5 Books Everybody Should Read

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Mricpx
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ejrathke wrote:
where the wild things are

after that, youll never need to read again.

Honestly, I loved that book as a kid. They're making it into a movie, but it keeps getting pushed back. It was supposed to be this month but it's all the way back to Oct. '09.

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brickmoon
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Only 5 books allowed? That is tough! Here goes...

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery
Dubliners - James Joyce
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

ejrathke
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Mricpx wrote:
ejrathke wrote:
where the wild things are

after that, youll never need to read again.

Honestly, I loved that book as a kid. They're making it into a movie, but it keeps getting pushed back. It was supposed to be this month but it's all the way back to Oct. '09.


i know. they screened it and its apparently too scary for kids so theyre doing massive revisions. also, its possible that spike jonze and dave eggars will lose control of it. i mean, theyll not be in charge of the final cut.
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worsexthanfairytales
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thank you for this thread.
i just used it to put together a list of books that i need to read.

wooo!

jjjjime
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Flatland: A Romance of many dimensions- Edwin Abbott
Lord of the Flies- William Golding
The Hobbit- JRR Tolkien
The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
Rant- Chuck Palahniuk

Highly suggest Flatland, 120 pages or so of absolute
mind fuck brilliance.

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nathaniel parker
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ejrathke wrote:
Mricpx wrote:
ejrathke wrote:
where the wild things are

after that, youll never need to read again.

Honestly, I loved that book as a kid. They're making it into a movie, but it keeps getting pushed back. It was supposed to be this month but it's all the way back to Oct. '09.


i know. they screened it and its apparently too scary for kids so theyre doing massive revisions.

it couldn't possibly be worse than this...
Viking
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The most i liked so far...

1984. George Orwell.
Ubik. Philip K. Dick.
Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky.
A Confederacy of Dunces. John Kennedy Toole.
Brave New World. Aldous Huxley.

But there isn't glory without pain, and here is the five top pain for me. I won't put the authors. They know who they are, and they are ashamed of themselves and their "masterpieces":

"The neverending story".
"The Bible. Just the New Testament, where the flowers pops".
"Nazareth Hill"
"Tommyknockers"
"I am charlotte simmons", surprisngly, that one got some good book, but that one , tsk tsk.

Viking.

PGoutis01
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Viking wrote:
Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Amazing book. If I remember right - I put this one on my list too.
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Viking
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PGoutis01 wrote:
Viking wrote:
Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Amazing book. If I remember right - I put this one on my list too.

yep.

In CP style:
Victor Mancini (asfixia) is the new Nicolai Raskalnikov.

constancepae
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giovanni's room - james baldwin
les miserables - victor hugo
rules of attraction - bret easton ellis
atonement - ian mcewan
bright lights, big city - jay mcinerney

ejrathke
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Viking wrote:
PGoutis01 wrote:
Viking wrote:
Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Amazing book. If I remember right - I put this one on my list too.

yep.

In CP style:
Victor Mancini (asfixia) is the new Nicolai Raskalnikov.


I don't think this person is around or ever was around for that matter. But i can't remember a time where a post has pissed me off more.
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bongasaurus
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The Alphabet v. The Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image - Leonard Shlain
The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge - Jeremy Narby
Intelligence In Nature - Jeremy Narby
Buddha of Infinite Light - D.T. Suzuki
Clowngirl - Monica Drake

Just read clowngirl last month. Great book. The other 4 are nonfiction obviously.

Ritt
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ejrathke wrote:
Viking wrote:
PGoutis01 wrote:
Viking wrote:
Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Amazing book. If I remember right - I put this one on my list too.

yep.

In CP style:
Victor Mancini (asfixia) is the new Nicolai Raskalnikov.


I don't think this person is around or ever was around for that matter. But i can't remember a time where a post has pissed me off more.

Took you long enough!

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1. God Bless You Mr. Rosewater - Vonnegut

2. Les Miserable - Hugo

3. Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck

4. A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens

5. The Jungle - Sinclair

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trouble_with_dreams
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Ugh, I can't pick just five. Well, these are my favorites as of now:

1. Battle Royale- Koushun Takami

2. Invisible Monsters- Chuck P. (it's what I started with)

3. Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury

4. Animal Farm- George Orwell

5. Hey Nostradamus!- Douglas Coupland

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Ham on Rye - Bukowski
Catch 22 - Joseph Hellor
Her - Laurence Ferlinghetti
anything by John Fante
Passionate Journey by Franz Masereel (just to be different)

nyer
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The Fall - Camus
Cathedral - Carver
Light in August - Faulkner
Notes from Underground - Dostoyevsky
Any volume of short stories by Chekhov

Giggan
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The biased list:

The Market For Liberty, Linda & Morris Tannehill

Healing Our World in An Age Of Aggression, Mary Ruwart

Man, Economy, and State, Murray Rothbard

Universally Preferable Behavio(u)r, Stefan Molyneux

An Agorist Primer, SEK3

Edit: Holy fugg, I just went back through this and looked at my old list and am ashamed. I had MICHAEL F**KING SAVAGE on there. Wow.

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xec8
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nyer wrote:
The Fall - Camus
Cathedral - Carver
Light in August - Faulkner
Notes from Underground - Dostoyevsky
Any volume of short stories by Chekhov

Now here's a newb I can relate to.
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Kerplunk
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1. The Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger
2. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
3. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
4. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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The Average Cultist wrote:
1. [i]High Fidelity[/i] - Nick Hornby
2. [i]The Great Gatsby[/i] - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. [i]Microserfs[/i] - Douglas Coupland
4. [i]Atlas Shrugged[/i] - Ayn Rand
5. [i]Kiss Me, Judas[/i] - Will Christopher Baer

I forgot The Great Gatsby - what an incredible book.

