I love the talking mutant lobsters we need more of those.
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Thatās not even to the weirdest moments in that series. Truly ambitious. Book six I think blew my mind.
Would love a kind of list from you. Or link if youāve listed before.
Here are some of the Pulitzer winners Iāve read over the last five years that were really enjoyable
Caine mutiny
The road
Rabbit at rest
Sympathizer
Brief wonderous life of Oscar wao
Amazing adventures of Kavalier and clay
Grapes of wrath
Overstory
Underground Railroad
Orphan masters son
Goldfinch
Killer angels
Im sure im missing some. The books are more hits and than misses. And even the ābadā ones are solid. And stuff I found a little boring like LESS and Gilead others might find really deep and amazing.
But these books here. All of them I will remember forever. That kavalier and clay story just so good.
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Thank you so much.
I loved The Road (and all McCarthy), as well as Killer Angels from a few years where I was disturbingly obsessed with the Civil War. Grapes of Wrath obv GOAT but itās hard for me to separate the resentment I feel for being forced to read it for high school. A lot of books are delights if you arenāt forced to enjoy them. Subtle difference!
Gotta check out the rest of your list. Appreciate you.
Oscar Wao is A+ and Overstory is my goat novel
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Oh and just wanted to say I totally get the resentment around being forced to read Grapes. Epic work of art totally lost on people because they are forced to read it.
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Itās been 20 years since I read the Rabbit novels. I remember being underwhelmed by Rabbit, Run byu Rabbit Redux was astonising. Maybe the best novel about the US in the 60s
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Rabbit run was interesting. I didnāt really like it but it was written in a way that was interesting. Thereās no plot, other than leaving your family. Some scenes that are burned into my brain forever
2 was the most interesting with some really memorable characters
As Iām getting older rabbit at rest hits hard. Iāve basically won life, now what
I didnāt even know the Wao book was Pulitzer Prize winner. Read it and really liked it a lot.
The other 2-3 books/stories by that guy in the same universe are also fun
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I was reading the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, and it got me thinking that I want to eliminate the urge to use my phone, outside of a couple blocks each day. If Iām playing poker, reading, etc. Iāll simply turn off the wifi/mobile signal on my phone. I also plan to pretty much eliminate Facebook/Insta/Twitter except for maybe once a week, and even forums like this one, I will only check once a day.
As a result of this, I also want to start reading a lot more, especially physical books. I plan to completely eliminate screens in the 2 hours before bed, and physical books are by far the easiest way to do that.
Up until now, Iāve read an embarrassingly small amount of the classics. Only stuff that I was forced to read in school (Mockingbird, Catcher, Les MisĆ©rables, etc), and after that I pretty much only read either non-fiction or science fiction (LOTR, Dune, Star Wars, GOT, etc.)
So, with my newfound focus on reading, Iāve decided to knock out as many of the classics as possible. Iām in Tbilisi, Georgia, so there arenāt an abundance of English language books, but I only need to find a couple to tide me over until the end of the month, when Iāll move to Warsaw and have quite a few secondhand bookstores with tons of English language content at my disposable.
Most of the lists of top 100 books seem to be mostly limited to white authors, so I do intend to branch out to stuff by non-white authors, as well as delve into simpler stuff written in Spanish or French (like lāĆtranger).
So my first 2 books were a double book with 1984 and Animal Farm and another double with A Room of Oneās Own and The Voyage Out by Woolf. Iām already 6 chapters deep in 1984 and loving it.
Iām curious if anyone ITT has a breakdown of the classics, specifically which ones might be of special interest to Unstuckers. Obviously Atlas Shrugged is a book that has influenced many, but I donāt especially want to read it.
So far on my short list after these 2 books Iāve got Sinclair, Huxley, and de Beauvoirās DeuxiĆØme Sexe if I can still manage in French, but if not, a good English translation.
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Dickens for sure
I like Jane Austen but I can see where others might find it boring / soap opera ish
All quiet on the western front is the best war book Iāve ever read (along with The Things They Carried)
Grapes of Wrath
For newer books
The kite runner
So many to choose from
Heart of Darkness
Slaughterhouse Five
Huck Finn (if you like comedy)
Frankenstein
The Metamorphosis
Those are all pretty short so maybe mix them in with the longer more demanding stuff.
