The Org-ers always seem pretty insightful, so I'll ask...

If you were to pick 5 books your son or daughter MUST read in their lifetime, which would they be?

If you'd like, extend the list to 10 and feel free to throw in a couple musical selections, etc. My goal is just to get an idea of what pieces of art, literature, etc. you all think define or are essential to a lifetime.

I'll give my opinion later

Miles Davis' Autobiography. Great read

I don't know about five but the one that immediately comes to mind is a bible. Mainly because I don't want them to follow any man/woman blindly, but I would like them to obtain their very own understanding.

- The Bible
- A People's History of the United States of America
- The Millionaire Next Door (all three promote wealth of varying sorts)
- Hotel New Hampshire or A Prayer for Owen Meany (either one, for side-splitting humor)
- Blubber (when we're kids -- because everyone should be nice to everyone else)

Lammastide said:

"The Little Prince" has to be on that list.

The Road Less Travelled - M.Scott Peck
The Way of The Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman

Both can aid spiritual growth.

"Cat's Cradle" - Kurt Vonnegut
"Slaughterhouse Five" - Kurt Vonnegut
"1984" - George Orwell
"Animal Farm" - George Orwell
"The Trial" - Franz Kafka
"The Castle" - Franz Kafka
"The Sheltering Sky" - Paul Bowles
"The Spider's House" - Paul Bowles
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" - Frederich Nietzsche
"The Will to Power" - Frederich Nietzsche
"Critique of Religion and Philosophy" - Walter Kaufmann
"Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist" - Walter Kaufmann
"The Future of an Illusion" - Sigmund Freud
"Civilization and its Discontents" - Sigmund Freud
"The Selfish Gene" - Richard Dawkins
"The Blind Watchmaker" - Richard Dawkins
"Philosophy in the Bedroom" - Marquis De Sade
"The Misfortunes of Virtue and other Early Tales" - Marquis De Sade
"FBI Crime Classification Manual" - Ressler and Douglas
"Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives" - Ressler and Douglas

There are way too many to mention, so I limited myself to two per author... there are SO many books that you need to read.

In their lifetime??...Not sure I could answer this, cuz 5 much better books may come along in their lifetime that I don't know about yet...lol...

Offhand, I'd say:

1) The Bible (better they read it and reach their own conclusions than to hear everyone else's take on it...)

2) "Philosophy From A To Z" (excellent way to start seeing things from many different angles...)

3) "Conversations With God" (a no-nonsense take on life in general, and a very good reminder that we are truly in control of what happens in our lives...)

4) "Animal Farm" (I pray they'd read it before seeing a film version...)

5) "Whoever Fights Monsters" (excellently written book on what goes on inside the mind and delusions of serial killers...)

1. the LOTR trilogy (+ the Hobbit)

2. anything by Stephen King

3. 1984 (greatest book ever written)

4. the Trial (kafka)

5. anything by shakespeare

1. Wuthering Heights- Bronte
2. Old Man and the Sea
3. The 4 Agreements
4. The Pearl
5. At least one book by Stephen King

ThreadBare said:

I remember Blubber.. I loved that book...

John Irvings The Hotel New Hampshire.

"Godel, Escher, Bach" - Douglas Hofstadter
"The Blind Watchmaker" - Richard Dawkins
"The Fountainhead" - Ayn Rand
"The Way the World Works" - Jude Wanniski
"Wealth and Poverty" - George Gilder

ThreadBare said:

A Prayer for Owen Meany is my all time favorite book -- definitely put that on the list. Maybe The World According to Garp as well. Otherwise... I can't say there is a list I'd recommend for the whole world -- my recommendation would depend on the individual.

Word on 1984, the process and Zarathustra. The castle doesn't cut it (quite as). Didn't read any of the others
So let me add two more...

since there isn't 2 much 'casual' reading i'll add

Die Blechtrommel
Love in Times of Cholera

No must-reads, but both very enjoyable.

That's a good list of recommendations IceNine... I'll scan through that list and read any of those that I haven't read already. I might even check out your beloved Vonnegut one of these days just to make you happy

To Kill A Mockingbird
Cat's Cradle
Max (My favorite book when I was a child)
The Five Love Languages
About 200 books tie for the #5 spot.

I read too many books good and bad to remember all the best ones. Most are shit But here are some of my faves.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Neuromancer by William Gibson
1984 by George Orwell
Ulysses by James Joyce
All of Spike Milligan's war memoirs

ian said:

You liked that, huh??...lol ...The stream of consciousness section was a battle.. ...(it IS good, tho...)

I absolutely LOVE threads like these..we get permission to be pretentious.


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[This message was edited Thu Jan 30 15:26:54 PST 2003 by rdhull]

wellbeyond said:

It is hard going definitely... a lot of Ulysses was over my head on the first read... now I get so much pleasure from it, I've read it half a dozen times by now.

rdhull said:

my recommendations were mostly nerdy, recent books and very non intellectual

I forgot to mention I'm a big Asimov fan too *NERD*

* the bible
* the bluest eye by toni morrison
* 1984 by george orwell
* it by stephen king
* roots by alex haley

it was hard for me to pick 5, but these are the ones that came to mind.

very cliche' but everyone should read Catcher in the Rye
I'm also in love with To Kill a Mockingbird
Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark
OR Schroedingers Cat (can't remember the author ) to see how weird and fun science can really get
and finally, The Complete Bartender - don't leave home without it

ian said:

You will love Vonnegut!!!



