What are some books everyone should read at least once in their life? I speak of the big timers, Homer's The Odyssey and Sun-Tzu's The Art of War for example.
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List of Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once...
- Thread starter Stridder44
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The Stranger by Albert Camus
A Clockwork Orange by Burgess
Junky by Burroughs
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Sun also Rises by Hemingway
Slaughterhouse Five by Vonneguet
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
some Shakespeare
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
i'm sure i could list a lot more, but thats off the top of my head.
A Clockwork Orange by Burgess
Junky by Burroughs
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Sun also Rises by Hemingway
Slaughterhouse Five by Vonneguet
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
some Shakespeare
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
i'm sure i could list a lot more, but thats off the top of my head.
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- A Tale of Two Cities
- Anna Karenina
- Crime and Punishment
- The Whole Shebang
- The Origin of Species
- The Bible
- Metamorphosis
- à la récherche du temps perdu
- Don Quixote
This is only a partial list and it is admittedly Western-centric. I would compile a very different list when recommending books for somebody living in Africa, the Middle East, China, etc.
i'll second Metamorphosis by Kafka, and also:
The Divine Comedy
The Decameron
Tales From A Thousand and One Nights
Five Dialogues by Plato
The Communist Manifesto
The Prince
and some Poe is always good.
and yes this is a very western centric list, i've been exposing myself to more and more cultures but i haven't read all of their cannons to give good recommendations of their works.
The Divine Comedy
The Decameron
Tales From A Thousand and One Nights
Five Dialogues by Plato
The Communist Manifesto
The Prince
and some Poe is always good.
and yes this is a very western centric list, i've been exposing myself to more and more cultures but i haven't read all of their cannons to give good recommendations of their works.
Books everyone should read once eh?
There are others of course, but people have already mentioned some of them.
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Importance of Being Ernest (it is clearly the king of comedic writing)
- Macbeth
and, one of my personal favorites that really taught me a lot,
- The Bean Trees.
There are others of course, but people have already mentioned some of them.
As well as How to Win Friends & Influence People mentioned above, another 'life skills' book I would recommend is The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less
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Hear Hear!
I would personally recommend:
- The Sword of Shannara Genre, or at least the original trilogy of books by Terry Brooks
- The Smartest Guys in the Room and Conspiracy of Fools, both are absolutely fascinating in detailing the fall of Enron
- Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, there are others but these are my favorites by Orson Scott Card
- The Entire Chronicle's of Narnia collection by CS Lewis, because the books are always better than the movies.
Machiavelli's The Prince
A must read for anyone wanting to understand the world we live in and the people who control it.
A must read for anyone wanting to understand the world we live in and the people who control it.
Absolutely. Add The Brothers Karamazov to that list. Ivan's speech from the chapter "Rebellion" may be one of the greatest monologues in literature.
I also agree with blakintosh on 1984.
With respect to Shakespeare, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar are good choices.
A second for To Kill a Mockingbird, as well.
As for some more current stuff, I think everyone should read from the growing collection of development & globalization literature. Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a staple, though his weird analogies get tiresome. Amartya Sen's popular press stuff on development is supposed to be exceptional, though I haven't gotten around to it yet. Jeffrey Sachs' End of Poverty is a great book and William Easterly's rebuttal White Man's Burden is fantastic, too. These are topics with which everyone should become acquainted and there is no shortage of good books through which to come up to speed.
iWoz
Mark Twain
The Bible
Homer
An old encyclopedia ie it has to be over 75 years old. There is much that has been removed from the old books.
Mark Twain
The Bible
Homer
An old encyclopedia ie it has to be over 75 years old. There is much that has been removed from the old books.
And discovered that not everyone outside of the US and Britain is a savage.Cuz we found out it's wrong?
-Lord of the Rings Trilogy
-Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden)
-Rich Man Poor Man
-Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Oh and third for To Kill a Mockingbird
-Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden)
-Rich Man Poor Man
-Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Oh and third for To Kill a Mockingbird
Hmm, I'm not much of a book reader. One book I think everyone should read is "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson - Gonzo Journalistic non-fiction. It's just a ****ing awesome book.
I'm kind of glad to see Crime and Punishment on here, because it's one of the ridiculously bad-looking books I have to read for AP English...
Anyways, some others include:
Some of Richard Dawkin's books, particularly The Ancestor's Tale.
On the Origin of Species
The Bible.
"We need more atheists, and nothing will get you there faster than reading the damn Bible." -Penn Jillette.
All I can really think of right now
I'm kind of glad to see Crime and Punishment on here, because it's one of the ridiculously bad-looking books I have to read for AP English...
Anyways, some others include:
Some of Richard Dawkin's books, particularly The Ancestor's Tale.
On the Origin of Species
The Bible.
"We need more atheists, and nothing will get you there faster than reading the damn Bible." -Penn Jillette.
All I can really think of right now