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His Eminence Lord Poppington II

His Eminence Lord Poppington II

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So, I have recently graduated from highschool and have tonnes of free time. In the past 3 or 4 years, and I'm sure many of you can relate, I have stopped reading voraciously as I once used to, back in my early teenager days / 10-11.

I don't know the specific reason as to why I stopped doing so, but at any rate I want to get back into reading again.

So ITT post general novels / plays / whatever you think would be a good read.

Some of my own that I just picked up along the way -

During my highschool course my favourite text I studied out of the 17 that I did was probably...

GlenGarry Glen Ross - a fantastic play with fantastic dialogue, with an accompanying film that is also brilliant. I think it really needs to be performed, or at least read with the film to be truly appreciated, as I did not like it when I read it by myself.

I also liked Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which I read when I was like, 13.

Aaaaaand the most recent thing I have read and enjoyed was Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, a very interesting read.

So, post away your general recommendations, and please refrain from Harry Potter / Dictionaries / arguments, thanks!
 
If anyone is even remotely interested in the wrestling business i STRONGLY urge you check out Hitman: My Life in The Cartoon World of Wrestling

it is by far the best book i have read, it provides some very deep insight into the business
 
And Then There Were None is an amazing mystery novel by Agatha Christie, perhaps one of the best mystery novelists of all time. Her books are really unlike any other, I high reccomend you read this one.

Flowers For Algernon is another great great book. I really enjoyed how the book was written, and it was actually very easy to relate to (my writing was atricious when I was little, still is, but you can definately see the improvement).

Since you graduated from high school, I'm pretty sure you've already read some classical greek literature. If not, I reccomend The Odyssey. Lysistrata is a suprisingly funny piece of ancient greek literature, you'll have a lot of fun reading it. Dialogues of Plato is a philosophical work, and it highlights many important ideas such as love, government, body, and soul.

Shakespeare, although boring and hard to understand at times, was really a great writer. I reccomend The Merchant of Venice and Othello.

In school now, I'm starting Modern European Literature (technically, anything Shakespeare and beyond is classified as Modern Euro) and I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. Extremely fascinating and a bit creepy as well, but I really enjoyed how Oscar Wilde writes so descriptively, and I can see Dorian's soul change so much (don't want to spoil too much)

And in no order whatsoever, The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Microbe Hunters (science book, very good read ^^) and A History of the World in 7 Glasses (history book, very nice read as well^^)

I've read much more, but I forgot all the titles, sorry :(
 
i just finished a brief history of time. i know it's called a very heavy read but if you can get through chapter 5 it's smooth sailing.

edit: ok fine that's not literature so read 1984 and to kill a mockingbird
 
I suggest the grandfather of cosmic horror, HP Lovecraft. I have been reading his tales one by one and it's amazing, if a bit formulaic.
 
For the science aficionados, check out Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park. He's got a great deal of novels that spans subjects (science and other subjects) from culture, to genetics.
 
Michael Crichton is awesome! Another good author for science geeks is Richard Preston, especially if you're into infectious diseases.

I also like reading nonfiction stuff by Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, EO Wilson, and VS Ramachandran. Their books are really fun to read, though some stuff is probably outdated by now lol.
 
Read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and you'll start seeing references to it everywhere. I also like Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.
 
Funny you mention Things Fall Apart after Heart of Darkness, considering the former is a response to the latter (which means for those that haven't read them, try reading them back to back).

Silence by Shusaku Endo was probably the most intriguing book I read Freshman Year, as I am taking Japanese. Basically it is about the struggle of 17th century Portuguese missionaries in the "swamp of Japan." I am not Catholic nor religious and it still a very good read.

Right now I am reading Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times by John W. Hall. As I know very little Japanese history, I figure I should learn it. Any suggestions for further reading would be appreciated.

Hoping to tackle Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert, the Mark Twain autobiography, some IR books (Walzer), and some less thick stuff like the Tenants of Wildfell Hall by Ann Bronte.

