<p>THe Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood… My favorite book. It’s a fiction, alternative reality type thing… Very good!</p>
<p>&& I second Anna Karenina</p>
<p>I’m in the middle of reading “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot right now, and its an impressive account of the science of HeLa cells, widely used now for biomedical reserach because they were the first continuously reproducing cells in history, and the story of the Henrietta Lack and her family. Lack was a poor black woman form Baltimore who died of cancer and was the source of these cells, which continue to live 60 years after her death. Interestingly enough, this same story was the basis of a Law and Order episode a only a week or two ago. The book is meticulously researched and quite-well written bringing together diverse strands of history, science, politics and ethics into what’s damn near a page-turner. </p>
<p>Also try “The Genius In Us All” by David Schenk. Its about the creation and nurturing of genius and why many of us have at least the possibility for it. This is not some sappy inspirational or self help book. Its a hard look at how the interaction between genetic gifts, cultural factors and plain old hard work produces extraordinary people. Helpfully the science in it is written for the laymen, not the specialist. And its pretty short-- a 300 page book with 150 pages, maybe, of footnotes (for the obsessive among you!). It touches on many of the same subjects as Gladwell’s Outliers, but personally I liked this book better.</p>
<p>Here are some of my favorites:</p>
<p>The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
What Dreams May Come - Richard Matheson
Girl, Interrupted - Susanna Kaysen
The Prestige - Christopher Priest</p>
<p>not a novel per se, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard</p>
<p>I’m a fan of Hemingway’s short stories, most especially In Another Country.</p>
<p>In addition to The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged is also an excellent read (both by Ayn Rand).</p>
<p>A Clockwork Orange- Anthony Burgess
Frankenstein- Mary Shelley
Dune- Frank Herbert
100 years of solitude is also AMAZING!!!</p>
<p>Great choices, everyone.</p>
<p>Another vote for Primo Levi,that MissPickwickian</p>
<p>Survival in Auschwitz (known in Europe as If This is a Man) - Primo Levi
The Reawakening (known in Europe as The Truce) - Primo Levi
(These 2 should be read together)
The Periodic Table - Primo Levi</p>
<p>And Tobias Wolff “This Boy’s Life” .</p>
<p>Hmm… Seems like a lot of classics being listed here, so I guess I might be going out on a limb here, but</p>
<p>IT
The Stand
Both are great books by Stephen King. Considering that they are both 1000+ pages long, they might take a while to read but they are well worth it.</p>
<p>“Space” my James A. Michener. Historical Fiction. I personally like all of his books, but this one seems to be more like what the mainstream reads, rather than his typical novel such as “Texas”, which I found phenomenal.</p>
<p>I second Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale! It may be the first dystopian novel I have actually enjoyed.</p>
<p>I also second All Quiet on the Western Front; Erich Maria Remarque is sincerely a master of prose.</p>
<p>As for social commentary, I am currently in the midst of The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. He is a Times journalist; the book is nonfiction and basically a mature research paper on the globalization of the work force, to India and beyond…just be prepared to sift through his left-leaning implications.</p>
<p>I also realized that there were many Kurt Vonnegut fans on this thread, so I’ll add Cat’s Cradle to the list of his worthy reads.</p>
<p>Others I recommend:</p>
<p>*A Prayer for Owen Meany<a href=“John%20Irving”>/I</a></p>
<p>Summary: Two young boys raised in a small town explore the limits of their faith during the Vietnam War era.</p>
<p>Good for: anyone with an interest in religious subject matter (although agnostic and atheistic points of view are represented, too); anyone who was disenchanted with American conduct in Vietnam</p>
<p>*Nine Stories<a href=“J.D.%20Salinger”>/I</a></p>
<p>Summary: Although Salinger is the same man who wrote Catcher in the Rye- perhaps one of my least favorite high school reads- Nine Stories is so different as to be almost incomparable. Each story is masterfully pieced together, and despite their brevity, the plots, characters, and symbols are all wonderfully well-developed and intriguing. My personal favorite of the stories was probably Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut, although A Perfect Day for Bananafish, For Esme, With Love and Squalor, and The Laughing Man were noteworthy, as well.</p>
