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fatdad wrote:This thread could roam all over the place. I have lots of possible suggestions but they've be more tailored if you told us what kind of stuff you gravitate toward.

good point.


I recommend "Young Men and Fire" by Norman Maclean.

Let it roam......

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Mostly good suggestions in this thread so far. A good parallel thread to read, however, is: http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB2/viewto ... sc&start=0

No specific topic.

Once I asked the question, "Tell me a book you read that changed your life."

Someone mentioned to me The Origin of Species. (?!) Well, I read it and it has pretty much changed my life, too. Once I read On War. That one surprised me too. It was quite interesting, because it was on a subject I knew nothing about. Or "Confessions" by Saint Augustine. I would never have come up with that one on my own.

I think a good book is a good book, regardless of topic. I don't want to narrow it down.

It would be a shame to miss a really good read, hidden by a genre I wouldn't normally consider.

-That said, I read mostly science or outdoor adventure books. But I haven't read them all ....yet.

West With the Night by Beryl Markham.

Great book about a woman pilot in 1940's Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_with_the_Night

Great topic.

Gary Schenk wrote:The Electric Kool-Aid Acid test
In Watermelon Sugar
Helter Skelter

Good ones, though I didn't especially care for In Watermelon Sugar.

The Lord of the Rings stuff is fantastic. The greatest epic tale, ever.

-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
-On the Road / Dharma Bums
-The Gary Snyder Reader
-The Autobiography of Abbie Hoffman
-The Antichrist
-damn near anything by Kurt Vonnegut
-Pulp, Hollywood, Ham on Rye
-Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a horrible movie, but a classic book.
-Journey to the End of the Night

The Way of Zen changed my life too. Then again, so did Electric Kool-Aid, On the Road, Cuckoo's Nest, the Abbie bio, and Journey to the End of the Night, which might be the most brilliant book ever written. Anyone else read it?

The following, for me, are either works of fiction that I, as a very picky former English major, think define the genre, or really affected the course of my life:

Walden
Brothers Karamozov
The Wayof All Flesh
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Treasure Island
Light in August
Moby Dick
A Farewell to Arms
Babbit
Short stories by Chekhov
Anna Karenina
The Death of Ivan Ilych
Tonio Kroger
The works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
In Praise of Folly

This doesn't even get into the pillars of Western literature like the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, Homer, etc. Since you've read things like St. Augustine however (an awesome read), you know there's a lot of good stuff out there not on people's radars.

Just finished new book on Smothers Brothers..."Dangerously Humorous" by ??? can't remember the guy. Local Library got it for me, pretty new. Great Read on the late 60s in TV censorship. Took me back to my Junior High School days when another student and I would always review their show from Sunday Night.

I'm currently reading A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester which is specifically about the 1906 SF earthquake and more broadly about plate tectonics. It is as fascinating as his book regarding Krakatoa (Krakatoa - The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883).

Another recent book that I dare anyone to read and not be incredibly moved is Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell.

Another must-read that this crowd may appreciate is Bushido: Samurai Ethics and the Soul of Japan by Inazo O. Nitobe describing a philosopy and ethical standard that has a place in modern time.

Many more to list however I'll be quiet for now. That said, I greatly appreciate all of the other suggestions!

books about Mountains and mounatianneers
Touching the Void
The Shinging Mountain

and one of my favorites:
The Fountainhead

tigerlilly wrote:Hey all,

I'm always looking for a good book to read. Suggestions? What are your favorites?

I started Quo Vadis ~ it is excellent. THANKS

I just started to read Tolstoy "War and Peace". Really a great read!

mstender wrote:I just started to read Tolstoy "War and Peace". Really a great read!

Tolstoy rocks. William Faulker once famously said that there were three books that taught him how to write: Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina and Anna Karenina.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Not a happy story, but it is beautiful.

They're actually turning this into a movie! I believe the release date is sometime next summer. I had a hard time getting into it but after the first 100 pages or so, I was hooked. You can def. tell it's British though!

aedwards wrote:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Fiction, about magicians & 'englishness'. Very well written.

I thought "The Historian" was brillant! One of the top three best books I've ever read.
A meta-fictional book about the legend of Dracula and Vlad the Impaler.
by Elizabeth Kostova