Three books and an Island

[GodsGrace]

I was listening to a philosopher on YouTube today.
He was listing some books he believes are great.
He had it down to 13 books that one should read before dying.

So, what are the best books YOU'VE ever read?
List as many as you want but maybe limit it to about 10.
Here are some of mine:
The Bible
The Lord of the Flies
The Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia)
Confessions (by Augustine)
Who Moved the Stone
Mere Christianity
The Good Earth
Brave New World
Wuthering Heights
John Steinbeck (any book)
A Man for All Seasons

There must be more...

 

[Runner]

I downloaded to my Kindle several months ago The Complete Works of Charles Dickens and am now five long novels into it. After that, I'll be on to The Complete Works of Mark Twain. Both cost a mere $0.99 in Kindle format. It is a shame people overlook challenging 18th and 19th Century authors, but most people wouldn't have the time, the patience or the vocabulary for them. Otherwise:

Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) - Hesse
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgokov
Heart of a Dog - Bulgokov
Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Secret Splendor - Charles Earnest Essert
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Anything by P. G. Wodehouse of "Jeeves" fame
Anything by Leo Tolstoy, including his writings on Christianity

 

[Christ_empowered]

the god of the small things, franny and zooey, the decameron, the lost weekend, mere christianity, winewood ohio, the awakening, things fall apart, to kill a mockingbird

 

[civilwarbuff]

The Silmarillion
Travels with Charlie
Gulag Archipelago
Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln
Flowers for Algernon
The Mouse that Roared
Foundation Trilogy
Undaunted Courage
Call of the Wild
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
All Creatures Great and Small
.........

 

[Andyintheuk]

One I recommend is The Screwtape Letters, from a senior to a junior demon by CS Lewis, famous of course for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It's a humorous exchange of letters between a master and an apprentice demon charged with keeping a guy from converting to Christianity. Well worth the read.

 

[GodsGrace]

I downloaded to my Kindle several months ago The Complete Works of Charles Dickens and am now five long novels into it. After that, I'll be on to The Complete Works of Mark Twain. Both cost a mere $0.99 in Kindle format. It is a shame people overlook challenging 18th and 19th Century authors, but most people wouldn't have the time, the patience or the vocabulary for them. Otherwise:

Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
Magister Ludi (The Glass Bead Game) - Hesse
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgokov
Heart of a Dog - Bulgokov
Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Secret Splendor - Charles Earnest Essert
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Anything by P. G. Wodehouse of "Jeeves" fame
Anything by Leo Tolstoy, including his writings on Christianity

I think The Brothers Karamazov is one of the best books ever written.
Maybe anything by Dostoevsky. Good/Bad Light/Dark

 

[Christ_empowered]

i vaguely remember notes from the underground. kind of...intense...

 

[Runner]

I think The Brothers Karamazov is one of the best books ever written.
Maybe anything by Dostoevsky. Good/Bad Light/Dark

In one of William Lane Craig's apologetics books, he mentions C. S. Lewis. In the next paragraph, he mentions Dostoevsky, "a far more profound thinker than Lewis." I thought that was gutsy on Craig's part, considering that so many Christians think the sun rises and sets on Lewis. Leo Tolstoy was also a profound Christian thinker, although he rejected all supernatural elements.

 

[Christ_empowered]

i do enjoy lewis, but im glad craig wrote that. the level of devotion many (oddly, more conservative) Christians have to Lewis is a bit....unnerving.

 

[Runner]

Flowers for Algernon

The short story on which the novella was based was included in an anthology when I was an avid member of the Science Fiction Book Club when I was about ten. It is an incredibly clever piece of writing. The narrator, who is extremely mentally challenged, begins a program of injections (as I recall) together with Algernon, a lab mouse. Through his diary, we see him and Algernon evolve to the genius level. Then, alas, the process reverses, we begin to see the decline, Algernon dies and we know what's in store for the narrator. I don't have any particular science fiction favorites, but the entire genre probably has as many moral and spiritual lessons as most religious writing.

i do enjoy lewis, but im glad craig wrote that. the level of devotion many (oddly, more conservative) Christians have to Lewis is a bit....unnerving.

Yeah, he was never my cup of tea either. Back when I was a Christian newbie, Mere Christianity was absolutely the rage (of course, so was Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet Earth!). Even as a newbie, I could see that some of Lewis' arguments - such as his famous "Lunatic, Liar or Lord" argument - didn't really stand up to scrutiny.

 

[GodsGrace]

In one of William Lane Craig's apologetics books, he mentions C. S. Lewis. In the next paragraph, he mentions Dostoevsky, "a far more profound thinker than Lewis." I thought that was gutsy on Craig's part, considering that so many Christians think the sun rises and sets on Lewis. Leo Tolstoy was also a profound Christian thinker, although he rejected all supernatural elements.

Of course I'd have to agree that Dostoevsky is a much deeper thinker than Lewis.
The reason I liked mere Christianity so much is precisely because it wasn't so deep. I tell all new Christians to read it because it's the best explanation of Christianity I've ever read. Not so much the theology, which is far surpassed by even Confessions and The City of God (esp. Confessions); however, I can't think of another book that explains Christianity so well.

