<p>For the poetry fans out there, I recommend Wallace Stevens, Billy Collins & Mary Oliver</p>
<p>"Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" by Alexandra Fuller is a rollicking, tragic, comic memior about growing up an expat in the middle of nowhere in Africa</p>
<p>Anything by Pat Conroy, esp "The Great Santini" & "Prince of Tides" (another one where the movie adaptation was horrible and would serve as a barrier to ever reading the book) for the sheer beauty of the language and his incredible evocation of the landscape</p>
<p>Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
Gabriel Garcia Marquez "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera"-- wonderful</p>
<p>Les Miserables is...the greatest book in the universe. Pleeeaaase don't read it abridged. I know it's long, but I couldn't imagine taking out a single word. Soooo beautiful.</p>
<p>Don Quixote! :) </p>
<p>Anna Karennina, The Count on Monte Cristo.</p>
<p>Umm...if you haven't read any Dostoevsky, please don't start with Crime and Punishment. Read Notes from the Underground and if you like it, try the Idiot and the Brothers Karamazov. :)</p>
<p>Anything you can find by J.M. Coetzee, he's wonnnderful. And Nadine Gordimer. Awww.</p>
<p>Nietzsche - The Gay Science
Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
William Barrett - Irrational Man
Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Dostoyevski - Notes from the Underground
Lao Tse - Tao Te Ching
Hoff - The Tao of Pooh</p>
<p>The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,</p>
<p>as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.</p>
<p>Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,</p>
<p>something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.</p>
<p>Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.</p>
<p>It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.</p>
<p>No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. </p>
<p>i know i'm a little late on this, but i second the Neruda vote. his poetry is delicious. i also second anything and everything by Orson Scott Card (read Ender's Game, first though. it's his first work of the world he created for those series branches, and, as an OSC purist, i recommend Ender's Game first). and (the novel) The Great Gatsby.</p>
<p>and for my own recommendation, Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk.
Palahniuk is the author of the novel Fight Club, which was also made into a movie (it's a pretty popular film, and if you've already seen it, reading the novel will be a different, but equally great, experience).</p>
<p>I third The Kite Runner. I finished it last week and the book is just incredible. Hosseini takes you on emotional rides, making you smile along with the characters at times, and with a single sentence turn everything around</p>
<p>If On A Winter's Night a Traveller- Italo Cavino
The Hours- Micheal Cunningham
Mrs. Dalloway- Virginia Woolf (read this before the hours)
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy-Douglas Adams
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
Flaubert's Parrot - ... i dont remember
Pale Fire- again... don't remember</p>
<p>... srry about the selection... most of it is from my women's lit classes and post-mod. class</p>
<p>Many people despise this book, but if you are interested in character development -slash- psychology of characters I'd highly recommend The Awakening by Kate Chopin.</p>
<p>alright, just wondering, does SB stand for softball? Do you have a player on the team at Brown? I'm hopefully coming in the fall and I will be playing on the team if I go.</p>
<p>Red Tent was fantastic, but As a Driven Leaf is incredible. And The Star of Redemption by Franz Rosenzweig is a must read for people of all faiths.</p>