"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

for starters . . .but when I love a book, I'll read it more than once, so too many to mention.

WOW! a lot of good ideas here....

The Turner Diaries

winter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the last tao te ching i got was
> feng/english in the '80's, so i think i'm due. the
> only chuang tzu i sought but was unable to find
> was by duyvendack (sp?), several passages were
> used by alan watts. thanks for the tip, bro.

hi Winter: i have a small paperback pocket copy and the larger version...
they are pretty much widely available...hope u get around to this sooner or later...
this translation opens it up majestically and poetically, i promise.
[www.amazon.com]
later gator!

Ok, still on the favorite books.
Love Dr. Seuss!

For you Dylan and Seuss fans check this out!!!!

[dylanhearsawho.com]

whitem8 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> For you Dylan and Seuss fans check this out!!!!
>
> [dylanhearsawho.com]


Whitem8....you think that's a good Dylan recording? Just curious.

-



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-12-29 21:32 by cirrhosis.

Hey erik....yeah, I think it is hilarious! Fun stuff.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-03-07 06:52 by whitem8.

Definitely "Anna Karenina" by Lev Tolstoj, with ALL Joseph Roth's works as close second.

Anna Karenina...magnificent book

Debra mentioned a couple of books I haven't read in a long time [by Cooper and London].
I'll add that the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs kept me captivated for hours when I was a kid-loved that stuff.

As someone who has aspired to be a writer most of my life, I am always interested to hear what people like and read, and I agree that there are a LOT of great books here, and the literacy of the stones fans here on this board is much higher than I would have thought, but this is in fact the European fan club, so I guess I forgot that point. So many of us Americans are just too damn lazy to pick up a book these days. Me, I've always loved being carried away to new lands and adventures in books, but I do prefer the heavyweights...here are my faves in order:

J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
Ernest Hemingway - Death in the Afternoon
Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath
Toni Morrison - The Bluest Eye
Dorothy Alison - Bastard out of Carolina
David Guterson - Snow Falling on Cedars
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass

There are so many others - the Martian Chronicles, anything by E.M. Forster, Winesburg Ohio, Kafka's The Trial, London's the Sea Wolf, Kenneally's Schindlers List, The Odyssey, the Bible, Dickens' Great Expectations, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Kingston's The Woman Warrior, many other great books of poertry - Robert Frost is my favorite. I could go on and on all day. Faulkner will always be my favorite far and away, then Big Papa, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Morrison, and McMurtry.

Bonfire of the Vanities




I refused to see the movie, if you read the book, you knew immediately after they picked the cast, it was going to be a flop.

This would be a GREAT movie if they picked the right cast.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-03-07 17:47 by Bingo.

Almost anything by Emerson or Thoreau - On Walden Pond, in particular.

Forty Niks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Anyway, including but certainly not limited to
> (i'm gonna try to organize this somewhat
> chronologically):
>
> History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
> Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus


Oh come on, you're just showing off ;-).
I'll go with In Search of Lost Time by Proust (can't believe some translators have it as 'Remembrance of Things Past'. That's an almost criminal translation).
And how come nobody has mentioned Lolita yet ?

I mentioned Lolita - one of the best books ever!

Voodoo
My teen just read Great Gatsby and loved it. I've never read it so I've promised him that I will.

Gmanp,
It is quintessential! I've read it probably 7 or 8 times - the one I need to go back to is Catcher. I haven't read that one in a loooooooong time.

Must admit I've never read Dostoyevsky. War and Peace, Moby Dick, and Ulysses have been on my must-read list for a long time now too. I don't usually like the old American/English writers too much though. REd Badge of Courage...hated it. I am very much a Post-Modernity guy.

Pie1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Forty Niks Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Anyway, including but certainly not limited to
> > (i'm gonna try to organize this somewhat
> > chronologically):
> >
> > History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
> > Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus
>
>
> Oh come on, you're just showing off ;-).

actually, don't tell anyone, but i'm a trained (and perpetually in-training) classicist . . .

otonneau Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
).
>
> Pascal, Pensées
\

so which way did you go on the wager?

anything by raymond chandler ( the big sleep or lady in the lake )

"The Old Wives Tale" by Arnold Bennett

Should we start an IORRean book of the month club given that everyone is so well read? Maybe we would overtake the Oprah (loud mouthed US talk show host) book club in terms of a following....

gmanp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Voodoo
> My teen just read Great Gatsby and loved it. I've
> never read it so I've promised him that I will.


Lucky you---in for a quite a treat. But if your teen loved Gatsby tell him/her to read Tender is the Night.

And Bingo--totally agree---I REFUSED to see that movie and was glad it tanked big time. I mean Bruce Willis?? WTF?? The casting for that movie was a criminal act.

"Zauberberg"(Magic mounton) by Thomas Mann, I love everything he has written. Oscar Wild's "Dorian Gray" is beautiful. A contemporary writer whose work is very pleasant to read is the russian Victor Jerofejew.

I like Roald Dahl.

Regards,
Martijn - rs.martijn@gmail.com

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Nikolai Gogol, who wrote some mind-blowing books/novels like The Overcoat, Revizor and Dead Souls.
"We all came out of Gogol's 'Overcoat'"...Dostojevsky said that.

Forgot--Michael Crichton--The Great Train Robbery.

Great book and he pulled it together from newpaper accounts and a trial transcript.

The Bible
The Godfather
Deliverance
Otis Spofford