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xec8
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Uh oh...

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"I could have done worse!" exultantly cried the murderer Lebret, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life. — Félix Fénéon

chubby chops
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More like the GAY Gatsby!

AMIRIGHT? AMIRIGHT?

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chubby chops wrote:
More like the GAY Gatsby!

AMIRIGHT? AMIRIGHT?

:0 Shut yo' pie hole! It's on, like Donkey Kong, biaaaatch!

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chubby chops
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Fitzgerald can suck my dick while Salinger tongues my asshole.

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nathaniel parker
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Lemon Party!

ejrathke
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I'm going to start defending The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye from now on. First, i will reread them and prove to you all that they're great! Prove to you all!

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ejrathke wrote:
I'm going to start defending The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye from now on. First, i will reread them and prove to you all that they're great! Prove to you all!

Here ye, here ye.

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Fano
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I never paid much attention to Gatsby in school, and only remember the beginning of Catcher, and also the part where he wants to save the innocence of the children. That part actually struck a chord with me, even back in high school.

I don't really have an opinion on them. Unsure

But I don't see a reason to hate them, other than the fact that everyone thinks they are great, and it's 'cool' to hate them.

Don't know, don't care.

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ejrathke wrote:
I'm going to start defending The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye from now on. First, i will reread them and prove to you all that they're great! Prove to you all!

Godspeed, yon rogue!
ejrathke
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Fano wrote:
That part actually struck a chord with me, even back in high school.

I think this is really only a memorable book if you read it in high school. If you read it for the first time when you're, i don't know, twenty five, you'll probably find Holden an annoying twat. I didn't care much for the book when i first read it. It was on a train going somewhere, i think i was fifteen[?], but i've always had a liking for Holden. He's no Ignatious Reilly, but he's a nice character.

Gatsby though, i quite like.

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Yeah, never could understand how somebody could hate Gatsby.

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I mean seriously, he's great. It's right in the fucking title.

Honestly, though, I never really read it. I was anti-reading in high school. Very lazy. STraight A's, but lazy as shit.

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Fano wrote:
I mean seriously, he's great. It's right in the fucking title.

Honestly, though, I never really read it. I was anti-reading in high school. Very lazy. STraight A's, but lazy as shit.

WTG on the subtle brag there!

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ejrathke wrote:
Fano wrote:
That part actually struck a chord with me, even back in high school.

I think this is really only a memorable book if you read it in high school. If you read it for the first time when you're, i don't know, twenty five, you'll probably find Holden an annoying twat. I didn't care much for the book when i first read it. It was on a train going somewhere, i think i was fifteen[?], but i've always had a liking for Holden. He's no Ignatious Reilly, but he's a nice character.

Gatsby though, i quite like.

I thought the consensus was just the opposite. You like Catcher when you're 15, and you understand teen angst and such. Then in 10 years, you re-read and realize Holden needs to grow up and stop being a little B-bomb.

At 15 I loved it, at 20, I thought to myself, "How did I ever tolerate such garb?"

Gatsby I disliked (not hated, but definitely not enjoyed) in high school. I'd give it another chance, but not for a while, there's much more important stuff to be read.

It probably didn't help Gatsby's chance of being liked by me that I crammed the last half of the book into one night and lost way too much sleep trying to pound through it.

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If you like Gatsby, you approve of domestic abuse upon women.

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xec8
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Now now, Ritt, don't lump us wife beaters with those Gatsby hippies.

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Jane Eyre, Invisible Monsters, Cirque Du Freak series. Its turned into a top three here.

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Amanda19 wrote:
Jane Eyre, Invisible Monsters, Cirque Du Freak series. Its turned into a top three here.

You failed the task. NOW GET ON THE NAUGHTY STEP!

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Franny and Zooey - Salinger
Slaughterhouse Five - Vonnegut
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Metamorphosis - Kafka
Clockwork Orange - Burgess

weenmagoo
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The Picture of Dorian Gray - Wilde
Watership Down - Adams
The Shining - King
Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury
Brave New World -Huxley
and i know it's only supposed to be five but i feel that The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton should be on the list.

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To Kill a Mockingbird
Ham on Rye
On the Road
High Fidelity
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

RebelWithoutAPulse
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Rant - Chuck Palahniuk

Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

The Book Of The Mad - Tanith Lee

Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs

Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis

I can think of a lot more than 5, though.

AlcO
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fight club - Chuck Palahniuk
99 francs - Frédéric Beigbeder
Idiot - Fedor Dostaevskiy
The Voidoid - Richard Hell
master and margarita - Mihail Bylgakov

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1. Fight Club - Chuck P
2. I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
3. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
4. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
5. 11002 Things to be Miserable About - Lia & Nick Romeo
(Funny stuff!)

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i no order:

1. crime and punishment - fyodor dostoyevsky
2. tropic of cancer - henry miller
3. ham on rye - charles bukowski
4. everything is illuminated - jonathan safran foer
5. the trial - franz kafka

this will probably change in five minutes and theres probably about a million more i could add

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"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
"Fight Club"
"Nine Stories" by Salinger (with emphasis on "Teddy")
"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess
"Women" by Charles Bukowski

To the person way above me, "Pulp" by Bukowski isn't that great. But it's his last novel, so it should be read anyway.