101 books to read before you die – give your input

[darynthe]

This is a pet project born from the 100 books thread.

I was thinking of making a compilation of the 100 books you should read before you die. It is a big task and it will take time and a little help from everyone.

However, I have a rough idea of what this sort of selection would include. I think a good reader is one that will have ventured in all kind of roads. An eclectic choice of themes is fundamental for being a well rounded human being.

So if you are reading this I invite you to help me with your ideas of what books should be comprised in this list.

The idea is at least one great book per category:

Children
Young adult
Drama
Biography
Romance
Social comedy
Self-improvement
Historic
Greek classic
Roman classic
Three sacred books
Essay
Philosophy
Evolution theory
Theory of unification
Physics
Scientific essay
Etiology or zoology
Astronomy
History
World War I and II
Dystopia and Utopias
Psychology
Biology
Comedy
Futuristic
Comic book/Anime
Politics of XX century
Futurology
Coming of age series
Classics of English
French
Italian
German
Spanish
Poetry compilation
Theater
Erotic
Detectives
Gothic
Epic
Suspense
Terror
Autobiography
Travel
Theology
Advertising
Mystery
Cuisine
Art
Sociology
Design
Photography
Fairy tales
Parody/Satire
Bodice Ripper
Camp
Adventure
Science fiction
Fan fiction
Magics
Capitalism
Socialism
Anthology
Best sellers
Logic/scientific method
Semantics/semiotics
For dummies guide
Nobel Prize winner
Banned
Overrated
Medieval
American dream
Administration/organizational
Human relations
Idealism
Morality
Legend
Technology
Guilty pleasure
The human condition
Best plot
Best ending
Best written
Most uplifting
Most influential
Most Original
Heroic
Other

Please copy the list and add beside the book you would recommend for any cateogry you want to. Doesn't have to be in all categories. Just the one you can give a firm advise into. By the end of the project I will post polls to decide in the categories. Thanks for the help INTJs.

I will post updates in my personal blog (link to be posted).

[Rudy]

I think this could be a fun idea, and I'll definitely contribute once I've thought about it a bit, but posting a poll for each of those categories might be excessive.

[darynthe]

I think this could be a fun idea, and I'll definitely contribute once I've thought about it a bit, but posting a poll for each of those categories might be excessive.

Thanks Rudy, I appreciate it! Maybe I will figure out a way. I was thinking opening a website devoted to it. If a few thousand people vote for the categories they feel strongly for, it is doable.

[Rudy]

Thanks Rudy, I appreciate it! Maybe I will figure out a way. I was thinking opening a website devoted to it. If a few thousand people vote for the cateogies they feel strongly for, it is doable.

Possible. I wouldn't count on more than a few dozen from this website, though.

[darynthe]

Possible. I wouldn't count on more than a few dozen from this website, though.
Yeah, just a thought. I am really excited about this project! Yay!

[JohnDoe]

Ender's Game (SciFi)
The Odyssey (Greek history)
Surely your Joking Mr.Feynman (Nobel Prize)
Brave New World (dystopia)
How to win friends and influence people (Human Relations)

[Night Runner]

Methinks you've got too many categories... Oh well - I nominate "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell in the Sociology and/or Heroic category.

[Tragic Hero]

Agatha Christie - Ten Little Indians

[The Digger]

It almost seems like you should start a thread for each category, but that would be an appalling amount of work.

Many of these categories though, biology for example, are far too broad. There is no one book that can possibly cover the history of The Age of Exploration, complete evolutionary theories, clade organization, notable people, and give a general summary of the world's flora and fauna. Not and do them justice.

And what do you mean by German, French, Italian, Spanish? Why exclude the other 100+ countries out there? Those do not seem proper categories, most especially because one of the "best" book categories could be from one among those countries, so it rightly would have two slots.

Sorry if I'm being overly critical, it is meant to be helpful in its way.

As for recommendations:

Comedy - Hitchhiker's Guide (Doubglas Adams)
Autobiography - My Life and Hard Times (James Thurber)
Evolution Theory - The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin)
Terror - The Great God Pan (Arthur Machen)
Fantasy - LotR (JRR Tolkien)
Children - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Roald Dahl)
Comic Book - The Sandman (Neil Gaiman)
Greek - The Odyssey (Homer)
The Human Condition - Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Romance - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

These are all the firm opinions I can give, though I do not hold any of them to be indisputable.