<p>Good for: anyone with an interest in Hinduism/reincarnation/etc.; Salinger fans (although the subject matter is different from Catcher, the writing style is the same)</p>
<p>*Washington Square<a href=“Henry%20James”>/I</a></p>
<p>Summary: The plain daughter of a wealthy doctor in 1800s Manhattan engages in a courtship with a suspiciously manipulative beau.</p>
<p>Good for: fans of Jane Austen and Gone With the Wind; romantics; most others that I know of did not enjoy this novella because the plot is a little uneventful</p>
<p>Hmm…it might be helpful to mention that I also did not enjoy Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn; if those rank among your favorite selections, our book tastes may be incompatible and you might prefer to take another poster’s suggestions!</p>
<p>Happy Reading! ;)</p>
<p>Three of my favorite books:</p>
<p>All the King’s Men - Robert Penn Warren
Literary semi-historical fiction. Makes you think about human nature, but never tells you to outright (no didacticism here). Takes about 300 pages to warm up, and is confusing until then, but from then on it unwinds very fast with lots of Oh. Wow. twists that in retrospect make so much sense. The writing is also beautiful, and I am told that it is somewhat similar to “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
(On the other hand, this person also thought that Robert Penn Warren’s prose was reminiscent of Steinbeck’s. Are James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway similar? So Warren and Steinbeck, in type of separation, if not degree. When I assigned him a piece of Robert Penn Warren’s prose to analyze, he spent three pages saying, in the most pompous terms, that Warren was “ineffectively aping” Paton, the author of CtBC, and that all of the points I had particularly hoped would be conducive to analysis were “inexplicable.” He then listed three phrases he thought were “interesting.” Good grief.)</p>
<p>The King of Elfland’s Daughter - Lord Dunsany
Beautiful epic fairy-tale-like fiction, from which I get my username. Pre-Tolkien. Stronger on language than on character, in that the characters are interesting, and emotionally relevant, but difficult to imagine coming down off the plateau of high fantasy to do anything so mundane as chatting with one over breakfast. Gets positive reviews from Arthur C Clarke, Yeats (Yeats!), and more. Here is Neil Gaiman in the introduction of my copy: “To begin with, the writing is beautiful. …[H]is words sing, like those of a poet who got drunk on the prose of the King James Bible, and who has still not yet become sober.” “Today, fantasy is, for better or for worse, just another genre, a place in a bookshop to find books that, too often, remind one of far too many other books…The King of Elfland’s Daughter, on the other hand, is a work of pure imagination… Perhaps this book should come with a warning: it is not a reassuring, by-the-numbers fantasy novel, like most of the books with elves, princes, ■■■■■■, and unicorns between their covers. This is the real thing. It’s a rich red wine, which may come as a shock if all one has had so far has been cola. So trust the book. Trust the poetry and the strangeness, and the magic of the ink, and drink it slowly.” It is short, but, as Neil Gaiman says, go slowly.</p>
<p>The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
Written by the man who won the first Hugo for “The Demolished Man,” I like this book much better. The “hero” is stuck in a spaceship, living out of the one airtight and lightless closet left on the ship. He remains so for a very long time, and then, on one of his trips to get more air canisters, sees a spaceship. He fires flares, and the ship sees him and approaches. It then veers away into the darkness, leaving him abandoned once again. The “hero” wants revenge, and this is his story. In character he is rather similar (and intentionally so) to Edmund Dantes, from The Count of Monte Cristo. Also introduced by Neil Gaiman in my copy. (I didn’t know who Neil Gaiman was when these both became two of my three favorite books, just FYI)</p>
<p>Honorable mentions:</p>
<p>A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
How can one but love Sydney Carton?
**The Importance of Being Earnest<a href=“play”>b</a> - Oscar Wilde
Laugh-out-loud funny, and very modern. How can you eat muffins at a time like this?! (paraphrased) Get the four-act version if you can.
Neil Gaiman
Pretty good modern fantasy; the climax of Neverwhere is Wow This Is Cool! The ending is merely fine, but that’s okay. Haven’t read his more famous endeavors. Also has good taste in books to introduce.
George Orwell
1984 is a less-likely-to-be-accurate dystopia than Brave New World, but an exponentially better novel. Animal Farm is also very good.
