What are some good classic books to get? (1 Viewer)

[Walter Kittel]

Since some SF novels have been mentioned, I'll throw in with some of the classics of the genre ( duplicating some previous mentions )

The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
The Man In the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller Jr.
Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny

- Walter.

 

[Ted Lee]

give agatha christie novels a try too. "10 little indians", "and then there were none", and "murder on the orient express" are some great starting points. both of her detective characters (miss marple and hercule poirot) are wonderful, charming and completely believable. i figure i've read every book of hers at least twice.

and i know it's probably taboo to mention stephen king and classic in the same sentence, but for suspense and atmosphere, his stuff is hard to beat. give "it" (the novel) a try. that was the first book of his i read and it hooked me to the point i finished reading most of his other novels, even under his pseudonym.

 

[Bill J]

The Fountainhead

 

[John Thomas]

I'm such a slacker. I haven't read anything in quite awhile. Here's my "If you haven't read these by now you've got to immediately" list )omitting others that are listed already):

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Can't think of others right now..like I said, slacker. :b

 

[andrew markworthy]

Dickens - Great Expectations; David Copperfield

And what's wrong with Great Expectations (or practically any of Dicken's output), pray?

 

[Angelo.M]

Let's not neglect Shakespeare. Start with these...

• Macbeth
• Julius Ceasar
• Richard III
• Othello
• King Lear
• The Tempest
• Romeo and Juliet
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Hamlet
• The Merchant of Venice

Ought to keep you busy for a while...

 

[StephenA]

Ted Lee: 10 Little Indians and And Then There Were None is the same book. I've read it a couple times.

Thanks again everyone. Looks like I have a big list to make. A couple days ago I found the book Hellraiser is based on. It's called The Hellbound Heart. I picked it up and am gonna start reading it.

 

[David Lawson]

And what's wrong with Great Expectations (or practically any of Dicken's output), pray?

The fact that his writing style was heavily influenced by him getting paid by the word irks a lot of people. I haven't read his work in a number of years, so I'm not sure if it would still rub me the wrong way. It certainly did during my college years, but we were supposed to criticize everything back then.

I must disagree with John Thomas' recommendation of Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, if it would be your first exposure to Faulkner. I've always felt As I Lay Dying was much more accessible, if only because of its variety.

 

[Ted Lee]

Ted Lee: 10 Little Indians and And Then There Were None is the same book.

doh! i knew i wasn't typing something right. thx for the catch...

 

[Seth--L]

Portnoy's Complaint, Roth
Goodbye, Columbus, Roth
The Armies of the Night, Mailer
Short stories by Flannery O'Connor

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The fact that his writing style was heavily influenced by him getting paid by the word irks a lot of people.

Yep, got kicked out of Junior year English for mumbling a "that's cause he got paid by the word" while the teacher was haranguing about the brilliance of Dickens using 4-5 pages to describe a jail cell. The teacher told me I didn't know what I was talking about and kicked me out for disrupting the class with my nonsense. As I predicted to him, I brought in proof the next day (and this was before the internet). As I also predicted, he didn't apologize.

 

[Bill Wise]

Just a quick second for the earlier mentions of Vonnegut and Chaucer (which needs to be reread after seeing "A Knight's Tale").

Bill

 

[Matt Gordon]

Make sure you try out Amazon's used and new books from independent sellers. I've had great luck with them, and the prices are sometimes unbelievably low for a new book. Used bookstores are better, but they can be hard to find at times.

 

[andrew markworthy]

The fact that his writing style was heavily influenced by him getting paid by the word irks a lot of people. I haven't read his work in a number of years, so I'm not sure if it would still rub me the wrong way.

Yes, but what words!

*Please* re-read him. There is no-one, but no-one in literature (English or any other nationality) who has matched Dickens for breadth, except perhaps Shakespeare. And like Shakespeare, he should be approached cautiously by readers in their teens.

One thing I am eternally gratefully to my English teachers for is that they kept us away from Dickens and Shakespeare as much as possible. Not that my teachers hated these authors (far from it), but they argued that you have to be older to even to begin to understand their genius (my teachers had this thing about only reading what you can understand and enjoy rather than learning stuff like a parrot). Far better to spend the formative years reading the 'lesser but good' authors (Steinbeck, Golding et al) who are demanding but easier to understand. We 'did' Great Expectations because we had to for a set exam when I was at school and it was okay, but it wasn't until I re-read it in my late twenties that I could even pretend to be on Dicken's wavelength.

 

[Devin U]

My picks...

Les Mirerables-Victor Hugo
Don Quioxe-Cervantes
Arrowsmith-Sinclair Lewis
and though not classics (not yet, anyways), anything by Bill Bryson