I kind of feel the same about The Screwtape Letters. No deep theological thinking, but it does explain simply and very well how the enemy operates.

 

[Runner]

This is a dangerous thread for me, because I read about three books a week. Vincent Bugliosi's 1600-page behemoth on the Kennedy assassination, Reclaiming History, recently took me two whole weeks. But two other works of fiction that are very worthwhile:

Solaris - Stanislaw Lem (made into a fantastic Russian movie and, 40 years later, a typical piece of Hollywood schlock starring George Clooney). The point of the novel is that, if we ever encounter an alien intelligence, we likely will have no idea what it is doing or why and may not even recognize it as an alien intelligence.

Woman In the Dunes - Kobo Abe (likewise made into a fantastic Japanese movie and, fortunately, not a story Hollywood would ever think about tackling).

 

[Christ_empowered]

there's this older book by sociologist erving goffman, the presentation of self in everyday life. it kind of...stretches one's mind, when thinking of society. the idea is that social life is sort of like a play. you have front stage self, back stage self, multiple roles. i've read that and his other classic, stigma, which is all about how people with marks against them--mental patients, the handicapped, drug users, etc.--keep going (or try to, anyway) in a society that, on the one hand, helps create deviance, but on the other hand..."Keeps people in line," etc.

the myth of mental illness by thomas szasz. ive kind of fallen back in love with szasz. antipsychiatry didn't work in the 70s, it won't work now (its called 'critical psychiatry' these days...), but the point still remains: mental illness is a myth, it is not a bona fide disease, and psychiatry is a secular religion, a form of social control. sounds somewhat cliche now, decades after round 1 of the major anti-psychiatry movements, but...wow.

sexual politics. haven't read this in years. literary analysis by kate millet, then a 'radical' (and phd candidate). accept her views or not, deconstructing literature, movies, etc. is a valuable exercise in critical thinking.

not a book...a short story....but here i stand ironing, by tillie olson (I think I got her name right). olson was (is?) a very left leaning individual...its a story about social class in shaping the individual, very interesting.

 

[Brock]

I was listening to a philosopher on YouTube today.
He was listing some books he believes are great.
He had it down to 13 books that one should read before dying.

So, what are the best books YOU'VE ever read?
List as many as you want but maybe limit it to about 10.
Here are some of mine:
The Bible
The Lord of the Flies
The Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia)
Confessions (by Augustine)
Who Moved the Stone
Mere Christianity
The Good Earth
Brave New World
Wuthering Heights
John Steinbeck (any book)
A Man for All Seasons

There must be more...

Ok so here is all the books I have read

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

 

[GodsGrace]

Ok so here is all the books I have read

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

How come??

Read Lord of the Flies. (Golding)
You'll like it.

Read The Screwtape Letters. (Lewis)
You'll like it.

 

[GodsGrace]

there's this older book by sociologist erving goffman, the presentation of self in everyday life. it kind of...stretches one's mind, when thinking of society. the idea is that social life is sort of like a play. you have front stage self, back stage self, multiple roles. i've read that and his other classic, stigma, which is all about how people with marks against them--mental patients, the handicapped, drug users, etc.--keep going (or try to, anyway) in a society that, on the one hand, helps create deviance, but on the other hand..."Keeps people in line," etc.

the myth of mental illness by thomas szasz. ive kind of fallen back in love with szasz. antipsychiatry didn't work in the 70s, it won't work now (its called 'critical psychiatry' these days...), but the point still remains: mental illness is a myth, it is not a bona fide disease, and psychiatry is a secular religion, a form of social control. sounds somewhat cliche now, decades after round 1 of the major anti-psychiatry movements, but...wow.

sexual politics. haven't read this in years. literary analysis by kate millet, then a 'radical' (and phd candidate). accept her views or not, deconstructing literature, movies, etc. is a valuable exercise in critical thinking.

not a book...a short story....but here i stand ironing, by tillie olson (I think I got her name right). olson was (is?) a very left leaning individual...its a story about social class in shaping the individual, very interesting.

These books sound so good.
I agree that psychology doesn't work.
Psychiatry does. You get pills that really work.
Pills work -- not talk.

 

[Christ_empowered]

bridge to terabithia. flowers for algernon. to kill a mockingbird. things fall apart. winewood, ohio.

brock...please, please, please re-think your approach to reading. im not saying get all crazy and read to the exclusion of other stuff, but I definitely, for real, am saying...---read-- GOOD books (please).

 

[GodsGrace]

bridge to terabithia. flowers for algernon. to kill a mockingbird. things fall apart. winewood, ohio.

brock...please, please, please re-think your approach to reading. im not saying get all crazy and read to the exclusion of other stuff, but I definitely, for real, am saying...---read-- GOOD books (please).

Amen to that!
First of all, you learn so many things.
And, books are like a good friend you spend time with.
GO Brock !

 

[Brock]

How come??

Read Lord of the Flies. (Golding)
You'll like it.

Read The Screwtape Letters. (Lewis)
You'll like it.

I think I have to read the lord of the flies later this year for school. I have to read books for school every year but me in my mom usually have it get read to us on youtube.

 

[Brock]

.---read-- GOOD books (please).

NO