Really nice to read again in the summer without having to do it for a class.
 
You might have read Crime and Punishment in high school since it is a classic, but if you have not it's fantastic. Old Man and the Sea is another classic that I recommend, not for the story (I didn't find it that interesting) but for Hemingway's writing style. Blows me away every time.

Also I am not sure if it is technically considered "Literature," but everybody should read Freakonomics if only for its discussion of causality.
 
A Darkness Forged In Fire is a really nice piece of military fantasy, although good luck finding a copy. It's sort of like Warhammer but with shakos.
 
two words: MORTAL ENGINES (by Phillip Reeve)

But otherwise definitely check out I Have No Mouth, but I Must Scream (odd title, I know) by Harlan Ellison. The book contains a collection of short stories, few based around sci-fi but in particular the post apocalyptic story with the same title as book (IHNMBIMS). They are mainly dark, with twisted endings and can be misogynistic at times but they always keep you thinking
 
I recommend Sherlock Holmes stories if you like mysteries. The Hound of the Baskervilles was great, and so are the short stories featuring the detective and his pal Watson. None of his tales that I have read have made me go "Bullshit!" in response to a solution to a mystery. Obviously it's dated, but it still holds water.

I can recommend more but I'm really tired so I'll edit this post later or post again!
 
i read ulysses when i was 15 it was pretty enjoyable. get past chapter 5 and its smooth sailing
 
I suggest Death Of a Salesman. Pretty intense and interesting to read if you really pay attention to all the symbolism and stuff.
 
Victor Hugo's voluminous Les Miserables contains deeply rich prose and an interweaving narrative structure that seems daunting at first, but once you get past Chapter 5 it is smooth sailing; highly recommended. Screw the musical, read the book.
 
David Copperfield is a big brick but the characters are engaging and Dicken's tone is hilarious at times - once you get past chapter fifty it's smooth sailing
 
badalcristiano said:
I suggest Death Of a Salesman. Pretty intense and interesting to read if you really pay attention to all the symbolism and stuff.
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lol. after analyzing and reading it 10 times over for school, i can safely say that unless you a lit teacher you wont enjoy it after the first time. even then...

Read the lightning thief series and the hunger games series too. really good stuff, and both should be updated soon.
 
You might want to try the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov, and Masters of Rome(yes it is semi-literature) by Colleen Mccollough.
 
Fatecrashers said:
Victor Hugo's voluminous Les Miserables contains deeply rich prose and an interweaving narrative structure that seems daunting at first, but once you get past Chapter 5 it is smooth sailing; highly recommended. Screw the musical, read the book.
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hey man that's not nice

ps: les miserables in english is terrible!!
 
I recomend pretty much anything from José Saramago:
A good one would be "Blindness" and after that "Seeing". Since they correlate, but are individual stories at the same time.

In the first everybody in the country became blind, a white blind; in the latter everybody in the country decided to blank vote. Both are pretty interesting.

IIRC he won the nobel from the first one.
 
I recently read People of the Lie by Scott Peck and it was a fun, albeit uncomfortable at times, read. He discusses human evil and its characteristics and comes upon a (in my opinion) solid definition of it. He's a psychiatrist and uses a lot of (at times cliché and altered) case studies, which were my favorite part of the book. He is pretty religious and although he leaves it to the side in most of his discussion on human evil it is very prominent in the chapter on exorcisms, which I found weird, but I had never been exposed to anything like that so if anything it was thought provoking. That also happens to be chapter five though, so after that it's smooth sailing.

Peck also wrote The Road Less Traveled if you have heard of and/or read that.

edit: Ironically speaking of "the road less traveled" I've been reading a lot of Robert Frost too and if you have ever been remotely interested in any poetry I would check out his stuff.
 
The Wasteland.

The Tempest.


Neil LaBute's plays.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman.


aaaaaaaaaaand the Great Gatsby.
 
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