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[mattx5]

I've really been slacking off in my reading; I've barely completed two books in over four months.

As much as I've read in the past, there's still so much that I've missed, so I'm wondering what are some of your favorite, or, in your opinion, essential books to read?

I'm talking about anything from Dostoevsky (Who I have yet to check out), to Tolkien, to Steinbeck, to Elmore Leonard or even the likes of Chuck Palahniuk.

Any and all books, by any and all authors. I just want to read something good.

 

[Prospero]

Favorite:

Joyce--Ulysses
Pynchon--Gravity's Rainbow
Proust--In Search of Lost Time
Gaddis--The Recognitions
Cervantes--Don Quixote
Stephen King--Hearts in Atlantis
Raymond Chandler--The Long Goodbye
Carson McCullers--The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Tad Williams--Otherland
Gene Wolfe--The Book of the New Sun

(Though if you ask me tomorrow I'd say different things.)

Essential: that's different. A Portrait of the Artist would be on the list for me. The short stories of Borges would be on the list as well. Some of my favorite books are also essential books.

If you say more about what your tastes are, I'm more likely to recommend something that you haven't heard of.

 

[nitewulf]

i'm gonna list some very random books:
albert camus - the stranger
john o'hara - the novellas of john o'hara
raymond carver - cathedral
raymond chandler - farewell my lovely/the big sleep
dashielle hammett - the continental op/the maltese falcon
china mieville - king rat (specially recommended to graphic novel readers)
william gibson - neuromancer
alastair reynolds - revelation space
robin hobb - the assassin trilogy

 

[Burger]

 

[Boogie9IGN]

I'll just put my favorites off the top of my head

Alexandre Dumas - Count of Monte Cristo
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
James Clavell - Shogun

Fuck, Im too lazy to go to my room and check the others, sorry

 

[Jason]

White Noise - Don DeLillo (nothing to do with the crappy movie)
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

 

[pops619]

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

 

[Chony]

Joyce - Dubliners
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
Hemingway - In Our Time
Chriton - Sphere

 

[GashPrex]

Song of Fire and Ice Series, by George R. R. Martin

 

[mattx5]

Awesome, keep em coming. I've read very little of what has been listed so far, which is a good sign

In terms of genres and preferences, I pretty much read everything..... except for romance novels

 

[speedpop]

I second Catch-22.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

 

[Piecake]

Well any Dostoevsky novel is worth checking out. He is by far my favorite Author. Id rank his major work in this order:

The Brothers karamazov
Demons
Notes From Underground
Crime and Punishment
The Idiot

Other books id recommend are:

Les Miserables
Anna Karenina
The Master and Margarita
If on a Winters Night a Traveler

 

[HooDoo]

I'm in for more Catch-22 love.

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
Requiem for a Dream - Hubert Selby Jr.
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
Animal Farm - George Orwell

Any Dostoïevski or Camus and book.

 

[Teddman]

Treasure Island
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Huckleberry Finn

 

[BigJonsson]

Lord of the Rings
Catch 22
Slaughterhouse 5
The Hobbit
Heart of Darkness
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Tom Sawyer
Huck Finn

 

[White Man]

Eh, I'm not putting too much thought into this.

I read it at least once a year.

 

[Drozmight]

Some of the ones I've been reading recently.

Che: The Life, Death and Afterlife of a Revolutionary
Party of One: The Loner's Minifesto

Some of the essentials in my collection:

Complete Works of Shakespeare
Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Various Philosophy Books (Hume, Descartes, Kant, ect...)
Books on World Regions (eg: I have a complete biography of Africa)




Yeah, I read boring shit huh?

 

[Shig]

J.D. Salinger- The Catcher in the Rye
Steven Chbosky- The Perks of Being A Wallflower
Chaim Potok- My Name is Asher Lev
Dave Eggers- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

 

[White Man]

Dave Eggers- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

His new book of short stories is sporadically amazing. Easily the finest thing he's put out. I'm a McSweeney's lover, but Eggers as a novelist is intolerable. He's got no sense of cohesion or structure. . .he should stick to short work. Unfortunately, there's no money in that in America.

 

[kumanoki]

