Making up a list of books

[Video Drone]

I need to collect about 30 books to load into my Pocket PC, so I'm looking for titles. I'm not really sure what to read, so I would like some recommendations, anything you think is a good book, except I have some filters:

No "technical" literature, e.g., NLP (Freud) or The Art of War and such;
no Russian authors, I had enough. But I am interested in any Spanish authors anyone knows;
nothing highly wordy, that is, Charles Dickens, or Lord of the Rings. The level of Jack London's The Sea Wolf is just fine;
no Stephen King.

Currently on my list:

Cat's Craddle by Kurt Vonnegut, wanted to read that long time ago;
Eragon series, I have no idea what that is but it seems to be really popular;
Naked Lunch by... what that guy's name was? Ah, yes, William Burrough. I wanted to see the movie, and people told me I need to read the book first;
Something by Jack Ketchum, depends on what will I be able to find;

Yeah, that's it, I think... so if you have stuff to recommend... anything, I'll take it.

[Derringer]

hope this link works: http://www.literarycritic.com/bloom.htm

Joseph Heller: Catch 22
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin
J.D Salinger: The Catcher in the Ryeand
John Steinback: Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row

[Dori]

Quo Vadis by Henryk Siekiewicz (won the Nobel Prize in 1905 I think).
Candide by Voltaire.
Imperium by Robert Harris.

[Video Drone]

hope this link works: http://www.literarycritic.com/bloom.htm

Joseph Heller: Catch 22
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin
J.D Salinger: The Catcher in the Ryeand
John Steinback: Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row

No links, no links. Especially critics. I hate critics. I want my list to be random, not just great classic works, I could find that myself...

Yeah, I think I'll take Catch-22. I keep hearing of it on this forum, and I have never heard of it before, I guess our school doesn't like it.

Blind Assassin looks interesting, might add that.

Catcher and Mice and Men - read those, school assigned.

Quo Vadis by Henryk Siekiewicz (won the Nobel Prize in 1905 I think).
Candide by Voltaire.
Imperium by Robert Harris.

I'll have trouble finding Quo Vadis, I'm afraid, that phrase refers to so many things.
EDIT: nope, it's there...

Candide... sounds like a novel about internal relations (not sure how to say this in English), I don't like those much.

Imperium sounds great though, I'd love to read about Rome.

I'm judging by Wikipedia because I need to have some idea what direction the book is going, so if I misread something, tell me...

Thanks, guys.

[the silent x]

robin mckinley - Blue Sword (also read The hero and the Crown.)
the dark is rising series
clive cussler - all books with dirk pitt are good, although it really is a book fo r the guys out there
michael crichton - all of his books are phenomenal
brian Jacues - (if you are looking for a more lower reading level)
C.S. lewis - (books are phenomenal)

[motherhubbard]

I just finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s , House of Flowers, a Diamond Guitar, and A Christmas Memory all by Truman Capote. I thought they were wonderful reads. I would especially recommend Tiffany’s and Christmas Memory (I cried). My eyes and ears were just delighted at his writing - it was an absolute pleasure and I’m going to the library Friday to get more.

[Video Drone]

robin mckinley - Blue Sword (also read The hero and the Crown.)
the dark is rising series
clive cussler - all books with dirk pitt are good, although it really is a book fo r the guys out there
michael crichton - all of his books are phenomenal
brian Jacues - (if you are looking for a more lower reading level)
C.S. lewis - (books are phenomenal)

Blue Sword could work, though I'm really picky on fantasy.
The Dark is Rising seems to be high fantasy... probably not.
I am not sure what you mean by books for guys, but what I read about them it seems I may like them as well, I actually like that stuff.
I read Crichton before and I don't think he is my thing, and too much of his works are made into movies, most of which I have seen.
Speaking of Lewis, I tried to read Chronicles of Narnia and I found them too pompous combined with too childish and too epic.

I just finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s...

