Fave Books?

[SpaceOddity]

'Cos it requires its own thread. *insists*

Mine...

Henry James - The Wings of the Dove,
Antoine De Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince,
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights,
Marguerite Duras - The Ravishing of Lol Stein,
Edith Wharton - The House of Mirth,
Borges - Dreamtigers,
Oscar Wilde's Fairytales,
George Eliot - Daniel Deronda,
C.S. Lewis - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,
Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle,
Virginia Woolf- Orlando,
Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Ubervilles,
Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago,
J.M. Barrie - Peter Pan (the novel),
Andre Gide - Strait is the Gate,
C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces,
Marguerite Duras - The Lover,
Laclos - Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
E. Nesbit - The Phoenix and the Carpet,
Lermontov - A Hero of our Time,
Nancy Mitford - The Pursuit of Love,
Salman Rushdie - The Ground Beneath her Feet,
Elizabeth Gaskell - North and South,
Simone de Beauvoir - All Men are Mortal,
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited,
Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Graham Greene - The End of the Affair,
John Masefield - The Box of Delights,
Angela Carter - The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman,
Zola - Nana,
Elizabeth Gaskell - Wives and Daughters,
Zamyatin - We,
Genet - Miracle of the Rose,
Hans Christian Anderson's Fairytales,
Juan Rulfo- Pedro Paramo,
L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables,
Alain-Fournier - Les Grand Meaulnes,
Stanislaw Lem - Solaris,
Salman Rushdie - Shalimar the Clown,
Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart,
Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma

[megladon8]

Jane Austen - "Persuasion"
Richard Matheson - "I Am Legend"
Stephen King - "'Salem's Lot"
Theodor Dostoyevsky - "Crime and Punishment"
Charles Dickens - "Great Expectations"
Ian McEwan - "Atonement"
Jules Verne - "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"
Orson Scott Card - "Ender's Game"
Charlie Huston - "Already Dead"
Kurt Vonnegut - "Cat's Cradle"


That's all I can think of right now that I would want to put in a favorites list.

[Lucky]

Laclos - Les Liaisons Dangereuses


I love this book as well. Always great to find another person who appreciates it as much as I do.

[Morris Schæffer]

I've enjoyed every Dan Brown novel immensely. Yes, I'm that guy.:)

Crichton's Sphere and Airframe were tremendously absorbing also, especially the former.

and Harry Potter of course, possibly my fave novels of all time!

[Kurosawa Fan]

I'm going to hold off on this until I finish The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, because if the last 100 pages is as good as the first 250, it'll make my list for sure.

[Benny Profane]

I'm going to hold off on this until I finish The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, because if the last 100 pages is as good as the first 250, it'll make my list for sure.

Have I ever steered you wrong? :)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Have I ever steered you wrong? :)

Definitely not. Though I'm still ashamed that I never got around to writing you a review of Go Tell it on the Mountain. I just have no desire to write any reviews anymore, be it for film or books.

[lovejuice]

Crichton's Sphere and Airframe were tremendously absorbing also, especially the former.


sphere is actually a damn good, intense read. so is airframe to some degree. if you like both, i strongly recommend congo and...yes...jurassic park. (but no, sphere is his best.)

like stephen king, crichton used to be my favorite auther. his scientific tidbits are very enjoyable to read. and in a way, it sets him apart from many sci-fi writers. the guy is a harvard graduated after all, you know.

our falling out comes when he wrote that abyssmal jurassic park with knights and time-machine book.

[Benny Profane]

Definitely not. Though I'm still ashamed that I never got around to writing you a review of Go Tell it on the Mountain. I just have no desire to write any reviews anymore, be it for film or books.

No worries, that's fully understandable. The important thing is that it was read and liked.

[Benny Profane]

Copy and pasted from the larger thread.

Favorite Books without repeating authors:

One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Marquez
Crime and Punishment -- Dostoevsky
Ham on Rye -- Bukowski
The Master and Margarita -- Bulgakov
Go Tell it on the Mountain -- Baldwin
V. -- Thomas Pynchon
The Sound and the Fury -- Faulkner
1984 -- Orwell
East of Eden -- Steinbeck
War and Peace -- Tolstoy
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter -- McCullers
Herzog -- Bellow
Slaughterhouse Five -- Vonnegut
Under the Banner of Heaven -- Krakauer
Darkness at Noon -- Koestler
A Handful of Dust -- Waugh
Tender is the Night -- Fitzgerald
The Road -- McCarthy
Rabbit, Run -- Updike
Nostromo -- Conrad
Catch 22 -- Heller
Atonement -- McEwan
The Remains of the Day -- Ishiguro
A Confederacy of Dunces -- Toole
The Fountainhead -- Rand
The Stranger -- Camus

[D_Davis]

I'll just list my top 5 (6 with a tie):

Days of Life and Death and a Trip to the Moon - William Saroyan
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch/A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman
The First Elric novel - Michael Moorcock

[Melville]

Copied from the other thread, with Eugene Onegin added:

1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851
2. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky, 1880
3. Being & Time, Heidegger, 1927
4. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
5. Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky, 1864
6. The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner, 1929
7. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky, 1866
8. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1885
9. Hunger, Knut Hamsun, 1890
10. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges, 1944
11. Jacques the Fatalist, Denis Diderot, 1796
12. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902
13. The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1922
14. Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1960
15. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne, 1767
16. Pan, Hamsun, 1894
17. The Crocodile, Dostoevsky, 1865
18. The Outsider, Camus, 1942
19. The Seducer’s Diary, Kierkegaard, 1843
20. The Bacchae, Euripides, 406 BC
21. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954
22. Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938
23. Lolita, Nabokov, 1955
24. Hamlet, Shakespeare, 1600
25. The Double, Dostoevsky, 1846
26. The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford, 1914
27. Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Herman Melville, 1852
28. Madame Bovary, Flaubert, 1857
29. King James Bible: Ecclesiastes the Preacher, 250 BC
30. The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam (trans. E. Fitzgerald), 1120 (1859)
31. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, 1861
32. 1984, George Orwell, 1949
33. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930
34. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf, 1924
35. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
36. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot, 1917
37. The Aeneid, Virgil (trans. Dryden), 19 BC (1697)
38. A Portrait of the Artist…, James Joyce, 1914
39. Eugene Onegin, Pushkin (trans. Johnston), 1833
40. Lord of the Flies, William Golding, 1952
41. Collected Stories of H. P. Lovecraft, 1917-1935
42. A Christmas Carol, Dickens, 1843
43. Medea, Euripides, 431 BC
44. Season of Migration to the North, Salih, 1966
45. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1940
46. The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1852

[Melville]

Antoine De Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince,
Marguerite Duras - The Lover,
Lermontov - A Hero of our Time
Great choices.