Nabokov- Lolita
George Orwell- 1984
John W. Dower- Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII
Margret Atwood- The Handmaid's Tale
Aldous Huxley- Brave New World
H. P. Lovecraft- Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft
Ted Chiang- Stories of Your Life and Others
Max Brooks- The Zombie Survival Guide
Joseph Crumgold- Onion John
Myla Goldberg- Bee Season
Jonathan Franzen- The Corrections
Michael Chabon- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

~~~Art Spiegelman- Maus~~~
~~~Chris Ware- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth~~~
~~~Craig Thompson- Blankets~~~

 

[the12thplanet]

The 12th Planet - Zecharia Sitchin

 

[Shig]

His new book of short stories is sporadically amazing. Easily the finest thing he's put out. I'm a McSweeney's lover, but Eggers as a novelist is intolerable. He's got no sense of cohesion or structure. . .he should stick to short work. Unfortunately, there's no money in that in America.

Well, lack of cohesion was a very fitting character trait for the protagonist/narrator of HWoSG, so in that case it added rather than detracted.

 

[SpoonyBard]

Maybe not essential, but some really good books I have read lately:

Dan Simmons - Hyperion
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett - Good Omens
Arthur C. Clarke - Fountains of Paradise
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club

 

[brooklyngooner]

His new book of short stories is sporadically amazing. Easily the finest thing he's put out. I'm a McSweeney's lover, but Eggers as a novelist is intolerable. He's got no sense of cohesion or structure. . .he should stick to short work. Unfortunately, there's no money in that in America.

Who do you like at McSweeney's?

 

[Deleted member 1235]

read the entire dark tower series by stephen king.

It rools!

 

[UtadaBarkley]

I'm very high on Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King.

Great book.

 

[op_ivy]

The 12th Planet - Zecharia Sitchin

:lol ok, so i read it

i'd have to say my favorite book ever is Ann Rand's The Fountain Head. amazing. really

 

[ToxicAdam]

Fight Club is essential 21st century reading. I really think it is the book of our generation.


Sci Fi : Dune (get through the first 2-3 chapters, then it turns into the best book you have ever read)

History: Band of Brothers. WWII account of a group of soldiers that went through almost every phase of the last great war. In fact, I suggest you read everything Stephen Ambrose has ever written.


Some off the beaten track fantasy books:

Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (Stephen A. Donaldson) A leper in our world is dropped into a Tolkien-esque land. His gold wedding ring imbues him with 'wild magic', and he also is virile again. Within the next chapter, he rapes a local villager. From thier it snowballs out of control. Good stuff (although it becomes more traditional as the book rolls on)

Wizards and Warriors (Hugh Cook) This is hard to find. More anti-hero type of stuff. Imagine Dragonlance ... but all the characters are twisted and evil. Most everyone in the book dies in some grisly manner, and you would never expect who the hero turns out to be. Awesome book.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

James Clavell - Shogun

YES!

 

[Koopa]

Holy shit. Sallinger's Catcher in the Rye was the end all be all of books for me, I read it straight in 11th grade, I was 22 when I picked it up agian after I smoked around 1/2 oz of dank and read it completely through one night, I went to theropy the next day.

Between him and Yossarian, set me in a path of most resistance.

 

[Dan]

Fantasy, sci-fi, philosophy, violence, profanity, religion, sex, etc. Vividly written. I can't recommend these enough. Mature stuff that's just amazing, moving and thought-provoking. I can't wait for the third book, hopefully at the end of this year.

 

[Crow357]

The Bible has some awsome stories in it in the Old Testament. Get a version that speaks plain english though, not that King James crap.

 

[Chony]

I forgot:

 

[Eminem]

 

[White Man]

I can't believe no one has mentioned Melville's Moby Dick yet. Obvious as it may be, it's always worth mentioning.

It's clearly not for everyone, though. Even the biggest Moby Dick advocate would admit that.

 

[Iceman]

william gibson is good enough to be an essential?

might give it (neuromancer) a look.

 

[android]

Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Song of Ice and Fire series - George R. R. Martin
A Dream of Eagles Series - Jack Whyte
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
Rendevous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
Discworld Novels - Terry Prachett

 

[Dram]

Wild Cards- Alien made virus is unleashed on Earth giving some people superpowers, while horribly disfiguring others.

 

[etiolate]

Make sure to read Dune.

 

[Shadowmancer]

Second the Discworld and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

Manifold: Time - Stephen Baxter.

 

[demi]

ESSENTIAL to your LIFE!

 

[LinesInTheSand]

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

 

[Prospero]

william gibson is good enough to be an essential?

might give it (neuromancer) a look.

Coming back to the thread this morning, I think I should have listed this as an essential book as well. I mean this when measured against all literature, not just science fiction.

Gibson's other books are great, but not essential. Though Pattern Recognition is interesting if you're a Pynchon fan--it's basically a modernized retelling of The Crying of Lot 49.

I'm a McSweeney's lover, but Eggers as a novelist is intolerable.

I didn't like AHWoSG very much, but I love the McSweeney's press and what it's doing these days. Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down was the most important published work of last year for me. McSweeney's gets bonus points for the comics issue as well.

 

[Litigation Manuel]

Personally, I liked AHBWoSG, the interview scene went on far too long, but it was still good I thought. McSweeney's is also excellent, someone must start a thread dedicated to that sometime.

More books:
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
Slaughterhouse 5- Kurt Vonnegut (PLEASE READ)
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest- Ken Kesey
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
Watership Down- Richard Adams

 

[Karg]

If you enjoy fantasy I've always liked Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. Just came out with a new addition to the series about a week ago.

 

[speedpop]

If you enjoy fantasy I've always liked Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. Just came out with a new addition to the series about a week ago.

Yeah Sword of Truth is quite a good series. Between that and Raymond E. Feist's stuff, they're probably two of my favourite fantasy authors.

 

[Shouta]

Perhaps not essential but I did find Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson and The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut to be awesome reads.

 

[spangler]

Taking essential to mean timely, I would second Heller's Catch-22 and Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I would also recommend Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

 

[enjoy bell woods]

I don't really care how well-written A Heartbreaking Staggering Genius is or isn't, it literally is the most entertaining and enjoyable book I have ever read. But I think Michael Chabon is the best guy contributing to McSweeney's now. I thought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is fit to be a classic, but I'm sure that'd be disputed to Helllll.

 

[Escape Goat]