What TO Read (1 Viewer)

[Xeno]

Ancient Texts

Can I ask a question?

Why are most of the texts listed here modern? I mean, we had a Shakespeare somewhere - but even he's modern. The oldest book I've heard someone express a desire to read in this Reading Room was Boccacio's Decameron (thank you a million times).

So, to ensure the longevity of the 'Ancients' & some more overlooked modern writers....
The Republic
The Illiad and the Odyssey
The Canterbury Tales
Utopia - very similar to the Republic apparently

tons more - Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, etc...

For those who wonder why I care, I'll explain:
philosophy influences literature. As the Sophie's World readers know, we have a strongly defining Greek element predominant in philosophical thought until we come to Rene Descartes. Descartes philosophical reform advocates reason, logic etc to the point where, in the 18th C, we have Jonathan Swift writing Gulliver's Travels in a passionate plea to get people to see that the prevailing view of man as a rational creature who will inexorably improve is just plain stupid. To be honest, I think today we largely ignore whether or not society is changing for the better, and might do well to borrow some elements of antiquity.

Btw, does anyone who read Sophie's World get the nagging feeling that we got a very cut-down version of each philosopher's project? I'm not sure I can trust Jostein Gaarder to do a summary of thousands of year of human thought just like that...not without knowing the assumptions he brings to each philosopher's writings....whether he is ancient or modern...

 

[MissSavage29]

Suprised not to see Jane Austen's Emma, Sense and Sensebility, Pride and Predjduice, Northanger Abby

also similar Jane Eyre - cant think of author

murder mysters - Mary Higgens Clark i absolutly love

Australian Literature you have Bryce Courtneys aust trillogy -
'The Potoato factory'
'Tommo and Hawke'
'Solomen's Song'

 

[bLu3_gRaSS]

The outsider by Albert Camus

 

[Sweets]

I hope these havnt been said but I couldnt be bothered going through the whole thread- Anna Karenina-Tolstoy
-Love in the time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
-If your into religion- The History of God- Karen Armstrong

 

[lala2]

animal farm, brave new world, the lord of the rings, harry potter, finished the first book of the ancient future by tracy harding in JAn 2004, plan to pick up after HSC finishes this year--anyway, it's a good trilogy to read. oh, and the isobel carmody trilogy...what is it? oh yeah, darkfall.

mmm....fantasy....(but yeah, science fi is good too)

Brave New World is really good...it's so perceptiev of Huxley to forcast such a future...that soma (or was it soha) drug was...umm...interesting...there's someone on this board who's got that username, purposely named after that drug.

 

[Nashie]

Wow, I sure have a lot of reading to do....

But here are the ones I think everyone needs to read:
*Hover Car Racer, Matthew Reilly (granted its for a younger audience but it is still very interesting and inspirational)
*Animal Farm, George Orwell
*Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
*Tis, Frank McCourt (sequal to Angela's Ashes)
*20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
*All Harry Potter

 

[bEAbEA]

The lovely bones - Alice Seabold
Pride and Predjudce - Jane Austen
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Looking for Alabrandi - Melina Marchetta
To kill a mockingbird - Harper Lee
You can't go past the bible - try it!

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

to kill a mockingbird - LOVED that book...

the eyre affair (jasper fforde) - not ususally my style but damn it was good.

Catch 22 - a bit hard to get into at first but seriously it is worth it, it is so cool.

the Anne of Green Gables series - i never liked those books until about a year ago when i decided to read them again...and suddenly they were really interesting. maybe cause i could actually understand them (i was 7 when i first tried to read them).

Macbeth - or should i say "the scottish play"... tis excellent. 'nuff said.

anything by Terry Pratchett - i guess its kinda childish to love those fantasy books but i cant get enough of the discworld series.

Pride and Prejudice

The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtney

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

and i cant think of any more at the moment.

