Conquer Club

So this is coming from a thread I started before about reading recommendations, and also one about top ten movies (now modified.

What would you call as the top books you need to read, and I'm going to arbitrarily restrict this to fiction. Strictly the essentials if you want to be fully literate, not necessarily the best, or the most interesting. In no particular order:

1) Hamlet (or seen a production)
2) The Aeneid, Iliad or Odyssey
3) Crime and Punishment
4) Pride and Prejudice
5) Paradise Lost
6) 1984
7) Great Expectations
8 ) Don Quixote (or at least be familiar with the first sections)
9) To Kill a Mockingbird
10) The Great Gatsby

That's a quick list of first thoughts, and some of that seems wrong to me immediately (Don Quixote is a tough read for anyone, Paradise Lost and the classics ditto). What would you say is really essential? Animal Farm seems pretty important, but I left it out as being less important than 1984 and not wanting to duplicate Orwell.

The Ender Series (just put in there, along with Bean's stories)
LOTR
Illiad/Odyssey (obviously)
The Raven (my personal favorite of his)
Wheel of Time
Vampire Earth Series (unless you really don't like horror/apocylyptic stories)
Temeraire Series
1984/Animal Farm
Animorphs (series that really got me interested, as at the time, all we were reading were those stuid short stories in 1st-3rd grades)
The Hobbit
Bio of AC/DC (obviously for me)
May add more later.

muy_thaiguy wrote:The Ender Series (just put in there, along with Bean's stories)
LOTR
Illiad/Odyssey (obviously)
The Raven (my personal favorite of his)
Wheel of Time
Vampire Earth Series (unless you really don't like horror/apocylyptic stories)
Temeraire Series
1984/Animal Farm
Animorphs (series that really got me interested, as at the time, all we were reading were those stuid short stories in 1st-3rd grades)
The Hobbit
Bio of AC/DC (obviously for me)
May add more later.

Thanks for the reply, but I can't agree. LoTR seems like your strongest case to me. Nothing else that departs from the original list seems really essential.

That was me being a crappy poster though, so I should have better said what I was intending.

Symmetry wrote:So this is coming from a thread I started before about reading recommendations, and also one about top ten movies (now modified.

What would you call as the top books you need to read, and I'm going to arbitrarily restrict this to fiction. Strictly the essentials if you want to be fully literate, not necessarily the best, or the most interesting. In no particular order:

1) Hamlet (or seen a production)
2) The Aeneid, Iliad or Odyssey
3) Crime and Punishment
4) Pride and Prejudice
5) Paradise Lost
6) 1984
7) Great Expectations
8 ) Don Quixote (or at least be familiar with the first sections)
9) To Kill a Mockingbird
10) The Great Gatsby

That's a quick list of first thoughts, and some of that seems wrong to me immediately (Don Quixote is a tough read for anyone, Paradise Lost and the classics ditto). What would you say is really essential? Animal Farm seems pretty important, but I left it out as being less important than 1984 and not wanting to duplicate Orwell.

That is a great list. I've read all but the Aeneid, although I recently purchased it to read, and Paradice Lost.

Some others worthy of thought:

War and Peace
Anna Karennina
Atlas Shrugged
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Gone with the Wind
The Red Badge of Courage
The Grapes of Wrath
The Jungle

Symmetry wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:The Ender Series (just put in there, along with Bean's stories)
LOTR
Illiad/Odyssey (obviously)
The Raven (my personal favorite of his)
Wheel of Time
Vampire Earth Series (unless you really don't like horror/apocylyptic stories)
Temeraire Series
1984/Animal Farm
Animorphs (series that really got me interested, as at the time, all we were reading were those stuid short stories in 1st-3rd grades)
The Hobbit
Bio of AC/DC (obviously for me)
May add more later.

Thanks for the reply, but I can't agree. LoTR seems like your strongest case to me. Nothing else that departs from the original list seems really essential.

That was me being a crappy poster though, so I should have better said what I was intending.

Well, I admit I am particullarly picky about what I read, so there is that.

I'm going to reiterate what I said about Great Expectations in the movie thread and say I found it a dreadful bore. I dunno, maybe I'm just not one for Dickens. That said, I could probably make a list, but it's late, so just two for now.

Cry, the Beloved Country. It's a little slow, but its low intensity and the rhythm and poetry of the words is just beautiful.
Frankenstein. The film series has completely perverted the original story, which is well worth reading in its own right.

I think some of the best reading---are some of the oldies (1590's on ish, though Kyd is earlier I believe). Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis poem, many plays by Marlowe...The Jew of Malta, Tamburlaine, Edward II, his unfinished (or finished, depending on who you talk to) Hero and Leander poem, Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle, Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, Webster's White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi.

