I need to know more!!!
I am somehow addicted to, well, learning. I am still a senior in HS, but the way the public school sys. works, I am going nowhere. So I need some good books. Anything new or old, like things that English majors/writers should have in their bookcases, like philosophy and what not. No limitations to books! Any genre, any amount of pages, anything!
Any suggestions?
Lolita. It's one of my favorite books ever.
Ah. Ok.
I have herd of that one a little.
Thank you!
Any more suggestions?
1984 by George Orwell.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Also, the Martian Chronicles by said author.
Any book by Isaac Asimov - real good sci-fi with socio-politico-philosophical thoughts behind it. The Foundation cycle is really interesting.
Also the two madmen: Poe and Lovecraft. Read their books.
Gee, I just realized that a list of some of my favorite books is actually a list of dark, pessimistic and/or dystopian stories.
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo: read the unabridged edition because you can
Anna Karenina.
Wow. These are amazing suggestions. I am looking on line about them and like every one of these is a buy.
Balzac's "comedie humane" series
If you want to branch out:
"Dona Barbara", THE Venezuelan classic. (The author was actually elected president for a short time)
"Noli me Tagere", THE Filipino classic.
No One Writes to the Colonel and other stories, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez...it's not a super classic (though he is Colombia's most popular writer), I really loved this collection of more realist stuff.
Transhumanist SF, one of my favorites:
Metaplanetary
Evolution's Darling
There are lots of books that may not be "super popular classics" out there, but you'll like anyways.
I just started Elephant and Castle by R.C. Hutchinson, and am really enjoying it. If you're looking for a style that plays on the format of memories and relationships among many different people, you should try reading this.
If you wish, I can also give you directions towards some good french books (not saying you should read them in french huh, although if you're able you definitely should).
On the classical side, I'd recommend Les Misérables from Hugo as >>5 said, La Nausée from Jean-Paul Sartre, Candide by Voltaire. Also some Zola books, but I don't really know which one to suggest. Plays by Molière, Racine and Corneille are a must-read (or a must-see, I'd say) around here, too. I'd tell you to try some Boris Vian, but it might be too language-linked (see his wikipedia article for explanation - this dude was awesome, a real genius) to be read in english, I don't know; maybe the books he wrote under the Vernon Sullivan pseudonym. Et on tuera tous les affreux would be my favorite, it has something of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (which I highly recommend while I'm at it) only more lighthearted and... ah well, you'll see. Hehe.
For the contemporary writers, one that is not to be missed in France is probably Bernard Werber, and his Ants trilogy (these have been translated, I just checked), and the Thanatonauths (it's also a 'trilogy' but I only read the first one for now so I can't really give you advice on that one). This is philosophical sci-fi, really interesting.
Gravity's Rainbow, one of the funniest books I've ever read. There's also Dune if you're a fan of space muslims. (Avoid the ones by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert like the plague)
And seconding the Foundation series by Asimov.
Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths will open up more vistas of knowledge for you to explore. You might also like Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. Saul Bellow's short novel Seize the Day is essential, particularly if you're an American. If you like medieval philosophy and want to be introduced to semiotics and some (legitimate) "postmodernism" from a structuralist, then get a copy of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose with the Postscript included.
Albert Camus
Ishmael, if you're looking for some allegories on civilization.
Ovid's Metamorphosis.
im searching how to go and study english in UK,olease if any one can help me contact me on bluecocoloco@yahoo.fr
It really depends on what type of books that you like to read.
Dune by Frank Herbert, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jorden, The Color of Distance and Through Alien Eyes by Amy Thomson, and Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein are some really good Science Fiction books and authors
And Then There Where None by Agatha Christie is a good mystery novel.
Some really good classics are: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Candid by Voltair, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, the list could go one forever.
1984 by Jame Orwell and A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley are also pretty good.
James Patterson, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham are some good authors as well.
I'm like you. I'm known to devour books so some of these books I have read others have been recommended to me that are on my list to read. Good luck in you search!
