Books you should Read.

[Ian Fortytwo]

I will start with the only two books that I have read more than twice, in fact many times. The Hobbit, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The second book took nearly thirty years to understand the idea, yet I loved going back to it many times.

 

[Finch]

If your using the idea , if you have read it more than once , it must be good . I have a long list that would fall in that category, so just off the top of my head.
Keith Roberts Pavane and Gene Wolfe's The fifth head of Cerberus

 

[Brian G Turner]

Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. It is an absolute tour de force of Roman Historical Fiction, but I should hope it's appeal extends to anyone with an interest in fiction. Not only does she cover one of the most dramatic and unpredictable periods of Roman history, her character portrayals are second to none.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Star Rover by Jack London A great book which doesn't get the kind of notoriety and recognition it deserves.

 

[vanye]

If you‘re male, definitely Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. All about being a boy.

 

[mosaix]

To Kill A Mocking Bird.

Every single word in just the right place.

 

[tobl]

the count of monte cristo, alexandre dumas
the name of the wind
the wiseman's fear

 

[vanye]

Erich Fromm: Haben oder Sein (To Have or to Be)

 

[BAYLOR]

War an Peace by Leo Tolstoy. At 1400 plus pages it sounds like a very daunting read but ,it really isn't . This book is a great read from beginning to end !

 

[BAYLOR]

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle .

 

[tobl]

War an Peace by Leo Tolstoy. At 1400 plus pages it sounds like a very daunting read but ,it really isn't . This book is a great read from beginning to end !

i think it depends on the person that reads and the translation. i heard that the original in russian is even duller than the english translation. i have to admit that i never read it, just saw a few movies

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

Raymond Chandler, his short stories are a must.

 

[BAYLOR]

Night Has a Thousand Eyes By Cornell Woolrich
Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich
The Black Angel by Cornell Woolrich

 

[Extollager]

If your using the idea , if you have read it more than once , it must be good . I have a long list that would fall in that category, so just off the top of my head.
Keith Roberts Pavane and Gene Wolfe's The fifth head of Cerberus

As a sort of tangent to the present thread, I'll mention that there is a thread for people who would like to post titles of books they have read repeatedly. The last time I looked, people were posting about books they have read three or more times.

Books You've Reread the Most Times

Here is a thread for commenting on books that you have reread repeatedly -- fiction, nonfiction, poetry, &c. Please: To start with, let's just hear about books that have been read at least four times. After a while it might be OK to write about books one has read two or three times, but to...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Vince W]

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

 

[Extollager]

Thinking a little more about the title of this thread. Could it be expanded to something like this -- "Books that responsible people in modern society should read"? If so, just about the first thing that would come to mind would be Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. If you have any interest in understanding our time, you need to understand totalitarianism, which, I would say, is a distinctively modern phenomenon and one that has cost more people more suffering, or indeed their lives, than any of the other miserable -isms, yes, including colonialism, racism, sexism, etc. Totalitarianism is the embodiment of the complete subjugation of the person and society to ideology -- could be Maoism, Nazism, Soviet communism, Islamofascism, etc. It would eradicate the past, thoroughly pervade the present, supposedly for the sake of a future renewal of humanity. There are certainly more thorough books relating to totalitarianism, but One Day may be read in one day as a convincing story of life in a totalitarian society.

After reading it, I would recommend a less well-known book, Sebastian Haffner's fairly brief account of the Nazification of a city, Defying Hitler. But perhaps The Diary of Anne Frank would be a better choice for some readers.

 

[Extollager]

Another book that a great many people should read, and it's even shorter than One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, is C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, which could be (blandly) said to be about values in education. I would say, in a brief sentence, that it is a good polemic against the reductionism and relativism that characterize our culture.

 

[Extollager]

Lots of people should read something by Wendell Berry, who has written many essays largely about stewardship of the earth and why that matters to anyone who eats. You could consider reading Home Economics or Life Is a Miracle, for example. He is energizing, thought-provoking, encouraging, admonitory. These are very readable. I also recommend Matthew Scully's Dominion, which is about an ethical regard for and treatment of animals, though perhaps he goes a little too far.

 

[Extollager]

A book I have only read some of, and don't suppose I will read in its entirety, is Julia Shaw's The Memory Delusion. I don't endorse everything she thinks, by any means, but her book does matter in a time when, in various arenas, so much is made of "recovered memories." You might need to engage with her severe skepticism about that kind of thing.

 

[Extollager]

There needs to be a book to set readers straight about things widely believed -- formerly & perhaps now; as, that Columbus proved the world was round (people already knew); that millions of witches were burned at the stake; that Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation, and so on.