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What books do you consider must reads?

So basically I was unschooled, and the amount of books I’ve read in my life is embarrassingly low. It was never emforced like in a school, and with my family’s religious hangups, I never tried getting into new things because I never knew what would be deemed “offensive”.

But I’m always interested when I hear people talk about both storycraft and also literary criticism, so I want to take an earnest stab at getting into books.

No real criteria, I don’t know what I like so I can’t tell you what I’m looking for, other than it needs to be in English or have an English translation. Just wanna know what y’all think would make good or important reading.

i_stole_ur_taco ,

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein is one the books I read during my formative years that I still think about a lot.

If you like graphic novels, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman is fantastic. Great writing and great artwork.

Drusas ,

Funny. I absolutely hated Stranger in a Strange Land. It felt like a 14-year-old boy's fantasy/im14andiamsmart. Pretentious and masturbatory.

Maybe I would have loved it if I read it when I was 14 instead of when I was something like 22.

It's actually my go-to example for a book that I dislike. I think it's the only book I've really actually hated. I would have just thought it was tripe if it hadn't taken such a wonderful title away. Now there will never be a good book with that fantastic title.

Unquote0270 , (edited )

I liked it until about half way through, it seemed to lose all the intrigue and then there was the weird bit about rape (if I remember correctly) at which point I gave up. Shame because it started well.

richieadler ,

Stranger has a point where you can feel in your body the whiplash of the change in tone. After the middle point Heinlein was blocked for years, and when he continued the result was grotesque.

When you start reading dialog about what happens in Heaven, when the story started as proper sf, you know that the author lost the plot (literally and figuratively).

selokichtli ,

Won’t be taking very much of your time:

Kafka’s The Trial, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Machiavelli’s Prince, Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo

Just to avoid naming the very obvious ones.

richieadler ,

Solid choices.

BlueSquid0741 ,

The best science fiction has to offer:

Metro 2033

Sphere

Jurassic Park

Roadside Picnic

Metamorphosis

Add from Stephen King:

Night Shift

4 Minutes to Midnight

(Both are novellas/story collections)

And also:

The Call of Cthulhu and other weird tales

Drusas ,

I agree with more than one of these, but I would call out The Metamorphosis as one that everybody should read. You can appreciate it at any age (well, within reason--maybe not for the 8-year-olds), it's dramatic and captivating, and it's short.

I always try to recommend books of short stories to my friends who like to read but don't have much time for it.

richieadler ,

Your “best of sf” doesn’t include many recognized classics. That’s weird. No LeGuin, no Bester?

xilliah ,

Hmm, considering your religious upbringing you might want to try some absurdist literature to break the mold.

  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  • The Cyberiad
  • Discworld
  • The Little Prince

These are accessible too, as you’re not used to reading yet.

I can also recommend subscribing to a monthly magazine and making a point to read it from cover to cover. That way your skills will improve. You can also buy a whole stack of old national geographics cheaply. This will expand your horizons.

SLfgb ,

Oh yes definitely The Little Prince is a must-read.

SLfgb ,

The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren is one of my childhood favourites. Originally Swedish but has been translated into English.

The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt another childhood fav., it has been translated from Dutch. Actually, anything by Dragt I loved, but not sure which have translations or not.

In terms of adult fiction, I was hooked on Stig Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series (he only wrote the first 3 though).

Someone mentioned Kurt Vonnegut; I recommend the one I’ve read of his: Slaughterhouse 5.

The Circle still gives me pause more than 5 years later. It’s by Dave Eggers.

Cowbee ,
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml avatar

While other books have made a larger personal impact, Piranesi is a wonderful, easy to read mystery novel with a charming, innocent protagonist that I wish I could read for the first time all over again.

It’s only a couple hundred pages as well, as opposed to the thousand page monsters many people love.

Nemo ,

Seconding this book. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this decade.

yogthos ,
@yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar

Piranesi is a real gem, I ran across it last year and it was absolutely delightful.

Cowbee ,
@Cowbee@lemmy.ml avatar

I know! I love Piranesi as a character, the way he sees the world and justifies it is charming. Read it a few weeks ago and it hasn’t left my head, I hadn’t been so enthralled by a book since I was a kid.

nichtburningturtle ,
@nichtburningturtle@feddit.org avatar

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

yogthos ,
@yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar

a few books that I found enjoyable recently

  • Doors of Sleep
  • The City and the Stars
  • The Windup Girl
  • Consider Phlebas
  • A Scanner Darkly
  • The Lifecycle of Software Objects
  • The Mountain in the Sea
Bophades ,

Lots of great suggestions involving story craft and the like, so I’ll target the “religious hangups” bit with a couple non-fiction books:

  • Sentience by Nicholas Humphrey (great to get a perspective on consciousness and sentience that isn’t marred with religious doctrine)
  • Determined by Robert Sapolsky (a primatologist with a knack for getting you comfortable with the notion that we don’t have as free a will as religion tells us)

And just to include a bit of fiction:

  • Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (about life as we know it, or maybe as we don’t)
  • Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (deals with overwritten cultures. Also dragons.)
apotheotic ,

I can never stop recommending The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.

Its some of the most beautiful, cozy writing I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, all wrapped in queer and race allegory and science fiction splendour.

Please read it.

InputZero ,

I’m reading that right now and it’s fantastic! I was reading a horror series that just got too bleek, a friend recommended The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet and I’m really enjoying it. I’m a slow reader so it takes me a while to get through a book but I’m definitely going to finish this one.

apotheotic ,

I can’t recommend enough that you read the sequel too! There’s even more but I haven’t read them yet. Its all just so good and cozy and yum.

Diddlydee ,

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. Kalki by Gore Vidal. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Atonement by Ian McEwan. Being Dead by Jim Crace.

IvanOverdrive ,

How about some pre-transhuman solarpunk? I recommend my favorite book, Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. It’s about the birth pangs of a post scarcity society. Absolutely brilliant.

Tolookah ,

I’d happily recommend anything by Brandon Sanderson, I generally find everything he writes to be an easy read.

Also, get an account at your local library, it’s much easier/cheaper to fly through books that way. Tip: if your library sucks, many libraries will accept you as local if you work in the town. (I belong to two library systems this way)

MadBob ,

If you’ve already read a lot of books, you should give If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller a go.

Unquote0270 ,

All of HP Lovecraft’s stories.

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