Andre Gide - Strait is the Gate
How does this compare to The Immoralist? I loved that book, but I've never heard of anything else by Gide.

[MadMan]

Some ones off the top of my head:

The Old Man and the Sea-Ernest Hemmingway
Jurassic Park-Micheal Crichton
Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
Dracula-Bram Stoker
LOTR trilogy-JRR Tolkien
Dark Tower series-Stephen King
King Solmon's Mines-H. Rider Haggard
The Lost World-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Matilda-Ronald Dahl
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy-Greg Palast

[SpaceOddity]

How does this compare to The Immoralist? I loved that book, but I've never heard of anything else by Gide.


It's soooooo superior. *insists*

"You think that one can keep a hopeless love in one's heart for as long as that? ... And that life can breath upon it everyday without extinguishing it?"

*sniffs*

[SpaceOddity]

I love this book as well. Always great to find another person who appreciates it as much as I do.

I loved it so much I bit it.
*grins*

[Thirdy]

some of my favourites, one per author:

The Waves (Woolf)
The Magic Mountain (Mann)
Ficciones (Borges)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Márquez)
Ocean Sea (Baricco)
Jane Eyre (Brönte)
Orthodoxy (Chesterton)
A Grief Observed (Lewis)
Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
1984 (Orwell)
A Handful of Dust (Waugh)
East of Eden (Steinbeck)
Lolita (Nabokov)
On the Road (Kerouac)
Tender is the Night (Fitzgerald)
The Plague (Camus)
Niebla (Unamuno)
In Cold Blood (Capote)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevski)
Rosa Krüger (Sánchez-Mazas)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)
Persuasion (Austen)
The Virgin Suicides (Eugenides)
The Trial (Kafka)
The Leopard (Lampedusa)
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
Platero and I (Jiménez)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
Four Quartets (Eliot)
The Bell-Jar (Plath)
The Remains of the Day (Ishiguro)
GreguerÃ*as (Gómez de la Serna)

[Qrazy]

I really need to watch fewer films and read more... but I'm 80 percent done 1,001 films to see before you die and I'm fiend-ing to finish it.

Some favorite authors:

Gogol
Hemingway
Fitzgerald
Steinbeck
Camus
Dostoyevsky
TS Elliot
Wallace Stevens
Spinoza
Dickens
Huxley
George Orwell
Joseph Heller
Voltaire
Keats
Eugene O'Neill
Kafka
Chaucer
Shakespeare
Joyce
Isaac Asimov
Stephen Crane
Robert Jordan
William James
Ibsen
Beckett
Zola
Balzac
Hume
Sartre
Heidegger
Kant
Nietszche
Faulkner
Nabokov
Maugham
Moore

[Qrazy]

So is Ayn Rand worth reading or not? I've heard so many bad things about the author and objectivism in general over the years that I've stayed away. However I don't feel like I can really condemn her without reading at least one of her works.

[Melville]

I really need to watch fewer films and read more... but I'm 80 percent done 1,001 films to see before you die and I'm fiend-ing to finish it.

Some favorite authors:

Gogol
Camus
Dostoyevsky
Kafka
Joyce
Sartre
Heidegger
Kant
Nietszche
Faulkner
Nabokov

Excellent choices. But no Hegel?

I've also avoided Ayn Rand, and I'll probably keep it that way. It doesn't seem worth reading an 800 page book just to find out whether I should condemn the author.

[Mr. Valentine]

The Golden Compass
Farhenheit 451
Franny and Zooey
1984
Animal Farm
The Illustrated Man
A Clockwork Orange
Harry Potter series
The Martian Chronicles
The Autobiography of Malcolm X

[Duncan]

So is Ayn Rand worth reading or not? I've heard so many bad things about the author and objectivism in general over the years that I've stayed away. However I don't feel like I can really condemn her without reading at least one of her works.

I've just read The Fountainhead. I think certain elements of her philosophy work, and others are awful. You can decide about that for yourself if you decide to read one of her books. Regardless, I think one of the reasons she has remained popular (aside from easing the consciences of Gordon Gekko's acolytes) is that she is so obviously passionate about what she believes in. Her conviction and fervor made the book readable for me. Her critics would call it arrogance, but she genuinely believed she was saying important things. That said, I pretty much got all the "important" stuff she was saying less than 50 pages in. Or at least I extrapolated her ideas to conclusion. I kept hoping she would develop them beyond that, but she just beats the hell out them for 600 pages, slowly shedding pretensions of subtlety until she reaches a point of being brutally didactic. On the upside, a lot of things happen. The plot clips along. I read the book very quickly.

[Sycophant]

I read The Fountainhead a couple years ago and more or less agree with Duncan's assessment. Rand is so in love with her lead character and what he embodies that it's almost detrimental to the story, but she keeps things moving and there are other characters that really shine as well. It's a pretty well-crafted piece, with a lot of interesting if ultimately wrongheaded ideas. The philosophy Rand espouses is very heavy-handed and has grown even more repugnant to me since reading the book. Several months after I read The Fountainhead, I attempted Atlas Shrugged. I probably made it through about 20% of the book before throwing up my hands and moving on to something else. It's everything that was weak about The Fountainhead, magnified exponentially. After my second 30-page long, didactic screed about the evils of caring for your fellow man, consisting of long conversations around tables of Rand's villains, phrasing things in ways that revealed the author's contempt for them, I just couldn't take it anymore. It was drier than any philosophy book I've read, and it was passing itself off as a novel.

Anthem, I haven't read since high school, but my memories of it tell me it's a pretty tidy little work that has an exaggerated point that's much easier to get behind.

[Qrazy]

Excellent choices. But no Hegel?

I've also avoided Ayn Rand, and I'll probably keep it that way. It doesn't seem worth reading an 800 page book just to find out whether I should condemn the author.

Haven't read any of his major work yet, only excerpts. I'm sure I'll add him when I finally get the chance.

[Qrazy]

Excellent choices. But no Hegel?

I've also avoided Ayn Rand, and I'll probably keep it that way. It doesn't seem worth reading an 800 page book just to find out whether I should condemn the author.

Have you read any Leibniz or Berkeley? I haven't, and from what I know of their beliefs I don't think I could get on board with their primary arguments but I also realize that the manner of investigation is often more valuable than the end result... so they're probably still worth while, yes?

[Melville]

Haven't read any of his major work yet, only excerpts. I'm sure I'll add him when I finally get the chance.
Yeah, the only thing I've read by him is the first half of The Phenomenology of Spirit. But that was enough to make him one of my favorites.