[Goethe]

Children
Young adult
Drama
Biography
Romance - The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe; Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare
Social comedy
Self-improvement - Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography; As A Man Thinketh - James Allen
Historic
Greek classic - Homer's Iliad
Roman classic - Metamorphosis - Ovid
Three sacred books - Bhagavad Gita, Ecclesiastes, Job
Essay - "Self-Reliance" by: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Philosophy - Philosophical Investigations by: Ludwig Wittgenstein
Evolution theory - The Selfish Gene - Dawkins
Theory of unification
Physics - Feynman's Lectures
Scientific essay
Etiology or zoology
Astronomy
History - The Idea of History - R.G. Collingwood
World War I and II - The Great War and Modern Memory - Fussel
Dystopia and Utopias - Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Island
Psychology
Biology
Comedy - Tartuffe, Misanthrope - Moliere
Futuristic
Comic book/Anime
Politics of XX century
Futurology
Coming of age series - The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
Classics of English - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
French -
Italian
German - Faust - Goethe
Spanish - The Divine Comedy - Dante
Poetry compilation - Keats Complete Poems
Theater
Erotic
Detectives
Gothic
Epic - Beowulf or: The Nibelungenlied
Suspense
Terror
Autobiography - The Confessions of J.J. Rousseau or: Autobiography of Cellini
Travel
Theology
Advertising
Mystery
Cuisine
Art
Sociology
Design
Photography
Fairy tales - Grimm's Fairy Tales
Parody/Satire - The True History - Lucian
Bodice Ripper
Camp
Adventure
Science fiction - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fan fiction
Magics
Capitalism - The Wealth of Nations - Smith
Socialism
Anthology
Best sellers
Logic/scientific method
Semantics/semiotics
For dummies guide
Nobel Prize winner
Banned
Overrated
Medieval
American dream
Administration/organizational
Human relations
Idealism
Morality
Legend
Technology
Guilty pleasure
The human condition - Shakespeare's Plays
Best plot
Best ending
Best written
Most uplifting
Most influential - The KJV of the Hebrew Bible
Most Original
Heroic
Other

[ElstonGunn]

Here's a few that I came up with. I'm sure I'd give different answers on different days, but anyways....

Children: Aesop's fables
Drama: The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Biography: Bound for Glory - Woody Guthrie (even though it's fiction, I'm counting it here)
Romance: Not applicable (:p)
Social comedy: The Bachelor Home Companion - PJ O'Rourke
Self-improvement: Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
Historic: The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca
Greek classic: Some kind of "Aristotle's Greatest Hits" book
Roman classic: Letters from a Stoic - Seneca the Younger
Three sacred books: The Christian Bible (since it's kind of a two-fer with Judaism), The Quran, and... I don't know... the Upanishads?
Essay: A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift
Philosophy: Enchiridion - Epictetus
History: Guns Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
World War I and II: Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo
Psychology: Solitude - Anthony Storr
Politics of XX century: America the Book - Jon Stewart
German: Metamorphosis - Kafka
Spanish: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Epic: The Odyssey
Autobiography: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson
Travel: Traversa - Fran Sandham
Sociology: You Can't Win - Black
Adventure: God's Middle Finger - Richard Grant
Semantics/semiotics: The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
Medieval: Beowulf
The human condition: Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

[altoid]

Wow, this is a big project. I'll throw in one for now, and add as I am able:

Cuisine - Mastering The Art of French Cooking Vol 1 & 2 - Julia Child

Edit:

Overrated: The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown (to agree with Darkness below)

[Synapse]

Philosophy: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
Greek classic: "The Oedipus Cycle" by Sophocles, or anything by Aristotle or Homer
Roman classic: Cicero's letters or Virgil's Aeneid
Dystopia: Either "1984" by Orwell, or "Brave New World" by Huxley
History: "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond
Futuristic/Technological: "The Blade Runner" by Alan Nourse
"For Dummies": "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess"
Banned: ...
Overrated: "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown
Gothic/Terror: "Dracula" by Bram Stoker, or anything by H.P Lovecraft

I'll edit this list later, when I have some more suggestions in the other categories. ;) And yes, you have way too many categories. It makes it more entertaining to see how many books you can put into as many different categories, but the list is exhaustive.

[Storm]

This looked like fun:
Children: The Wind in the Willows
Young adult: The Giver
Romance: Pride & Prejudice
Greek classic: The Illiad
Three sacred books: The Bible, The Koran, and the Tipitaka
Essay: The Myth of Sisyphus
Classics of English: The Old Man and the Sea
Poetry compilation: Robert Frost or Rumi
Theater: Romeo & Juliet
Detectives: Sherlock Holmes
Suspense: Rebecca
Fairy tales: Grimm's Brothers
Parody/Satire Terry Pratchet
Science fiction: The War of the Worlds
Overrated: Da Vinci Code (Edit: I didn't even look at the other posters, this is hands down the most overrated book)
American dream: The Great Gatsby
Idealism: Walden
Morality: Anything by Albert Camus/ The Illiad
Best ending: The Age of Innocense

There are a few repeats.

