I decided awhile ago I need to read more. I'd like to start with many of the American Classics like Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, etc (I may have read them in High School, but I don't remember)
Over the last few years I'be basically only read some Vonnegut and and some by Palahniuk.
I need some other well rounded suggestions.
Classics, Modern Classics, stuff everyone should read, Science Fiction.....................
Go!
"1984". Great Gatsby. Catch 22. Fahrenheit 451. War of the Worlds. Starship Troopers. Ender's Game. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (sometimes humor is great art). Dracula. A collection of Sherlock Holmes. The Princess Bride.
I will also throw in "The Watchmen" as an overlooked modern classic. Yes, it's a "comic book", but as an English major, I can say it is genuinely one of the best works of literature I have ever read. Of all the books I have listed, I put it and 1984 at the top of this list.
Steven Ambrose writes a good military book.
Speed Duel: The Inside Story of the Land Speed Record in the Sixties by Samuel Hawley
Awesome story about Arfons and Breedlove duel in the desert for the fastest man alive.
Anything by Ray Bradbury.
I'm a big fan of the book suggestion engine on goodreads.com.
Even better, they have a list themselves: http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/264.Books_That_Everyone_Should_Read_At_Least_Once
Just read these two books recently and liked them a lot
Beer Baron wrote: "1984". Great Gatsby. Catch 22. Fahrenheit 451. War of the Worlds. Starship Troopers. Ender's Game. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (sometimes humor is great art). Dracula. A collection of Sherlock Holmes. The Princess Bride. I will also throw in "The Watchmen" as an overlooked modern classic. Yes, it's a "comic book", but as an English major, I can say it is genuinely one of the best works of literature I have ever read. Of all the books I have listed, I put it and 1984 at the top of this list.
Adding on:
The Grapes Of Wrath
White Fang
In Cold Blood (just finished this myself)
Atlas Shrugged...with caveat: It's excessively wordy. As you read it, you'll find you can skip over some of the longer, blathering philosophical speeches if you're not that deeply into philosophy. The story itself, and it's examination of business vs government, is particularly fascinating when viewed as a book written in the 1950s but applied to what is happening now. It's got some amazing parallels, even if it is "biased" politically.
Frustrating classics: Mark Twain's work (I just can't get into his use of verbiage; I'm constantly bogged down rereading what he wrote trying to make sense of his word choices) and Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance...good golly, that guy can vomit more words than Ayn Rand and not say anything. I also have never returned to Kurt Vonnegut after suffering through part of Slaughterhouse Five back in high school.
Lots of good reads in this thread. I'd just like to add a few:
Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series (Sharpe's Rifles and the rest). They're very well researched, have well developed characters, but with enough explosions and fights for a couple Michael Bay movies.
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Not a lengthy tome, but The Old Man and the Sea should be on the list.
Appleseed wrote: Speed Duel: The Inside Story of the Land Speed Record in the Sixties by Samuel Hawley Awesome story about Arfons and Breedlove duel in the desert for the fastest man alive.
This. This. This. Great read!
ddavidv wrote: Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance...good golly, that guy can vomit more words than Ayn Rand and not say anything.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way. I actually have a Philosophy minor, and I finally put the book down and didn't finish it. I maybe got 3/5 or 2/3 of the way through it.
Keep the suggestions coming! I'll be loading up the new Kindle this weekend.
Go like Hell
Soul of a new Machine (great history of computers/hardware hacker story)
Crawford:Shop Class as Soulcraft
Stephenson: Snowcrash, In the Beginning Was the Command Line, and Zodiac
Brin: Startide Rising, Otherness (brilliant book)
Doyle: The lost world
I was in the same boat a few years back. I have a lot of authors to reccomend, but for classics, my picks are as follows.
I really got into Sherlock Holmes,all of the stories are pretty darn good, and you can get the whole collection for a few bucks. Amazing how well they relate to modern day, and you can see where CSI got their inspiration.
Call of the Wild and then White Fang (read in that order) are also classics that you really should try. Both are hard to put down, they are that good.
Cannery Row is the Steinbeck you should read, especially if you have been to Monterey.
When I have time, I am moving onto Jules Verne now, because I rode the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney when I was 7. But that will have to wait until I get through Little Blue Truck 3 times every night. And Richard Scary...twice. And Pajama Time at least twice.
pinchvalve wrote: When I have time, I am moving onto Jules Verne now, because I rode the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney when I was 7.
There are four related novels that are part of a larger storyline. The only one of those that I'd consider to be mandatory reading (especially for engineering types) is The Mysterious Island. I loved that book.
Others in the loosely related series:
In Search of the Castaways (I disliked it...way too long, meandering plot)
Abandoned (haven't read)
Secret of the Island (haven't read)
If you like 20,000 leagues, you may also want to read his book Robur the Conqueror...it is a bit of a "Captain Nemo the air" (....The sequel Master of the World is not quite as good) If you don't have the patience, both Robur books were combined into the vincent price movie
Every reader should give Cormac McCarthy a try, just for the way he uses language. I think "All the Pretty Horses" is probably the best introduction.
pinchvalve wrote: Call of the Wild and then White Fang (read in that order)
This is important
I read a whole lot of sci fi some good some really bad. Good recommendations I enjoyed:
Enders Game - Orson Scott Card.
