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[Davidfak]

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• (January 12, 2023, 01:18:11 AM)

[pbsaurus]

You can always do Cryptonomicon and then the Baroque Cycle trilogy by Neal Stephenson.  That's months of reading there.  Very thick.

[hackess]

"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver

[pbsaurus]

Oooh, that's in my queue.  Perhaps that will be my next one once I'm finally done with The System Of The World.

[jeee]

The only book I can add to all the great selections offered up here is "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It is beautiful and devastating and should be a required read for high school students.

Isn't that that guy who was hyped by Oprah ?

[Big Orange Cat]

"Night" was originally published in 1958; I'd forgotten that Oprah selected "Night" for her book club (was it really as recent as Jan. 2006?) -- I just read it was an intentional choice after the debacle of "A Million Little Pieces."

I think it's all too true that the memory of the Holocaust is dying with those who lived through it. I have to give Oprah credit for introducing new generations to the book.

[jeee]

The Diary of Anne Frank which I mentioned is still one of the most read books about the holocaust, Give it a try.

[Big Orange Cat]

I love The Diary of Anne Frank. It's still an essential document of the time. But for me Night is powerful because Wiesel is writing from his experience as a young man who lived through internment at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

In some ways I think Anne Frank's book is used as a way to soften the story of the Holocaust for children who are being introduced to it for the first time. Her optimism and hopefulness are so affecting throughout the book that it's convenient to have it end before they are discovered -- it's comforting to think that she retained that innocence until her death. Part of me would like to think that, too, but I probably identify more with Wiesel's loss of faith in god -- and mankind. 

[Scheherazade]

I'm reading Beowulf right now, and I enjoy it quite a bit.

[Demosthenes]

I'm reading Beowulf right now, and I enjoy it quite a bit.

When you're finished with that, see if you can find a copy of John Gardner's "Grendel".  Puts a whole different spin on things. 

[Big Orange Cat]

When you're finished with that, see if you can find a copy of John Gardner's "Grendel".  Puts a whole different spin on things. 

Good god, how could I have forgotten that book! What an amazing piece of writing.

[Demosthenes]

It's funny and disturbing and remarkably insightful, all at the same time.

[Agent_Tachyon]

The classics...hmm...

Well I'm a fan of the good old HG Wells/Jules Verne stuff, I recall The Island of Doctor Moreau as well as The Time Machine made quite the impact on me when I was little. The Invisible Man kicks ass as well.

1984 for me was one of those worldview changing, paradigm shifting things when I finally got around to reading it in grade six, as the Illuminatus! Trilogy did later on (though that's the seventies, and probably well out of 'classic' territory). Still, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was my all time favourite book for the longest time and it's referenced so often that almost qualifies it for classic status on its own.

Classics, you say...well I'd say that The Secret Agent is at least old enough to make the cut, if a little slow at parts. Poe is awesome, I'd recommend one of the big anthologies with the really creepy stuff like the Strange Case of [name starting with V] (the one where the dead guy is hypnotized and horrific stuff ensues.

Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers rule, and say a lot about the human condition to boot.

HP Lovecraft's stuff is also intense, though sadly lacking in a few ways (dialogue, characters, ect.) but it's fucking CTHULHU! On the plus side it is genuinely eery and even people like Stephen King admit that old HP is the real master of horror.

I'd steer clear of Frankenstein, it's a bit of a let down when you finally get around to reading it.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is incredible (I'd recommend reading it in the orginal french if you're fluent, though I think it's awesome even in translation) and also Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I read all the old Asimov robot stories as a kidder (robots were my crack back then) and found them brilliant, but a bit silly nowadays looking back on them.

I think that most people living in a public community in North America at least would benefit from at least one read of the Bible, at the very least you'll get a lot of quotes in movies and spy novels and maybe you'll get a good moral or two (in between the slavery laws and such).

Not so much a classic as much as an old book, but 'Abusing Science' is a very good book (deals with classic arguments against Creationism and clears up a lot of misinformation). The Roots of Coincidence (kudos to Alan Moore for pointing that one my way) by Arthur Koestler (1972) is a truly remarkable book and I'd recommend it strongly to anyone remotely interested in the paranormal, quantum physics, or preferably both.

[Scheherazade]

When you're finished with that, see if you can find a copy of John Gardner's "Grendel".  Puts a whole different spin on things. 

I KNOW!!! My teacher told me to read it and so I did. In class we were having an argument about whether or not Beowulf is altruistic, and I couldn't stop arguing about how Beowulf's really a prick and Grendel and his mom where the victims...oi.