Great Books

[Ben Hogan]

Two excellent books on Churchill are The Last Lion series. Unfortunately the author died before he could finish the third book in the set.

I also have enjoyed the Lord Of The Rings books, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and many of Pierre Berton's books, notably Niagara, The Dionne Years, The Last Spike, The National Dream & The Arctic Grail. Recommended are Lolita, Pygmalion, & Animal Farm. Recently I bought Seabiscuit after seeing the film. An excellent read.

 

[banshie]

Wonderful, wonderful!

Keep it going. I'm going off on a whole new tangent, with:

1. The Three Pillars of Zen - Roshi Phillip Kapleau.

2. No Boundary - Ken Wilber.

3. Zen Mind, Beginners Mind - Shunryu Suzuki.

4. Memories, Dreams, Reflections - C.G. Jung.

5. On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious - Douglas Harding.

6. Nothing - James Sloman.

7. Dark Eros - Thomas Moore.

8. The Wife of Bath's Tale (Canterbury Tales) - Geoffery Chaucer.

9. The History of Mr. Polly - H.G. Wells.

10. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut.

 

[baci2004]

The Prince - Machiavelli
The communist Manifesto - Marx, Engles
Fascism - Griffen

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett ("come to me until you embrace me!")

Good Thread!

 

[VERYBADBOY]

Here are a few in different categories, some already mentioned and some new...

The Art of War - Thomas Cleary
Lateral Thinking - Edward deBono (actually all of his some 30+ books)
Man's Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl
LOTR trilogy - JRR Tolkien (include The Hobbit and Silmarillon)
The Castle - Kafka
The Lexus and the Olive tree - Thomas Freedman
The complete works of Swami Vivekananda (8 volumes)
Securities Analysis - Graham & Dodd

 

[drlove]

The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald. One of my favorites.

 

[Warm Hands]

There are a lot of heavyweight readers here, and I've seen many of my favourite books already mentioned. I'd like to add three I haven't seen yet:

1) Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. You may never eat again after reading this book.

2) Barney's Version, by Mordecai Richler. One of the best characters I have ever encountered, in a book or otherwise.

3) Hegemony or Survival, by Noam Chomsky. A dynamic and mind-blowing argument for today's Iraq policy being nothing more than an extension of US foreign policy for the past 40 years.

The Prince is still my all-time favourite, but as someone pointed out earlier in the thread, MUST be read with the Discourses on Livy in order to really understand where old Nic's head was at.

I think I've just assembled my reading list for the next 6 months. Thanks everyone.

WH

 

[Shades]

Great lists...have read many on them and will search out some others. To add a few that I don't think have appeared;

East of Eden; Steinbeck
Jude the Obscure: Hardy
David Copperfield: Dickens
The Magus: Fowles
The Ender Trilogy: Orson Scott Card (SF)
The Deptford Trilogy: Robertson
and for some insight on the Middle East;
From Beruit to Jerusalem; Friedman
and a fabulous play, now on at the Shaw;
Man and Superman; Shaw

 

[Asterix]

Forgot one on my list.

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" Carson McCullers

 

[banshie]

I guess this thread is done. Thanks for all your contributions. I was reminded of some other gems I had read, and pointed to others I want to get to. Here now is my extended list. It's in no particular order, except that the first four are my favourites.

Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky.
The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
The Three Pillars of Zen - Roshi Phillip Kapleau
No Boundary - Ken Wilber
Zen Mind, Beginners Mind - Shunryu Suzuki
Memories, Dreams, Reflections - C.G. Jung
Answer to Job – C.G. Jung
On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious - Douglas Harding
Nothing - James Sloman
Dark Eros - Thomas Moore
Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Canterbury Tales - Geoffery Chaucer
The History of Mr. Polly - H.G. Wells
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
1984 - George Orwell
Coming up for Air – George Orwell
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Macbeth – Shakespeare
Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
Manchild in the Promised Land - Claude Brown
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
Doors of Perception/Heaven and Hell – Aldous Huxley
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Autobiography of a Supertramp – W.H. Davies
Notes from a Small Island – Bill Bryson
Awakenings – Oliver Sacks
The Teachings of Don Juan – Carlos Castenada
Haroun and the Sea of Stories – Salman Rushdie
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham

I guess I am not as unwell-read ( is that a word?) as I thought.

 

[johnhenrygalt]

Here's my short list.

Le comte de Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Im Westen Nichts Neues - Erich Maria Remarque
L'Ignorance - Milan Kundera
Au nom de tous les miens - Martin Gray
Tiempos nublados - Octavio Paz
1984 - George Orwell
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

 

[banshie]

How could I have forgotten Dumas?!

Atlas Shrugged was certainly an interesting tome. I do have trouble with her philosophy, however.

Thanks

 

[HafDun]

The Longest Cocktail Party (can't remember the autor but a great look at the beatles & Apple records circa late 60s)
On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors(Delorean, tainted look at the disfunctional 1970s car giant)
Anything by James Mitchener (my favs are Chesepeake & Hawaii)
Fear & Lothing in Las Vegas (already mentioned but what a lifestyle statement)

 

[Anais North]

The Da Vinci Code hasn't changed my life , but still a good read.

Indeed, Da Vinci Code is a very entertaining read, despite its inaccuracies.