The Honor Harrington Series - David Weber.
The Lost Fleet Series - Jack Campbell.
Starship Troopers & Star Beast - Robert Heinlein.
The Daniel Leary Series - David Drake.
Troy Rising series - John Ringo.
I know both the Honor Harrington series (On Baskilisk Station) and Daniel Leary series (With the Lightning's) first books are available for free from Baen's free library.
I'm sure I'll think of more today
Hey now if anyone is going to suggest Atlas Shrugged I'm going to suggest Jennifer Government. The writing style is vastly easier on the attention span and the story is a good contrast...much like Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Island.
z31maniac wrote:ddavidv wrote: Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance...good golly, that guy can vomit more words than Ayn Rand and not say anything.I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way. I actually have a Philosophy minor, and I finally put the book down and didn't finish it. I maybe got 3/5 or 2/3 of the way through it.
Count yourself as lucky/smart, because the ending is the very worst part. After enough existential moaning to drive Phaedrus (and the reader) to the point of suicide, he basically just decides to cheer up in the last 3 pages.
Starship Troopers is good, and raises interesting points, but I prefer Stranger In A Strange Land , but especially The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress . I would read Robert Heinlein's grocery list and love it.
Anything written by Ray Bradbury before about 1995 is worth reading, too. Some is science-fictiony, but some is just classic American literature.
Larry Niven - I loved his stuff from the early '70s through the '90s, but his later stuff seems to be... missing something. I don't know what, but his spark went out in his later years. But Ringworld , Tales From Known Space , all that stuff is cool from a scientific and 'future history' perspective. Also, his calamity books with Jerry Pournelle - Lucifer's Hammer and Footfall - are great tales, set in a (somewhat) contemporary and believable world.
The original Ender's Game is good, but I liked each subsequent book in the series less and less. At this point I hate all the characters, including what Ender has allowed himself to become. Which is funny, because Orson Scott Card has said numerous times that he only wrote the first couple books as a way to get to the ones he really wanted to write.
She's Canadian, but I like most of Margaret Atwood's books. Not all of them; but many.
Unfortunately, I can't really recommend many of the "classics" of American literature, because I don't really like most of them. I'm not a big fan of Steinbeck or Hemingway or Faulkner. The writing is technically good, but most of the stories just aren't that compelling, and I find myself never really liking any of the characters enough to care how it comes out.
Hmmm I have read maybe 90%+ of the books mentioned in this thread. Some of them I read as far back as grade school. Kinda makes me want to just lay on the couch and read all day especially considering I woke up with my back killing me.
Some more good books, if not necessarily classics per se :
Laurie King's 'Mary Russell' series: Sherlock Holmes tales told from a completely different perspective. Very well written and engaging. King edges dangerously close to mary-sue-fan-fic territory at times, but stays on the right side of the path.
Read anything by C. S. Forester - he's English, but moved to the US during WWII and stayed here afterwards. Boy, he can spin a great yarn, especially if you like sea tales.
I'll recommend 3 books by Canadian eco-weirdo Farley Mowat: Never Cry Wolf , a gripping account of time spent in the north near a pack of wolves... which is presented as fact but in all likelihood is heavily fictionalized. Still worth reading, though. He published 2 completely non-fiction books about deep-sea salvage tugs, called Grey Seas Under and The Serpent's Coil . Both are very good and depict actual events.
Also non-fiction, but I strongly recommend Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far - compelling historic accounts of two of the biggest European battles of WWII.
http://www.amazon.com/Apathy-Other-Small-Victories-Neilan/dp/0312352190
Hilarious book. I don't really read, but I slammed through that in a couple nights.
In reply to Duke:
Interesting you mention the subsequent books of Enders Game. I really felt the same way though I keep hearing how wrong I am from literary critics but I couldn't even finish Xenocide.
House of Suns was cerebral and a bit slow but very good.
The Neuromancer was a fun look at where technology is heading.
Jump 226 trilogy is entertaining cut throat well fleshed out world.
The Last Centurion really made me think the world would end tomorrow and I'd be trapped in the middle east working. That hit home.
Beer Baron wrote: "1984". Great Gatsby. Catch 22. Fahrenheit 451. War of the Worlds. Starship Troopers. Ender's Game. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (sometimes humor is great art). Dracula. A collection of Sherlock Holmes. The Princess Bride. I will also throw in "The Watchmen" as an overlooked modern classic. Yes, it's a "comic book", but as an English major, I can say it is genuinely one of the best works of literature I have ever read. Of all the books I have listed, I put it and 1984 at the top of this list.
This guy reads good E36 M3. 1984 was the scariest book I've ever read until I read Fahrenheit 451 and realized it was more realistic and scarier.
You've already mentioned Chucks books, he has a lot now, Fight Club and Survivor are at the top. Some of his later ones weren't that good honestly. We the Living is pretty good. To Beer Barons list I would add Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and anything by Lord Dunsany and/or HP Lovecraft (lots of excellent short stories).
I read Fight Club after having seen the movie, and honestly, I thought the movie moved a lot better and told the story more interestingly.
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