Books everyone should know

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

The Wind in the Willows

The Harry Potter books are an easy enough read, but they're not to everyones taste.

 

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The Lord of the Flies needed a Saddam Hussein to keep everyone in line?

 

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Madanthonywayne:

I'll definitely check out that book. Thanks for the head's up.

 

I agree with rocker...
I've read all Harry Potter books in english simply because all my friends have to wait for the german translation and I can mess arround with them^^ But it's not the kind of Book I wish to hear about in this Thread. It's simply too popular and gets so much attention with all the movies that nobody misses to know about it. The Idea was to find some good Titles that didn't make the jump over to europe very well and arn't that well known here while they are a part of "general knowledge" in England and the US...

Thanks for all your answers

 

Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything.

If I had my way I would make it compulsory education

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Advanced books, which make learning English worth it:

'Of Human Bondage', by Somerset Maugham (novel)

'Lord Jim', by Joseph Conrad (whose native language was Polish, but who is, in my opinion, the greatest English prose author)

'The Denial of Death', by Ernest Becker (non-fiction)

'Blue Highways', by William Least Heat-Moon (non-fiction)

These four will keep you quite busy intellectually.

 

Terry Pratchett? Agatha Christie? Fletcher Pratt? Anything by Ray Bradbury is good too.

 

Ayn Rand, yes.

Start with The Fountainhead, not the other one.

I've always seen that people who read Atlas Shrugged first get a great number of wrong ideas about what Rand is saying. And it's probably much more enjoyable too, if you've already read The Fountainhead. Then the rest of her books too, but I don't guarantee they'll be as interesting (for me they were very interesting though).

 

Some of the so called classics can be heavy going, it took me ages to get through Tolstoy's War & Peace and i did not find it that interesting. For a good pleasurable read, Robin Hobb's series "the Liveship Traders" is very enjoyable.

 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Classic.

 

100 years of lonelyness by garcia. not american, but still a classic

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. if you wanna keep up to date, they are gonna make a movie out of it soon

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neat book, and his second too. havent read more of him, so cant say for his other books

Faust is a must ofcourse

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and Tristan and Isolde, also a classic tale

i dont read fiction so often, so thats all that pops in my mind right now besides russian classics

tolle lege!

 

I decided it was time I read War and Peace, so I picked up a copy the other day. It's huge! Almost 1400 pages and the print is small. I need to work up the courage to start reading it.

 

Y'all should really read "The Swamp Monster from the Black Lagoon" ...really great novel, and highly intellectual, too.

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Baron Max

 

Killjoy,

"Generation of Vipers - by Philip Wylie"

Now were talking. This is the stuff that makes you question your own beliefs and challenges you to use logic and reason. It's about raising the hard questions. The important questions.

Also love his "The Magic Animal" "Triumph" and "When worlds collide"

Kurt Von. is another favorite, I love his dark humor about the end of the world. He uses comedy so well throught his books.

 

Link

 

any thing by James A. Michener

 

Herman Hesse - "Siddhartha", and anything by H.P. Lovecraft.

 

Mika Waltari: The Egyptian
Truly a masterpiece, "insight" to Egypt in ancient times and human mind in general.

Norman Leigh: 13 Against The Bank
Great story of man with obsession to blow the bank in roulette in Monte Carlo, true story in hes own words, but that is still in debate, anyway, entertaining book about gambling and human nature.

For light fun reading, crime scene, anything from Donald Westlake or Elmore Leonard