Books to read before you die [Archive]

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razz

3-10-11, 8:32pm

H-work

3-10-11, 9:02pm

Grapes of Wrath or East of Eden (Steinbeck), Moby Dick (Melville), War and Peace or Anna Karenina (Tolstoy). I love long books, maybe because I can get to know the characters so well. The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) and The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich (Shirer). The Pearl (Steinbeck, short but powerful). The Good Earth (Pearl Buck). Free Land or Let the Hurricane Roar (Rose Wilder Lane) if you haven't read the Little House Series--same type of story in a shorter, more powerful novel. The Yearling and the The The Sojourner by Rawlings. The Chosen (Chaim Potek) and The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom). Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen). The Outline of History (H. G. Wells). Animal Farm, 1984 (Orwell) and Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli).

iris lily

3-10-11, 9:20pm

I just finished reading 'My Reading Life" by Pat Conroy which made me really think about which books are on my 'to do list' of reading.

I have read so many over the years but there are quite a few more.

I looked online for a list which was quite interesting to explore.

I will read War and Peace by Tolstoy but thought that some others might have some great suggestions.

Why War and Peace? I think life is too short for reading "shoud read" books although I will tell you that I like Tolstoy and love Anna K.I've read about 1/2 of the titles on H'Works' list and have treid many others. Moby Dick is pretty awful., I've not been able to get beyond the first page or so.

Corrie Ten Boom's biography The Hiding Place is an easy read about the Holocaust and her plac ein it, uplifting yet sad. You've probably read it.

I'd add all of Austen and through out all of Steinbeck, but I just don't lke modern American authors but for Catch -22 which is beyond brilliant.

Susan

3-12-11, 11:17pm

UGGGH! Had to read War and Peace in high school. I swore that it would never again be on any bookshelf I owned. On the other hand, it made a great sleeping pill.
I pretty much already read what I want, don't have a specific list. I read the Odyssey and the Iliad when I was 15. Also read Gone With The Wind and Moby Dick around the same time. Also have read The Hiding Place, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Grapes of Wrath, Look Homeward Angel, You Can't Go Home Again, etc. You might enjoy The Covenant or Chesapeake by Michener. The Covenant really pissed me off. Sharon Kay Penman did some excellent work about medieval England in her series that includes The Sunne in Splendor and it's predecessors (can't remember the names). For a quick read, try Go Ask Alice.

Aging Hippie

3-13-11, 1:27pm

Sheri S. Tepper, Gate to Womens Country, Grass
Marion Zimmer Bradley, the Darkover series
Asimov, Foundation series
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Lazarus Long series
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game series

leslieann

3-13-11, 2:05pm

Something of Michael Ondaatje's...just because of his atmospheric, moody, poetic prose. And lately I have been reading John Irving and have decided that A Widow for One Year is the best of the bunch (Twisted River is pretty good, too).

Being new in Canada, I am taking Canadian recommendations too (okay, additional Canadian recommendations) and have started reading Mordecai Richler. My DBF started me on Robertson Davies when we first started dating.

I figure books will come to me and I don't have a lifetime list. My bucket list is more about things to DO.

I really liked aging hippie's list, though. I think most of those were part of my earlier life. And Ursula K. LeGuin.

razz

3-13-11, 9:27pm

These are some different books being suggested so thanks.

I am struggling to read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Garcia Marques and have no idea why this book is on so many lists of books to read. Funny but my library had the book listed in the shelves under Garcia not Marques for some reason.

iris lily

3-13-11, 9:55pm

... Funny but my library had the book listed in the shelves under Garcia not Marques for some reason.

If you read the Wikipedia article he is referred to, throughout, as Garcia Marques. It's not a subversive plot by the library catalogers of the world. :D Spanish surnames are different, a person takes his father's surname first and then his mother's surname. That is, that's the standard in some Spanish language countries. In Portugal it is different, if I remember correctly. In that country his surname would be Marques.

razz

3-13-11, 10:24pm

If you read the Wikipedia article he is referred to, throughout, as Garcia Marques. It's not a subversive plot by the library catalogers of the world. :D Spanish surnames are different, a person takes his father's surname first and then his mother's surname. That is, that's the standard in some Spanish language countries. In Portugal it is different, if I remember correctly. In that country his surname would be Marques.

Thanks, IL, I had no idea of this cultural aspect.

Madsen

3-14-11, 12:58am

Top 2:
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World - Harry Browne

iris lily

3-14-11, 8:16am

Top 2:
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World - Harry Browne

Really?!!! Ayn Rand? Do you like the philosophy? Because as a novel, I have to say, it's pretty awful.

loosechickens

3-14-11, 2:10pm

I'm by no means a Libertarian, but one of my favorite books was How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.......to this day, on so many occasions, either my sweetie or I can be found saying, "we're not wandering into a previous investment trap here are we?"

Ayn Rand.......ohmigod, just trying to wade through the turgid prose, even for people who might be enamoured of her thoughts (so high flying, so idealistic, so far from how she actually lived her own life)......I just couldn't do it. Even when I was at the age when many are entranced by her....... just an awful, stinky awful writer IMHO. Yuck.

Madsen

3-14-11, 5:43pm

Aww you guys are too harsh on Her Randness! ;)

loosechickens

3-14-11, 7:30pm

Sorry, Madsen.....if you're an admirer....... I've always had trouble wading through bad writing, no matter who was doing the writing, and no matter if the underlying ideas were drivel or absolute gems of knowledge.

Although, to folks who admire her ideas, whether she herself ever bothered to put them into place in her own life or not, don't seem to care, and revere her despite the absolutely stinky, turgid prose, cardboard characters and almost laughable writing.....

sorry if I stepped on your toes.....it's why I put IMHO, so others could feel free to admire and read if they liked. ;-)

Kestra

3-14-11, 10:24pm

I know some of you like Jane Austen, but I have to say I'd take Ayn Rand over Austen any day. I couldn't even make it through Pride and Prejudice (though admittedly I was in grade 10 or 11 at the time), but read The Fountainhead in grade 12, and later, Atlas Shrugged with no trouble, other than the length.