Must read books

moar book.

post the 1 you think everyone should read.

I recommend "Catch-22."

Hyperion Omnibus - Dan Simmons

as ive said in every one of these threads for god knows how long :P

Brothers Karamazov & Demons by Dostoevsky

Lolita & Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov

American Psycho & The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle & After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

42=43 I know that was more than one, but just imagine they were all posted seperately and you will sleep peacefully.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.

>>44

George Orwell kills Aldous Huxley.

song of ice and fire, the 4/7 there are out up to date (i think)

>>45 Hell yeah, but someone already said Orwell so I recommend Huxley as a runner-up.

Die Blechtrommel (engl: The Tin Drum)

If you're in any way interested in recent European history, you have to read it. If not, it's still worth reading. Dude got a fucking Nobel Price of Literature for that one.

Am I the only person who thinks Lolita is overrated and boring?

Doesn't meet up to your loli fantasies?
Yeah internet pornography ruins all kind of classic literature.
Who reads de Sade, D. H. Lawrence, or William S. Burroughs any more?
Movies are where it's at.  You should join our forum at /tele/

I don't have loli fantasies, being a faggot.

I just thought it was pointless, reading it. I can see how it would have been an interesting book when it was new and shocking, but as it stands it hasn't aged well.

And fuck you I've not watched TV for near a year and I won't begin now.

lies

lulz

Fight Club
Ishamel
The Last Unicorn

Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut

and almost anything else by him

Dune, naturally...
The Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton...
The wheel of time by the Jordan something dude
Elliot Kate's crown of stars...
The illuminatus Trilogy are pretty damn nice - a brain-fuck sort of read... If you like that sort.

someone mentioned Vonnegut already but Slaughter- House Five is my favorite. Really makes you think, it plays with your head but in a good way.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

It's one of the most beautifully written books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I'm quite serious.

Futurological congress by Stanislaw Lem.

What the hell, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and Glen Cook's Black Company as well.

>>Am I the only person who thinks Lolita is overrated and boring?

YES.

What...seriously how old are you? Maybe if you're a kid you'd find it boring because you can't fully appreciate the wordplay and lush imagery and amazingly poignant and well-crafted story? Otherwise WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

>>59
I'm 19. And I find it boring because I just don't think it's a very interesting book. It may seem shallow, but no matter how lush or vibrant a landscape the words craft, if that world does not contain something interesting to me, I can't be motivated to delve deeper.

Chuck Palahniuk

>>60

>>if that world does not contain something interesting to me, I can't be motivated to delve deeper.

I thought it was a chilling and heartbreaking exploration of monstrosity, selfish self-interest and the fragility of sanctity and dignity.

Well if you're not getting that from the book, fair enough. But maybe come back to it in a few years and see if you change your mind and it's become your thing.

>>62

Ah, I plan on doing that. I have it on my bookshelf, and I'm sure I'll pick it up again in the future.

I was just turned off by prose that I felt was overwrought and cloying. I guess I'm used to more contemporary reading with a larger focus on events, as opposed to Lolita's sort of poetic monologue. I suppose a lot of it depends on how you absorb literature... I'd say that you would take in Lolita the same way you would listen to a song, where as I am much more used to fiction that requires a cinematic aesthetic.

>>63

I understand a bit more where you're coming from now. I'll just throw out that the overwrought prose is partially a function of the nature of the narrator, and his pleas to a jury that I don't want to elaborate on for fear of spoiling the book. Humbert is a chatty, sometimes over-educated little man who reveals more about himself and what's really going on in occasional split-second slip-ups than he does in a dozen paragraphs. (Then again I loved reading between the lines of the novel - for me it was part of its great charm)

Good to hear you're willing to take a crack at it again sometime though. A lot of people I know will read two pages of something then toss it down if it doesn't grab them right away. Swine, I tell you...

Capital by Karl Marx

One of the most famous but least read books, certainly. Full of literary references and Marx's dry humour and attention to detail (some of the footnotes span several pages). It is interesting to note that modern "Capitalism" has evolved into something closer to Marx's ideals than anything the corrupt stalinist regime accomplished.

Just finished Lolita, actually. Fucking amazing.

>>65
If long footnotes are your thing, pick up House of Leaves. The thing has footnotes inside footnotes.