10 Books Everyone Should Read

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard · 05-20-2017, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds

Solid list except for A Brief History of Time. Admittedly, I haven't read the books by Chomsky, Foucault, Mill, or Zinsser.

on liberty is pretty meh imo, there were some notable sections and quotes but aside from that it was hard to get through.

Pet_Sounds · 05-20-2017, 03:48 PM

I tried to do this and found that I can't really compare fiction and non-fiction. So, I made two lists.

Fiction:

George Orwell - 1984
Ernest Hemingway - "The Snows of Kiliminjaro" (short story)
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Richard Adams - Watership Down
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Those are the first ten works of fiction I'd recommend to a friend looking for something to read. I find them all both profound and entertaining. It hurt me to omit my all-time favourite writer, P. G. Wodehouse, but he doesn't have one definitive work.

Non-fiction:

Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
Richard P. Feynman - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Douglas R. Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Plato - The Republic
The Bible
The Quran
Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood

The five in the middle are books I've read that I think deserve to be read by everybody, and the other five are personal favourites. A couple of them check both boxes.

Trollheart · 05-20-2017, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pet_Sounds

I tried to do this and found that I can't really compare fiction and non-fiction. So, I made two lists.

Fiction:

George Orwell - 1984
Ernest Hemingway - "The Snows of Kiliminjaro" (short story)
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
Joseph Heller - Catch-22
J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
Richard Adams - Watership Down
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Those are the first ten works of fiction I'd recommend to a friend looking for something to read. I find them all both profound and entertaining. It hurt me to omit my all-time favourite writer, P. G. Wodehouse, but he doesn't have one definitive work.

Non-fiction:

Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
Richard P. Feynman - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Douglas R. Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Plato - The Republic

The Bible
The Quran
Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood

The five in the middle are books I've read that I think deserve to be read by everybody, and the other five are personal favourites. A couple of them check both boxes.

Seriously? You think people actually need to read the Bible?? As elphenor would no doubt say, the biggest propaganda production ever released by Christianity?

**Frownland** · 05-20-2017, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

Wanna stab yourself in the stomach? Have a kid and then read King's Pet Cemetery a few weeks later.

I made this mistake. Very few books have made me break down and cry. That was one of them.

On The Beach and The Road are two others I can think of right now.

My own work has made me cry, but I'm not sure if tears of frustration count.

**Frownland** · 05-20-2017, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Seriously? You think people actually need to read the Bible?? As elphenor would no doubt say, the biggest propaganda production ever released by Christianity?

Know the enemy.

OccultHawk · 05-20-2017, 04:31 PM

I've read all of the Bible. The interesting stuff is easy to miss because it's buried in mounds of repetitive boringness. You have to be alert.

The Batlord · 05-20-2017, 05:00 PM

Regardless, it and the Quran shouldn't be on a non-fiction list.

OccultHawk · 05-20-2017, 05:09 PM

I'm not sure if the Bible is plot driven enough to be fiction. I guess because there are stories buried in an endless list of names and temple dimensions and exaltations. I doubt more than 1 percent of people with Ph.D's in Divinity have actually read it. It's excruciating. So is Darwin. Which I also felt like I needed to put myself through.

The Batlord · 05-20-2017, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I'm not sure if the Bible is plot driven enough to be fiction. I guess because there are stories buried in an endless list of names and temple dimensions and exaltations. I doubt more than 1 percent of people with Ph.D's in Divinity have actually read it. It's excruciating. So is Darwin. Which I also felt like I needed to put myself through.

Pet_Sounds · 05-20-2017, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Seriously? You think people actually need to read the Bible?? As elphenor would no doubt say, the biggest propaganda production ever released by Christianity?

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Regardless, it and the Quran shouldn't be on a non-fiction list.

1. Whether or not you agree with the ideas in the Bible and the Quran, they have shaped the world. Without understanding those ideas, you cannot understand the history of the past 2000 years. It would be like trying to understand the history of the Soviet Union without reading the Communist Manifesto.

2. "Non-fiction" does not mean the same thing as factual. If it did, Nietzsche and Plato would have to be removed from the list.

05-20-2017, 03:48 PM	#102 (permalink)
Pet_Sounds Remember the underscore Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: The other side Posts: 2,488	I tried to do this and found that I can't really compare fiction and non-fiction. So, I made two lists. Fiction: George Orwell - 1984 Ernest Hemingway - "The Snows of Kiliminjaro" (short story) Charles Dickens - Great Expectations Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451 Joseph Heller - Catch-22 J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings Richard Adams - Watership Down Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Those are the first ten works of fiction I'd recommend to a friend looking for something to read. I find them all both profound and entertaining. It hurt me to omit my all-time favourite writer, P. G. Wodehouse, but he doesn't have one definitive work. Non-fiction: Viktor Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning Richard P. Feynman - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Douglas R. Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Plato - The Republic The Bible The Quran Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil Henry David Thoreau - Walden Truman Capote - In Cold Blood The five in the middle are books I've read that I think deserve to be read by everybody, and the other five are personal favourites. A couple of them check both boxes. __________________ Everybody's dying just to get the disease

05-20-2017, 04:31 PM	#106 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	I've read all of the Bible. The interesting stuff is easy to miss because it's buried in mounds of repetitive boringness. You have to be alert.

05-20-2017, 05:09 PM	#108 (permalink)
OccultHawk one-balled nipple jockey Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Dirty Souf Biatch Posts: 22,006	I'm not sure if the Bible is plot driven enough to be fiction. I guess because there are stories buried in an endless list of names and temple dimensions and exaltations. I doubt more than 1 percent of people with Ph.D's in Divinity have actually read it. It's excruciating. So is Darwin. Which I also felt like I needed to put myself through.