book list

[NoOneofConsequence]

The Man Who was Thursday GK Chesterton

The War of the Worlds HG Wells

Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

The Republic Plato

The Bible Various (or God, depending on your theology)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Tom Stoppard

The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli

The Art of War Sun Tzu

The Book of Five Rings Miyamoto Musashi

The Banality of Evil Hannah Arrendt

More as they occur to me!

 

[Crothian]

I'll have to second Great Expectations.

Letters to the Earth by Mark Twain (Tom Sayer, Huck Finn, Conneticut Yankee in King Author's Court are good, too, but that is my personal favorite of Twain's)

Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut (I also enjoyed his book Hocus Pocus).

Gullivers Traveles by John Swift and his Modest Proposal.

And for mythology buffs The Kalevala which is the national Epic of Finland. Very good and many of the people are also in the first edition Deties and Demi gods

 

[Crothian]

Double Post

 

[Zander]

1984 by George Orwell

IMHO every high school student should have to read this book. If you don't know about the political concepts it contains, you can't understand how governments work. That's not to say that 1984 is the only way to learn those concepts, but it does make them and their importance easy to understand.

Unlike many other great books, this one can change the way you think about the world.

 

[Turlogh]

Here's my list of "Must Reads"

Homers The Iliad and the Odyessy
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote in Gods Eye and The Gripping Hand
David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series
Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Finally: Robert E. Howard's Conan (not heavy reading, just great escapist entertainment from a master story teller)

 

[Bodmin Moor]

'War and Peace' and by Leo Tolstoy. 'Anna Karenina' is also a fine book.

 

[Dagger75]

Egads this list reads like an English assignment.

 

[JoeBlank]

Just wanted to add Lord of the Flies by William Golding to the list.

 

[tleilaxu]

anything by anton chekov

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

The Man In The High Castle - Philip K. Dick

The Book of Chuang-Tzu

The Worm Ourobouros - E.R. Eddison

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym - Edgar Allen Poe

Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan - Fuchida and Okumiya (written by two Japanese naval officers around 1951, this book is a detailed account not just of the titular battle, but of the objectives of the Japanese military early in World War II. Fascinating insights.)

Run Silent, Run Deep - Edward Beach (if you're familiar with the film, then you'll be surprised by how much more realistic the book is, and how the book is so much more gritty. One of the best naval tales I've read).

Ploesti - The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 - James Dugan and Carroll Stewart (This account of this enormous, and ultimately disastrous, bomb run over one of the Third Reich's oil lifelines, told from the perspectives of both sides, gives a breathtaking account of the event, and is one of the best war histories I've read).

Cosmos - Carl Sagan (one of my favorite books)

The Once and Future King - T.H. White

Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights - John Steinbeck (Steinbeck's portrayal of Lancelot is so finely rendered, and explores the nature of love and heroism so well, that his version of Lancelot is the version of that character for me. Beautifully told.)