Looking for the Ultimate Reading List

[pmcleanj]

I'm trying to compile a comprehensive recommended reading list for my teenage daughters. I've got the College board's "101 books to read before College" and our schoolboard's list, and several other lists. But they seem to be ... well, pompous rather than comprehensive. Really, how many people honestly think a person truly have "The Scarlet Letter" on their "must read" list? And not one of the lists includes "Stranger in a Strange Land" or "Childhood's End" -- reflecting the literary world's general ignorance of science fiction (an ignorance reflected in the number of times Atwood tiresome "The Handmaid's Tale" gets touted as great science fiction by 'experts' who have never read anything else in the genre).

So I'm trying to compile my own. And the person whose opinion I respect the most having declined to contribute to the project on the grounds that he doesn't consider himself wellread I'm looking to other Science Fiction readers to help me out. I've found that SF readers tend to be just a tad more broadly read than mainstream readers and a little more likely to look at the actual literary quality of a book than the hype the book has gotten from grade 12 English lit teachers of the last century.

I'm by no means eschewing non-Science-Fiction classics. But I'd like to include the classics that people really respect and read -- not the ones that they just think they should have read because they sound impressive. So will you help me out? What are the books that the readers on this forum think that every well-read person should have read?

 

[Nienor]

1984 by George Orwell
Dune by Frank Herbert
Lathe of Heaven by Ursula LeGuin
A Clockwork Orange BY Anthony Burgess
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Some of them aren't 100% science fiction, but they're close enough And all of them are amazing

 

[pmcleanj]

Great list! The only one on that list I don't know is David Quinn. And it's nice to see something by Leguin recommended other than Wizard of Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness.

So now I'm curious: what non-SF books would you recommend?

 

[Nienor]

Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Of Mice and Of Men by John Steinbeck
All the Kings Men by Robert Penn Warren

and I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting

 

[GrinningDwarf]

Sci-fi titles I havn't seen mentioned in this thread that may not be in a "College Top 10" list that have really stuck with me:

When H.A.R.L.I.E Was One, Release 2.0 by David Gerrold: An early (1980's) look at artificial intelligence and what it means to be sentient. Think of a sane HAL. Awesome book!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: Saving the Earth from alien invaders...with a wild twist!! Must read!!

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein; Forget the movie!! Read the book!! Makes the reader think about citizenship and leadership. I used parts of it in my training routine for crewleaders when I ran a California Conservation Corps crew.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson: I havn't seen the movie version that's out now, but the book it's based upon is great! Matheson comes up with a reasonable biological explanation for vampires. Here's the amazon.com review:

One of the most influential vampire novels of the 20th century, I Am Legend regularly appears on the "10 Best" lists of numerous critical studies of the horror genre. As Richard Matheson's third novel, it was first marketed as science fiction (for although written in 1954, the story takes place in a future 1976). A terrible plague has decimated the world, and those who were unfortunate enough to survive have been transformed into blood-thirsty creatures of the night. Except, that is, for Robert Neville. He alone appears to be immune to this disease, but the grim irony is that now he is the outsider. He is the legendary monster who must be destroyed because he is different from everyone else. Employing a stark, almost documentary style, Richard Matheson was one of the first writers to convince us that the undead can lurk in a local supermarket freezer as well as a remote Gothic castle. His influence on a generation of bestselling authors--including Stephen King and Dean Koontz--who first read him in their youth is, well, legendary.

Non-sci-fi:

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk: Another commentary on leadership that I used to train crewleaders. If you've seen the movie with Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, and Fred MacMurray...they hacked off the last third of the book, where the young naval officer really learns what leadership is all about.

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold: A look at wildlife conservation by one of the men who originated wildlife conservation thought. It might sound dull, I suppose, but it's actually a beautiful read. Kinda like Walden, maybe, except it's written by a guy who was more practical than Thoreau. Here's the amazon.com review of this one:

Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today.

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara: This is the novel that the movie Gettysburg was based upon. It's kind of a history book for non-historians. This one volume teaches the average lay person quite a bit about the Civil War.

That's it for now. I can add more as I think of them.

 

[thunderbyrd]

"the Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

 

[Adammi]

Pamela! I love your posts, but you did not just diss The Scarlet Letter and Hawthorne?
I absolutely love that novel, and most certainly think that everyone should read it.