Iād start with Great Expectations.
Speaking of classics, I basically never read classics, but I lost my kindle and picked up Robinson Crusoe in the Philippines, it is the most boring book I have ever read in my entire life. I still havenāt finished it and I honestly hope I donāt have to unless I also get stranded on an island for extended period of time.
Canāt be more boring than Moby Dick :)
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The Odyssey still slaps pretty hard if you get a good translation (Fagles >> Pope)
Count of Monte Cristo has a great plot if you donāt mind long books
Catch-22 if you are on team WAAF
- The Analects by Confucius (476)
- The Pillow Book by Sei ShÅnagon (1002)
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605)
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1845)
- Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (1853)
- Wynema: A Child of the Forest by S. Alice Callahan (1891)
- I Am a Cat by Natsume SÅseki (1905)
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1908)
- The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (1912)
- Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1927)
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (1939)
- Native Son by Richard Wright (1940)
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-ExupƩry (1943)
- Charlotteās Web by EB White (1952)
- The Story of O by Anne Desclos (1954)
- The Berenstain Bears series by the late Stan and Jan Berenstain (1962)
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley (1965)
- Pimp: the Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim (1967)
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (1974)
- Choose Your Own Adventure #1: Sugarcane Island by Edward Packard (1976)
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1988)
- Animorphs by K. A. Applegate (1996)
- Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz ZafĆ³n (2001)
- Sheās Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan (2003)
- Redefining Realness by Janet Mock (2014)
- An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (2017)
- Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan (2017)
- Iām Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya (2018)
- Sissy by Jacob Tobia (2019)
- Thinking Again: A Diary by Jan Morris (2021)
- Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters (2021)
Rereading Shogun by James Clavell for the umpteenth time. Unbelievably detailed and engrossing.
The novel is a huge reason why my life turned out like it did.
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Nice, those were all on my radar. I do want to delve into the Brontes and Austen. My wife is an avid reader and once told me which of their books Iād prefer and which Iād dislike, so Iāll get her rec b/c she knows my style.
I guess I should have also mentioned that history is one of my main interests, so any historical fictions or anything that expands on certain historical events, especially wars, would be an added bonus.
Will add all of those, and short is probably good for now. From what Iāve read in the Stolen Focus book, my ability (and most others in this age) to just sit down with a good book and get lost without the constant itch to check an electronic device or switch tasks has been greatly diminished, so it will take some time to get it back. Even reading 1984 I can get through a chapter or maybe 2 when that voice starts up āok, thatās good for nowā¦I wonder what the score is, you should watch an ep of that series, did you get any emails, etc etcā
Crusoe and Moby Dick taken off the list.
I do remember starting to read MD as a teen and hating it, but who knows as an adult.
I read one of those kid abridged versions of RC as a child, so I guess that will suffice.
Thanks, Count is for sure on my list. Iām a bit more hesitant for translated books though b/c for now I probably wonāt have access to many different translations and I think itās super important to get the right one especially if I delve into Russian Literature.
80% of my reading over the last couple months have been The Stoics, and I know that for Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, the Gregory Hays translation is by far the best.
Interesting list, there are some gems in there and would definitely like to include some stuff by Asian authors.
I see itās part of a 7-part saga, can you just read Shogun or should you really read all 7 if you get started?
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With deference to Ikio, you can read the first book on its own.
The story was also loosely adapted into the season three premiere for Highlander the Series. The episode retells Shogun, but if it had been the immortal Duncan Macleod who washed up on the shores of Japan during a time when white people were beheaded on sight.
Beheading, if youāll recall, is the only way to kill an immortal, so Duncan is suddenly just as in mortal danger as anyone else.
Many years and generations later, Duncan fulfills a vow to protect that familyās ancestors from an ancient foe.
Available --where else-- for free on Tubi.
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Shadow of the wind is on RF list there. Itās amazing. Feels like a dumas novel (which you probably havenāt read either :)
Count of Monte cristo is long but excellent.
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