<p>i need some suggestions. I need the most difficult-to-read books, or great classics. Can someone give me some more suggestions for the following genres?</p>
<p>Political Philosophy: Atlas Shrugged??
Christian Experience: The Brothers Karamazov?
Romance: Pride and Prejudice?
Stream-of-Consciousness: Ulysses?
Bildungsroman: David Copperfield?
War epic: War and Peace?
American Immigrant Experience: The jungle?
Contemporary Era(post 60s): Catch-22?</p>
<p>Oh man...Ulysses is a real tough one.</p>
<p>For Bildunsgroman, a classic is "Red Badge of Courage" by Steven Crane. It is a shorter novel than most of the books on your list, but is Bildunsgroman nevertheless. </p>
<p>War and Peace is an excellent book: I almost read the entire thing. It has a reputation of being long a laborious. While it is long, it is not as laborious as people make it sound! It is a very good read. </p>
<p>Ulysses is probably the best book you could read for Stream of consciousness. However, depending on what kind of person you are and your family background, you may find parts of it inappropriate. </p>
<p>Everything else looks pretty good. Can I ask why you need the most difficult books to read? Is it a school assignment, or a personal choice? Just curious...</p>
<p>yeah, its a personal choice. I want to make a reading list, not for any particular assignment. Literature is fascinating; I want to read books at my own pace.</p>
<p>^^Very cool...</p>
<p>Are you in highschool?</p>
<p>Wow, why are you necessarily picking books based on being "the most difficult" which is subjective to begin with...</p>
<p>Well, you're smart, since I have never heard of, let alone having read it, any of the ones above (96% of the books were foreign to me on that "privileged boring books list" as well...rofl) other than Catch 22. Of course, I haven't read it. I heard it's pretty good though. </p>
<p>Have you tried something like Thomas Paine's common sense? Of course I fell asleep, but it was still pretty good (had to read it for school). Another option is to simply to go to sparknotes and click "literature" and scan the list.</p>
<p>Having said that, if I could ever read as 1/20 as much as you do I'll be perfectly content. Good luck with reading...</p>
<p>Political Philosophy: Holes
Christian Experience: Narnia
Romance: One of those Meg Cabot chick lits.
Stream-of-Consciousness: The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread
Bildungsroman: Artemis Fowl?
War epic: Watch "Kids Next Door"- It's actually pretty good.
American Immigrant Experience: Just watch "An American Tail".
Contemporary Era(post 60s): A Series of Unfortunate events</p>
<p>Take it easy a little. You're in the high school forum... and high school ain't exactly the intellectual lightning rod of literacy. </p>
<p>It's summer break. Do something fun. I would shoot myself then read Ulysses willingly. And what the hell is Bildungsroman?</p>
<p>The above reading list was good enough for a 800 critical reading score by the way... I'm sure you'll do one better than me on the SAT with such a passion for reading.</p>
<p>I, have actually read 1/2 the books on Gryffon's list. Amazing.</p>
<p>Walden .</p>
<p>Bildungsroman: Ender's Game</p>
<p>Political Philosophy: Leviathan, Two Treatises of Government, The Federalist (get a compilation)
Christian Experience: The Idiot
Romance: Gone w/ the Wind
Bildungsroman: Huck Finn/Tom Sawyer
War epic: A farewell to arms, GWTW also works
Contemporary Era(post 60s): The English Patient? All the books coming to mind are like 1950s :(</p>
<p>Lol, it's for personal choice? I could have given like 30 books for contemporary that were in the 50s :/
Why the category's anyway? Just go to a B&N and look at their classics section; that's what I did about 5 years back and so have read 3/4th of the books there since</p>
<p>great</a> books - book search, top 100 books</p>
<p>Also, I agree with B&N's classics section; they're cheap, too.</p>
<p>If you want something difficult about literature or the philosophy of literature rather than literature itself, I'd recommend some Kenneth Burke.</p>
<p>read Jules Verne and Charles Dickens</p>
<p>Stream-of-consciousness: The Sound and the Fury (if you want the most difficult)</p>
<p>Well, actually, Finnegans Wake is even harder.</p>
<p>I absolutely second Jules Verne; one of my favorite authors as a tyke, sparked my interest in the natural sciences. Read around the world, 20,000 leagues, mysterious island, Journey, 5 weeks, Earth to moon, and whatever else you can get your hands on. Make sure that the translation's a well respected one, as I've heard of bad translations ruining it.</p>
<p>Speaking of French authors, read voltaire, Hugo, and Dumas. I've read a couple books from each and they rarely disappoint.</p>
<p>The Jungle is not too hard of a read, but def. a classic, especially because of its influence in the FDA afterwards; i recommend it.</p>
<p>If you're talking cheap, it's called the library: all that I ever use if there's ever a time when I read. I've bought a few books in my life.</p>
<p>Difficult classics . . . Immanuel Kant's stuff is supposed to be notoriously difficult (then again a lot of philosophy is) . . . so is reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in its original English. I'd also add Moby Dick or Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (I have no idea what it's about).</p>
<p>Also works by Cormac McCarthy. My friend was raving about one of his books and I decided to check one out. I tried reading it and was like " . . . wth?"</p>
<p>If you want something plain difficult, try your library's tax dictionary.</p>