I am a bit of a Vonnegut evangelist, so don't mind my incessant ramblings about his genius!

Only 5?!?! Are you crazy?

Well, I'll just mention the ones I've read within the last month or so that are worthy of everyone's attention

Mao II, Don DeLillo
Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov
Lolita, Vladmir Nabokov
Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
The Wars, Timothy Findley

I agree Orwell is also worth a look, and Sade as well. Ice, throw a little Simone Du Bouvoir on the pile?

Kudos also to the Salinger reference. It's remembered for a reason. Mao II's main character is actually partially based off of him. Shakespeare is of course essential reading

I found To Kill a Mockingbird very overrated. As well, I read Roots, and a little Stephen King, as well as many other modern novels, such as that by the likes of Clavell and Michener, and while I found these books to be interesting, did I think they were essential? No, definitely not. That doesn't make them any less good, they're just not as critical to our development as humans.

I think of all the recent books I've read, MaoII should definitely be examined first. It is almost prophetic.

savoirfaire said:

I thought Lolita was very overrated, i mean, it's great in places, but it tend 2 drag imho

Here are my ten in no perticular order unless specified


1. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (My favorite)
2. The Things They Carried - Tim O'brien
3. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
4. Julius Cesar - William Shakespear
5. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
6. The Power of Compassion - The Dalai Lama
7. Wolf Wars - Hank Fischer (The inside Story of the struggle to save and restore the Grey Wolf to Yellowstone National Park and surronding areas)
8. Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler (My father told me to read this...Hitler was just plain )
9. Endurance - Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
10. Seven Years in Tibet - Heinrich Harrer

silkyspread said:

wow a hemingway book hehe what with my avatar and all that made me smile. My 5 would be:-

Robert A. Heinlein: Time Enough for Love
Robert A. Heinlein: I Will Fear no Evil
Dan Simmons: The Hyperion Cantos (all 4 books please)

David Zindell : Requiem For homo sapiens (that man can make maths sexy)

Ernest Hemmingway: the old man and the sea

5 books that is very very difficult and i must admit ive gone for books ive just plain enjoyed rather than any so called masterpieces. The emperors new clothes syndrome has a lot to answer for!!!

and considering this is for my children id want them to read a good book on car maintenance a good book on how to cook( especially my son lol)

If you can fix a car and cook a good meal at least you are of some use to society lol
[This message was edited Fri Jan 31 3:15:01 PST 2003 by jubalH]

"The master and Margarita" -M.A. Bulgakov
"Pale Fire" -Vladimir Nabokov
"Ada or Ardor" -Vladimir Nabokov
"Voyage au bout de la Nuit" -Louis Ferdinand Céline.
"The Trial" -Franz Kafka
"Metamorphosis" -Franz Kafka
"Midnights Children" -Salman Rushdie
"The Satanic Verses" -Salman Rushdie
"The Moor's Last Sigh" -Salman Rushdie
"The Flowers Of Evil [poems]" -Charles Baudelaire
"Ariël [poems]" -Sylvia Plath
"The Bell Jar" -Sylvia Plath
"Selected Poems 1947-1995 [poems]" -Alan Ginsberg
"Brave New World" -Aldous Huxley
"Wuthering Heights" -Emily Brontë
"The Brothers Karamazov" -Fjodor Dostoyevski
"The Foundation Pit" -Andrey Platonov
"The Sun Also Rises" -Ernest Hemingway
"For Whom The Bell Tolls" -Ernest Hemingway
"On The Road" -Jack Kerouac
"Faust [pt I & II]" -Goethe
"MacBeth" -Willy S.
"The Claudius Novels" -Robert Graves
"Collected Short Fiction" -Dorothy Parker
"Death In Venice" -Thomas Mann
"The Magic Mountain" -Thomas Mann
"Pride and Prejudice" -Jane Austen
"The Pickwick Papers" -Charles Dickens
"Bleak House" -Charles Dickens
"The Moonstone" -Wilkie Collins
"A Passage To India" -E.M. Forster
"To The Lighthouse" -Virginia Woolf
"Dead Souls" -N. Gogol
"Waiting for Godot" -Samuel Beckett
"Krapp's Last Tape" -Samuel Beckett
"The Cherry Orchard" -Anton P. Chekhov
"The elementary particles" -Michel Houllebecq
"Chronicle of a death Foretold" -Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" -Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Middlemarch" -George Elliot
"Vanity Fair" -William. M. Thackeray
"Nostromo" -Joseph Conrad
"An outcast of the Islands" -Joseph Conrad
"Max Havelaar" -Multatuli
"The Aspern Papers" -Henry James

"The Epic Of Gilgamesh"
"Beowulf"



It's quite a lot, but that's mainly due to the fact that
I've got little to no social life. Never really cared 4
one either, which is why I have loads of time to read all
those books.

In all honesty, I suppose none of those are 'essential'
reads. Well, nothing is really. It all depends on what
you're interested in. What I consider a "must read" is
perhaps something that someone else considers shit.

There's too much extremely good work out there any way.
I wouldn't know where to begin if someone asked my what
my all-time fav book is.

Probably "The Master and Margarita" though.


[This message was edited Fri Jan 31 6:29:41 PST 2003 by IstenSzek]