Suggest a book to read thread

Essays, by Michel de Montaigne

The book where the guy got caught on in the cold. It was SUPER cold and he was miles away from his camp. He stepped in some water or something and wanted to make a fire to warm his feet, but as soon as he took his gloves off he lost feeling in his hands. He neat his hands against his body until he had enough feeling. Once he lit the match, some snow from the tree fell on his fire and put it out. He imagained running all the way back to camp but quickly put that thought away. He layed down on the snow and fell asleep, dead.

Anyone know the name of that book?

anything by hemingway

I am just finishing up "American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of the Century" by Christine Stansell, which actually came out about ten years ago. An excellent book. We think we are so modern and progressive today, but these people in Greenwich Village from 1900-1916 were the real deal. A surprising amount our society and views of today were shaped by this small group of people. And they partiesd and had sex like maniacs.

These are the books I`ve read twice or more and would read again. In no particular order:

The Sun also Rises

Ecclesiastes

Murphy (Beckett)

Mrs. Dalloway

Sherlock Holmes stores

Catcher in the Rye

Franny and Zooey

Born to Run.

indeedass wrote:

The book where the guy got caught on in the cold. It was SUPER cold and he was miles away from his camp. He stepped in some water or something and wanted to make a fire to warm his feet, but as soon as he took his gloves off he lost feeling in his hands. He neat his hands against his body until he had enough feeling. Once he lit the match, some snow from the tree fell on his fire and put it out. He imagained running all the way back to camp but quickly put that thought away. He layed down on the snow and fell asleep, dead.

Anyone know the name of that book?

It is a short story by Jack London called "To Build a Fire."

I would also recommend:

1) Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, by Robert D. Richardson. If you thought Thoreau was just an immature, anti-social jerk ("a skulker," as Robert Louis Stevenson famously put it) it will change your mind. If you like him already, you'll like him more!

2) A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr. It's only 130 pages and is very good. It's almost as if A.E. Housman had written a novel and this was it.

I have recently found myself engrossed in the Beat Generation. Of the works I have read from this time period, I would say my favorites have been the poetry of Ginsberg and "On the Road" by Kerouac. I enjoy his style and find the experiences he writes on (although through a fictional character) are extremely interesting and entertaining. From what I read in the work however, I am not sure how anyone could spend an extended period of time hanging out with Neal Cassady, as he comes across as very egocentric. Just my thoughts though.

The Forever War....

This isn't profound or classic but it's a great read:

Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" - WWII survival story about a guy who had been a very good runner.

I'm currently reading The Landmark Thucydides. This is an updated edition of the classic history of the Peloponnesian War, with great maps and annotations. A lot of it is dry detail that can be skimmed or skipped, but every once in a while there are just some amazing passages and speeches. Amazing that this was written 2500 years ago.

The Symposium -Plato

Dune - Frank Herbert

The seminal sci-fi work. Did for sci-fi what Tolkien did for fantasy.

Great read.

"American Pastoral" by Philip Roth.

Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

I'm actually surprised to see people praising Hemingway. Hemingway's awful, except for a few short stories like "The Killers" and "The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber." I re-read "The Sun Also Rises" last year because it was about the only book in the house I was at. It's wretchedly terrible.

The Aubrey-Maturin series, by Patrick O'Brian. The first book is Master and Commander.

The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevksy

Longest book thread before the unfortunate suggestion of Atlas Shrugged...oh man, that book was terribly long and not very enjoyable.

I just finished a book called The Scar, written by Michael Weiner and I really loved it. The story was very suspenseful. It is about a detective who is trying to catch a serial killer. I really liked his writing style. Weiner also did a good job of getting inside the killer's mind. If you go to www.thescarnovel.com you can order the book and I think you can read the first chapter. Let me know what you think.

The book I just finished was The Art of Racining in the Rain by Garth Stein.

Not as high-brow as some of the others mentioned, but I read it in one go and often think about it when I see dogs. The narrator is a dog.

The Snow Leopard - Peter Mathiessen

The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy (or any other book by McCarthy)

Dog of the South - Charles Portis

I just finished Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" which leaves me kind of without words. Read the last 200 pages today.