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English language books everyone should read

Started by Razgovory, April 29, 2013, 10:15:01 PM

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Razgovory

April 29, 2013, 10:15:01 PM
Okay, this is going to be a list.  English Language books that should be read if by everyone, or at least someone who wants to be slightly cultured.  Okay, some ground rules.  This should be literature and thus fiction.  We aren't doing poetry today, (maybe another thread later on), so lets keep it on prose.  Short stories are fair game, though you should give the book in which the short story is published. Translations are okay. Let's put plays in with poetry and do it later.  Lets keep away from Star Wars novels and other dreck.  I think that should be enough for now.

I already know what Spellus will write so use I'll his choice as an example: Moby Dick.

I was thinking of starting to read Graham Greene, and wonder if anyone would vouch for him.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Barrister

#1
April 29, 2013, 10:30:17 PM
I'm just going to throw a few out there.  Not sure if you need to read them to be "cultured", but certainly some books that everyone would enjoy.

In no particular order:

The Wind in the Willows
Chronicles of Narnia
The Lord of the Rings
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Animal Farm
The Hunt for Red October
Generation X
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


Meh - just a random list of books I like I guess.  I could spend some time with it and come up with better.
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

11B4V

#2
April 30, 2013, 12:30:15 AM
Some of the shit I read. Off the top of the head;

The Mote in God's Eye
Of Mice and Men
Lord of the Flies
The Hobbit
Dune
The Forever War
I Am Legend
Red Badge of Courage
The Once and Future King
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Three Musketeers
Count of Monte Cristo
Book of Enoch
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

Lettow77

#3
April 30, 2013, 12:46:06 AM
The Wind in the Willows was an excellent choice. To that, i'd think to add A Confederacy of Dunces
It can't be helped...We'll have to use 'that'

Pedrito

#4
April 30, 2013, 02:00:34 AM
The Three Musketeers and Monte Cristo are English Literature? in which parallel universe?

Adding to the already cited books, I'd say:

Alice in Wonderland
American Pastoral
Poe's Tales of the Grotesque
Barney's Version
In Cold Blood
Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Dickens' Oliver Twist and David Copperfield

and many more.

L.
b / h = h / b+h


27 Zoupa Points, redeemable at the nearest liquor store! :woot:

11B4V

#5
April 30, 2013, 02:10:12 AM
Quote from: Pedrito on April 30, 2013, 02:00:34 AM
The Three Musketeers and Monte Cristo are English Literature? in which parallel universe?

Adding to the already cited books, I'd say:

Alice in Wonderland
American Pastoral
Poe's Tales of the Grotesque
Barney's Version
In Cold Blood
Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Dickens' Oliver Twist and David Copperfield

and many more.

L.

QuoteTranslations are okay
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

Pedrito

#6
April 30, 2013, 02:28:46 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on April 30, 2013, 02:10:12 AM
Quote from: Pedrito on April 30, 2013, 02:00:34 AM
The Three Musketeers and Monte Cristo are English Literature? in which parallel universe?

Adding to the already cited books, I'd say:

Alice in Wonderland
American Pastoral
Poe's Tales of the Grotesque
Barney's Version
In Cold Blood
Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Dickens' Oliver Twist and David Copperfield

and many more.

L.

QuoteTranslations are okay
I'm doubting my reading comprehension skills.

L.
b / h = h / b+h


27 Zoupa Points, redeemable at the nearest liquor store! :woot:

jimmy olsen

#7
April 30, 2013, 03:29:06 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on April 30, 2013, 02:10:12 AM
QuoteTranslations are okay
I got to agree with Pedrito, the inclusion of translations doesn't make sense.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Eddie Teach

#8
April 30, 2013, 03:34:43 AM
I assumed he meant it's ok to read the English language book in one's own tongue. Otherwise, what's the point of the language distinction.

"Cultured" Essentials(trying to divorce my own feelings as much as possible from creating this list)
A good smattering of Shakespeare(particularly Hamlet, Othello and MacBeth)
Huckleberry Finn
Moby Dick
At least one work by Dickens
At least one work by Hardy
Paradise Lost
Canterbury Tales
Lord of the Rings
At least one work by Poe
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein
A work by Hemingway or Fitzgerald
One of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Sheilbh

#9
April 30, 2013, 04:15:00 AM
Graham Greene's great.

I'd recommend Nabokov for some of the most languagey English language books :wub:
Let's bomb Russia!

Pedrito

#10
April 30, 2013, 04:19:49 AM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 30, 2013, 04:15:00 AM
Graham Greene's great.

I'd recommend Nabokov for some of the most languagey English language books :wub:
Conrad's Heart of Darkness
W.S. Maugham, mainly The Razor's Edge, but I find myself liking almost everything he's written.
Rushdie, Midnight's Children

L.
b / h = h / b+h


27 Zoupa Points, redeemable at the nearest liquor store! :woot:

Ed Anger

#11
April 30, 2013, 07:08:21 AM
Gor
Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

Queequeg

#12
April 30, 2013, 07:52:57 AM
Moby Dick
Paradise Lost
The Road
Lolita
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

merithyn

#13
April 30, 2013, 08:15:34 AM Last Edit: April 30, 2013, 08:38:27 AM by merithyn
Portrait of Dorien Gray
The Anne of Green Gables Series (yes, even you guys should read it)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Great Expectations
Grapes of Wrath (however much I personally dislike the book, I think it's essential reading)
The Old Man and the Sea (I really like this book)
The Vicar of Wakefield
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Jane Eyre
Olive Twist
The Color Purple
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

crazy canuck

#14
April 30, 2013, 08:40:02 AM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
1984
Animal Farm
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