Have you read any Leibniz or Berkeley? I haven't, and from what I know of their beliefs I don't think I could get on board with their primary arguments but I also realize that the manner of investigation is often more valuable than the end result... so they're probably still worth while, yes?
I've read several things by Leibniz, and his philosophy is definitely somewhat hard to get on board with. But, like Buddhism or late-period Nietzsche, it's worth reading solely for how perfectly it captures a certain limiting philosophical notion, with which other philosophies can (and probably should) always be compared.

I've never read anything by Berkeley. He was a hard-core idealist, right? If so, his philosophy would probably fit the above description as well.

Edit: If you know much about physics, Leibniz is also worth reading to see his completely incorrect "proof" that linear momentum is not conserved.

[Qrazy]

Yeah, the only thing I've read by him is the first half of The Phenomenology of Spirit. But that was enough to make him one of my favorites.


I've read several things by Leibniz, and his philosophy is definitely somewhat hard to get on board with. But, like Buddhism or late-period Nietzsche, it's worth reading solely for how perfectly it captures a certain limiting philosophical notion, with which other philosophies can (and probably should) always be compared.

I've never read anything by Berkeley. He was a hard-core idealist, right? If so, his philosophy would probably fit the above description as well.

Edit: If you know much about physics, Leibniz is also worth reading to see his completely incorrect "proof" that linear momentum is not conserved.

Yeah, I've been wanting to read Hegel since freshman year but still haven't gotten around to it but I'm sure it'll knock my socks off. Out of curiousity, where are you schooling-wise? Years more so than location.

Correct about Berkeley... we all exist in God's mind essentially. I love physics in theory but my advancement in the field came to a dead halt after first year when I realized I didn't have enough interest in math to continue with it. I've covered up through Calculus 2, Linear Algebra and an advanced introductory mechanics course but that's all. Did some basic optics and electromagnetic studies in high-school as well. So yeah I still love the ideas but I need to be harder on myself and really dive into the math if I'm ever getting to get anywhere with the stuff.

Have you read any Seneca (stoicist)? His work mostly exists as fragments I believe but I find he's fairly interesting... very straight forward approach to philosophy.

[Qrazy]

As far as Rand goes at least I know now if I ever do get to her, to start with The Fountainhead. So thanks for the feedback folks.

[Melville]

Yeah, I've been wanting to read Hegel since freshman year but still haven't gotten around to it but I'm sure it'll knock my socks off. Out of curiousity, where are you schooling-wise? Years more so than location.
I did a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in theoretical physics, and I'm one semester into the second year of a Ph.D., also in theoretical physics. But I've only taken 7 or 8 philosophy courses. I'm actually much more interested in philosophy than I am in math or physics, so I try to read philosophy outside of classes. Are you a philosophy major?


Correct about Berkeley... we all exist in God's mind essentially. I love physics in theory but my advancement in the field came to a dead halt after first year when I realized I didn't have enough interest in math to continue with it. I've covered up through Calculus 2, Linear Algebra and an advanced introductory mechanics course but that's all. Did some basic optics and electromagnetic studies in high-school as well. So yeah I still love the ideas but I need to be harder on myself and really dive into the math if I'm ever getting to get anywhere with the stuff.
Yeah, it's tough to get very far in physics without some interest in the math. (I've always been about equally interested in both of them.) But introductory mechanics, and a passing familiarity with the feud between Newton and Leibniz, is sufficient to be amused by how incorrect Leibniz's argument is.


Have you read any Seneca (stoicist)? His work mostly exists as fragments I believe but I find he's fairly interesting... very straight forward approach to philosophy.
My knowledge of Roman philosophy is basically nil. I've been meaning to read Marcus Aurelius, but I haven't got around to it.

[Qrazy]

I did a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in theoretical physics, and I'm one semester into the second year of a Ph.D., also in theoretical physics. But I've only taken 7 or 8 philosophy courses. I'm actually much more interested in philosophy than I am in math or physics, so I try to read philosophy outside of classes. Are you a philosophy major?


Yeah, it's tough to get very far in physics without some interest in the math. (I've always been about equally interested in both of them.) But introductory mechanics, and a passing familiarity with the feud between Newton and Leibniz, is sufficient to be amused by how incorrect Leibniz's argument is.


My knowledge of Roman philosophy is basically nil. I've been meaning to read Marcus Aurelius, but I haven't got around to it.

Yeah, I can see the enormous value of the math but it just doesn't excite me as much as it needs to, to keep me motivated.

I'm in my last year as a philosophy/psychology double major. If you have the time and the inclination you should check out Kirk, Raven and Schofield's The Presocratic Philosophers. Plato, Aristotle and the stuff that follows is essential reading but the presocratics are just endlessly fascinating, both as a window into the birth of Western Analytic thought but also because so much of their work has been lost... and their are very different schools of thought on how to piece together the fragments of their thought... what to attribute to who, which ideas came first, some of the earliest notions concerning biology and physics, etc. Plus it's helpful to read Parmenides work in order to see how it ties into Heidegger's approach to philosophy.

[Melville]

Yeah, I can see the enormous value of the math but it just doesn't excite me as much as it needs to, to keep me motivated.

I'm in my last year as a philosophy/psychology double major. If you have the time and the inclination you should check out Kirk, Raven and Schofield's The Presocratic Philosophers. Plato, Aristotle and the stuff that follows is essential reading but the presocratics are just endlessly fascinating, both as a window into the birth of Western Analytic thought but also because so much of their work has been lost... and their are very different schools of thought on how to piece together the fragments of their thought... what to attribute to who, which ideas came first, some of the earliest notions concerning biology and physics, etc. Plus it's helpful to read Parmenides work in order to see how it ties into Heidegger's approach to philosophy.
You might find more advanced mathematics more interesting, since it eventually becomes more about abstract structures than calculational techniques (which you probably already saw to some small extent in Linear Algebra). Unfortunately, you need to work through the basics first.

I've read Parmenides (actually in conjunction with Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics) and I think I might have read some of Heraclitus. It's great how those two so clearly define two philosophical traditions. But I haven't read anything else from that period, and I've actually been on the lookout for a good pre-Socratics collection, so thanks for the recommendation.

[lovejuice]

You might find more advanced mathematics more interesting, since it eventually becomes more about abstract structures than calculational techniques (which you probably already saw to some small extent in Linear Algebra). Unfortunately, you need to work through the basics first.

out of curiosity, as one scientist to the other, what's your area of research?

i did my BS in physics, but MS and PhD in atmospheric science. i'm doing cloud statistics. basically trying to prove that such and such function with such and such parameter is best suitable to describe size distribution of clouds.

[Qrazy]

out of curiosity, as one scientist to the other, what's your area of research?

i did my BS in physics, but MS and PhD in atmospheric science. i'm doing cloud statistics. basically trying to prove that such and such function with such and such parameter is best suitable to describe size distribution of clouds.

Are you still in your PhD or doing this for a company?