 

[Benny_]

Depends on what you mean by 'must read'. As far as I'm concerned, there are a few books that I read because they come up so often in conversation that it's good to have an opinion when it does. When I say a few, I mean a fair few, I'll list them at the end. What comes up in conversation of course also depends somewhat upon who you hang around with. If your friends only like to read page turners, I'd just go with the bestsellers of the month ala Dan Brown, J K Rowling, Michael Moore, John Grisham, Stephen King, Bryce Courtenay etc. If your are junior undergraduates or senior highschool students, the most popular writers seem to be (where I am anyway): Kerouac, Kafka, Dostoevesky, Thompson.. for some reason these 4 names I haven't been able to get away from in the past year.

I haven't read about.. 1/4 of these, but like I said, they come up a lot so it's worthwhile to get around to reading them sometime.

War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina- Leo Tolstoy
Catch-22- Joseph Heller
Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot- Fyodor Dostoevsky
Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
Breakfast at Tiffany's- Truman Capote
In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
The Great Gatsby- F Scott Fitzgerald
The Unbearable Lightness of Being- Milan Kundera
David Copperfield- Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
Death of A Salesman (play)- Arthur Miller
1984- George Orwell
Animal Farm- George Orwell
The Trial- Franz Kafka
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas- Hunter S Thompson
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck
A Farewell To Arms- Ernest Hemingway
The Godfather- Mario Puzo (well not really, but reading the novel does help to understand the movie)
Ulysses- James Joyce
A lot of Stephen King, especially: The Stand, The Shining, Carrie
On the Road- Jack Kerouac
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
Beyond Good and Evil- Friedrich Nietzsche
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Norwegian Wood- Haruki Murakami
Eugene Onegin- Alexander Pushkin

And last but not least:

The Big Sleep- Raymond Chandler
In the Heat of the Night- Raymond Chandler

 

[go_swans]

The Power Of One, The Lost Boy.. both sad but brilliant books
and of course
the notebook..

 

[Snow Pea!]

Saving Francesca. I couldnt put it down at all.

 

[Snow Pea!]

Anyhting Discworld - bloody hilarious is what it is.

mates sis is obsessed with them.. personally i cant understand them !

 

[Shell]

MUST READ!!!!!!!!

'River God'- By Wilbur Smith.

I havent found anything better yet!

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

Anyhting Discworld - bloody hilarious is what it is.

my sentiments exactly

 

[Emma-Jayde]

Anyhting Discworld - bloody hilarious is what it is.

"Death is missing...Presumed...Er...Gone..."
Heh heh that's got to be one of my favourite quotes....

But Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time is the best series of books I have ever read. Better than LotR

 

[psychosuperfly]

"catch 22" by joseph heller - it's a must read.

 

[Emma-Jayde]

"Million to one chances crop up 9 times out of 10"


Yes I have to re-read the first couple of WoT books. But I think that will have to wait until these things called "Trials" and "The HSC", that are apparently important, are out of the way.
Damn real life. It should know better than to interrupt when I want to read something.

This thread should be renames "WoT to read".....

 

[Benny_]

I found WoT too frustrating and stopped after book 2. It's pretty difficult to keep track of character relationships when there's a million of them and they're perpetually scattered around the world. Also Jordon suffers from a tendency to lapse into long-winded descriptions of rather arbitrary things, which would be all well and good if his language was worth a dime, more stylish writers can keep my attention for long periods through flair alone. Sadly Jordon's imagery tends to be fairly stale and sleep inducing. Actually I think I stopped reading fantasy because of him.

 

[Aznpsycho]

Discworld. Some of Steve King. All of original unbrianised Dune. A little Ann Rice. Watership Down. Asimov. AC Clarke. Ender's Game and Shadow (no more!). Some Matthew Reilly.

Also, I've heard extremely bad things about Dan Brown's books. What I've read appears to be written in rather boring prose. Could someone elaborate on why they're so popular?

 

[Emma-Jayde]

I found WoT too frustrating and stopped after book 2. Sadly Jordon's imagery tends to be fairly stale and sleep inducing. Actually I think I stopped reading fantasy because of him.

*Turns back on Benny*
Hmmph

Lol, jk. We all like different things. Who's to say what's right to read?