uhhhhhh . . . hmmmmm . . . .

[A_PILGRIM_SOUL]

Okay. I don't wish to offend, but these "must read lists" seem like the required reading lists from a tenth grade public school english class. I have nothing against the classics, but Gone with the Wind and The Catcher in the Rye were my favorite books when I was THIRTEEN. Oh, Pride and Predjudice too. Its all just a bit vanilla, if you know what I mean. Does anyone have any suggestions for something a bit more unique? I don't neccessarily mean HEAVY either. Just something that is neither on the NY times best seller list nor my sixteen year old sisters class syllabus. :nod:

[subterranean]

Well, give us your list and let see what kind of heavy things you're talking about.

[Jean-Baptiste]

Classics don't get old, and many of them can be reread many times. If you feel that it's time you moved past these "must read" books, perhaps you could begin to make a thorough investigation a particular genre or cultural niche. In American literature alone there are numerous styles and ethnic groups to choose from. You could look into Toni Morrison, or Rudolfo Anaya, or Maxine Hong Kingston, or Ambrose Bierce, or Eudora Welty and on and on. If you're tired of novels, or prose in general, modernist poetry can be very satisfying. Hey, you could read chronologically; start off with say Cabeza de Vaca and work your way up to Sylvia Plath.
Anyway, these books that you mention are on the lists because they are still fresh, and they are not restricted to any age group. I make it a habit to read The Catcher in the Rye once a year, and I always get something new from it.
I hope you find something good.

[mono]

Hello, a_pilgrim_soul, welcome to the forum. :)
I also like the idea of sharing a few books you have enjoyed so, perhaps, we can get a picture of literature you prefer. As Jean-Baptiste said, the classics surely never die, and, if you want, there seem many more challenging classics that seem beyond the typical sixteen-year old's comprehension (such as anything by James Joyce).
For now, I recommend most people such works as The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, anything by Gabriel Garcìa Márquez (such as One Hundred Years Of Solitude or Love In The Time Of Cholera), anything by Toni Morrison, and perhaps Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Out of any book, however, considering your taste and sharp preferences, I think you would benefit greatly from Reverence: Renewing A Forgotten Virtue by Paul Woodruff.

[lavendar1]

I really agree with much that's been said already. I'm a big fan of 'the classics,' but when I want a challenge, I often pick a lesser-known work of a 'classic' writer. For example, instead of Silas Marner why not try George Eliot's Daniel Deronda? Or try Henry James' The Princess Cassamassima instead of Portrait of a Lady.

And if you're up for contemporary writers, take a look at Haruki Murakami. I've just started a book of his called Kafka on the Shore. I wish I had Murakami's imagination!

[Sarka]

Just a few thoughts... I'm currently reading War & Peace, which is brutally long but still very good. It's a "classic," yes, but not a fluffy classic like Pride & Prejudice... Or, for a different take on the "school reading list" concept, try some Vonnegut. ;) "Cat's Cradle" is good. Or something like "Breakfast of CHampions," which is completely relevant in spite of being written in the 1970s. Try exploring genres, too--"The Martian Chronicles," by Ray Bradbury, is actually a lot better than its title makes it sound. "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke is similarly awesome.
...

[penelopea]

Try Iain Banks,start with the Wasp Factory.

[subterranean]

I also want to recommend Vonnegut. I have only read Mothernight and Slaugther House Five, but I think his works belongs to those "recent" books that you definetly need to check out. Mothernight tells the story of this American born Nazi member, who then become spy for the US government. Slaugther tells about a war veteran and how he relates his life with his war experience and how his experience effect his relatiohship with his family.

[stlukesguild]

Although I have long been something of an obsessive reader, I can't admit to having read most of the works on my "top ten list" back in high school. Surely not Borges, Calvino, Kafka, or Proust... and I am absolutely certain Dante wasn't on the high school syllabus. On the other hand, I probably read some bits of Blake, the Bible, Milton, Cervantes, and definitely Shakespeare (it's been a while:confused:). Nevertheless, I would never think to suppose that I have gleaned all I might from any of these authors at this point in my life... and surely not then. Nor would I imagine that because Shakespeare or Milton or Keats, Shelley, etc... are taught in high-school syllabi, that they are obviously of less depth than something a bit more obscure (Mallarme, Sartre, Paul Celan, Friederich Holderlin, Novalis, Catullus, Norman Mailer, Cormac McCarthy, etc...). I remember reading Huckleberry Finn back in 5th or 6th grade... and I still see it as a great novel and one of the best literary portrayals of friendship, along with Don Quixote, Tristam Shandy, and... Mason and Dixon. By the way... since when are Jane Austen's novels mere "fluffy classics?" :confused:

[mono]

I can hardly believe that I forgot in my previous post, but if you want really contemporary, odd, and thought provoking literature, try anything by Tom Robbins. ;)

[A_PILGRIM_SOUL]

:thumbs_up
I can hardly believe that I forgot in my previous post, but if you want really contemporary, odd, and thought provoking literature, try anything by Tom Robbins. ;)

That's so funny. Tom Robbins is one of my favorite contemporary authors. My favorite is Fierce Invalids Home fom hot Climates, and right now, I'm re-reading Half asleep in frog pajamas.

