OK, in my role as unofficial forum wise @$$:
Strangely, nobody mentioned Dante or Shakespeare yet (let alone Milton, Chaucer, etc.).
Farenheit 459, Ray Bradbury
I'm surprised nobody noticed it's actually 'Fahenheit 451'... ironically, I haven't read it, but I have watched the movie (by Trouffat (sp?)).
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Haven't read it, but absolutely loved David Copperfield, the Pickwick Papers, and Great Expectations.
Moby Dick[/I]
Am I the only one who found this book terribly boring, Ahab or no Ahab? (By the way, I guess the guys who founded Starbucks are fans of Moby Dick, due to the name itself and the logo...)
"Alice" were the first books I've read to my daughter
Isn't that a bit like using mushrooms mixed with pot as her first baby food?
the bible - one of the greatest works of mankind ever written, if not THE greatest
In the original Hebrew (the Old Testament) it is even more powerful. I'm studying Greek now with the hope of re-reading the NT in the original (although I'd probably be able to ask St. Paul about it directly long before I know enough Greek for that).
Any good compilation of poetry
In my view, the best poet of the 20th Century was not Eliot or Pound, but W. H. Auden.
The Brothers Karamazov
True. Also, Crime and Punishment. But the greatest novel ever written is, in my view, Tolstory's War and Peace.
Love in the Time of Cholera
He's one of my favorite authors. The opening sentence of 100 Years of Soltitude is the best, perhaps, in all literature. I read the whole book straight through, in 10 hours or so, after that.
Catch 22
Overrated, in my view. Far better is The Good Soldier Schweik, by Hascheck. Heller's book is clever; Hascheck's, a masterpiece.
the lord of the rings
Loved it at 14, cannot stand it now. Not Tolkein's fault: it's intended for 14-year-olds, as his children were at the time. But why any adult would read it is beyound me. In any case, the plot is obviously swiped from Wagner's [/I]Ring of the Nibelungs[/I] (sp?) Opera cycle. When you have to swipe your plot from an Opera, you know it can't be too sophisticated...
To add a few more:
I, Claudius. Graves totally copied RKO Speedwa... I mean Tacitus' Annals, of course, but he did it so wonderfully well! Strangely enough, Graves himself considered this to be his minor works.
The Life and Games of Michael Tal, by M. Tal. Yes, a chess book. But apart from his annotated game, it is also an autobiography of his life, done so well that if you have any interest in chess at all this is a book to get.
GK Chesterton's Father Brown stories
They're good, but his masterpiece is, surely, The Man who Was Thursday.
Strangely, nobody mentioned Dante or Shakespeare yet (let alone Milton, Chaucer, etc.).
Farenheit 459, Ray Bradbury
I'm surprised nobody noticed it's actually 'Fahenheit 451'... ironically, I haven't read it, but I have watched the movie (by Trouffat (sp?)).
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Haven't read it, but absolutely loved David Copperfield, the Pickwick Papers, and Great Expectations.
Moby Dick[/I]
Am I the only one who found this book terribly boring, Ahab or no Ahab? (By the way, I guess the guys who founded Starbucks are fans of Moby Dick, due to the name itself and the logo...)
"Alice" were the first books I've read to my daughter
Isn't that a bit like using mushrooms mixed with pot as her first baby food?
the bible - one of the greatest works of mankind ever written, if not THE greatest
In the original Hebrew (the Old Testament) it is even more powerful. I'm studying Greek now with the hope of re-reading the NT in the original (although I'd probably be able to ask St. Paul about it directly long before I know enough Greek for that).
Any good compilation of poetry
In my view, the best poet of the 20th Century was not Eliot or Pound, but W. H. Auden.
The Brothers Karamazov
True. Also, Crime and Punishment. But the greatest novel ever written is, in my view, Tolstory's War and Peace.
Love in the Time of Cholera
He's one of my favorite authors. The opening sentence of 100 Years of Soltitude is the best, perhaps, in all literature. I read the whole book straight through, in 10 hours or so, after that.
Catch 22
Overrated, in my view. Far better is The Good Soldier Schweik, by Hascheck. Heller's book is clever; Hascheck's, a masterpiece.
the lord of the rings
Loved it at 14, cannot stand it now. Not Tolkein's fault: it's intended for 14-year-olds, as his children were at the time. But why any adult would read it is beyound me. In any case, the plot is obviously swiped from Wagner's [/I]Ring of the Nibelungs[/I] (sp?) Opera cycle. When you have to swipe your plot from an Opera, you know it can't be too sophisticated...
To add a few more:
I, Claudius. Graves totally copied RKO Speedwa... I mean Tacitus' Annals, of course, but he did it so wonderfully well! Strangely enough, Graves himself considered this to be his minor works.
The Life and Games of Michael Tal, by M. Tal. Yes, a chess book. But apart from his annotated game, it is also an autobiography of his life, done so well that if you have any interest in chess at all this is a book to get.
GK Chesterton's Father Brown stories
They're good, but his masterpiece is, surely, The Man who Was Thursday.
