<p>Some of my favorite books (coming from someone who absolutely loves Russian literature):
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
Lolita, Nabokov
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak </p>
<p>Anything by Milan Kundera, esp. The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting- he really is an incredible author!!</p>
<p>The Tipping Point is pretty much perfect. You'll learn a ton, and it changes your perspective on the world. It's a fast read, too.</p>
<p>All Souls: A Family Story from Southie is also one of my favorites. Fast-paced, and heartbreaking but hopeful.</p>
<p>And Coming of Age in Mississipi. You'll be amazed at how much your high school didn't teach you about the Civil Rights movement.</p>
<p>Edit: and how could I forget the love of my life, Chuck Klosterman? HILARIOUS.</p>
<p>I really rarely read, so the "difficult" books...I haven't heard much of.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Disappointing/strange (if this is the same CC population that has an average SAT score of 2300 haha) that so many rising seniors are reading HP/Twilight/The Kite Runner.
[/quote]
Haha, I agree about Harry Potter but I never heard of the rest...Harry Potter is like one of the most overrated things I know.</p>
<p>freakonomics! </p>
<p>very fun to read; interesting/useful info too</p>
<p>because of this thread i've just borrowed a handmaid's tale!</p>
<p>i say The Count of Monte Cristo and Death of a salesman</p>
<p>this hardly ever happens to me. I usually drag out books for weeks and months because I don't want them to end. it's like I have to stop hanging out with the author every night...and since I mostly read non-fiction...I feel like I'm always making friends.</p>
<p>David Sedaris is awesome though. when I was plowing through his books I would plan my days around times to read them...and put them off until I had a solid chuck of time to savor them.</p>
<p>also (and this is dumb) I Am American (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert. when I got that book I was in the middle of a bunch of other books and they just fell by the wayside. this book was cutting into homework and sleep. I LOVED it...and I didn't even watch the show back then.</p>
<p>also (and this is dumb too, given this forum) that book The Overachievers was memorable for being one that I wanted to devour quickly. I HAD to know how those kids turned out.</p>
<p>^^ I know what you mean with dragging books out. Sometimes they are just so good and the plot and characters are so awesome. Its like a movie that I know is going to end so I want it be a tv series instead so I can have a set dose of it :)</p>
<p>Ender's Game!!! It is the best book ever and I read it every summer!</p>
<p>sabriel</p>
<p>lirael</p>
<p>abhorsen</p>
<p>best fantasy trilogy ever</p>
<p>The Grapes of Wrath</p>
<p>The Artemis Fowl series, Harry Potter; the Princess Diaries books are just too humorous to put down...</p>
<p>I can't say anything bad about Harry Potter seeing how it's what hooked me on reading, even though now I'm not that interested in them. But I love the Uglies "trilogy" (he added a fourth book even though he called it a trilogy) if you read the book and pay attention, you can catch alot of little hints about his political views and it amazes me how much the series reveals about him.</p>
<p>Also, I love Animal Farm, 1984 (didn't read in class when I was supposed to, then read it later and liked it), Farenheit 451 is by far my favorite of books we had to read. </p>
<p>Also, there is one book that I love but I hate the title. It's a book that argues insane things that are infuriating at times and argues from an economist's standpoint. I find it oddly addictive though to listen to his arguements. He argues things like "grade budgets" to decrease grade inflation. Also, he argues that "parents of daughters are more likely to divorce." Well, I don't want to say the name here so here's the author's name so whoever's interested can look it up: Steven E. Landsburg.</p>
<p>I read alot more than those, but I mostly read environmental and shark-related news, magazines, and books that I doubt anyone other than me would be interested in.</p>
<p>LOL to whoever said Bukowski</p>
<p>-A Sport and A Pastime by James Salter
-This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
-A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
-Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
-The Crucible by Arthur Miller
-On the Road by Jack Kerouac
-For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell
-Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
-Swann's Way by Marcel Proust</p>
<p>a lot of dense things but everything is incredibly rewarding and so enjoyable as a literature lover</p>
<p>I love the Harry Potter series along with books written by John Grisham. LIke the Firm</p>
<p>Recently, it's been Joe Conrad. Really dense prose but it pays off. Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim & Nostromo are phenomenal.</p>
<p>If you can stomach a gross-out but serious thinker of a novel, Chuck Palahniuk is the man.</p>
<p>I stayed up all night one night reading Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. That was intense. I also loved A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, and of course, Harry Potter (I had an all-night reading party for that one, which was incredibly dorky and therefore incredibly fun.) Then there's individual poems, although seldom entire books, that absorb me. Fission, by Jorie Graham; Alabanza, In Praise Of Local 100, by Martin Espada; W.H. Auden's In Memory Of W.B. Yeats (which somehow magically gets better everytime I read it)</p>
<p>...and, kinda, The Devil Wears Prada...</p>
<p>(thank goodness for internet annonymity!)</p>
<p>My not-so intellectual favs: the Twilight and Harry Potter series</p>
<p>My intellectual favs: the Joy Luck Club, the Poisonwood Bible, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (a lot of people hate it, but i love the satire), Animal Farm, the Count of Monte Cristo, All Quiet on the Western Front (a lot of people hate this book also, idk why)</p>
<p>I know there are more that I like, but I can't think of them right now. :(</p>
<p>Dirty by Megan Hart ;)</p>