[Melville]

out of curiosity, as one scientist to the other, what's your area of research?
General Relativity. I'm studying the self-force, which, roughly speaking, is how an object's finite mass (or charge) affects its motion.

[lovejuice]

General Relativity. I'm studying the self-force, which, roughly speaking, is how an object's finite mass (or charge) affects its motion.

coolio. i miss relativity. any good popular reading for a math-literate to update myself on the field?

i'm hopefully standing with one leg outside the university.

[Melville]

coolio. i miss relativity. any good popular reading for a math-literate to update myself on the field?

i'm hopefully standing with one leg outside the university.
I don't read any popular science, so I can't really recommend any. As far as I know, the only recent trends in relativity that have received any attention from the popular media are gravitational wave phenomena and dark energy.

When you say that you have one leg outside the university, does that mean that your other leg has a postdoctoral position, or what?

[lovejuice]

When you say that you have one leg outside the university, does that mean that your other leg has a postdoctoral position, or what?

oh, it just means after my big presentation in january, according my advisor, we'll enter the last phrase of my thesis. i have no idea how long "the last phrase" is. but i guess i should finish no later than december 2008.

sadly i perhaps will leave the field. i'll go back to thailand, and there's no garuntee how much or how little i can do there.

[Qrazy]

When you say that you have one leg outside the university, does that mean that your other leg has a postdoctoral position, or what?

We're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. We've just crossed over into, the Gogol zone. Lovejuice's leg was lasted sighted attempting to flee the land of academia, clad in a gold-braided, high-collared uniform, buckskin breeches, and cockaded hat.

[Melville]

We're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. We've just crossed over into, the Gogol zone. Lovejuice's leg was lasted sighted attempting to flee the land of academia, clad in a gold-braided, high-collared uniform, buckskin breeches, and cockaded hat.
Well, I guess that it's better than losing a nose. At least the phony leg can be identified by its high-top sneakers and foul language.

[Fezzik]

I'm late to the party, but here are some of mine, off the top of my head:

The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)
Out of the Silent Planet (Lewis)
Beach Music (Conroy)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (Irving)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
Les Miserables (Hugo)
Rising Sun (Crichton)
Sphere (Crichton)
Time Bomb (Kellerman)
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
A Storm of Swords (Martin)


As an additional note, I like Shakespeare as a general rule, but each time I read Hamlet I like it even more...it's one of those works that astounds me whenever I revisit it...and A Storm of Swords is the best fantasy novel I've ever read. I have no idea how HBO is going to adapt it into a season long series and NOT have it be a disappointment. If they do manage to pull it off, it will be the greatest season of television. Of any show. Ever.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

I admittedly don't read much but the books I read usually result from seeing a film that adapted them. Such as these two masterpieces...

Pierre Louvys - The Woman and the Puppet
Kobo Abe - Woman in the Dunes

[SirNewt]

I'm late to the party, but here are some of mine, off the top of my head:
Out of the Silent Planet (Lewis)
Les Miserables (Hugo)


I just read both of these recently. I enjoyed them both and pride myself on only skipping three pages of Les Miserables. I was really suprised by the Lewis book. It's far superior and would have made a far more interesting film than the Narnia books.

My favorite book of all time is probably "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges (who actually has many more names than that but I'll spare you).

I'm reading "The Aleph" right now and it may be on it's way to joining it.

[Malickfan]

The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Dermaphoria - Craig Clevenger
The Phineas Poe Trilogy - Will Christopher Baer
Bleed Into Me - Stephen Graham Jones
The Bird Is Gone - Stephen Graham Jones
Zeroville - Steve Erickson
A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

[SirNewt]

The Road - Cormac McCarthy


That's on my stack for next month. I'm finishing "The Aleph" then I'll read "Brave New World" and then "The Road" in October.

[Melville]

Because I'm bored and looking for book recommendations, I'm bumping this old thread. My current list:

1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851
2. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky, 1880
3. Being & Time, Heidegger, 1927
4. Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky, 1864
5. The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner, 1929
6. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky, 1866
7. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett, 1951-1953
8. Hunger, Knut Hamsun, 1890
9. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
10. Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, 1781
11. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges, 1944
12. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1921
13. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1885
14. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne, 1767
15. Pan, Hamsun, 1894
16. The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1922
17. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902
18. Jacques the Fatalist, Denis Diderot, 1796
19. Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938
20. The Crocodile, Dostoevsky, 1865
21. Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1960
22. The Outsider, Camus, 1942
23. The Seducer’s Diary, Kierkegaard, 1843
24. The Bacchae, Euripides, 406 BC
25. Being and Nothingness, Sartre, 1943
26. Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Herman Melville, 1852
27. Swann’s Way, Proust, 1922
28. Danton’s Death, Buchner, 1835
29. Buddhist Wisdom: the Diamond and Heart Sutras, Anon. (trans. Conze), (1958)
30. The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll, 1874
31. The Double, Dostoevsky, 1846
32. The Ravishing of Lol Stein, Duras, 1964
33. Temple of the Gold Pavillion, Mishima, 1956
34. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930
35. The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford, 1914
36. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954
37. The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard, 1849
38. The Lover, Duras, 1984
39. King James Bible: Ecclesiastes the Preacher, 250 BC
40. Account of My Hut, Kamo Chomei, 1212
41. Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger, 1953
42. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1914
43. 1984, George Orwell, 1949
44. Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna (Ed. Garfield), 2nd century
45. Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, 1843
46. Blue Eyes, Black Hair, Duras, 1986
47. Hamlet, Shakespeare, 1600
48. Eugene Onegin, Pushkin (trans. Johnston), 1833
49. The Aeneid, Virgil (trans. Dryden), 19 BC (1697)
50. Lolita, Nabokov, 1955

with some more favorites in alphabetical order:

* The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1852
* Collected Stories of H. P. Lovecraft, 1917-1935
* Dune, Herbert, 1965
* Either/Or, Kierkegaard, 1843
* The Idiot, Dostoevsky, 1869
* The Immoralist, Gide, 1902
* Lord of the Flies, William Golding, 1952
* The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot, 1917
* Medea, Euripides, 431 BC
* Mysteries, Hamsun, 1892
* The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Hogg, 1824
* The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam (trans. E. Fitzgerald), 1120 (1859)
* Season of Migration to the North, Salih, 1966
* The Soldier and Death, Minghella, 1988
* Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys, 1966

[endingcredits]

Because I'm bored and looking for book recommendations, I'm bumping this old thread. My current list:

