I'm trying to find some good fiction books that will also teach me about different topics. Does anyone have good ones they'd recommend? I know this is kind of a vague request. I'm looking for fiction books where the author has a pretty strong understanding of, and did a bit of research into, what he's writing about, and by reading it I can learn something at the same time. Non-fiction doesn't really hold my interest, and I've read enough surface level fiction books.
Thanks.
Flatland
We the Living
Snowcrash
Once a Runner(!)
want to read wrote:
I'm looking for fiction books where the author has a pretty strong understanding of, and did a bit of research into, what he's writing about, and by reading it I can learn something at the same time.
Try Midnight's Children if you're interested in:
1) The history of the subcontinent's partition.
2) Children with magic powers.
3) FANTASTIC writing.
What is the What (Dave Eggers)
animal farm by orwell for subjects communism and corruption of government
gulliver's travels
Wait for it...5..4..3..2..1..Ayn Rand.
Ha. Yeah, that's not (necessarily) the answer, although it might be.
Anyway. I don't know exactly what you want to learn about, but most of the classics that have stood the test of time have something from which to learn. Don Quixote, Salman Rushdie, Shakespeare, Hunter Thompson, Milton, etc. Learning comes from reading, no matter what you're reading about.
It sounds like you have your priorities mixed up.
Stephen King is also a compelling novelist of our time, who achieves popular status, but is also respected in analytic circles (whatever that actually means, of course).
In terms of "learning" from novels, I say, to each his own. Pick the books you like and learn from them. Read a lot of them, and learn a lot. That's how it goes.
Books set in other countries. I haven't traveled much, so I find I learn a lot by reading books like "Reading Lolita in Tehran." I am also interested in books by people of other races and religions with a different perspective than I can ever have. Anything from Richard Wright to Amy Tan can be educational.
If you're thinking more along historical lines,
The Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk (WWII)
Shogun, Tai Pan, any by James Clavell for insight into Asia
moc nurstel wrote:
Wait for it...5..4..3..2..1..Ayn Rand.
Ha. Yeah, that's not (necessarily) the answer, although it might be.
Anyway. I don't know exactly what you want to learn about, but most of the classics that have stood the test of time have something from which to learn. Don Quixote, Salman Rushdie, Shakespeare, Hunter Thompson, Milton, etc. Learning comes from reading, no matter what you're reading about.
It sounds like you have your priorities mixed up.
Rand was already mentioned.
And so proves my point...
You do realize I was making fun of the board there, eh?
A Thousand Splendid Suns
War and Peace
The Red and the Black
Books by those Bronte gals
Crime and Punishment
WWRD: What would Raskolnikov do?
The classics:
Swiss Family Robinson
Treasure Island
anything by Mark Twain (yes, even Huck Finn)
anything by Rudyard Kipling
1984
This Side of Paradise
How the other half lives
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)
A Man of the People (Chinua Achebe) my favorite fiction author
Atlas Shrugged
Murder without reason?
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey, about logging in Oregon and, oh, the human condition. This is literature
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; about middle ages, architecture, how society developed. This is fiction, not literature.
"The Octopus" by Frank Norris is a terrific book about the growth of the U.S. to its continental expanse, with rival agricultural and railroad interests battling it out at the very start of the 20th century. It's a very good read.