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Books you think everyone should read before they die...

Good picks from some of my favorite blers so far. I'll add a few short reads to the list (because who knows, maybe there are people here with terminal diseases who dont have time to read Brothers Karamozov or Infinite Jest or Ulysses).

an excellent primer for the directions postmodern lit can take you in
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probably the best thing written about being human in the 20th century
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probably my favorite American. I don't know. Just a phenomenal writer who taught himself to read. Inspirational to generations of African-Americans.
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all the ideas and themes explored in Dosty's bigger books-- now readable in one night.
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because the bhagavad gita is too long
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not as good as Joyce's major works, but a good display of his style.
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not exactly sci-fi, but my favorite Philip K dick book (i think)
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ok, this is long, but its one of the two stories upon which all western writing is based (the other being the gospels)
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My favorite short stories
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I loved On The Road.

4 out of 5 aspiring hippies agree.


The Stranger is another I go back to every few years.
 
Science Fiction fans are missing something essential, if not seminal, in that work.

+ 1
 
Pander Bear said:
probably my favorite American. I don't know. Just a phenomenal writer who taught himself to read. Inspirational to generations of African-Americans.
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because the bhagavad gita is too long
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I love the bhagavad gita, and yes it is very voluminous but worth it! Also, you know I love your excellent taste oh furry one ;)Infinite Jest and Frederick Douglas on the list !
 
Books that everyone should read?

The Bible.
The Iliad. (Probably the Odyssey as well, but if I had to pick one I'd go for the Iliad).
Shakespeare didn't really write books, but...the First Folio? (As a proxy for saying 'everyone should read at least some Shakespeare: I'll say Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, the Sonnets).
George Eliot: Middlemarch
Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
Orwell: 1984

I think that's it, I can't think of any other books that....

Oh, yeah: DF Wallace: Infinite Jest ;)
 
Shakespeare was a HUGE influence in my life.

In fact, if it wasn't for Shakespeare,

I would have TOTALLY overreacted when my girlfriend committed suicide.

<PAUSE>

Now, I know my jokes aren't for everybody.

And if you didn't like that last joke . . .

. . . you should probably read more.

-- One Of The Greatest Joke-Writers Of The Modern Era, Mister Anthony Jeselnik
 
Marx - Capital, vol. 1. Well, I'm really more about his earlier work, but there are no full books from that era worth attacking.

Foucault - Discipline and Punish
Foucault - History of Sexuality, vol. 1

These aren't well written or 'fun' reads (for the most part), but they've changed my world-view for the better.

ebola
 
Primo Levi - The Periodic Table. Everything I have read by him is essential, but this is the one to read if you're going to die tomorrow.

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ebola? said:
Marx - Capital, vol. 1. Well, I'm really more about his earlier work, but there are no full books from that era worth attacking.
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Something tells me that a lot of people will actually die reading this, so its kinda technically impossible to read this one before you die ;).
 
I suppose he takes it for granted that, since it is Berkely, all his students are tweaked?
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Cold-call PMs that I get from uncouth greenlighters suggest that this belief might be correct. ;)

I honestly was not able to go beyond a few pages in Capital...
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There are certain power-house sections to go to selectively.

ebola
 
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