<p>I want to read one of the following books. any of you read any of them? opinions?
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Prince by Machiavelli
Candide by Voltaire</p>
<p>thanks =)</p>
<p>I read the Prince and the Art of War and I liked them both, but not to the point that I'd read them for fun. Everyone thinks how the Art of War is filled with a bunch of wise Chinese proverbs and if you're reading it for that you'll be dissapointed because a lot of it actually is "if you're stuck in a marsh tell your troops to do this" and was pretty war specific. The Prince was a little more applicable to everyday life, although I don't approve of little Nicolo's ethics.</p>
<p>If I were you, I'd go with Candide. I've been meaning to read it for a REALLY long time, but every time I get a chance it seems a college essay or a homework assignment pops up to ravage my time away.</p>
<p>ill probably end up reading them all, or at least the prince and candide. just trying to pick which first >_></p>
<p>Candide is probably the most universal and accessible of those books; it's short, funny, and poignant.</p>
<p>ya im thinking ill read candide first and then the prince. yay</p>
<p>What is candide about?</p>
<p>Prince/Art of War was dry.</p>
<p>I have to do a presentation on Candide next week, and I haven't read it yet. I'm glad so many people would recommend it!</p>
<p>tufts you thought Prince was dry? ive heard good things and his philosophy fascinates me.</p>
<p>candide is an enlightenment work by voltaire. candide goes around the world and sees all bad things, but its done in a satiric way. something like that. id tell you more in depth when i read it :o</p>
<p>I'm reading Dune right now (peer pressure from my friends and economics teacher, lol) but I've also been on a neuroscience kick: I've been reading anything and everything about the brain.</p>
<p>I'm curious: those of you that read a lot, do you ever suddenly read a whole bunch of books in one category (ie a bunch of books on airplanes) in a row? Lol, I've been doing that a lot lately.</p>
<p>I read like 6 books at a time, constantly - right now I've got a biographical sort of thing (Heisenberg and his involvment in Germany's atomic program), 2 scientific books (Dawkins and Pinker), 2 "classical" non-trashy novels (Catch-22 and 3 Muskateers), and miscellaneous sci-fi trash that I'm not going to name to save myself the lit-snob reputation.</p>
<p>I'll go through catagories of books either if I'm really interested in something that's broad enough or if it's a series (which doesn't really count) but it's less taxing to mix things up.</p>
<p>Candide!!!</p>
<p>Voltaire is a genius. He's better in French, though. ;)</p>
<p>Read Voltaire first. Definitely.</p>
<p>lol i'm just about to start candide</p>
<p>The Prince by Machiavelli</p>
<p>My god, read it. Everyone has the absolute WRONG idea of this book. Everyone think Nicolo Machiavelli was really being serious with his "Damn the ethical torpedoes" attitude. He was NOT. If you take the time to read it you will understand that the book is actually a satire to teach you the other way around! And my authority on this? A Professor of English at Davidson, and my own 10th grade English teacher. So please, whenever someone says "That's so evil and Machiavellian!" correct them and say, "That's so UN-Machiavellian!" Because Machiavelli espoused the opposite. Read it as a parody on politicians. Brilliant and misunderstood.</p>
<p>uh... You can look at a book any way you choose, but I don't think the book was supposed to a satire.</p>
<p>i've heard the theory of Machiavelli as a satirist thrown around a couple times, but i'm not sure how much merit it has, or how well accepted it is among scholars. the exposure i've had to Machiavelli is very limited, but my ap euro teacher never even mentioned that theory (suprising, because he tends to look at everything skeptically).</p>
<p>however, considering the differing political paradigms (when the Prince was first published, and our society today), i think it's possible that people are construing the meaning to be opposite of what Machiavelli wrote, since we strive for just and ethical forms of government. this, of course, was not the case in the 15th century. so maybe we're just seeing what we want to see?</p>
<p>i don't know. like i said, i haven't even read the Prince, so i don't really know what i'm talking about. i think it's a really interesting idea, though.</p>
<p>oh, and read all of them, but definitely voltaire first.</p>
<p>My Sister's Keeper and the Life of Pi.</p>
<p>Memoirs of a Geisha....I'd hesitate if asked it was "Real Literature" but it's not Danielle Steele or anything. Movie was ok, saw it...Downer if there ever was one, tho.</p>