what book should I read next?

[lokariototal]

Based on my tastes, what book should I read next?
I like biographies especially books on great men or leaders (like Napoleon, Gandhi, Alexander the great) so that I learn from them how to become a better leader, history books, the picture of dorian gray, leo tolstoy, the duty of civil disobedience, george bernard shaw, books on heroism or about courageous people, books that influence me positively or teach me something valuable about life, self-help books about confidence or getting read of fears, books on how to be more succesful, books about dating, books about money, books about the meaning of life or philosophy......

Just recommend me any book that u think i might like! for exampe, a friend recommended me "the fountainhead" im thinking about it.. what do U recommend?

[stlukesguild]

Avoid Ayn Rand like the plague. Try Montaigne's essays, Plato's Republic, Rousseau's Confessions, Saint Augustine's Confessions, Machiavelli's The Prince, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, Boswell's Life of Johnson, R.W. Emeroson's Essays (you might particularly like his essays Representative Men), Voltaire's Candide and other writings, Laozi's (Lao Tze) Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing, etc...

[lokariototal]

Avoid Ayn Rand like the plague. Try Montaigne's essays, Plato's Republic, Rousseau's Confessions, Saint Augustine's Confessions, Machiavelli's The Prince, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, Boswell's Life of Johnson, R.W. Emeroson's Essays (you might particularly like his essays Representative Men), Voltaire's Candide and other writings, Laozi's (Lao Tze) Tao Te Ching or Dao De Jing, etc...

Why do u say that about ayn rand?

[Kevets]

There's actually a decent website called "whatshouldIreadnext.com". Type in a list of what you like/dislike and find similar lists and recommendations.

[The Comedian]

You might enjoy Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. It has a lot of descriptions of real places, plants, and animals. It's philosophical and the prose style is second to none.

[mona amon]

Victor Hugo for the 'heroism', The Man who Laughs, 93, Notre Dame etc.

Go ahead with the Fountainhead. It's an interesting book, whether you agree with its philosophy or not, or about its literary merits.

[mal4mac]

Avoid Ayn Rand like the plague. Try Montaigne's essays, Plato's Republic...

I totally agree! No serious critic rates Rand, and there are too many authors that serious critics admire to bother with inferior stuff. And please don't say 'don't knock it if you haven't tried it'. There is too much out there to try everything. You need to trust good critics. So maybe you need to read good critics. Try:

Harold Bloom - The Western Canon
The Joy of Reading by Charles van Doren
The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman

Above all read Shakespeare. Start with King Lear, Hamlet, Henry IV parts I and II--or (better) his complete works...

[Dinkleberry2010]

I recommend Irving Stone. He wrote a number of biographical novels of famous historical personalities, among them Lust for Life--based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh, The Agony and the Ecstasy--based on the life of Michelangelo, The Passions of the Mind--based on the life of Freud, The Greek Treasure--based on the discovery of Troy by Schliemann, and The Origin--based on the life of Darwin.

[stlukesguild]

Why do u say that about ayn rand?

The writing is largely just an excuse for espousing her personal "Objectivist" philosophy... and the philosophy itself is even weaker... a rather sophomoric embrace of the utopia of laissez-faire capitalism among other things that I'll avoid before getting drawn into a political debate.

I recommend Irving Stone. He wrote a number of biographical novels of famous historical personalities, among them Lust for Life--based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh, The Agony and the Ecstasy--based on the life of Michelangelo, The Passions of the Mind--based on the life of Freud...

Actually... for biographies upon major artists I would far more recommend Cellini's Autobiography, Vasari's Lives of the Artists (a great gossip and opinion-filled "history" of the lives of the great Renaissance masters written by a near contemporary (and talented painter in his own right). I would also recommend Van Gogh's letters, Wassily Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual In Art, and Robert Hughe's seminal Shock of the New (on Modernism in art).

[mona amon]

No serious critic rates Rand, and there are too many authors that serious critics admire to bother with inferior stuff. - Mal4mac

Stick to serious critics and you'll miss out on a lot of stuff that might appeal to you personally. After all, one doesn't have to read every book one begins. They can be abandoned after a few pages if they do not appeal. I don't care for the Fountainhead myself, but I'm still glad I read it. If I'd read only what serious critics recommend, I'd never have read the wonderful Harry Potter series! ;)

[prendrelemick]

Andy MacNab's, Bravo Two Zero, is a lighter read than those suggested above. It is about men doing things, and enduring things that are beyond most of us.

[blazeofglory]

To judge a book by what critics subscribe to or frown on is something unpalatable to me in point of fact; for we cannot always infer that what critics recommend or oppose is a yardstick to a piece of art. While Ayn Rand has some week points in her novels, in fact which novel is impeccably flawless?, she has so many intellectually appealing things, and she understands the public taste and stuffed her books with the fervors she knows her reader likes very much and to go up against her book is prejudice only

[kelby_lake]

Books about leaders and great men...

