Essential Reading

I don't really have a favorite book, but I think that when you're feeling down Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series works better than any pill ever could.

We should start a reading club. Cool

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Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

The hard part would be picking a book to start with.
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The first mentioned. Then go from there.
_________________

Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

Knight Joined: 07 Feb 2012 Posts: 358 Location: USA

If people want to revive the book club/reading group, can they start a new thread for it?

If you haven't read Heroes Die, Suvudu has the first 50 pages up online. I highly recommend checking it out and seeing if you like it. As I said earlier, the Acts of Caine would be on my essential reading list. Stover's personal fiction is a lot different from his Star Wars stuff, but just as enjoyable.

http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2012/03/50-page-fridays-matthew-woodring-stover.html
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BBC made a Top 100 Novels list:

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I've read ten of them. I've started (and plan on finishing) four of them. I plan on reading them all someday. Cool

_________________

Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

Knight Joined: 30 Apr 2011 Posts: 222

I don't have a favorite fiction series, but for non-fiction, philosophy in particular, I head straight for Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, to a lesser extant.

I've read just about every book on that list, and own many of them, but to me, these were the only ones worth re-reading:

EUC Staff Joined: 09 Nov 2011 Posts: 1204 Location: Nirn

I've only read;

4 The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

But would like to read more;

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
70 Moby **** – Herman Melville
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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There's always a bigger fish - Qui Gon Jinn.

You shall learn that history is an intricate weaving of many events. No one thing can be understood without the proper context.

The best techniques are passed on by the survivors.

Master Joined: 15 Apr 2008 Posts: 4434 Location: Korriban

First of all..."Moby ****" is just hilarious to me. Not the novel, but that particular way of listing it. Just baha.

My list of required reading is actually not terribly long, but perhaps quite meaningful.

1. The Divine Comedy - Dante
2. Voice of the Fire - Alan Moore
3. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein
4. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
5. Y: The Last Man - Brian K. Vaughan
6. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman
7. The Plague - Albert Camus
8. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
9. A Clockwork Orange - Alexander Burgess
10. The Children of Hurin - J.R.R. Tolkein

The merit of this list is wholly preference. The last entry is listed purely for its devotion to the idea of a 'tragedy' that hasn't been seen in this grand style since the death of the Bard. One is a comic series but its more intelligent than a lot of modern literature. Huxley's contribution should speak for itself, as should Dante's (Dante wrote the best work of literature known to man, at least to me). My reccommended list is...significantly longer lol
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Perfection is a lifelong pursuit requiring sacrifice. The only way to get it quicker is to sacrifice the most.

I guess I should say what I read on the list...

I have read:
6 The Bible - Epic read. Cool

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell - Definitely deserving of it's classic status, but too dreary and political for my tastes.
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien - Great book. Lighter and more fun than LOTR.
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame I just finished this one recently. Delightful book and more contemplative than I expected.
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis Life-changing stuff for me. These books began a "movement" that would revolutionize my views on religion, history, and literature (now my three favourite academic subjects). Also truly delightful reads.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis I'm not sure why this was listed separately. Great book.
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell I liked this better than 1984, but I still didn't love it.
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck Decent.
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens One of my favourite stories of all time. No matter how many versions I watch/read, it never gets old.
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare My first classic! Truth be told, I don't remember it much. I should re-read it.

These are the ones I'm yet to finish:
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien *sigh* I'll admit it: I haven't finished LOTR, though I love it.
4 The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling I read the first three, moderately enjoyed them, but got intimidated at the size of The Goblet of Fire and haven't continued yet.
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens A good book, but long.
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams Beautifully written, but not a book to rush through.

@Caedus: Why do you think the Divine Comedy is the best literature? Don't get me wrong, I thought the Divine Comedy was excellent, but I'm curious to hear your reasoning.
_________________

Where sky and water meet,
Where the waves grow sweet,
Doubt not, Reepicheep,
To find all you seek,
There is the utter east.

EUC Staff Joined: 09 Nov 2011 Posts: 1204 Location: Nirn

For some reason the end of Animal Farm

Click here to see the hidden message (It might contain spoilers)

genuinely scared me.

I believe the only Shakespeare I've read is Richard III, which I very much enjoyed.

I'd like to read some of those steampunk dystopians as well.
_________________
There's always a bigger fish - Qui Gon Jinn.

You shall learn that history is an intricate weaving of many events. No one thing can be understood without the proper context.

The best techniques are passed on by the survivors.

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