Works of fiction you must read in your life?
- Thread starter DrRingDing
- Start date
Termite Man
zombie flesh eater
Anyhting by Henry Miller as well . Doesn't matter which book because I think it's the way he writes that makes him so good !
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Don't read it on the train.
D'wards said:
I think sometimes this is the mark of great literature - it's popular because it speaks to fundamental human truths.
You have some amazing recommendations. I would second anything by Faulkner and Heller and add Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre which was a great read and lots of fun.
1984, catch 22 and slaughterhouse 5 are all pretty obvious choices (and not just because they all have number in the title), but I'd add the brothers karamazov by dostoevsky- not least because kurt vonnegut himself said that it contains everything there is to know about the human race.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
So why did he bother writing?
If you can read The Colour Purple at any time, then you can read these two - specifically the Toni Morrison ones I mentioned on this thread, and the 5 part autobiographical series of Maya Angelous - unless you've already read the latterwaverunner said:Yup to Maya Angelou, but never heard of Toni Morrison. They're the sort of books I do like to read but only once in a while - I really have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy them. Except Colour Purple. I can read that any time
Fez909
toilet expert
Mary Shelly - Frankenstein...
...because you'll be surprised how moving a 'horror' book can be, and it'll do you good to rid your mind of the TV and film versions of this much twisted tale.
Ken Kasey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest...
...because it's an amazing story, which can be read easily, but happens to have quite a serious message. It also contains some of the greatest characters ever, IMHO, in McMurphy and Nurse Ratchett.
...because you'll be surprised how moving a 'horror' book can be, and it'll do you good to rid your mind of the TV and film versions of this much twisted tale.
Ken Kasey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest...
...because it's an amazing story, which can be read easily, but happens to have quite a serious message. It also contains some of the greatest characters ever, IMHO, in McMurphy and Nurse Ratchett.
moonsi til
worked it out now!
This thread is making me want to go back to bed and spend the day reading. Some great suggestions on here. I love reading John Irvings books and going to charity shops and coming home with a load of books for ten quid.
chainsaw cat
Tea. Biccies. Happy now?
Savage Henry said:I'd say teenage kids are better of reading the icelandic sagas , they have everything you've mentioned with the added bonus of vikings
Teenaged boys will never have any cause to regret giving up reading time in order to masturbate.
Fact.
chainsaw cat
Tea. Biccies. Happy now?
drcarnage said:
... read them back-to-back. Interesting insight into 1930s/40s perceptions of the way the world was headed...
i've been reading Huxley a lot lately, very stimulating stuff. I can't put my finger on why, but Will Self often puts me in mind of him.
The Groke
hot hail/Paging Dr. Beat
Another vote for "Down and out in Paris and London" and "1984" here - old Orwell seems a popular fellow with the Urbanites.....
I am going to add two more contemporary books to this list:
"Windup Bird Chronicle" By Haruki Murakami
"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.
I am going to add two more contemporary books to this list:
"Windup Bird Chronicle" By Haruki Murakami
"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson.
Cid said:There's no 'why' in the title silly, it would kinda defeat the point...
Tiger tiger (aka the stars my destination) - Alfred Bester, an ecstatic, debauched, distopian revenge story. One of the greatest books ever written imo.
The Demolished man - Bester again, about murder in the future - not quite as good as tiger tiger, but still great. Also worth looking at his short stories.
SECONDED !
Already mentioned, but it has to be Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
Edit: Sorry, The Second Sex isn't fucking fiction!
Read it anyway...
The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
Edit: Sorry, The Second Sex isn't fucking fiction!
Read it anyway...Orwell was a decent intellectual, but it is his condescension of the working class and his poverty tourism that gets me. The focusing on the fringe at the expense of the serious working class activist. A dilettante...
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
Fez909 said:
I thought it was utter wank.
Mary Shelly sounds like a dumb, class bigot, star struck, pretentious rich kid in need of a spanked bot bot.
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
Cheers people.
So far on my list is....
Brave New World - Huxley (bought it never read it)
1984 - Orwell
Homage to Catalonia - Orwell
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Gullivers Travels - Jonathan Swift
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy (the mrs bought it never read it)
So far on my list is....
Brave New World - Huxley (bought it never read it)
1984 - Orwell
Homage to Catalonia - Orwell
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Gullivers Travels - Jonathan Swift
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy (the mrs bought it never read it)
Is 1984 something people feel obliged to put on these 'best of' lists? I admit I loved it when I was 14, but re-reading it when I was twice that age, I saw how poorly constructed and one-dimensional most of the characters are (with perhaps the exception of Julia), how obvious the scene setting is (particularly in context), how clunky the prose is, and frankly, just how much he got it all wrong.
I suppose as he was dying when he wrote it, it can be seen that it needed a re-draft and editing. Definately his worst book.
I suppose as he was dying when he wrote it, it can be seen that it needed a re-draft and editing. Definately his worst book.
If not now, when? By Primo Levi... a truly amazing book. It based on true events (ish) and should be read by everybody!
It talks about the struggle of a band of Jewish (Polish and Russian) partisans in the last two years of WW2... it's full of despair but ultimately really positive.
It talks about the struggle of a band of Jewish (Polish and Russian) partisans in the last two years of WW2... it's full of despair but ultimately really positive.
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
All Quiet on the Western Front - made me cry like a baby. Such a moving account of the war, full of humanity. Very interesting knowing it was written about t'other side.
Life after God - Coupland. I really enjoyed this - a series of short vignettes, hard hitting and thought-provoking.
As others have said, Grapes of Wrath. I'm reading this at the moment and it is up there in my top 5. I am constantly amazed by its gravitas.
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Nice and short, but dead good. Essentially about burning books - again thought-provoking.
Erasure - Percival Everett. Another in my top 5. Utterly self-indulgent po-mo novel about a professor at a US university wanting to be recognised as something other than a writer of the 'black American experience'. Hugely hilarious and often cerebral - cannot recommend enough.
White Noise - Don Delillo. Another po-mo novel looking at the absurdities of modern America. Some side-splitting scenes involving the most photographed barn in America and disaster management simulation.
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson. Not a classic, but very interesting and beautifully written look at the little-mentioned plight of Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. (Don't read his East of the Mountains though, it's shit)
I second Richard Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn - stunning and slightly surreal.
Many of these aren't on your common everyday 'classic lit' lists, but they are ones I have enjoyed immensly and that have given me food for thought.
Life after God - Coupland. I really enjoyed this - a series of short vignettes, hard hitting and thought-provoking.
As others have said, Grapes of Wrath. I'm reading this at the moment and it is up there in my top 5. I am constantly amazed by its gravitas.
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury. Nice and short, but dead good. Essentially about burning books - again thought-provoking.
Erasure - Percival Everett. Another in my top 5. Utterly self-indulgent po-mo novel about a professor at a US university wanting to be recognised as something other than a writer of the 'black American experience'. Hugely hilarious and often cerebral - cannot recommend enough.
White Noise - Don Delillo. Another po-mo novel looking at the absurdities of modern America. Some side-splitting scenes involving the most photographed barn in America and disaster management simulation.
Snow Falling on Cedars - David Guterson. Not a classic, but very interesting and beautifully written look at the little-mentioned plight of Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. (Don't read his East of the Mountains though, it's shit)
I second Richard Brautigan's Revenge of the Lawn - stunning and slightly surreal.
Many of these aren't on your common everyday 'classic lit' lists, but they are ones I have enjoyed immensly and that have given me food for thought.
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