As for my top ten, I couldn't possibly pare it down that much. I love John Irving. I've read most of his books, but The Cider House Rules is probably my favorite. As for the Sylvia Plath thing, well yes, The Bell Jar had a big impression on my moody teenage years. Oscar Wilde is my pick for wit. You can't discount The Catcher in the Rye, everyone should read it when they are young, and then reread it when they become an adult. Anything by Virginia Woolf is great, but Mrs. Dalloway is a special favorite. I've never metan Edith Wharton Novel I didn't like. All the beat authors occupy a place of honor on my bookshelf- I don't know if they are "great literature" but certainly representative of a period of my life- and so a part of me. I'll never outgrow "Alice's adventure in wonderland". I also have a fondness for the works of Truman Capote. There's much more. Tennesee Williams. Too many poets to name, but definately Blake, Whitman, Yeats and Galway Kinnell.

I'm not challenging the greatness of the works on the mainstream lists. Nor am I proclaiming my superiority. Like I said, I'm not looking for "heavy" I just know that if I've read all those books, so has just about everyone else on this forum. And I am looking for suggestions of some thing more

[stlukesguild]

I'm not challenging the greatness of the works on the mainstream lists. Nor am I proclaiming my superiority. Like I said, I'm not looking for "heavy" I just know that if I've read all those books, so has just about everyone else on this forum. And I am looking for suggestions of some thing more

Fair enough... but then don't expect to find such suggestions in a post asking for everyone's list of the 10 Greatest Books/12 Favorites/Desert Island Dozen. Shakespeare, Milton, Austen, Cervantes are bound to show up more than once... and for a reason. So what would I suggest you read that is... "something more"? Perhchance something outside of the norm? Give me time to get back to you... its now after 3:00 AM and I do need my sleep.

[stlukesguild]

OK... after looking briefly over my shelves I have a few suggestions:

Yehuda Amichai- Selected Poems- powerful contemporary Isreali poet

I.B. Singer- Collected Short Stories- Brilliant short stories in the tradition
of earlier Yiddish/Jewish tales: magical... realistic... fable-like.

Yoel Hoffmann- Katchen/The Book of Joseph- A volume combining two wonderful novellas by this contemporary Israeli writer

Czeslaw Milosz- Selected Poems- The great Polish poet of the 20th C.

Eugenio Montale- Selected Poems- Probably the greatest Italian poet of
the century... probably the best since Leopardi... if not since Petrarch
and Dante (Are you familiar P'sL?). His poetry often struggles with the tradition of Dante and Petrarch... but he is equally Modernist... dense... difficult...
hermetic... and of his time as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane, or Wallace Stevens. (Obviously a favorite :nod:) Check out Gallassi and Arrowsmith translations.

Tomasso Landolfi- Selected Writings- His work is as difficult to define as
J.S. Borges'. Like Borges, he is known mostly for short fiction/metafictions.
Especially check out "Gogol's Wife": Absolutely one of the funniest I've ever read... but dead-pan as Kafka.

Italo Calvino- The Baron in the Trees and Invisible Cities-The former is a wonderful fantasy tale that I can only describe as "Mozartian"; the latter is a collection of short... fictions?... prose poems?... meditations? of the most exquisite nature...Both written in the most crystaline of prose.

Friederich Holderlin- Selected Poems Perhaps the greatest German poet after Goethe? Again dense... challenging philosophical poems.

Novalis- Hymns to the Night- The German Blake? This is not fair to either poet, but perhaps the best I can offer right now.

Paul Celan- Selected Poems- His famous "Death Fugue" challenged the notion that one could not write poetry after Auschwitz by writing poetry ABOUT Auschwitz. Harrowing! His later poems become more hermetic, minimalist... hard as diamonds... one thinks of... Emily Dickenson.

Gunter Grass- The Tin Drum- One of the funniest novels ever. Grass pillories the Nazis, the Communists, WWII, art school, the novel itself.

Mallarme- Selected Poems- The Ravel/Debussy of French poetry. Often forgotten in light of the more theatrical lives and loves of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine (read them as well!) he almost invents "abstract" poetry.

Michel Montaigne- Collected Essays- Forget all those gushing, self-expressive confessional writers. Montaigne tells about himself without the melodrama... full of irony, a willingness to laugh at himself, wisdom, and wonderful writing. I love Rousseau... but he owes Montaigne everything.

Walter Pater- The Renaissance and other writings. If you love Oscar Wilde you should check out his true mentor. In fact Proust, Joyce, Woolf, and numerous others owe a debt to Pater. Wonderful lush prose worthy of poetry.

Thomas Traherne- Selected Poems If you love Blake, check out this spiritual forbearer whose work has only recently come to light.