[iuvat]

Candide by Voltaire
Wikipedia: (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)
Candide is known for its sarcastic tone and its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. With a story similar to that of a more serious bildungsroman or picaresque novel, it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact.

Its not very long, but worth reading. Its one of those hit or miss books, but read it anyway. If you don't like it, it'll give you something to argue about. Also, it could fall under the banned category, because... it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté

[Trenchant1]

I don't want to appear negative but (you knew there was a 'but' coming, didn't you?) this is a highly flawed exercise. The categories you have chosen are arbitrary. There may be 100 'books to read before you die' within one category but none worthy of the title within another. There's nothing on woodwork, dentistry or car maintenance. That would be useful. And the 'over-rated' section - wouldn't the winner of that be a book NOT to read before you die? Or maybe you could leave that one until after you die?

I don't intend to be offensive, but you seem to be investing a lot of work in this project and, in my opinion, it's a waste of time and effort. There are 'definitive' lists like this appearing every week in newspapers and magazines. Each one is the 'ultimate' one, at least until the next one is published. There really are much better things to do with your time, honestly. This is just a time filling exercise for you, a distraction from real life. Please, don't waste your life compiling lists. I'm sorry, that's presumptuous of me. You have the right to do whatever you want with your time. I am simply speaking from my own experience of wasting my time on pointless things when I was young. I know that I would have been better off doing something 'real'. I just wish someone had given me a kick in the pants when I was young, that's all. Take no notice of me. Good luck with the list.

[Pandemonium]

Did anyone else find the issues and solutions raised by the book 'How to win friends and influence people' absurdly obvious?

I'm going to say some popular ones........

Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck
Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kessy
To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Paradise Lost by John Milton

And the single most greatest piece of literature in all of history 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk.

[darynthe]

I don't want to appear negative but (you knew there was a 'but' coming, didn't you?) this is a highly flawed exercise. The categories you have chosen are arbitrary. There may be 100 'books to read before you die' within one category but none worthy of the title within another. There's nothing on woodwork, dentistry or car maintenance. That would be useful. And the 'over-rated' section - wouldn't the winner of that be a book NOT to read before you die? Or maybe you could leave that one until after you die?

I don't intend to be offensive, but you seem to be investing a lot of work in this project and, in my opinion, it's a waste of time and effort. There are 'definitive' lists like this appearing every week in newspapers and magazines. Each one is the 'ultimate' one, at least until the next one is published. There really are much better things to do with your time, honestly. This is just a time filling exercise for you, a distraction from real life. Please, don't waste your life compiling lists. I'm sorry, that's presumptuous of me. You have the right to do whatever you want with your time. I am simply speaking from my own experience of wasting my time on pointless things when I was young. I know that I would have been better off doing something 'real'. I just wish someone had given me a kick in the pants when I was young, that's all. Take no notice of me. Good luck with the list.

I think this is a very valuable excercise. I will read the picks because it is hard to get good recommendations for reading. I will be happy to read great books I would have missed otherwise. I hope someone also gets interested eventually when the final lists comes out and have fun reading new themes.
I usually see lists of ten or 100 tops but they are in one sole category which IMHO is quite a loss of time. If we devote a little time to very different topics we can make up for deficiencies in our education and knowledge of the world. This is not a waste of time at all. Informed citizens won't let goverments destroy their country or people and won't be fooled by media or advertising.

Not that it matters but I have many other hobbies, in fact too many. I paint, do photoshop art, write fanfiction, write articles/blogs online semiprofessionally, go to graduate-school, do sculpture, have a shop on ebay, walk one hour per day. I am not sure what you would consider a more valuable thing to do with my time.

Now,about the categories, it is just a little help to help the minds of everyone wander in different possibilities. Literature will have more picks than for instance, math, if any, as it should. If there is a classic in dentistry that is of general interest to all humans, I beg you to submit at once.

About the overrated category, I think it even more important than many others. You need to read mediocre but fun to be able to understand what is good. Plus you don't want to miss an understanding of what could rise up interest and love in people and yet be devoid of deeper purpose. It is a fascinating category and fun to read, hope to get many picks in it.

And someone said that we should include classics in other languages, and I agree. I am just not familiar with Eastern civilization enough to pick anything, so it would be great to have some books in those languages.


darynthe added to this post, 21 minutes and 22 seconds later...


Romance - Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

These are all the firm opinions I can give, though I do not hold any of them to be indisputable.