1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville, 1851
2. The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky, 1880
3. Being & Time, Heidegger, 1927
4. Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky, 1864
5. The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner, 1929
6. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky, 1866
7. Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett, 1951-1953
8. Hunger, Knut Hamsun, 1890
9. Ulysses, James Joyce, 1922
10. Critique of Pure Reason, Kant, 1781
11. Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges, 1944
12. We, Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1921
13. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1885
14. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne, 1767
15. Pan, Hamsun, 1894
16. The Trial, Franz Kafka, 1922
17. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, 1902
18. Jacques the Fatalist, Denis Diderot, 1796
19. Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938
20. The Crocodile, Dostoevsky, 1865
21. Catch-22, Joseph Heller, 1960
22. The Outsider, Camus, 1942
23. The Seducer’s Diary, Kierkegaard, 1843
24. The Bacchae, Euripides, 406 BC
25. Being and Nothingness, Sartre, 1943
26. Pierre, or the Ambiguities, Herman Melville, 1852
27. Swann’s Way, Proust, 1922
28. Danton’s Death, Buchner, 1835
29. Buddhist Wisdom: the Diamond and Heart Sutras, Anon. (trans. Conze), (1958)
30. The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll, 1874
31. The Double, Dostoevsky, 1846
32. The Ravishing of Lol Stein, Duras, 1964
33. Temple of the Gold Pavillion, Mishima, 1956
34. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930
35. The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford, 1914
36. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954
37. The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard, 1849
38. The Lover, Duras, 1984
39. King James Bible: Ecclesiastes the Preacher, 250 BC
40. Account of My Hut, Kamo Chomei, 1212
41. Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger, 1953
42. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce, 1914
43. 1984, George Orwell, 1949
44. Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Nagarjuna (Ed. Garfield), 2nd century
45. Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, 1843
46. Blue Eyes, Black Hair, Duras, 1986
47. Hamlet, Shakespeare, 1600
48. Eugene Onegin, Pushkin (trans. Johnston), 1833
49. The Aeneid, Virgil (trans. Dryden), 19 BC (1697)
50. Lolita, Nabokov, 1955

with some more favorites in alphabetical order:

* The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1852
* Collected Stories of H. P. Lovecraft, 1917-1935
* Dune, Herbert, 1965
* Either/Or, Kierkegaard, 1843
* The Idiot, Dostoevsky, 1869
* The Immoralist, Gide, 1902
* Lord of the Flies, William Golding, 1952
* The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot, 1917
* Medea, Euripides, 431 BC
* Mysteries, Hamsun, 1892
* The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Hogg, 1824
* The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam (trans. E. Fitzgerald), 1120 (1859)
* Season of Migration to the North, Salih, 1966
* The Soldier and Death, Minghella, 1988
* Wide Sargasso Sea, Rhys, 1966


1. Kafka - Collected Stories
2. Rimbaud - Collected Poems
3. Celine - Death on The Installment Plan
4. That book by Kierkegaard whose name I can never remember which retells the story of him getting dumped over and over.
5. The Possessed - Dostoevsky

Your list reminds me to read Borges.

[Melville]

1. Kafka - Collected Stories
2. Rimbaud - Collected Poems
3. Celine - Death on The Installment Plan
4. That book by Kierkegaard whose name I can never remember which retells the story of him getting dumped over and over.
5. The Possessed - Dostoevsky

Your list reminds me to read Borges.
I'm reading The Possessed right now; it's awesomely ironic and blistering with feeling. The Kafka and Rimbaud are on my to-read list. I'll add the Celine and Kierkegaard thereto. (I'm guessing the Kierkegaard is Repetition.)

[Milky Joe]

Roberto Bolaño - 2666
René Girard - Deceit, Desire and the Novel
Samuel Beckett - First Love

[Benny Profane]

If I had to make a top 10 today it would go something like:

1. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez
3. Mason & Dixon, Pynchon
4. In Cold Blood, Capote
5. 2666, Bolano
6. Ham on Rye, Bukowski
7. Go Tell it on the Mountain, Baldwin
8. Darkness at Noon, Koestler
9. The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
10. JR, Gaddis

[Melville]

Roberto Bolaño - 2666
René Girard - Deceit, Desire and the Novel
Samuel Beckett - First Love
First love and Beckett's absurdist dissolutions seem a compelling combination--few things are so dissolving as first love. I've never heard of the Girard, but he sounds interesting. I've been interested in 2666 since you first started pimping it, but it just looks too damned long. You and endingcredits should both make lists, by the way.

[MacGuffin]

If I had to make a top 10 today it would go something like:

1. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez
3. Mason & Dixon, Pynchon
4. In Cold Blood, Capote
5. 2666, Bolano
6. Ham on Rye, Bukowski
7. Go Tell it on the Mountain, Baldwin
8. Darkness at Noon, Koestler
9. The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
10. JR, Gaddis

This should really be my "to-read" list. Thanks.

[Milky Joe]

First love and Beckett's absurdist dissolutions seem a compelling combination--few things are so dissolving as first love. I've never heard of the Girard, but he sounds interesting. I've been interested in 2666 since you first started pimping it, but it just looks too damned long. You and endingcredits should both make lists, by the way.

First Love is about 25 pages; you could read it in an hour or so. And it's one of his finest pieces.

2666, while long, is divided into five separate novellas, which are themselves fairly breezy (except the fourth part), so it's not quite as long as its bulk suggests.

[Raiders]

I recently thought this over actually (and I see I am not very original around here)...

1. KING LEAR, William Shakespeare (1603-1607)
2. LOLITA, Vladimir Nabakov (1955)
3. SOUND AND THE FURY, THE, William Faulkner (1929)
4. SILENT CRY, THE, Kenzaburo Oe (1967)
5. HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad (1902)
6. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, Gabriel Garcia Marquz (1985)
7. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864)
8. PERSONAL MATTER, A, Kenzaburo Oe (1964)
9. 2666, Roberto Bolano (2004)
10. GRAVITY'S RAINBOW, Thomas Pynchon (1973)
11. DOCTOR FAUSTUS (A Text), Christopher Marlowe (1604)
12. BLOOD MERIDIAN, Cormac McCarthy (1985)
13. BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, THE, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
14. MYSTERIES, Knut Hamsun (1892)
15. ROUSE UP O YOUNG MEN OF THE NEW AGE!, Kenzaburo Oe (1983)
16. AS I LAY DYING, William Faulkner (1930)
17. TWELFTH NIGHT, William Shakespeare (1601)
18. DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH, THE, Leo Tolstoy (1866)
19. LORD OF THE FLIES, THE, William Golding (1954)
20. NIP THE BUDS, SHOOT THE KIDS, Kenzaburo Oe (1958)

I really don't know why the best author of the twentieth century almost never gets mentioned. Perhaps four in my top twenty is a little overstating it, but of the six books I have read by him, he's simply superb.

[Melville]

First Love is about 25 pages; you could read it in an hour or so. And it's one of his finest pieces.

