Quotations and Literature Forum

I'm trying to put together a collection of books for my study - can anybody give me suggestions of what great novels I should include? So far I have Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and the whole of jane Austen's works. What else should I buy to read???

I love Jane Austen, I would also include

Frankienstien by Mary Shelly

Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

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Every man carries a circle of hell around his head like a halo. Every man, every man has to go through hell to reach his paradise.
Robert De Niro, Cape Fear

Hello!

I would recommend "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.
I think this is a really interesting novel, as it is constructed on the myth of the so called 'doppelganger' or 'the double', being also an exploration of the relation between art and life.

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Music I Breathe...

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"I am not afraid... I was born to do this"

"Help yourself. God will help you" ( Aide toi. Dieu t'aidera. )

--- Joan of Arc

The Complete Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
by Douglas Adams.

One of the best comedies that I've ever read. It's full of action, adventure, strange worlds and inhabitants, plus Marvin, the depressed robot. It's one of those books that is impressive just sitting on the shelf.

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Have Fun, Good Luck.

If you're into shakespeare, i would recommend "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "As you Like it". And you should also have "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton.

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Live like you're dying [<3] Mols

I remeber having to read The Outsiders in like highschool, it was an intresting book

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Every man carries a circle of hell around his head like a halo. Every man, every man has to go through hell to reach his paradise.
Robert De Niro, Cape Fear

Yes put The Fountainhead on the list. I hated it but I figured you would want a big book on there for the illusion of prestige.

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the hollidays are here Bah Hum Bug!

Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words

...so some of us can finally learn the difference between your and you're.

And The Little, Brown Handbook. There's another simple, yet great book that some of us should access so we can use punctuation to enhance meaning. Imagine that - literacy!

I used to collect books for my library. I used to have a room just for my library. When we were forced to move to a smaller house, most of my books were relegated to the basement in boxes.

Which books would I recommend?

Don't try to have a library for anyone but yourself. You don't need great literature surrounding you. You need books that YOU hold dear. The complete collection of Jane Austen is beloved to some, but was abhorred by Mark Twain.

"Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it."
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

I used to have a lot of books in my collection because I thought I SHOULD have them. Now, those books are rotting in boxes in my basement. You can only have so many things in your life. Choose them wisely.

On the other hand, you can have as many books in your head as will fit. I recommend that you READ all the books recommended here. Buying them for your library is another story. A library is useless unless it is read.

Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a phenomenal novel, even though it's not what I would call a "classic" like some of the other pieces listed are.

Alexandre Dumas', The Count of Monte Cristo, and Dickens', A Tale of Two Cities are two more "classic" pieces that are excellent as well.

Hope that helps!

Recommending 'great' books is so hard. Do you just mean classics? Or do you mean in general? Many great books today masquerade as romance or fantasy or scifi, but contain great insight into human nature. That all said, I have a couple of recommendations.

If you love Austen for her humor and cultural comments, I'd recommend anything by Anthony Trollope.

If you love Austen for the romance and history, I'd recommend Georgette Heyer.

I haven't any suggestions if you love Tolstoy; I couldn't stand his novels, lol.

Edit: I just remembered a great author that always looks good on a shelf, though he can be hard to read. Noam Chomsky. The left-leaning intellectual's intellectual. I gave away all of my Chomsky books when I realized I wasn't going to read them (or more than once), lol.

Eww. Just take it out of the library. The idea of giving real money for that book leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

(And now I apologize to anyone who actually liked that book. It's not a very sincere apology, but after all, it was a terrible book.)

If you want something profound on the illusion of prestige... I would tentatively recommend The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. It's been many years since I read it, but I still remember the emptiness of all he managed to achieve.

"In Search of Lost Time" by Proust
"Women and Men" by McElroy (if you can find it)
"The Rocognitions" by Gaddis
"The Golden Bough" by Frazer
"Ulysses/Finnegans Wake" by Joyce
"Against the Day" by Pynchon
All are thick books that look great on shelves, and if you have the patients to finish them they're all fairly interesting too.