Yeah, that is absolutely true.

However I see Pride and Prejudice pop up more than any other book. I am just a little suprised it is in the romance category.

It would be interesting to discuss this. Is it really a romantic book? Yes, I know the main theme is a relationship, however, what you see page after page is someone laughing at a silly society. It is an amazing social comedy that portraits the human condition in quite a genial way, this is probably why people still read it more than books still nowadays. As a romance it lacks the intensity you can see in other books that are committed 100% to love, such as Jane Eyre. :) What do you think, guys?

[ElstonGunn]

However I see Pride and Prejudice pop up more than any other book. I am just a little suprised it is in the romance category.

It would be interesting to discuss this. Is it really a romantic book? Yes, I know the main theme is a relationship, however, what you see page after page is someone laughing at a silly society. It is an amazing social comedy that portraits the human condition in quite a genial way, this is probably why people still read it more than books still nowadays. As a romance it lacks the intensity you can see in other books that are committed 100% to love, such as Jane Eyre. :) What do you think, guys?

Never having read it, and only being vaguely acquainted with the story (so in other words, I don't know what I'm talking about), I could see that. Isn't most of the book about how so not in love the characters are? And doesn't the woman only start to like the guy after he's cold and insensitive to her?

[darynthe]

Never having read it, and only being vaguely acquainted with the story (so in other words, I don't know what I'm talking about), I could see that. Isn't most of the book about how so not in love the characters are? And doesn't the woman only start to like the guy after he's cold and insensitive to her?

Methinks you need to give it a try. It is great fantastic fun book. You can read it online if you don't care to buy it. And on the contrary, she only starts to like him after he changes because of her and becomes more human and humble.

[Merle]

As a romance it lacks the intensity you can see in other books that are committed 100% to love, such as Jane Eyre. :) What do you think, guys?

whoah... Jane Eyre a book 100% committed to love? I really don't see it that way at all, if you have a Gothic Fiction list that's where I'd be putting it. Maybe Bildungsroman otherwise - it's basically about Jane learning to understand and accept herself for what she is, I guess love grows out of that but it's a qualified love - Rochester has to be symbolically castrated and brought down a peg or two to rid him of his Romantic, with a capital R, leanings before it can go anywhere.

[Airius]

Physics: A Brief History of Time
The Universe in a Nutshell

[darynthe]

whoah... Jane Eyre a book 100% committed to love? I really don't see it that way at all, if you have a Gothic Fiction list that's where I'd be putting it. Maybe Bildungsroman otherwise - it's basically about Jane learning to understand and accept herself for what she is, I guess love grows out of that but it's a qualified love - Rochester has to be symbolically castrated and brought down a peg or two to rid him of his Romantic, with a capital R, leanings before it can go anywhere.

LOL you are right, it was so romantic in my head I didn't notice the Gothic elements, they are a little more subtle to what I am used to in Gothic (the Monk or Wuthering Heights.)

So, the problem here is that the best romantic novels belong very clearly also to other genres. Jane Eyre could be clasified as Coming of age too.
Gone with the Wind is clearly more historical/epic than romantic as well.

[Storm]

All books have more than one theme to them. I put Rebecca in the "Suspense" category, but it arguably could also go in the Romance category.

I'd put Pride & Prejudice in the romance category because the main characters have to defeat social expectations and traditions to be together. At a time when marriage of the upper class was about anything but romance, Austen wrote a book about true love.

[ElChe]

Philosophy: Arthur Schopenhauer - The Wisdom Of Life (Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit).
Self-improvement: David Allen - Getting Things Done: The Art Of Stress-free Productivity

[WyohKnott]

Wow... this is a huge project, but also a fascinating one. I'm definitely going to read some of the ones I've seen listed here, even if they don't make it onto the final list. I'll have to think a lot more about this, but here are some of my first thoughts:

Children – The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (by E.L. Konigsburg… I may change my vote on this one, though)
Young adult – A Ring of Endless Light, and/or Camilla (both by Madeleine L’Engle)
Romance – Pride and Prejudice (I know it’s been said before, but it is the best I can think of)
Comic book/Anime - Calvin and Hobbes :p No, seriously… there are some excellent insights in those, entirely apart from being positively hilarious.
Suspense – Rebecca (though, as Storm said, it could go in more than one category)
Travel – Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck (I just read it, so I might be a little biased)
Mystery – Murder on the Orient Express
Fairy tales – Does The Princess Bride count? I think it should be on the list somewhere.
Science fiction – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, though it could go in other categories as well.
Best sellers – Harry Potter series
Banned – Huckleberry Finn
Heroic – Lord of the Rings