2666, while long, is divided into five separate novellas, which are themselves fairly breezy (except the fourth part), so it's not quite as long as its bulk suggests.
First Love sounds spectacularly awesome. I've added 2666 too, since everybody seems to love it.


I really don't know why the best author of the twentieth century almost never gets mentioned. Perhaps four in my top twenty is a little overstating it, but of the six books I have read by him, he's simply superb.
I'd never heard of Oe before. I'll buy The Silent Cry.

[D_Davis]

An updated top 10 I can live with...

1. Einstein's Dreams - Lightman (I don't really know if this is my favorite book of all time, but it is the book I've read the most - once per year)
2. Days of Life and Death and a Trip to the Moon - William Saroyan
3. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick
4. The Stars My Destination - Bester
5. The Best Short Stories of JG Ballard - Ballard
6. More than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
7. The Dark Tower series - King
8. Sirius - Olaf Stapledon
9. The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
10. The Ninth Configuration - William Peter Blatty

This is a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, secular and religious, speculative, horror, and science fiction.

[MacGuffin]

^ Nerd. ;)

[D_Davis]

^ Nerd. ;)

I'm a lit gangster, hanging out in the ghettos where the real excitement is.

;)

[Milky Joe]

First love and Beckett's absurdist dissolutions seem a compelling combination--few things are so dissolving as first love. I've never heard of the Girard, but he sounds interesting. I've been interested in 2666 since you first started pimping it, but it just looks too damned long. You and endingcredits should both make lists, by the way.

I'm sort of against lists. They only remind me of how finite my existence really is.

But if I were to make a list here are a few more books that would be on it:

Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights (READ this if you haven't)
Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman (masterpiece)
Italo Svevo - Zeno's Conscience (championed by Joyce, an influence on Ulysses, criminally under-read)
David Markson - Wittgenstein's Mistress
David Foster Wallace - Oblivion
Don Delillo - Ratner's Star (you'd be interested in this given your background)
Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov
Franz Kafka - everything

[Melville]

I'm sort of against lists. They only remind me of how finite my existence really is.

But if I were to make a list here are a few more books that would be on it:

Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights (READ this if you haven't)
Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman (masterpiece)
Italo Svevo - Zeno's Conscience (championed by Joyce, an influence on Ulysses, criminally under-read)
David Markson - Wittgenstein's Mistress
David Foster Wallace - Oblivion
Don Delillo - Ratner's Star (you'd be interested in this given your background)
Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov
Franz Kafka - everything
I've read Wuthering Heights and didn't think much of it. I liked how completely dedicated it was to its characters, to the point where the whole world collapses into their states of mind, but I found the narrative dull, the melodramatic phrases ridiculous ("I am Heathcliff!"—blech), and the happy ending incongruous.

I loved the first half or so of At Swim-Two-Birds, while all the stories-within-stories reflected on the character of their writer, but thought it became bland metafictional playfulness once it abandoned that foundation and the interactions between the stories took over from the story. However, it showed enough promise for me to add The Third Policeman to my to-read list.

I've wanted to read Zeno's Conscience and Oblomov for years. I'll put them on my to-read list.

I've never heard of Oblivion or Ratner's Star. I'll look them up.

Kafka rocks.

EDIT: skipped over Wittgenstein's Mistress. Never heard of that one either.

[Chac Mool]

That's on my stack for next month. I'm finishing "The Aleph" then I'll read "Brave New World" and then "The Road" in October.

That's a nice sequence.



1. Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez


I don't think I could rank my favorite books (any more than I could rank my favorite movies), but these are top 10 material for sure.

[endingcredits]

I'm sort of against lists. They only remind me of how finite my existence really is.
I take refuge in finitude. List in preparation.

[Kurosawa Fan]

List of my favorites thus far:

Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Catch-22 - Heller
The Zero - Walter
Confederacy of Dunces - Toole
The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
East of Eden - Steinbeck
Lolita - Nabokov
High Fidelity - Hornby
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers
The Quiet American - Greene
The Road - McCarthy
Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut
In Cold Blood - Capote
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Marquez
The Death of Ivan Ilych - Tolstoy
Me Talk Pretty One Day - Sedaris
Straight Man - Russo

[Mysterious Dude]

I'm a little embarrassed by my list. Some of the choices are a little English Lit 101, or maybe even Middle School English, and a few sci-fi books that every nerd read by the time they were fourteen. I've only been reading "seriously" since after I finished college, and I just can't seem to read fast enough to fill out the list enough to make it respectably distinct from all others. I love my number one, though. I'm kinda sad that I'll probably never read one that I like as much.

1. Confessions of a Justified Sinner (Hogg)
2. Frankenstein (Shelly)
3. The Stranger (Camus)
4. The Catcher the Rye (Salinger)
5. The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner)
6. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
7. Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell)
8. Dead Souls (Gogol)
9. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Oe)
10. Things Fall Apart (Achebe)
11. Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut)
12. Say You're One Of Them (Akpan)
13. The God of Small Things (Roy)
14. Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
15. As I Lay Dying (Faulkner)
16. Brave New World (Huxley)
17. Black Boy (Wright)
18. Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
19. A Long Way Gone (Beah)
20. The Time Machine (Wells)

[Kurosawa Fan]

Forgot about these:

So Long, See You Tomorrow - Maxwell
Things Fall Apart - Achebe

[Melville]

Dunno if this list has ever been posted: the top 100 books of all time, as voted by 100 notable contemporary authors:
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian
Pretty good source of recommendations. I've read 64 (plus parts of a few others) and loved a little under half of them.

[Hugh_Grant]

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I didn't include plays or poems, and tried not to include any sort of anthology, but I couldn't omit Jhumpa Lahiri. I also tried to keep the list short story-free, which is unbelievably difficult for me. (Maybe that will be a different list.) I included a couple of novellas, though. Also, I restricted this list to one work per author. The oeuvre of Julian Barnes could have taken up much of my top twenty. Love him.