Flannery O'Connor- Collected Stories- Dark southern tales with a black humor worthy of Faulkner at his best.

Gore Vidal- Myra Breckenridge Myra is really Myron, a cross-dressing/transexual film critic who cynically pillories everything Hollywood/California/America while acting out his own demented fantasies. One of the most brilliant/twisted narrators since Nabakov's Humbert Humbert... and perhaps even funnier.

Cormac McCarthy- Blood Meridian- One of the most disturbing and transcending novels I have read. A blend of the most graphic violence and pure evil with glorious almost visionary passages of stunning beauty worth of the Baroque splendors of Melville's Moby Dick. Judge Holden may just be the greatest villain in American literature... if not the greatest since Shakespeare or the Greeks. A harrowing vision of an America of violence, religion, and amazing natural beauty.

[Nightwalk]

A Pilgrim Soul: Check out Don Quixote by Cervantes and Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. All well-known and with a damn good reason.

stlukesguild: Nice to see you name-dropping great authors outside the halls of academia.

[A_PILGRIM_SOUL]

I have read Don Quixote and Crime and Punishment. Thr Brithers Karamazov is a good suggestion

[grace86]

Have you ever read anything by Thomas Pynchon or Joyce?

[Whifflingpin]

Patrick White - (association of ideas there, Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" made me think of White's "Voss")

Donald Barthelme? I've not read any of his, but John Barth (who is one of my favourite authors) seems to approve of him.

[Nightwalk]

Have you ever read anything by Thomas Pynchon or Joyce?

Not yet, though I plan to get a copy of Gravity's Rainbow soon. I've scanned through my copies of Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake and theire both very interesting.

[vili]

I know I'm coming a bit late to this one, but I would definitely second Patrick White, after Whifflingpin mention him. Probably my favourite author, try Voss or A Fringe of Leaves for starters, then move on to the "heavier" works such as Riders in the Chariot or my personal favourite, The Vivisector. Although I haven't quite read all of White (a couple of novels are still there to be opened), I haven't yet read a bad novel by him. (Although The Tree of Man was, I felt, a little less enjoyable to read than the others, yet very challenging to think about.)

All that said, I know White has his critics and is far from being everyone's favourite.

[ShoutGrace]

I'm not challenging the greatness of the works on the mainstream lists. Nor am I proclaiming my superiority. Like I said, I'm not looking for "heavy" I just know that if I've read all those books, so has just about everyone else on this forum. And I am looking for suggestions of some thing more.

I think that is incredible. I hope to one day be able to say that I have read my fill of the "classics", as I am at the moment believing that this will be a lifetime commitment with no end in site.

You've exhausted the best in Literature and you want more? Maybe you should count yourself lucky and move on to something more rewarding (and containing more material) - like astrophysics. :D

[Schokokeks]

Maybe you should count yourself lucky and move on to something more rewarding (and containing more material) - like astrophysics. :D

In case you'd like to take David's great suggestion and put it into practise, I'd recommend A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking for a starter. Furthermore, QED: The Strange Story of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman is also very good, also for those new to astrophysics ! In case you might be more interested in the philosophical view of the whole thing, try either Philosophical Foundations of Physics by Rudolf Carnap or any of Pierre Duhem's Essais. :nod: ;)

[vili]

In case you'd like to take David's great suggestion and put it into practise, I'd recommend A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking for a starter. ...
I just have to comment that I would actually recommend Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe over Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Whether or not you agree with String Theory (the main topic of Greene's book), at least I personally felt that Greene's explanation of classical and quantum physics (roughly the first hundred pages of his book) was much more digestible than what was offered in Hawking's book. I remember Greene's second effort, The Fabric of the Cosmos, to be a fine reading, as well.

[Nightwalk]

Thanks for the recommendations Schokokeks and vili.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I also want to recommend Vonnegut. I have only read Mothernight and Slaugther House Five, but I think his works belongs to those "recent" books that you definetly need to check out. Mothernight tells the story of this American born Nazi member, who then become spy for the US government. Slaugther tells about a war veteran and how he relates his life with his war experience and how his experience effect his relatiohship with his family.

Definetly. MUST READS.

The Iliad by Homer is great. And I agree, the classics don't go out of style. And this just means that you read at a higher level than 10th graders. I was...most of the books we read I had already read, but I enjoyed them regardless.

[kandaurov]

Funny you should recommend Homer's Iliad, Mortis. Just yesterday I felt a strange urge to read it after watching a documentary about egyptians (yeah, a bit far off, I know, the brain works in mysterious ways :p).

I strongly reccommend the Iliad, and why not some greek tragedies as well, like the Oresteia or King Oedipus?

[Stieg]

Funny you should recommend Homer's Iliad, Mortis. Just yesterday I felt a strange urge to read it after watching a documentary about egypcians (yeah, a bit far off, I know, the brain works in mysterious ways :p).

I strongly reccommend the Iliad, and why not some greek tragedies as well, like the Oresteia or King Oedipus?

And whole heartedly recommend the Robert Fagles translation of Homer awesome translation!