Hello, I am looking for new books to read that will get me thinking. Wanna recommend me some of your favorite or just books that you take great interest in thanks!

How old are you? What kind of books do you usually read?

One of my favorite books is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Simply put, the funniest book I've book read, other than perhaps the collection of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. His other book, The Neon Bible is exceptionally written. Not as funny and insane, but extremely heartfelt and touching.

If you want something that will get you thinking if you like biology, try The Lives of a Cell, by Lewis Thomas. He's a medical doctor, an extremely bright person. I read that book slowly.

Shakespeare's sonnets. #17 in particular is rather nice.

I'm only 16, but have just finished reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Wisdom of Carl Jung. I'm just looking for anything that will get me thinking.

Something that got me thinking for years was Code of the Lifemaker by James P. Hogan. Sure it's sci-fi, but so are Dune by Frank Herbert, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, and Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, and those are real literature. It's about humans landing on a planet where machines have the civilization and their artifacts are made from what appears to be incredibly well crafted artificial organic tissue. Each race thinks the other is just the remnants of the technology of a long-dead race of its own kind.

I've never had the ability to digest truly "great literature," but my wife has a master's in English and keeps doggedly recommending things to me hoping I'll some day make it all the way through one. Books she has recommended include Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, the one on which she wrote her thesis. I actually did make it completely through Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and rather enjoyed it, although my take on the morality involved is at odds with that of the "intellectuals." (I think Jim was an idiot in the end.) Saul Bellow is a Nobel-winner like García Márquez, but she turned me on to one of his "lesser" works, Henderson the Rain King. It was heavy enough for me, very thought provoking but still an entertaining read. She also thinks Jerzy Kosinski is great; I find him rather dark but still readable.

If you want to dive into some really deep stuff, she loved The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes.

Even I can understand why Shakespeare is great, but I get a lot more out of seeing it performed than by trying to read it. Some of the recent film productions were absolutely wonderful, such as Zeffirelli's Taming of the Shrew with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, or Mel Gibson's Hamlet.

You seem to be attracted to non-fiction. I'm hardly an authority on literature but I believe you're missing a lot of insight into the human spirit if you don't check out some great fiction.

If you're reluctant to just dive into stories, you might try some historical fiction. Not bodice-rippers about pirates and musketeers, but the more well researched stuff that gives you the factual info you enjoy but also puts a story on top of it. I love James Michener, particularly The Source and Hawaii. James Clavell's Shogun was a masterpiece. And if you feel like going really far back into prehistory, Jean Auel's series starting with The Clan of the Cave Bear was about as thought-provoking as anything I've read in many years.

For something off the wall, I recently read Searching for the Sound by Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead's bassist. It's ostensibly the story of the band, but he's a thoughtful, observant person and a good writer, so it's actually an excellent chronicle of "the sixties" and the couple of decades that came after, from a point of view that is not often so expertly articulated.

Thanks alot, I will be looking into those.

Anything by Roger Zelazny and try Terry Pratchett instead of Douglas Adams. Pratchett loves and uses language and is fall-off-the-chair-laughing funny in places as well as extremely good on people and how they behave.

Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad.

Read: Fiasco, by Lem

or you can try: War and Peace by Leo

"Those angels burned off my wings so that I will never see my God"

angels=these books
wings=understanding/belief
never see=never believe

`
The Discoverers
A History of Man's Search To Know His World and Himself

by
Daniel J. Boorstin

Try some of these:

Selfish gene, Richard Dawkins ( science, evolution);
The Sound & the Fury, Faulkner ( literature, fiction);
Thus spake Zarathustra ,Nietzsche (philosophy)
Elements of style, Strunk & White ( writing)
Private Parts, Howard Stern
Selected Essays, T.S.Eliot
1984, George Orwell
The River God, Wilbur Smith

Which was better, Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim? Reading though HoD was like hacking through the Congo with a fever. Surreal.

I recommend Anna Karenina for its insights into human nature (and human tragedy), but it's best read side by side with something lighter. John Irving's novels are also very readable - check out A Prayer for Owen Meany if you can. (I haven't read The World According to Garp, but appartently it's also quite unique).

And I second Fraggle Rocker's list...

house of leaves

this side of brightness

anthem

heart of darkness

tropic of cancer

the things they carried

Which was better, Heart of Darkness or Lord Jim? Reading though HoD was like hacking through the Congo with a fever. Surreal.



Lord Jim. And Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece, so that's really making a statement.

Both are narrated by Marlowe. Lord Jim is available free online in e-text. The other may be too.

Things not to read include: the newspaper or information from whitehouse.gov ;)

Things to read include: Spengler's 'The Decline of the West'

Lord Jim. And Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece, so that's really making a statement.

Both are narrated by Marlowe. Lord Jim is available free online in e-text. The other may be too.
Thanks Hannibal. I'll definitely look it up... should be at Gutenberg somewhere.