Atonement Ian McEwan
Bartleby, the Scrivener Herman Melville
Don’t Lets Go To the Dogs Tonight Alexandra Fuller
Ethan Frome Edith Wharton
Everything is Illuminated Jonathan Safran Foer
Gargantua and Pantagruel François Rabelais
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
High Fidelity Nick Hornby
Life of Pi Yann Martel
Mystic River Dennis Lehane
Shame Salman Rushdie
Talking It Over Julian Barnes
The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi
The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
The Heptameron Marguerite de Navarre
The Hippopotamus Stephen Fry
The Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri
The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka
The Plague Albert Camus
White Teeth Zadie Smith

[Kurosawa Fan]

Dunno if this list has ever been posted: the top 100 books of all time, as voted by 100 notable contemporary authors:
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989), Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986), Collected Fictions
Emily Bronte, England, (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights
Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960), The Stranger
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961), Journey to the End of the Night
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904), Selected Stories
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784), Jacques the Fatalist and His Master
Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957), Berlin Alexanderplatz
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Possessed; The Brothers Karamazov
George Eliot, England, (1819-1880), Middlemarch
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC), Medea
William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962), Absalom, Absalom; The Sound and the Fury
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936), Gypsy Ballads
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Love in the Time of Cholera
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852), Dead Souls
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967), The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952), Hunger.
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad and The Odyssey
Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906), A Doll's House
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941), Ulysses
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle
Kalidasa, India, (c. 400), The Recognition of Sakuntala
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930), Sons and Lovers
Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998), Independent People
Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837), Complete Poems
Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919), The Golden Notebook
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936), Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC).
Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911), Children of Gebelawi
Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955), Buddenbrook; The Magic Mountain
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays.
Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985), History
Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931), Beloved
Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (N/A), The Tale of Genji Genji
Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942), The Man Without Qualities
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300).
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC), Metamorphoses
Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935), The Book of Disquiet
Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849), The Complete Tales
Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922), Remembrance of Things Past
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986), Pedro Paramo
Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273), Mathnawi
Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947), Midnight's Children
Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292), The Orchard
Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929), Season of Migration to the North
Jose Saramago, Portugal, (b. 1922), Blindness
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Stendhal, France, (1783-1842), The Red and the Black
Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768), The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928), Confessions of Zeno
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace; Anna Karenina; The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC), Ramayana
Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC), The Aeneid
Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892), Leaves of Grass
Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941), Mrs. Dalloway; To the Lighthouse
Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987), Memoirs of Hadrian
Pretty good source of recommendations. I've read 64 (plus parts of a few others) and loved a little under half of them.

Is there a link to this list that I can bookmark?

[Melville]

Is there a link to this list that I can bookmark?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews

[Milky Joe]

I've read Wuthering Heights and didn't think much of it. I liked how completely dedicated it was to its characters, to the point where the whole world collapses into their states of mind, but I found the narrative dull, the melodramatic phrases ridiculous ("I am Heathcliff!"—blech), and the happy ending incongruous.

I don't know, I never saw the ending as being too happy. I thought the whole book was almost unbearably sad. The melodramatic language sort of bespeaks Emily Brontë's mindset: young, and deeply familiar with the mood of the literature of her contemporaries. It borders on the parodic. I also appreciated the fractal-like quality of the narrative and how it's mirrored in the self-similar, borderline incestuous lineage of the two families. The book is so systematically wrought it's hard to believe it came from the pen of someone so young. I think it's one of the finest novels of the 19th century.


I loved the first half or so of At Swim-Two-Birds, while all the stories-within-stories reflected on the character of their writer, but thought it became bland metafictional playfulness once it abandoned that foundation and the interactions between the stories took over from the story. However, it showed enough promise for me to add The Third Policeman to my to-read list.

I haven't read too much of At Swim-Two-Birds, but I know that The Third Policeman is far less metafictional, and far more metaphysical. It's also completely hilarious to boot. You might have read about this already, but O'Brien wrote it right after At Swim and was unable to get it published because it was so 'out there.' He was discouraged enough to lock it in his desk, where it remained until he died in the 60s. Of course, it's his masterpiece.

Glad you liked First Love. I recently saw a theatrical production of it, although 'production' is a bit much: it was done as a single 90 minute monologue by one guy (this guy (http://www.garestlazareplayersireland .com/about/players_conor_lovett.htm)). It was awesome. He also does a three-hour, one-man production of the Trilogy. Guy's a badass.

It's worth noting also that I read First Love, Wuthering Heights, and The Third Policeman all for one class last fall (along with Lolita) from probably the best professor I've ever had. So I'm a bit biased I guess!

[Melville]

I don't know, I never saw the ending as being too happy. I thought the whole book was almost unbearably sad. The melodramatic language sort of bespeaks Emily Brontë's mindset: young, and deeply familiar with the mood of the literature of her contemporaries. It borders on the parodic. I also appreciated the fractal-like quality of the narrative and how it's mirrored in the self-similar, borderline incestuous lineage of the two families. The book is so systematically wrought it's hard to believe it came from the pen of someone so young. I think it's one of the finest novels of the 19th century.
I thought the sudden marriage announcement was pretty definitely a happy ending--the ending of that absolutely inward-looking, borderline-incestuous world of misery into which Heathcliff and Catherine had dragged everything around them. It's not happy for those two central characters of course, but they were long since done for.

For 19th-century prose bordering on parodic, I'll go with Melville (though he makes it genuinely ambiguous). I have nothing against melodramatic prose; I like melodrama. But Wuthering Heights makes it ridiculous, stepping into metaphysical statements that are nonsensical.

Fractal what now? That sounds intriguing.

She didn't seem inordinately young. She was 29 when she published Wuthering Heights, right? Faulkner was only 32 when he published Sound and the Fury; Hamsun, 31 when he published Hunger; Pushkin, 26 when he started publishing Eugene Onegin; Dostoevksy, 24 when he published The Double. (I'm sure there are better examples. These are just selected from my favorites.)


I haven't read too much of At Swim-Two-Birds, but I know that The Third Policeman is far less metafictional, and far more metaphysical. It's also completely hilarious to boot.
Sounds awesome. As does the Beckett production/monologue.

[Milky Joe]

I thought the sudden marriage announcement was pretty definitely a happy ending--the ending of that absolutely inward-looking, borderline-incestuous world of misery into which Heathcliff and Catherine had dragged everything around them. It's not happy for those two central characters of course, but they were long since done for.

I read the sudden announcement of marriage as being, first and foremost, deeply ironic. It should be a happy ending, given the conventions of the kind of literature the book is drawing from, but coming as suddenly as it does right on the heels of Heathcliff's protracted death scene, during which pain and pleasure are intermixed so deeply, (not to mention after the whole book, the tone of which is not exactly bright and gay) I can't see their prospective marriage as being anything but doomed, or at least rather tainted by their respective family's history. Lockwood's abandoning the whole farce and leaving the house immediately after hearing about it, too, suggests a sort of ominous, pre-determined fate.


For 19th-century prose bordering on parodic, I'll go with Melville (though he makes it genuinely ambiguous). I have nothing against melodramatic prose; I like melodrama. But Wuthering Heights makes it ridiculous, stepping into metaphysical statements that are nonsensical.

Never a bad idea, going with Melville. But they're very different writers. What metaphysical statements in WH do you find nonsensical?


Fractal what now? That sounds intriguing.

