3:24am
At 3:24 in the morning when you are reading A Moveable Feast and every sentence makes you smile and the snow is piled up in the street when you look out the window, and that makes you smile too, waking up your wife and reading to her about how “All Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil” seems like the reasonable thing to do.
Great to see that computer people still do actually read fiction (sci-fi and fantasy don’t count for my purposes here). I have become so poorly read since I graduated from high school, I’m ashamed to admit it. I can quickly count up about 6 massively thick technical books I’ve read this year, and only one short little novel, which was required for a class (“Things Fall Apart”).
So I’m curious- what are everyone’s top 1 or 2 MUST READ books? Mine would be “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig.
-Jed
“I still have to say the best book I ever read was Cash by Johnny Cash”
High Fidelity is still my favorite novel. The Letters form a Nut series is very good though.
To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye are my two favorite novels. Norman Mailer ( The Executioner’s Song and Harlot’s Ghost ) and Salman Rushdie ( Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Satanic Verses ) are both extraordinary writers, the former matter-of-fact and the latter sublime. Everyone should read Catch 22 at least once. And throw in some Vonnegut for good measure, but not too much — despite wildly divergent plot lines, his novels are eerily similar.
Excellent, keep this thread going people.
I spent most of last year reading technical books and I have decided that my soul needs a break from them. I would love to end up with a huge list of must read books here.
Well if you want a little light reading:
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
(I agree with Catch 22 as well)
Dean Koontz is my favorite writer. I loved Catcher in the Rye the first time I read it. Vonnegut is…interesting. If you’re in the mood for a short story, Harrison Bergeron is a good one of his.
Kurt Vonnegut – Cat’s Cradle
Ray Bradbury – Farenheit 451
Catch 22 has been on my to-read list forever, it’s about time I got to it.
Yertle the Turtle
Possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle stacking.
As I recommended to you during our last visit . . . Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin (the sequals Clash of Kings and Storm of Swords are equally as good. In fact by the last book it will hurt you to turn pages because it means you have less to read, and the fourth book isn’t published yet) The Initiate Brother – Sean Russell I Robot – Issac Asimov The Wind in the Willows – – Also good butnot fiction – Into the Wild by John Krakow [sic]
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yes, even guys should read this one. The Don’t wake your wife up at 3:24 in the morning unless the house is on fire book. Always appreciated. Anything Dickens. The man is awesome. Bros. Karamazov by Dostoevsky
Right now I am in the middle of A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Dan already read it. You’ll definitely bust a gut.
I did the opposite. Didn’t read any technical books like I should have, but kept reading for pleasure as usual. I think it’s what I love most. But I have such a bad memory so I forget what I read and liked recently. But here’s a few off the top of my head that I read in 2003 and loved (i’m sure i’m leaving out a ton of great stuff…i’m going to start keeping a list this year!): Harry Potter series Stranger Things Happen – Kelly Link The Russian Debutante’s Handbook – Gary Shteyngart The Eyre Affair: A Novel — Jasper Fforde Right now I’m reading: Not the End of the World – Kate Atkinson (on the train) and Quicksilver-Neal Stephenson (too heavy to travel with) and I think my must recommend and maybe in my top five: Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I would read: a. The Divine Comedy by Dante (You will find yourself quoting it for the rest of your life.)
b. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini ( a window into genius and to the time)
c. The Prince by Machiavelli (Does the end justify the means?)
d. Diary of Sam Pepys (Ok, its in multiple volumes but you can always stop when you have had enough. In fact that’s true of all of the books here. You don’t have to read every word to be benefited by some words.)
e. London Journal of James Boswell (a bit racy but what a view into the time. The same is true of Pepys)
f. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (You will love it. Its witty and true)
g. A Tale of Two Cities or almost anything by Dickens. Marvelous stuff.
h. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevski (Read it in High School and thought I was going crazy with the protagonist. Very powerful )
i. All quiet On The Western Front by Remarque.
j. The Cloister and the Hearth by Reade
k. Kim by Kipling (and his poems like “East is east and west is west. whatever the title is) Vastly entertaining and insightful of an era and an area.
l. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain ( and try his satirical view of religion in Letters from Earth or Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven) Oh, don’t miss his hilarious work (Cant remember the name) on his visit to the Holy Land and Europe.
m. Catch 22 by Heller ( Love it)
n. And you are already into Hemingway. Though someone said, I think truly, that he brought a major art to a minor view of life its still brilliant. He can evoke the feeling rather than describing it to death.
o. Jack London. Pretty well anything. I Loved The Sea Wolf. (I think that’s the title)
p. And what was my religion for a long time even though, or perhaps because of its almost adolescent melancholy, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
q. And that’s enough for now.
Ack! I have to run out and read A Moveable Feast–we’re going to Paris this summer and I already planned to go to the old writers’ and artists’ hangouts with a notebook and pen in hand…
My recommendations of the moment:
–
“Kids don’t like eating at school, but if they have a Remains of the Day lunchbox they’re a lot happier.”
-Corky St. Clair, Waiting for Guffman
asher lev-potok Wild Sheep Chase – murakami The Wind Up Bird Chronicles – Murakami
Oh! Joe pulls out the Murakami, but you can’t forget Hard Boiled Wonderland.
And just for Josh – A New Brand World – get some nice branding and marketing to weigh off all the dev. stuff – this is written by the guy who has been responsible for creating Nike and Starbucks brands.
Walden by Thoreau,
anything by Emerson (but especially the Divinity School Address),
Zeal Without Knowledge by Nibley,
The Federalist Papers (in small bits and snatches)
The Book of Five Rings (old Japanese manual on fighting),
anything by Kipling (I agree with Old Prof about Kim, but Captains Courageous is cool too, even if it isn’t as mysterious as the India stories). Some of the short stories are damn near poetic, they are so good.
There’s lots of good stuff on the internet to read. I hear that Ashton Kucher is putting out a book and I hear it’s going to be based on his exciting life.
anything by Paul Auster is great if your into strange, eery stuff.
If you’re a war/history buff like me, “Charlie Wilson’s War” is a must read! Really puts the current “war or terrorism” in perspective. and makes you realize that they are currently killing americans with weapons and training that we gave them in the first place.
Paris!
Leaving for Europe (mostly Paris) in just under 9 hours. I plan: – to eat baguettes so crisp on the outside, so soft on the inside that I will become embittered about American baguettes for the rest of my life….