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Romantic comedy as it ought always be.
Metamorphoses - Ovid
Ovid and Oscar Wilde would get along quite well. Both funny, irreverent, part of high society but satirical of it, and stylish of language. I like the Charles Martin translation.</p>
<p>Honorable mentions outside of the typical Western tradition, because all of my earlier recommendations are from England or the United States, except for Ovid, who is hardly out of the box. These would appeal to me slightly less than most of the honorable mentions above, but are brought to an equal level by being refreshingly different:</p>
<p>Giants in the Earth - O.E. Rolvaag
A book about Norwegian immigrants on the high cold plains of North America, translated from Norwegian. The writing is both poetic and different, and the plot philosophical.
The Rubaiyat - Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald
Collection of Islamic poetry by a poet who has struggles with his faith. Translations hold true to the thought, but may not be the most literal. Very good though!
Beowulf - unknown, translated by Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney is a Very Good Poet. I have read really bad translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, so I know how much translator matters, and this is a brilliant translation of an original that is a classic for a reason.</p>
<p>Well I have not bestowed special awards and distinctions upon my favourite books like Lirazel, but one book that sticks out in my mind is Ender’s Game. Not by any means a classic but it’s a great and quick read - converted me to a sci-fi fan.</p>
<p>I’m in the middle of reading “The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot …</p>
<p>ooohh - I just read this. Fabulous!</p>
<p>Also just finished - Memory by Donald Westlake. Drama/Mystery This wasn’t published until after his death because he felt it was too disturbing. I thought it was great.</p>
<p>I just finished “The Glass Palace” by Amitav Ghosh and have found it to be the best of his works. Its a multi-generational story about a deposed Burmese royal family who is forced to move to India by the British. It’s got some beautiful writing in it. </p>
<p>“Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche is a good read as well (it’s about the ultimately futile struggle for Biafran independence).</p>
<p>Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier</p>
<p>I had read it in the past but liked it even better this time around.</p>
<p>Ishmael and the subsequent sequels.</p>
<p>I just finished reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell in three sittings. While I found it to be interesting and readable, I disagreed with some of the author’s main points and found his arguments to be either obviously true or tenuous. Still, I recommend the book to anyone interested in such topics as success, intelligence, or sociology.</p>
<p>Another book I highly recommend is The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. It’s a fascinating and edifying book that may fundamentally change the way you view the world.</p>
<p>The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. WWII Fiction. Best book I’ve read, ever.</p>
<p>I loved it, too, wittywonka. (love the name)</p>
<p>I don’t think that I have seen The Madonnas of Leningrad mentioned here. I recommend it.</p>
<p>I saw a mention much earlier of A Prayer For Owen Meany. That was a book that I did not want to end.</p>
<p>A very recent read that has stuck with me: ** Still Alice.** Fiction; Early onset alzheimer’s told from the perspective of the highly intelligent women who has the disease. Very well done.</p>
<p>All the books recommended that I have read are great! I’m looking forward to reading the ones mentioned that I haven’t read. For fun, I like David Sedaris’ books - Naked and Me Talk Pretty One Day. For a saga, I enjoyed I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. For obscure fiction that’s really different you might enjoy My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. It’s a murder mystery set in medieval Turkey by a Turkish author. Also, I’d like to put in a plug for my college housemate, Padgett Powell’s novel The Interrogative Mood. It’s unusual in that it’s a book composed only of questions. But, I guarantee some of those questions will make you laugh and others will make you think about your own preferences and opinions.</p>
<p>I enjoyed Outliers, too. Though a few of the author’s points may be a little iffy, his work is ultimately a great one, in my opinion. I admire Gladwell’s ability to come up with novel ways of examining social phenomena and simultaneously suffuse those viewpoints with funny and interesting anecdotes.</p>
<p>“The Empathic Civilization” by Jeremy Rifkin is a new book I just found, and the 600+ page read was definitely worth the rigor for me. Basically, the author posits that humanity has evolved through several levels of consciousness (including theological and psychological), and is on the brink of embracing a new one which will have glorious consequences… Aaand, I won’t spoil the rest.</p>