<p>sugerkim - Dare I believe my eyes? Someone else who's read Shadow of the Wind?</p>
<p>It's not a literary giant like many of the books mentioned so far, but it's definitely a well-crafted, gripping novel. It's a "love letter to literature" (from one of the reviews, and I thought this was a really fitting description).</p>
<p>Also:</p>
<p>The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende</p>
<p>The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time.</p>
<p>The Tipping point--Gladwell
Night----Elie Wiesel
The confessions of Max Tivoli
This Much I know is True
The Interpreter of Maladies
The house of Blue Mangoes</p>
<p>ShanFan - i think its impossible to read pretty much any russian novel and not fall in love with it...</p>
<p>some suggestions:</p>
<p>Dostoyevsky - crime and punishment, notes from underground, the house of the dead
Gogol - the overcoat, diary of a madman, the nose
Tolstoy - Anna Karenina, Cossacks, War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Turgenev - Fathers and Sons</p>
<p>but you might want something a bit lighter for summer</p>
<p>don't forget the brothers karamazov!</p>
<p>My favorite: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams</p>
<p>I'm currently reading: Robot Visions, a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov (but one should read I, Robot first).</p>
<p>"The Tipping point--Gladwell"</p>
<p>If you like this read Blink by Gladwell also.</p>
<p>Both books are pretty short.</p>
<p>Tree of Heaven by R.C. Binstock
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
...And maybe Brave New World by Aldous Huxley</p>
<p>To add a couple of non-fiction to the list:</p>
<p>Freakonomics
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Salt (a world history)</p>
<p>And I HIGHLY recommend anything with the name Tolkien attached to it. <em>nerd</em></p>
<p>I second Flowers for Algernon, Catch-22, and Guns, Germs, and Steel. If you're at all interested in science (or even if you're not), A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love by Richard Dawkins is one of my favorites. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande is good too. (I've been on a nonfiction streak lately, so I appreciate everyone's fiction suggestions!)</p>
<p>if you're a physics nerd like me, my favorite authors that write "non-technical" physics books for are feynman, hawking, greene, and dyson. anything by them will be good.</p>
<p>one book that will change your life:</p>
<p>Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.</p>
<p>objectivism is the most vacuous, worthless psuedo-philosophy ever. but rand's novels make for good fun anyway.</p>
<p>I second Perks of Being a Wallflower, Slaughterhouse-five, Flowers for Algernon, and Hitchhiker's Guide, and offer these suggestions as well:</p>
<p>Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
About a Boy, Nick Hornby
High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
Joe College, Tom Perotta</p>
<p>None of the latter five are really challenging reads IMO, but they're interesting.</p>
<p>Sophies World</p>
<p>DONT read running with scissors unless your interested in reading sex scenes between a young boy and a 40 year old man</p>
<p>I'm reading Sophie's World for my Euro AP class</p>
<p>Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorites</p>
<p>Guns, Germs, and Steel sucks! And by sucks I mean it is not worth reading.</p>
<p>^I second that. I had to read it for AP World...not a good experience.</p>
<p>If you are looking for something that is more entertaining than "literature," I'd suggest something by Leon Uris or Nelson DeMille (although DeMille's tend to be rather military-based, something that interests me but I dunno about you.) Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is cute and a really quick read.</p>
<p>If you want something more "serious," Pride and Prejudice is good.</p>
<p>Or you could read Gone With the Wind, and then watch the movie. That should take up many hours (watch for the scary Vivien Leigh eyebrow thing...so funny :P)</p>
<p>Black Order - popular fiction, could be lit but not really
The Elegant Universe
Kite Runner
etc.</p>
<p>Pretty sure you won't like any of mine :P</p>