[Lucy Snowe]

Children - The Little Prince or The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
Young adult
Drama - Tale of Two Cities
Biography
Romance - Pride and Predjudice
Social comedy - 1984
Self-improvement
Historic
Greek classic - Plato’s republic
Roman classic
Three sacred books - Bible
Essay
Philosophy - Locke
Evolution theory
Theory of unification
Physics - General Theory of Relativity or a calculus 1 book
Scientific essay
Etiology or zoology
Astronomy
History
World War I and II
Dystopia and Utopias - Thomas More - Utopia
Psychology
Biology
Comedy
Futuristic
Comic book/Anime
Politics of XX century
Futurology
Coming of age series - Wrinkle in Time and following
Classics of English - Hamlet or something else by Shakespeare
French - Les Miserables or Three Musketeers
Italian - Dante’s Inferno
German
Spanish
Poetry compilation
Theater
Erotic
Detectives
Gothic - Jane Eyre
Epic
Suspense
Terror
Autobiography
Travel
Theology
Advertising
Mystery
Cuisine
Art
Sociology
Design
Photography
Fairy tales - Macdonald’s are great, I think Grimm are more commonly read
Parody/Satire
Bodice Ripper
Camp
Adventure
Science fiction - Card – Homecoming series
Fan fiction
Magics
Capitalism
Socialism
Anthology
Best sellers
Logic/scientific method
Semantics/semiotics
For dummies guide
Nobel Prize winner
Banned
Overrated
Medieval
American dream
Administration/organizational
Human relations
Idealism
Morality
Legend
Technology
Guilty pleasure
The human condition
Best plot
Best ending
Best written
Most uplifting
Most influential
Most Original
Heroic
Other

[DewFuel]

Children
The cat in the hat

Young adult
A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Drama
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy


Biography
Malcom X

Romance
Twilight -Stephanie Meyer


Social comedy
The Areas Of My Expertise- John Hodgman

Self-improvement
=[

Historic
Diary of Anne Frank
Night - Elie Weiss

Greek classic:
Prometheus Bound - Aeschylus



Roman classic
The Aeneid - Virgil (really the only roman classic i've enjoyed)

Three sacred books
Bhagvad Gita
Old Testament
Enuma Elish


Essay
The philosophy of Quantum Mechanics - Heisenberg

Philosophy


Evolution theory
The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins


Theory of unification

Physics
Universe in a nutshell - S. Hawking

Scientific essay

Etiology or zoology

Astronomy

History

World War I and II
Hitler's Willing Executioners - Daniel Goldhagen

Dystopia and Utopias
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Psychology

Biology
Plague Time - Paul Ewald
Germs, Guns, and Steel - Jared Diamond

Comedy
Alphabet Of Manlieness - Maddox

Futuristic
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card


Comic book/Anime
Watchmen - Alan Moore

Politics of XX century

Futurology

Coming of age series
Twilight - Stephanie Meyer

Classics of English
Tale of Two Cities - Dickens

French
Cyrano De Bergerac!!! Also an excellent comedy

Italian

German
Nibelungeleid

Spanish

Poetry compilation
Edgar Alan Poe's stuff is good


Theater
Erotic
Detectives
Gothic

Epic
Gilagamesh

Suspense
Season Of Passage - Christopher Pike

Terror
Autobiography
Travel
Theology
Advertising
Mystery
Cuisine
Art
Sociology
Design
Photography

Fairy tales


Parody/Satire
A Modest Proposal - Johnathan Swift

Bodice Ripper
Camp

Adventure
Adventures of Huck Finn - Mark Twain

Science fiction
Ender's Game - OSC

Fan fiction
Magics
Capitalism
Socialism

Anthology
canterbury Tales - Chaucer

Best sellers
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Logic/scientific method
Semantics/semiotics

For dummies guide
Quantum Mechanics for Dummies

Nobel Prize winner
General Chemistry - Linus Pauling

Banned
Where The Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

Overrated
Harry Potter....

Medieval

American dream
Grapes Of Wrath - Steinbeck
Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald

Administration/organizational

Human relations

Idealism

Morality
To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee Harper

Legend
Beowulf - Seamus Heaney (excellent translation)

Technology

Guilty pleasure

The human condition
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelu
The Jungle - Uptain Sinclaire

Best plot
Dracula - Bram Stoker
Les Miserables - V. Hugo

Best ending
Time Quartet - Madeleine L'Engle

Best written
Les Miserables - V. Hugo

Most uplifting
Snow Falling On Cedars - David Guterson (its a classic!)
My Dog Skip - Willie Morris
Les Miserables - V. Hugo

Most influential
Poisonwood Bible - barbara Kingsolver
Les Miserables - V. Hugo

Most Original
Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce (on the account that no ones finished the godsdamned thing)

Heroic
Beowulf
Jason And The Argonaughts
This kind of falls under epics...