It seems to be romance kind of thing, I'm really not on good terms with that, I think I won't read through this. Perhaps I'm just not the right age yet.

Again, thanks, everyone, and please don't take anything too personally - we all have different tastes on books.

[crisaor]

On spanish authors, you can try some of these:

Fictions, by Jorge Luis Borges
The Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges
The Book of Sand, by Jorge Luis Borges
Diary of the War of the Pig, by Adolfo Bioy Casares
Fantastic Stories, by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares
Abel Sánchez, by Miguel de Unamuno
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez

[aabbcc]

M. Selimović - The Death and the Dervish
M. Yourcenar - Memoirs of Hadrian
S. Rushdie - The Satanic Verses (if nothing else, for the controversy over it )

I am not very into Spanish literature, but I adored P. Calderon de la Barca's Life is a dream.

[motherhubbard]

[QUOTE=Video Drone;414823]
It seems to be romance kind of thing, I'm really not on good terms with that, I think I won't read through this. Perhaps I'm just not the right age yet.

QUOTE]

I thought it might be a romance, but it wasn't. I don't know what it was, really. Mostly I loved the writing. I think Capote could write about a dog doing his business and I would enjoy reading it.

[manolia]

Do you like reading funny stuff? If yes i'd recommend Douglas Adams "The hitchiker guide to the galaxy" or Pratchett's "Men at arms" or "Guards guards" or "The colour of magic tha light fantastic".

[toni]

Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
Stardust - Neil Gaiman

[Scharphedin2]

I'll send you one recommendation... I enjoyed reading this thread, but I actually have no idea how you would go about loading books into your PC... Are you just storing a list of titles? Or, are you talking about the actual texts? And, if the latter, are you actually reading the books on a "pocket PC?"

In any case, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind is a very entertaining and good book set in Barcelona during Franco's regime back in the '30s. It is a story that is centered around the idea of a "cemetery of forgotten books"! The protagonist goes there with his father in the first chapter of the book, and is allowed to take one book away with him. The book he selects has a very peculiar story, which is then the topic of much of the rest of the novel. And, also, strange things begin to happen in the life of the boy...

I picked up the book originally because I fell in love with the title, the idea of the cemetery of forgotten books which was explained in the caption on the back, and then the hardbound edition was designed to look like a very old "forgotten book," and is illustrated with beautiful full page b&w photograps depicting various street scenes and architecture from Barcelona. Later on I discovered that the book was something of a big bestseller, so I suppose a lot of other people enjoyed the book as much as me.

[Video Drone]

I'm mostly storing titles... ever heard of eBooks? Some things I can get in .txt some things I can't (copyrighted and all, but I don't even take that with old books). I just look for the .txt's. You can dig them up in various places. Plain text, nothing else, that is the only thing I can load into a Pocket PC with my reading program. Then, yeah, I read them on there. Best way to read and they don't take up space and you can pretty much find anything that's out there. I would prefer to have the real books but that is so expensive and our family is always moving from place to place we just don't know where to store them all.

To crisaor and Anastasija - a lot of those authors are actually Argentinian or even Colombian, not Spanish...? I'll look into them, tho.

[Dori]

I'll have trouble finding Quo Vadis, I'm afraid, that phrase refers to so many things.
EDIT: nope, it's there...

Candide... sounds like a novel about internal relations (not sure how to say this in English), I don't like those much.

Imperium sounds great though, I'd love to read about Rome.

I'm judging by Wikipedia because I need to have some idea what direction the book is going, so if I misread something, tell me...

Thanks, guys.

Quo Vadis is a powerful historical novel set in Rome. The characters in Quo Vadis speak using thy, thou, dost, etc. I find this particularly unique among novels set in Rome.

In short, Imperium was excellent.

Candide is quite short and an exquisite read. But if you're not up to it, don't think that I'm forcing it onto you. Essentially, it's a satire ridiculing Leibniz's philosophy that we 'live in the best of all possible worlds."