 

[pmcleanj]

Pamela! I love your posts, but you did not just diss The Scarlet Letter and Hawthorne?
I absolutely love that novel, and most certainly think that everyone should read it.

Nope, I didn't diss Hawthorne or the Scarlet Letter. But I did cast doubts on the idea that all the people who are sure that it's an "essential classic" actually have read it themselves, or actually want to.

When I started looking in to augmenting the school lit. curriculum, Anne asked me what constituted an "essential" book; and being a little emotional on the subject of education I replied irrationally that "it's a book that a person must have read, in order to be considered 'well read'." So she asked me, what people are considered 'well read' and I told her it was the people that have read all the essential books.

I'd feel bad about that bit of circular reasoning, if I were the only person struggling with the question, but the proliferation of "essential literature" lists suggests that there is no simple definition. It has also made me examine a little more what I am looking for in a liberal education for my daughters. Is it so they can impress people with how well-educated they are? (answer: yes, in part, since there are opportunities available to them that will hinge on being able to demonstrate that: choice of University being one such opportunity). Or is it to shape their values and character and linguistic ability? (answer: yes, that too, but plenty of non-classic books have the ideas and values and quality of English to be equally or more effective). Or, is it to perpetuate our culture? That too, and that is probably the most legitimate reason.

But, if a book is known to be a "classic" of our culture but is not really read by the members of the culture -- except for specialists in literature and students forced to read it in their grade twelve English class -- then, is it really part of our culture? I was talking about the problem this evening with some friends of the family, and was unsurprised to find (for example) that only one person in the room had actually read the Last of the Mohicans. But I was surprised to find that only one person in the room had read the Odyssey, and relieved to find that all of them had read Hamlet and Othello! Obviously from observing my own surprise, I'm subconsciously carrying the sense that Homer and Shakespeare are essential to our cultural foundation, but Cooper isn't. And I can think of some good analytical reasons as to why that should be.

Which raises the question as to whether you are right that "The Scarlet Letter" is legitimately "great literature" or whether it's just a story you happen to like (the way other people really like Terry Brooks novels) that also happens to have a really good reputation (unlike Terry Brooks novels). So, what is it about The Scarlet Letter that recommends it so highly?

 

[Adammi]

Do you think that this may be something that varies between the US and Canada? Because most of people I talk to equate having read The Scarlet Letter with being literate. Other American writings are the same way, such as Arthur Miller, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway. I could understand that these would not be as popular abroad because of their American-specific content.

 

[Kehaar]

Some good suggestions so far

How about some of Philip K. Dick's books? He was a prolific writer; there are many short story collections too.

Also, this is fantasy and science fiction, but I would highly recommend Stephen Donaldson - I can't speak well enough of his books to do them justice. His writing can be harrowing (the Gap Series in particular) at times but I still heap praise on just about everything he's written.

 

[Nienor]

I really enjoyed Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? But I'm afraid I haven't read too much by him yet

 

[happyfreak14]

Because most of people I talk to equate having read The Scarlet Letter with being literate.

the question (I think) is not whether or not people equate it with being literate, but whether or not it's actually widely read and liked enough to make it an intrinsic part of our culture.

 

[Blackmarch]

Great list! The only one on that list I don't know is David Quinn. And it's nice to see something by Leguin recommended other than Wizard of Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness.

So now I'm curious: what non-SF books would you recommend?

Lord of the rings for fantasy..
For a cold war thriller - Flight of the old Dog by Dale brown

Tom Clancy has quite a few good ones.. hunt for the Red OCtober among them

Count the stars

Chronicles of Narnia- fantasy

The Prydain Chronicles- fantasy (The black couldron is part of that series)

Sherlock Holmes- Mystery

 

[IzzyPop]

Some one already mentioned Ender's Game.

I do more of the Fantasy side as opposed to Sci-Fi, but here are a few:

Watership Down - Richard Adams
The Stand - Stephen King
I hate to be popular and contemporary, but Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin is hands down the best fiction I have read in the past 5 years. If he ever completes the series it will stand next to Lord of the Rings as one of the prime shapers of fantasy literature to come after it.
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett

 

[stonetoflesh]

Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
Jack Vance - The Dying Earth
H.P. Lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
M. John Harrison - The Pastel City
Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind
Jorge Luis Borges - Collected Fictions
Michael Ende - The Neverending Story

 

[The Princess Bride]

Anything by Frank Peretti (ranged genre, good bit mystery/suspense)
"The Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan (sci-Fi)