[Merle]

I've got enough time now to actually give some input, yay!


Children - Where the Wild Things Are (Maurice Sendak)

Young adult - The Earthsea books (Ursula K Le Guin), His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman), The Dark is Rising books (Susan Cooper)

Drama - (as in plays?) - King Lear (Shakespeare), Edward II, and Dr Faustus (Marlowe), The Alchemist (Jonson), A Long Day's Journey Into Night ( O'Neill)

Romance - if we're talking the technical term then the Morte D'Arthur (Malory), Ivanhoe (Walter Scott)

Social comedy - The Way of the World (Congreve)

Self-improvement - the Tao Te Ching

Greek classic - Medea, and the Bacchae (Euripides); Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles); the Oresteia (Aeschylus)

Roman classic- Phaedra (Seneca)

Essay- The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (Milton)

Philosophy - (political philosophy ok?) Leviathan (Hobbes)

Dystopia and Utopias
We (Zamyatin)
Gulliver's Travels (Swift)
Island (Huxley)
The Dispossessed (Le Guin)

Futuristic - The Sleeper Awakes (Wells)

Coming of age series - The Children of Violence series (Lessing)

Classics of English - the Portrait of a Lady, and the Golden Bowl (James); Far From the Madding Crowd (Hardy); Great Expectations (Dickens)

French - A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (Proust), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Germinale (Zola), The Planetarium (Sarraute)

German - Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Elective Affinities (Goethe); Demian, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus and Goldmund (Hesse)

Poetry compilation - The Complete English Poems, George Herbert

Fairy tales - The Bloody Chamber (Carter)

Parody/Satire - The Dunciad (Pope), A Modest Proposal (Swift)

Science fiction - The Child Garden (Ryman), The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin), Mockingbird (Tevis), The Crystal World (Ballard)

For dummies guide - Classical and Christian Ideals in English Renaissance Poetry (Rivers)

Nobel Prize winner - The Piano Teacher (Jelinek)

Medieval - Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (Julian of Norwich)

American dream - Buried Child, and A Lie of the Mind (Shepard), Zoo Story, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Albee)

[darynthe]

Where to start, you guys are amazing. You have read so much, so many books I haven't. This is real exciting,the list is starting to take form.

Dewfuel, love your list. I am surprised you put though, Twilight as best romance while Harry Potter as overrated. I am a fan of Twilight but I was anyway going to go with the general sentiment and put it as contender in overrated. What do you think?

Besides I see your favorite book is Les Miserables. Excellent choice. I like it for best french and human condition categories myself. you are right about heroic it is the same as epic, unless if we put Campbell's hero's journey in that category. mmm.
You include Tostoi. I like Ana karenina, my name was chosen becauswe of that book too, funny. I was wondering why nobody included Dostoyevski. I think he is superior although, of course reading him hurts.


Merle, nice list. Thanks! I am wondering if the first pick in the categoreis that you put more than one book is your first choice as best?

Seems we have already a winner for Satire: "A modest proposal"

About Romance, no we area talking I suppose about the term as it is applied nowadays. I wonder what is your pick in that case?

Secondly, has anyone here read The Eyre Affair? I read about the plot and I was considering it as best plot.

[DewFuel]

Dewfuel, love your list. I am surprised you put though, Twilight as best romance while Harry Potter as overrated. I am a fan of Twilight but I was anyway going to go with the general sentiment and put it as contender in overrated. What do you think?

Besides I see your favorite book is Les Miserables. Excellent choice. I like it for best french and human condition categories myself. you are right about heroic it is the same as epic, unless if we put Campbell's hero's journey in that category. mmm.
You include Tostoi. I like Ana karenina, my name was chosen becauswe of that book too, funny. I was wondering why nobody included Dostoyevski. I think he is superior although, of course reading him hurts.

TBH, i didn't find Twilight to be that great the first time I read it. In fact, I was extremely reluctant to read it. After two times through it, it definitely deserves more credit than is given to it. I like Meyer's prose. Picked up her book, The Host. It is also well done, and grows on you.

I put Harry Potter there out of personal bias I guess. I had just finished reading the LotR trilogy and then I jumped into Harry Potter. Big mistake. Don't do that. Ever.

Another contender for overrated would have to be The Da Vinci Code. It was entertaining, but definitely only got as much press as it did because people thought it was real.

