I need a list of books to read this year so I can at least begin to consider my reading "complete". To start the list and give an example: Animal Farm by Orwell.
So you mean snob books/"high literature". I still have my list from high school around here somewhere, I'll see if I can find it. But trust me, it's a waste of time trying to "complete" your reading by doing all the classics. I tried exactly the same thing.
Found it. My list from high school. Rather pretentious, it was in retrospect a pretty silly idea. Mostly classics with a few odd ones out. War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy The Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe Fables - Aesop Ivanhoe - Walter Scott Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer The Count Of Monte Christo - Alexandre Dumas 1984 - George Orwell Crime & Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky History Of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - John Le Carre The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan The Scarlet Letter - Arthur Conan Doyle The Clouds - Aristophanes Medea - Euripides The Name Of The Rose - Umberto Eco The rest of Shakespeare's plays that I hadn't done in school And a couple of really good books I've read recently, which I'd recommend to anyone: Nathanial's Nutmeg - Giles Milton The Justice Game - Geoffrey Robertson The Consolations Of Philosophy - Alain de Botton
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck There are many more that I'm just not thinking of right now. I'll finish my list later.
I don't think you (or anyone else) will ever "complete" any reading list. But for fun, I'll add The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee The Assistant, by Bernard Malamud
Seen the movie, loved it. Read the books, loved them. Read those, hated them for the most part. At least I'm not starting with absolutely nothing done.
Whatever you do, don't bother trying to read Ulysses by James Joyes ... uggh, I don't know how many times I fell asleep reading that. I'm sort of on my own quest to read the classics and 'must-reads' and I must say if you get a good translation of the Illiad and the Odessy by Homer, they're reasonably fun to read. Of course if you get a bad translation it's very painful.
Read the book and the movie will pale in comparison. There are a lot of great books, but some of it just depends on taste. One of my professors who is brilliant absolutely loved "Titus Andronicus" by Shakespeare, but most scholars consider it Billy Shakes weakest play. I'm a huge fan of Chaucer, but don't bother reading him unless you want to do it in the original middle English text. It's really not that hard to pick it up once you get the hang of it. Don't just read the Canterbury Tales though. Troilus and Criseyde is by far the better of his two great works. Use the Riverside Chaucer edition. It's the best. Others to read: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte The Outsiders Native Son by Richard Wright the short stories of DH Lawrence A Scattering of Jades by Alex Irvine (this one is a must buy ) I'm sure I'll think of more later.
The Cider House Rules - John Irving Forrest Gump - Winston Groom Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt Flowers For Algernon
I think you meant two books here: The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle Crime & Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky) was a good read and The Count Of Monte Christo (Alexandre Dumas) remains one of my favorite books. However, save yourself some time and possible heartache by reading slightly abridged editions. You don't get the whole book, but often times, you only miss out on 14 pages describing the nuances of a small room. Anything by James Fenimore Cooper will be a good, easy, read if gotten abridged. His two most popular -- The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans.
Ugh! I hated Cooper. To each their own though. IMO, if you really want to read something great from the American Realist period, read Henry James' work. Fantastic.
Man, am I glad you didn't give this advice six years ago. I've read it twice and loved it both times. It gets easier when Leo Bloom takes over.
Balzac: "Pere Goroit" Dostoevsky: "The Brothers Karamazov" Faulkner - "The Sound and the Fury" Your reading hasn't even begun without sampling these three authors.
Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" if you have an interest in literature in general or modern literature. If it's just for your own sake as a person, I still recommend it, but maybe not at your age - you're in high school right? I loved it when I read it in college and was studying French Lit. In high school it was just boring as I was forced to read it.
You're joking! We were given a list going into my AP Psych class last year and that was the only book (IMHO) that didn't have too much med-speak. However, the book about synaesthesia was interesting. But, hey, whatever floats your boat. Everybody should read Harry Potter. Dead serious.
I agree, but with one caveat: immediately after reading Madame Bovary, read Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes. Great book, and a prime example of metafiction.
Dostoevsky appealed to me more when I was in college than now. I prefer Tolstoy. Faulkner is amazing. I slightly prefer Absalom, Absalom to The Sound and the Fury, although the latter is arguably a more important work. Never read anything by Balzac, but I'll check out the one you mention. Then again, GringoTex, I know you like Proust, who I consider highly overrated. And I'd say one's reading hasn't begun without reading Don Quixote.
We read it in 8th grade, maybe I was too young to care, dunno. I love Harry Potter. I've read every book at least twice.
I've taught 8th graders. They hate everything! Hehe. Honestly, though, I think that might have had a lot to do with it. When you start driving, try it as an audio book. I listened to it once. Great reader on the version I listened to. Jeff Woodman or something like that. I love Harry Potter. I've read every book at least twice.[/QUOTE] Reading doesn't always have to be about the classics or becoming extraordinarily literate! For pure fun and entertainment, it really doesn't get much better than HP. For some additional interesting books for fun, here's a list for you. These are all supposedly young adult fiction, but I read them in my 30s and loved 'em. 1. The Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix. These are fantasy books: Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen are the three in the trilogy. They're not your typical fantasy books... a different concept from the usual fare. 2. A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park.. Won the Newberry Medal in 2002. About an 11th century (I think) Korean boy. 3. Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan. Takes place in India. Great book. 4. Fat Kid Rules the World by K.L. Going. Punks and fat kids and drugs and swearing. Very good read. Audio book is great as well. Performed by that tall, dopey dude... I forgot his name! Umm... Ummm..... ummm..... Matthew Lillard! 5. I recently read A Girl Named Disaster by Nany Farmer. It's about an African girl. Very cool book. These would all be enjoyable for readers of any age.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison The Bible by a lot of people. (I've only read parts of this myself but it's been a bestseller for a long time now.) One or the other of two classics on Vietnam are close to essential by my count: Dispatches by Michael Herr OR The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien I read Moby Dick a month or two ago and am incredibly happy I made it through. As far as American literature, it's absolutely essential you read this. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and Allen Ginsberg's Howl are pretty essential American poetry as well.