I'm sort of lazily grafting that word onto it, but I mean the way in which characters names are repeated ad infinitum, to the point that the uninitiated reader will have a lot of trouble simply figuring out who's who, when really it's because it's essentially the same story repeated indefinitely. This is hinted at in the very beginning when Lockwood observes "a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door, above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw'". Then later in his bedroom when he sees Catherine's name inscribed on the windowsill with various surnames, falls asleep and sees "the air swarmed with Catherines," all suggest this self-similarity I'm talking about. That Catherine and Hareton announce their marriage at the end only confirms that this borderline-incestuous tale has no foreseeable end.


She didn't seem inordinately young. She was 29 when she published Wuthering Heights, right? Faulkner was only 32 when he published Sound and the Fury; Hamsun, 31 when he published Hunger; Pushkin, 26 when he started publishing Eugene Onegin; Dostoevksy, 24 when he published The Double. (I'm sure there are better examples. These are just selected from my favorites.)

True enough. Maybe it's because she died at 30 that she just seems so young to me. Or maybe it's because 29 (or however much younger she was when she actually wrote it) seems so young for someone, particularly a girl with so little in the way of real life experience, to produce a book of such incredible sophistication. Her sister's books positively pale in comparison. In my opinion, anyway.

By the way, if you want an interesting take on WH, you should read Bataille's essay on Emily Brontë. It's available here (http://www.sauer-thompson.com/essays/Emily%20Bront.doc).

[Melville]

Good post. I haven't read the book in about eight years, so my memory of it may be way off, and I can't guarantee I was paying attention when I read it (narrative-heavy 19th-century British novels tend to bore me). I've wanted to read it again, but due to romantic issues, doing so would likely induce epic self-hatred.


I read the sudden announcement of marriage as being, first and foremost, deeply ironic.
That totally did not occur to me.


What metaphysical statements in WH do you find nonsensical?
I'd have to skim over some quotes, but the one I pointed to previously stands out: "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being." This seems a nonsensical overreach, in which an existential state of love, in which one's Being takes its foundation in that of the Other, is exaggerated into a conflation of Beings--not just a conflation (which would have been nicely ambiguous), but an identification. If "I am Heathcliff!" were removed, it would be a terrific line; with that exclamation, it becomes absurd. Mind you, it's a character talking here, so I could be misremembering things by ascribing that tone to the novel as a whole.


By the way, if you want an interesting take on WH, you should read Bataille's essay on Emily Brontë. It's available here (http://www.sauer-thompson.com/essays/Emily%20Bront.doc).
I'll definitely read that. I started reading Bataille's Erotism: Death and Sensuality a few weeks ago, but was distracted by other books.

[Milky Joe]

I've wanted to read it again, but due to romantic issues, doing so would likely induce epic self-hatred.

Ha. You and me, we're more alike than you know. I read the book at the same time as I was coming to grips with the fact that I am a total masochist when it comes to my desire towards women. I subsequently wrote a paper where I (somewhat hyperbolically) called it 'the most beautiful argument against masochism that has ever been written.'


I'd have to skim over some quotes, but the one I pointed to previously stands out: "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being." This seems a nonsensical overreach, in which an existential state of love, in which one's Being takes its foundation in that of the Other, is exaggerated into a conflation of Beings--not just a conflation (which would have been nicely ambiguous), but an identification. If "I am Heathcliff!" were removed, it would be a terrific line; with that exclamation, it becomes absurd. Mind you, it's a character talking here, so I could be misremembering things by ascribing that tone to the novel as a whole.

Aye, I can see what you mean. That's a line that's packed with signification, though, and is in some ways is the climax of their relationship. That it's so over the top is fairly appropriate, I'd say.

[Melville]

Ha. You and me, we're more alike than you know. I read the book at the same time as I was coming to grips with the fact that I am a total masochist when it comes to my desire towards women. I subsequently wrote a paper where I (somewhat hyperbolically) called it 'the most beautiful argument against masochism that has ever been written.'
If only I had Heathcliff's effectualness and Gothic appeal to go along with his brooding, malice, and obsession...

[Kurosawa Fan]

Add The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe to my list. Wow.

[Mysterious Dude]

I think my top 50 is ready for publication. It's frustrating though. I've seen about 4,000 movies, and out of those, it's very easy to find 100 that I really like. But I've only read about 250 books, so there are nowhere near as many that I love. I just can't read fast enough.

1. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824, James Hogg)
2. Frankenstein (1818, Mary Shelley)
3. The Stranger (1942, Albert Camus)
4. The Catcher in the Rye (1951, J.D. Salinger)
5. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949, George Orwell)
6. The Sound and the Fury (1929, William Faulkner)
7. Notes from Underground (1864, Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
8. Les Misérables (1862, Victor Hugo)
9. Our Lady of the Flowers (1943, Jean Genet)
10. The Master and Margarita (1967, Mikhail Bulgakov)

11. Naked Lunch (1959, William S. Burroughs)
12. As I Lay Dying (1930, William Faulkner)
13. Dead Souls (1842, Nikolai Gogol)
14. Lord of the Flies (1954, William Golding)
15. Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953, James Baldwin)
16. We (1921, Yevgeny Zamyatin)
17. Hunger (1890, Knut Hamsun)
18. Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948, Truman Capote)
19. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969, Kurt Vonnegut)
20. Crime and Punishment (1866, Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

21. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884, Mark Twain)
22. Moravagine (1926, Blaise Cendrars)
23. Dream Story (1926, Arthur Schnitzler)
24. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971, Hunter S. Thompson)
25. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (1958, Kenzaburo Oe)
26. The Death of Artemio Cruz (1962, Carlos Fuentes)
27. Things Fall Apart (1958, Chinua Achebe)
28. Fahrenheit 451 (1952, Ray Bradbury)
29. Black Boy (1945, Richard Wright)
30. Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964, Hubert Selby Jr.)

31. Camel Xiangzi (1937, Lao She)
32. A Long Way Gone (2007, Ishmael Beah)
33. The Time Machine (1895, H.G. Wells)
34. Brave New World (1932, Aldous Huxley)
35. The Metamorphosis (1915, Franz Kafka)
36. Flowers for Algernon (1966, Daniel Keyes)
37. The Blind Owl (1937, Sadegh Hedayat)
38. Say You’re One of Them (2008, Uwem Akpan)
39. Captains of the Sands (1937, Jorge Amado)
40. Beasts of No Nation (2005, Uzodinma Iweala)

41. Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853, Herman Melville)
42. Zombie (1995, Joyce Carol Oates)
43. The Satyricon (c. 100 AD, Petronius)
44. Pather Panchali (1929, Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay)
45. All Quiet on the Western Front (1929, Erich Maria Remarque)
46. The Forever War (1974, Joe Haldeman)
47. Rabbit, Run (1960, John Updike)
48. A Clockwork Orange (1962, Anthony Burgess)
49. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979, Italo Calvino)
50. Fifth Business (1970, Robertson Davies)

[Dukefrukem]

1. Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
2. A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
3. The Relic (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child)