All of the above had to grow on me...and as I read more and more of these texts, I came to appreciate them immensely.

On the newer side---when I first read Faulkner's works, I did not enjoy them very much. But as eventually became detached from my readings of them, they've become more interesting.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude was the same as well.

And I've always enjoyed the humor of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller --- one of the few books that made me laugh out loud, both in a pleasant way and remorseful way.


--Andy

I love the histories by Shakespeare.

The rest is ok. Histories get two thumbs up!

Common Sense - Thomas Payne

Tragedy and Hope - Carol Quigly

The Creature from Jekyl Island - G. Edward Griffin

AndyDufresne wrote:I think some of the best reading---are some of the oldies (1590's on ish, though Kyd is earlier I believe). Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis poem, many plays by Marlowe...The Jew of Malta, Tamburlaine, Edward II, his unfinished (or finished, depending on who you talk to) Hero and Leander poem, Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle, Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, Webster's White Devil and the Duchess of Malfi.

All of the above had to grow on me...and as I read more and more of these texts, I came to appreciate them immensely.

On the newer side---when I first read Faulkner's works, I did not enjoy them very much. But as eventually became detached from my readings of them, they've become more interesting.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude was the same as well.

And I've always enjoyed the humor of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller --- one of the few books that made me laugh out loud, both in a pleasant way and remorseful way.


--Andy

Catch 22 is a must-read, and yeah the bit where Yossarian describes his dreams to the doctor and another patient chimes in is a laugh out loud moment for me too. I've always been an advocate of it over the Great Gatsby in greatest American novel debates. but it really is a weird one to take seriously. Slaughterhouse 5 does a lot of similar things, but isn't as well written. Gatsby is well written, but seems like it does little beyond a certain social set.

pancakemix wrote:I'm going to reiterate what I said about Great Expectations in the movie thread and say I found it a dreadful bore. I dunno, maybe I'm just not one for Dickens. That said, I could probably make a list, but it's late, so just two for now.

Cry, the Beloved Country. It's a little slow, but its low intensity and the rhythm and poetry of the words is just beautiful.
Frankenstein. The film series has completely perverted the original story, which is well worth reading in its own right.

No worries on the lack of Dickens love. I don't think you need to love the books on the list, but reading them and disliking them is kind of a plus in some ways. It shows personality as long as you can say why you dislike them.

Frankenstein was a serious contender for my initial list. Just as a must read it kind of stands out as essential. Dracula also, but less so.

Last one I should add is "Lord of the Flies", but this one really stands out for me because I haven't read it, but I feel I know it through references everywhere. Frankenstein and Dracula maybe do the same for a lot of people. They're so common that the ideas they house don't require the book as much.

rockfist wrote:

Symmetry wrote:So this is coming from a thread I started before about reading recommendations, and also one about top ten movies (now modified.

What would you call as the top books you need to read, and I'm going to arbitrarily restrict this to fiction. Strictly the essentials if you want to be fully literate, not necessarily the best, or the most interesting. In no particular order:

1) Hamlet (or seen a production)
2) The Aeneid, Iliad or Odyssey
3) Crime and Punishment
4) Pride and Prejudice
5) Paradise Lost
6) 1984
7) Great Expectations
8 ) Don Quixote (or at least be familiar with the first sections)
9) To Kill a Mockingbird
10) The Great Gatsby

That's a quick list of first thoughts, and some of that seems wrong to me immediately (Don Quixote is a tough read for anyone, Paradise Lost and the classics ditto). What would you say is really essential? Animal Farm seems pretty important, but I left it out as being less important than 1984 and not wanting to duplicate Orwell.

That is a great list. I've read all but the Aeneid, although I recently purchased it to read, and Paradice Lost.

Some others worthy of thought:

War and Peace
Anna Karennina
Atlas Shrugged
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Gone with the Wind
The Red Badge of Courage
The Grapes of Wrath
The Jungle

The death of Ivan Ilyich is maybe one of the most depressing stories I've read, but it's all the more awesome for it.

I would add "A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Also "Heart of a dog" by Bulgakov

Hm.

I agree with

1) Hamlet (or seen a production)
2) The Aeneid, Iliad or Odyssey
3) Crime and Punishment (should do a and/or with War and Peace)
5) Paradise Lost
6) 1984 (possibly an and/or with Animal Farm)
8 ) Don Quixote (or at least be familiar with the first sections)
10) The Great Gatsby

I've read Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird and Tale of Two Cities (not Great Expectations, but I'm just going to assume they're similar [can I do that?]), and they really didn't stand out to me. They seemed rather dull and weren't really fantastic. Catch-22 is good, but isn't THE BEST worthy, to me.