Shakespeare-wise, I'd read Julius Caesar and the Histories (they aren't historically accurate but they're very inspiring).

You might also enjoy A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

[Dinkleberry2010]

I also recommend Irving Stone's Dear Theo: the autobiography and letters of Van Gogh

[MarkC]

You can opt for "Moby-Dick" by the American author Herman Melville...Best of Luck:-)

[Pryderi Agni]

Try this book that I'm currently proofreading for Gutenberg right now: Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits: A study in ethics (http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolns01beargoog) (Link goes to the Internet Archive, where you can find the digitized original).

[Red-Headed]

Based on my tastes, what book should I read next?
I like biographies

I can personally recommend these:

1/ George Eliot, The Last Victorian ~ Kathryn Hughes.

2/ The Life of Charlotte Bronte~ Mrs Gaskell.

3/ A Life of Matthew Arnold ~ Nicholas Murray.

4/ Sean O'Casey ~ Bernard Benstock.

5/ William Shakespeare ~ Anthony Holden.

6/ Tolstoy ~ Henri Troyat.

7/ John Stanislaus Joyce ~ John Wyse Jackson.

8/ Timebends ~ Arthur Miller.

9/ Looking Back ~ John Osbourne.

10/ Turgenev: The Novelist's Novelist ~ Richard Freeborn.

[DM951]

I have just started to get into poetry for the first time, and found a really accessible, interesting read called 'Jazz' by Jeanpaul Ferro. It's by a small indie called Honest Publishing and available on Amazon. Can anyone else recommend any alternative poetry?

[Seasider]

@ Red Headed
Good to know we don't live a Men Only World.

[endgame]

1984 by George Orwell ...i think it's one of the best book of all times.. love it :):):):)

[stlukesguild]

I have just started to get into poetry for the first time, and found a really accessible, interesting read called 'Jazz' by Jeanpaul Ferro. It's by a small indie called Honest Publishing and available on Amazon. Can anyone else recommend any alternative poetry?

"Alternative" to what...? The number of people who actually seriously read poetry is already minuscule. (Just look at the small number who participate here in the poetry discussions and how few ever think to nominate a work of poetry among the continual "greatest/favorite" book lists.) The number who seriously read Modern and Contemporary poetry is microscopic. If you are just getting into poetry, I question why you would wish to begin with what might be defined as "alternative" poetry. You mention that the book you just read was quite accessible. This is not commonly true of a lot of the more experimental/alternative strains of poetry.

If you seriously want some Modern and Contemporary poets who employ experimental forms, look into:

Anne Carson-Plainwater, The Autobiography of Red
Paul Celan- Collected Poems (tr. M. Hamburger)
Guillaume Apollinaire- Alcools, Calligrammes
Louis Zukofsky- A
Charles Olson- The Maximus Poems
Arthur Rimbaud- A Season in Hell, Illuminations
Andre Breton- Earthlight
Ezra Pound- Cantos
F.T. Marinetti- Selected Poems

If, on the other hand, as I suspect, you are seeking poetry that is accessible as well as being Modern or Contemporary (as opposed to an older classic), then I might recommend some of the following:

Dylan Thomas- Collected Poems
Allen Ginsberg- Howl
Pablo Neruda- Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (W.S. Merwin tr.), 100 Love Sonnets
e.e. cummings- Collected Poems
Frank O'Hara- Selected Poems
Octavio Paz- Sunstone
George Barker- Street Ballads
Stevie Smith- A Selection
Galway Kinnell- A Book of Nightmares
Richard Howard- Inner Voices
Anthony Hecht- Selected Poems
Richard Wilbur- Collected Poems
Charles Simic- Hotel Insomnia, 60 Poems

Seriously, if you truly wish to get deeper into poetry you would do well to read some older works as well as contemporary poems as well as check into some books on poetry and its forms and mechanics. New art is built upon the foundation of what went before. Some books I might recommend would include:

Edward Hirsch- How to Read a Poem (and fall in love with poetry)
Burton Raffel- How to Read a Poem
(both poets)
Czeslaw Milosz- A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry
Mark Strand and Eavan Boland- The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms
Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry
The Norton Anthology of Poetry

[ZTay]

Plutarch's "Lives"


Or


Washington Irving's "The Life Of George Washington"

[Waldo]

Going off of your love of biographies and your interest in The Picture of Dorian Gray, I would greatly recommend a biography of the poet Lord Byron. Specifically this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Byron-Life-Legend-Fiona-MacCarthy/dp/0374186294/ref=pd_sim_b_3