way that reaches a larger audience and, in some way, promotes a desire for further inquiry and investigation among those who were previously inert with respect to philosophy/psychology/literature/etc.

[awein999]

Anyone read Stephen Hawking and Leonardo Mlodinow's newest book The Grand Design yet? I recommend it.

disappointed by Palanhiuk? I just finished reading Fight Club, I thought it was a brilliantly written novel. I thought it was original and imaginative.

[xealix]

Originally Posted by devonin

Ugh, I was highly disappointed by Chuck Palanhiuk. He's one of those authors who tries so incredibly hard to be edgy, and really doesn't pull it off. He's the literary equivalent of The Matrix. If you've -NEVER- thought about cartesian dualism, or the mind-body problem, etc etc, The Matrix could very well blow your mind. But if you've even taken some basic introductory philosophy, you look at it and go "Well yeah, obviously I'd thought of that." Chuck's the same way.

I can't disagree with you I suppose. However I am not going into Invisible Monster expecting some revolutionary way to think, but I do feel Chuck has a good why of using that psychology twist make his books more interesting, and really in his books that is all I am looking for, an interesting read is good enough for me at the moment. I have a feeling that at least in that goal he will not disappoint.

Originally Posted by MrRubix

I've put together a short list (or three) that should help you on your way to your goal of being well-versed in literature, as you wanted. Some are easier reads than others, but honestly, you'll find all you need in the following lists if your goal is to have a pretty decent working knowledge of classical/modern-day literature (the following lists are, of course, just my opinion -- but I chose them for well-roundedness):

Check out some Greek works:
Homer's Illiad and Odyssey
Plato's Republic
Virgil's Aeneid
Euclid's Elements
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex

And then maybe look into the ol' literary canons:
George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men
Albert Camus' The Stranger (one of my favorites)
Joseph Heller's Catch-22
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
William Golding's Lord of the Flies
Jack Kerouac's On The Road
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five
JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Lois Lowry's The Giver
Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem
Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea
Elie Wiesel's Night
Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Hermann Hesse's Siddartha
Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon


Then check out some cooler stuff:
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, especially the first book, Eye Of The World
Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho
JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time
William Gibson's Neuromancer
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon
Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and The Greatest Show on Earth
William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, The Tempest, and Much Ado About Nothing
Douglas Adams' Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Stephen King's The Stand
Frank Herbert's Dune
James Clavell's Shogun
Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel
Yann Martel's Life of Pi
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics
JK Rowling's Harry Potter series
Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy
David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars
David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked
Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner
Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin
Nick Hornby's High Fidelity
Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones
Jeffrey Euginides' Middlesex
Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak
Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife
Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow
Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness
Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (I *loved* this as a kid)
Alain de Botton's On Love
Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo

Rubix, I would like to thank you greatly for this list it will be a great reference for me when I finally start getting to work on picking up books. I see several books in there that I have heard of, but just never got around to reading if it wasn't for school. I have read "Animal House" and intend to read "1984" shortly, as my friend is planning on lending me his copy. I enjoyed "Animal House" quite a lot.


Edit: Also I have a great interest in reading "High Fidelity" now as I did not know it was originally a book. I loved the movie.

[All_That_Chaz]

Rubix all of my friends NU tell me to read The Stranger and that it changed their lives. I've tried a couple times to read it but I just can't get into it.

[bluguerrilla]

It's been on my bookshelf for 4 years and it's still unread.

I just now forced myself through Animal Farm. I never plan on reading 1984 just because I can't do it. Just can't. On the other hand I loved A Brave New World.

e: oh on a Camus note I've always meant to read The Plague but never did that either.

[MrRubix]

It's truly a great book -- I did a report on it in high school via skit and basically got to invoke Agent Smith mannerisms. XD

But really, it's a short, enjoyable read with some great theme/character development that, in one way or another, puts forth interesting takeaways for the readers.

1984 is pretty much the archetype for Dystopian novels, and it's not for everyone. I personally didn't love nor hate it, but I think it's something everyone probably *should* read.

Brave New World is awesome. In my HS psych class, I used it to bring forth a sort of troll-debate that threw the rest of the class period into a massive tangent: If you were programmed to *really, really* enjoy cleaning **** for a living, would you live such a life? In that role, you would be happy... but you'd be cleaning ****.

[dooty_7]

Most of the books in Rubix's list are pretty awesome. Here a few other good ones that I have read in the last year that I enjoyed
The Road - Cormac Mccarthy
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn -> It's not about some nerds in love, it's about a freak show
Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Sirens of Titan - Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut
....Pretty much everything by Vonnegut is pretty awesome

[MrGiggles]

Rubix, I note you had WoT and LotR in that list. Have you read A Song of Ice and Fire yet? That **** is nuts, easily my favorite epic fantasy read.

Also, Brave New World is one of my favorite novels of all time. I jizzed when my cultural studies professor assigned it early on. It's cool comparing it to 1984, as well.

[dooty_7]

Originally Posted by MrGiggles

Also, Brave New World is one of my favorite novels of all time. I jizzed when my cultural studies professor assigned it early on. It's cool comparing it to 1984, as well.

It's even more cool comparing some of the concepts covered in them to the society we currently live in

[MrGiggles]

Yeah there's an infographic that posted around a lot, it's a good place to start.

http://www.recombinantrecords.net/im...s-to-Death.png
e: ****ing huge removed [img] tags