Dostoyevski.... I got through about halfway of The Brothers Karamazov and I had to put it down. I should pick it up again.

Les Miserables is one of those classics that everyone can relate to, I think thats what its so powerful and has been adapted to umptymillion plays/movies.

I would have put more books per category but I felt that would mean less than one or two books that stand out.

I would have put The Season Of Passage as best love story, but no ones probably heard of it. It was one of Christopher Pike's earlier adult novels (not erotic). I only put it under suspense because I couldn't think of anything else there.

Never heard of the Eyre Affair, sorry. :(





DewFuel added to this post, 6 minutes and 6 seconds later...

I can't believe I forgot this one

Fantasy - Once and Future King - T.H. White

hands down best fantasy ever. and probably the most universally known.

[Merle]

@ darynthe:

Yes, I guess the first in the list is my choice, except for Science Fiction which is The Left Hand of Darkness, and Greek Classic which is The Oresteia.

So Romance, hmmmn....

The English Patient (Ondaatje)

[Winterstorm]

I can't believe I forgot this one

Fantasy - Once and Future King - T.H. White

hands down best fantasy ever. and probably the most universally known.

I totally agree. It's one of the best books I've ever read. And also the great fantasy book is "The Land of Laughs" by Jonathan Carroll.

EDIT: My my, I forgot about one of my favourite books: Neil Gaiman's "American Gods".

[thiagofralves]

Children: Ferdinand, The Bull - Munros Leaf
Romance: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Greek classic: Iliad - Homer
Philosophy: Any book by Foucault
Dystopia and Utopias: Neuromancer - William Gibson
Comic book/Anime: Vagabond - Takehiko Inoue
Politics of XX century: The Accidental President of Brazil - Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Terror: The Shining - Stephen King
Autobiography: Slash - Slash and Anthony Bozza
Mystery: Any book by Robert Charroux

[callmemigs]

Artemis Fowle

and other awesome SciFi books with no movie versions made yet.

As for Mangas, I have lists of them so I think it would take hours to post all of them here. ;)

[Anumidium]

Morality: Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy.

Hard to categorise, also fits The Human Condition, American Dream, Terror, Dystopia..

Theater: Death of A Salesman

Epic: The Dark Tower, Stephen King. All seven of them.. King is popularly known as a "horror" writer but this series is an amazing mythical epic.

[Shadowgraphs]

Wow, this sounds like an epic project. Good luck with it!

Children C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia
Self-improvement Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Greek classic Herodotus - The Histories
Roman classic Apuleius - The Golden Ass
Essay Just about anything by Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Self-Reliance" seems to be a popular one, but it's hard to go wrong with his writings.
Philosophy Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit. (Really difficult stuff for most people to grok, but it's perhaps the most ambitious and well-executed philosophical system out there... although its accuracy is of course questionable. He attempts to describe the entire history of human consciousness in philosophical terms and give a projection for the future, based on past trends. Fascinating, and also the natural intellectual precursor to Marx, Darwin, singularity theory, and just about any other form of historicism.)
Evolution theory Richard Dawkins - The Ancestor's Tale
Dystopia and Utopias Plato - Republic
Psychology Franklyn Sills - Being and Becoming: Psychodynamics, Buddhism, and the Origin of Selfhood
Comic book/Anime Watchmen. (Only if you haven't seen the movie, though...)
Futurology Ray Kurzweil - The Singularity is Near
Coming of age series J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter
Classics of English Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales
Italian Dante - The Divine Comedy
Spanish Cervantes - Don Quixote (Also a major contender for best novel ever written, period.)
Poetry compilation Fernando Pesoa - A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe
Autobiography and Theology St. Augustine - Confessions
Capitalism Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations
Socialism Karl Marx - anything from the "Marx-Engels reader"
Logic/scientific method Gallileo - Dialogue of Two World Systems
Legend Snorri Sturlson - The Prose Edda
The human condition Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter
Most influential and Most Original Soren Kierkegaard - Either/Or
Heroic Homer - The Iliad
Other Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel (A very intelligent, obscene, and enlightening series of satirical novels written by a renegade French monk-turned-doctor during the renaissance/Protestant reformation. I'm classifying this as "Other" simply because it covers a lot of different subjects and is very hard to categorize.)

[Gilbert]

French- The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
Spanish- La Sombra del Viento (Zafon)
Religion- Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis)
Anime- Death Note.

[masterpeach]

darynthe, wouldn't it be easier to set up a website and collect the responses in an online database (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)?
Analyzing the answers given through the forum will take you forever, indeed.


Just saying... I may contribute to your list later. Most books I would've recommended were already listed.