Personally, I'd throw Brave New World, Siddartha (an amazing book, and gave me a hugely different perspective of my life) and in all seriousness: Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.

Hah- shows my ignorance of Tolstoy, I got mixed up with one of my favourites- Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

Army of GOD wrote:Hm.

I agree with

1) Hamlet (or seen a production)
2) The Aeneid, Iliad or Odyssey
3) Crime and Punishment (should do a and/or with War and Peace)
5) Paradise Lost
6) 1984 (possibly an and/or with Animal Farm)
8 ) Don Quixote (or at least be familiar with the first sections)
10) The Great Gatsby

I've read Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird and Tale of Two Cities (not Great Expectations, but I'm just going to assume they're similar [can I do that?]), and they really didn't stand out to me. They seemed rather dull and weren't really fantastic. Catch-22 is good, but isn't THE BEST worthy, to me.

Personally, I'd throw Brave New World, Siddartha (an amazing book, and gave me a hugely different perspective of my life) and in all seriousness: Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham.

You can do whatever you feel like really. I wasn't going for a top ten with the OP, just what you felt were essential. Disliking them is fine, but not reading them being the issue. I'm going to be pretty relaxed about it from now on, and any fault is mine. but I do want to ask you if you have a list that you think is essential.

Good call taste wise on Siddartha, although I think The Glass Bead Game is better.

Beowulf.
Malory's Arthurian Cycle.
Fielding's Tom Jones.
Burroughs' Tarzan at the Earth's Core
Wells' War of the Worlds
Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy
...
Again, not one for lists, just some obvious suggestions.

Oooh Beowolf is a good one.

I love Tolstoy. He is easily one of my five favorite authors.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. While it's geared toward stubborn pre-teen boys who hate everything, especially school, its "nonsense that makes sense" approach to reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic is fun for any age.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein offers an amusing insight on how we make or break heroes and religions.

The Lord of the Rings... the newer movies did the books justice, but couldn't capture everything.

Jim Kjellgard's "Big Red" series is nearly a 'must' for any dog fans.

Of Mice and Men and The Pearl

I agree with Symmetry's list and some of the other classics on here.

Some more. These are my favorites that haven't already been listed (heavy on the science fiction... that's how I roll). This should be a mandatory list in my opinion.

- Frankenstein (Shelley)
- Dune (Frank Herbert)
- The Foundation Triology (Asimov)
- The Time Machine (Wells)
- Animal Farm (George Orwell)
- Bleak House (Dickens)
- Brave New World (Huxley)
- Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
- Farenheit 451 (Bradbury)
- Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
- King Lear (Shakespeare)
- Metamorphosis (Kafka)
- Paradise Lost (Milton)
- Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
- Three Musketeers (Dumas)
- Ulysses (Joyce)
- Wuthering Heights (Bronte)

Sorry, I get excited about books. Some more comments:

- Siddhartha - Loved this book; although I couldn't get past the idea that it was just the Odyssey.
- Great Expectations - I also loved this one. Really a good read, despite the Dickens over-descriptive stuff
- I also love the Shakespearean histories. Really entertaining.
- I have not read Mallory's Athurian cycle... I'm definitely putting that on my list (not sure why it wasn't on there before)

Of the books on my list, I'd have to put my top 5 as follows:

(1) Animal Farm
(2) Wuthering Heights
(3) Salughterhouse Five
(4) Metamorphosis
(5) King Lear

Definitely some good choices!

A couple I did not see mentioned, that are probably "off the beaten track" a bit...

The Tracker, by Tom Brown
The original Pern series by Ann McAffrey (Dragon Flight, Dragonquest, the White Dragon )
Mecedes Lackey Herald-Mage series (Arrows of the Queen, Arrow's Flight, Arrow's Fall; Also the Last Herald Mage Series).
Chaim Potok, The Chosen

Really, there are so many good books, its hard to choose just a few!



Also, Childrens:

Rats of NIMH
Redwall
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
My side of the Mountain
Harry Potter (OK, its just fun!)

stahrgazer wrote:

Jim Kjellgard's "Big Red" series is nearly a 'must' for any dog fans.

Just started reading this with my son!

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Candide by Voltaire.

Dante's Divine Comedy

and, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

A couple more a just thought of,

Hound of the Baskervilles
Catcher in the Rye (did no one already post this? wow. maybe i missed it)