Just go pick up the Norton Anthologies of English and American Literature and read them cover to cover. If you can't manage that, pick and choose. Read a couple from every period. You will be very well read by college.
And contemporary literature is great, but no one focuses on the classics any more. Go read Candid, Leviathan, Paradise Lost, and The Inferno. If you only read those four, you will be better read than anyone in your freshman English classes.
>> 22
American Gods, fuck yeah!
A few books that aren't mentioned enough:
Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer
Ian Banks - The Crow Road
Goethe - Faust
Aldisair Gray - Lanark
James Weldon Johnson - Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man
Asimov is the best sci-fi author whose works I have read.
If you are more into fantasy, try A song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. Very political and psychological, with thoroughly developed characters. (By the way, I just can't wait for the fifth book!)
Also, I like Terry Pratchett's novels very much. They are as hilarious as the Hitchhiker Guide's to the Galaxy!
Harry Potter, cool book about a little kid who knows magic. Fucking awesome!
Cyberpunk classic Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson , the novel seems almost prophetic the way America is slowly imitating the one in the novel.
Everything from Hegel and Descartes and Kant and Wittgenstein and Putnam and Popper that you can get your hands on. WIR MUSSEN WISSEN! WIR WIRDEN WISSEN! WE MUST KNOW! WE WILL KNOW!
LOL at everyone saying to this person to get narratives.
That's like telling someone to get WoW to learn about life. The stories are all well and nice but often spend hundreds of pages telling what a much shorter text can. All the rest is just 'some sort of a point wrapped in daydreaming'.
Being halfway a troll here though, but honestly, to consider this a person's primary source of education is shite that WON'T be getting anyone anywhere near breaking out of 'high school mode'.
Can't believe nobody's recommended the holy triumvirate of mediaeval authors: Murasaki, Dante, and Chaucer. They basically created literature as we know it.
>>30
That sounds like something I'd love getting my hands on when I have time for reading something new (already have tons stacked up).
Especially Chaucer. I hear of people saying "pre-Chaucer" and "post-Chaucer" has to be important.
Anything by Françoise Sagan
>>29
You know, an idea driven by a well-knit story is often far more powerful than a raw block of ideas written in obscure and arrogant verbiage. Some would say intellectual masturbation, but I won't go that far, given I find some philosophical literature to be actually readable and interesting.
Then again, saying stuff in a short, concise way is fine. "Restrictive politics are dangerous", even if clear and effective, probably wouldn't mark people as much as a good 1984 reading. And anyway the human mind feeds on examples. Abstract ideas and concepts are fine, but give them an example to illustrate them and suddenly they make sense. And the ability of the human mind to project oneself should be taken into account, too - it's interesting for instance to read a book in which the main character is in a special situation, or in which the narrator (if not the author) has a different outlook on life than the reader has. This should make you think in a way not far from phenomenology.
Also your comparison with WoW is not relevant, because it's a game with very little "background". A more story-driven game would probably have been more relevant. And if you don't mind, I think you should read the essay (there, you see) "On Fairy-Stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien. The guy has some good points.
>>OP , I am in the exact same situation, and in novel works may you find enlightenment. But to asess your taste and make better reccomendations you should tell us your disposition and purpose.
Offhand, I reccomend humanist novels. Les Mis, worldwide philosophy of reason then self (begin with "Republic" or Aristotle and move east to Vedics, Aquinas [north...] and Buddhism) and "Brave New World Revisited", and (for perspective) their negative corallaries, as found with anything by B.F. Skinnard, Dawkins
Ascend...more...
Anyhow, I mean R. Dawkins, but you can skim him and Skinnard if you wish. Another sad moralising peice is the graphic novel "Jhonny the Homicidal Maniac" by (of Zim fame) Jhonen Vasquez. No joke.
For human nature, try Dostoevsky, utopias, and distopias (i.e. 1984). An example could even be Heilein's military novel, "Starship Troopers", despite horrid films.
For mental enhancement, Phillip K. Dick; extrapolations of religeon being as relevant as his exploration of consciousness.