[Zodd]

Anime are the cartoons and manga are the comicbooks. Manga are very different from western comicbooks also, so you might want to split them up. I'm nominating the Golden Age arc of Berserk for best manga.

[heyyyynoowww]

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Robert Pirsig. And the other book by him called Lila. Difficult to sum up, has little to do with motorcycle maintenance. Introduces the Metaphysics of Quality. Since I've read it, I often ask myself whether something I encounter has quality for me.
These are the only two books he has written, it took him ages to complete. He is also a very private person, maybe INTJ?

[Antares]

Fun. Arbitrary categories, but I'll give it a stab.

Children Grimm's Fairytales... Watered down, of course.
Self-improvement I'd second Meditations
Historic Plutarch's Lives
Greek classic The Odyssey
Roman classic The Aeneid, or Tacitus. Whichever.
Three sacred books The Bible, The Koran
Philosophy - Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
Evolution theory - Would second Richard Dawkins
Physics - Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Astronomy - Cosmos by Carl Sagan
History (too broad)
World War I and II - Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
Dystopia and Utopias - 1984 by George Orwell
Coming of age series - Catcher in the Rye
French - Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Italian - The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
German - Faust
Theater - 12 Angry Men
Erotic - LOL was going to recommend Marquis de Sade. Nevermind.
Epic - The Iliad
Parody/Satire - Candide
Overrated - Twilight, although I don't know if you want to read that before you die.
Legend - Theogony
Guilty pleasure - Any Dan Brown book
Most influential - The Bible

[Zodd]

You've read so much and your only 17 or maybe 18 by now? Wish I had that drive for reading.

[Ilara]

Children--Where the Wild Things Are

Young adult--A Wrinkle in Time

Romance--Pride and Prejudice (I think that Persuasion was better, but I am clearly in the minority here)

Comedy--Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Comic book/Anime--The Far Side

Classics of English--King Lear

French--The Three Musketeers (better in the original French, but oh well)

Fairy tales--An Earthly Knight, by Janet McNaughton (based on the legend of Tam Lynn)

Parody/Satire--A Modest Proposal

Science fiction--Ender's Game

Magics--Harry Potter

Medieval--The Canterbury Tales

American dream--Death of a Salesman

Other--Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey

[katrin]

Children - One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
Young Adult - I can agree with those who've said A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle although there are some great, newer books
Medieval - Romances of Chretien de Troyes
Romance - Pride and Prejudice
Mystery - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
French - I loved The Three Musketeers but is that what French people would pick? What about Les Miserables?
Fairy Tales - A collection of Andersen's literary fairy tales?
Greek Classic - The Iliad of Homer

That's all I can think of, for the moment.

[Muumeh]

Erotic - Decamerone
Scifi/cyberpunk - Neuromancer
parody/satire - any Discworld book by Terry Pratchett

[BirdValiant]

Psychology: The Underground Man, Dostoevsky

[Grimssdur]

And the single most greatest piece of literature in all of history 'Fight Club' by Chuck Palahniuk.

Oh please.

[Ace1337]

Useful:

How To Win Friends And Influence People
4 Hour Work Week
Rich Dad Poor Dad

[MULTIVERSE]

It's a long list of categories so I'll keep going until I get tired:

The Variational Principles of Mechanics by Cornelius Lanczos (Physics)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Spanish)
Ecartelement by Emil Cioran (French, Philosophy)
The Book of Disquiet by F. Pessoa (Philosophy, Fiction, Portuguese)
Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton (Most Influential)
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (Most Uplifting)
The Metamorphosis by F. Kafka (German)
The Divine Comedy by Dante (Italian)
Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderon de La Barca (Theater)
The Stranger (L'Etrangere) by Albert Camus (Morality, Fiction)
Gravitation by MTW (Physics)
The Theory of Spinors by Elie Cartan (Mathematics)

...Ok good night

[aesoprock]

first post! love this thread, by the way.

-the brief wondrous life of oscar wao by junot diaz (pulitzer prize in fiction. it would help if you knew spanish)
-i second "the myth of sisyphus" by albert camus (essay/philosophy)
-phantoms in the brain by v.s. ramachandran (neuroscience)
-the hunger game series (guilty pleasure)
-bright lights big city by jay mcinerney (80s NYC drug life/bildungsroman)
-on the road by jack kerouac (adventure, drug, vignettes)
-blindness by jose saramago (nobel prize laureate. great insight about human nature during life-threatening crises.)

that's all i got for now. more books!

[Feral]

Hmm... that's a big list.

I'm just going to throw out
Watership Down
Tao Te Ching
Treason

[Dung]

In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
(Essay, aesthetics)