What is the best book you've ever read?

The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This is where are utopian society is heading.

I've not read it, but "My Pet Goat" certainly changed a lot of lives.

Find

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's list of readings for young people.

There is a list with .pdf and URL provided but letsrun is flagging

this message so here's a list. But if you want to be armed with

a rock solid arsenal for your English critical thinking skills, familiarize

yourself with this lists of texts. Especially if you are a minority. Good luck

Title: "Understanding Freedom's Heritage: How to Keep and Defend Liberty"

This list , prepared for young people by United States Supreme court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, includes some acknowledged classics and some idiosyncratic choices. June 25, 2015

Sophocles, Antigone (Antigone’s plea to Creon) (442 B.C.)

Pericles, Funeral Oration (431 B.C.)

Plato, The Allegory of the Cave The Republic, Book VII) (c. 380 B.C.)

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.1.introduction.html

Cicero, First Oration Against Catiline (63 B.C.)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24967/24967-h/24967-h.htm

Magna Carta (Articles 39 and 40) (1215)

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/

William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice (Portia’s speech) (1596-98)

(Act IV, Scene 1, beginning at line 2125)

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (Marc Antony’s funeral oration for Caesar) (1599)

(Act III, Scene 2, beginning at line 1617)

Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors at Bristol (1774)

Patrick Henry, Speech to Second Virginia Conference (1775)

Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776)

George Washington, Resignation Speech (1783)

Preamble, The Constitution of the United States (1787)

Federalist Paper No. 1 (1787)

William Wilberforce, Abolition Speech (1789)

Friedrich Schiller, The Maid of Orleans (plea by Joan) (1801)

Daniel Webster, Second Reply to Hayne (1830)

Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I A Woman? (1851)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (1861)

Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address (1863)

Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Mrs. Bixby (1864)

John Greenleaf Whittier, Barbara Frietchie (1864)

Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (1865)

William Ernest Henley, Invictus (1875)

Susan B. Anthony, Women’s Right to the Suffrage (1873)

Chief Joseph, Surrender Speech (1877)

The Civil Rights Cases (Harlan, J., Dissenting) (1883) 109 U.S. 3 (1883)

Theodore Roosevelt, Duties of American Citizenship (1883)

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (Chapter XXXI: Huck’s Moral Dilemma) (1885)

Plessy v. Ferguson (Harlan, J., Dissenting) (1896)

163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Emile Zola, J’Accuse (1898)

Theodore Roosevelt, Man in the Arena (1910)

Emmeline Pankhurst, Freedom or Death (1913)

John McCrae, In Flanders Fields (1915)

Abrams v. United States (Holmes, J., Dissenting) (1919)

250 U.S. 616 (1919)

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (1920)

Clarence Darrow, Closing Argument in Illinois v. Leopold & Loeb (1924)

Whitney v. California (Brandeis, J., Concurring) (1927) 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

Lou Gehrig, Farewell to Baseball (1939)

The Great Dictator (Film: Chaplin’s speech declining the dictatorship) (1940)

Winston Churchill, We Shall Fight on the Beaches (1940)

Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour (1940)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, The Four Freedoms (1941)

John Gillespie Magee, High Flight (1941)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address (1941)

Ghandi, Quit India (1942)

Korematsu v. United States (Murphy, J., Dissenting) (1944)

323 U.S. 214 (1944)

Martin Niemöller, First They Came (1946)

Jawaharlal Nehru, Tryst with Destiny (1947)

George Orwell, 1984 (1948)

William Faulkner, Acceptance of Nobel Prize (1950)

Whittaker Chambers, Witness (Preface) (1952)

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

347 U.S. 483 (1954)

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit (1956)

12 Angry Men (Film) (1957)

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address (1961)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Film: Gregory Peck’s closing argument to the jury) (1962)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream (1963)

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

Don McLean, American Pie (Song) (1971)

Michael Crichton, The Great Train Robbery (Preface) (1975)

Ronald Reagan, The Boys of Pointe du Hoc (1984)

Ronald Reagan, Speech at Berlin Wall (1987)

Texas v. Johnson (Kennedy, J., concurring) (1989) 491 U.S. 397 (1989)

A Few Good Men (Film: Tom Cruise’s direct examination of Jack Nicholson) (1992)

Shawshank Redemption (Film: Mozart Duet Inspires Prisoners) (1994)

Legally Blonde (Film: Reese Witherspoon’s commencement address) (2001)

Lawrence v. Texas (2003) 539 U.S. 558 (2003)

Some of the items are covered by copyright and are not available online. These items, and print editions of all the items, are available at your local library.

Source:

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/library/view.php?pk_id=0000000480

This is a good list.

Kennedy is one of the most powerful men in this country.

Very cool to see what he recommends.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Hands down the greatest novel ever

Go Set a Watchman

sometimes a great notion by ken kesey. read it, you'll love it.

Recently re-read Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, loved it again.

Now working my way through War and Peace by Tolstoy. Can't put my finger on why I decided to give it a go (probably because I managed to find it for free to download on the ipad), but I am really, really glad I did. This book is full of really great insights. Takes an investment in time and patience mind you...

I strongly recommend,

"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan.

Black Med Student wrote:

Figure I might as well do a little reading before school starts back. I'm not into romance or fantasy, but self help books for young men and books about investing are interesting. Any suggestions?

1984 (more relevant and prophetic each day, sadly)

Breakfast of Champions

Winterdance (on the Iditarod)

Into Thin Air (climbing Everest)

“There is one other book, that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky"

-Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Black Med Student wrote:

Figure I might as well do a little reading before school starts back. I'm not into romance or fantasy, but self help books for young men and books about investing are interesting. Any suggestions?

You needn't have specified that you're not into romance as a book topic -- I've never met or even ever heard of a man who enjoys romance novels (incidentally, the writing tends to be absolutely atrocious.)

Black Med Student wrote:

Figure I might as well do a little reading before school starts back. I'm not into romance or fantasy, but self help books for young men and books about investing are interesting. Any suggestions?

First Aid, pathoma. Usmle

Who reads that trash? wrote:

You needn't have specified that you're not into romance as a book topic -- I've never met or even ever heard of a man who enjoys romance novels (incidentally, the writing tends to be absolutely atrocious.)

Easy there... Most of Hemingway's novels are based on a central romance, including The Sun Also Rises, which was mentioned earlier in this thread.

As for the best book I've ever read, I'd say it is either Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath or Wallace's Infinite Jest. I'd have put Moby Dick up there if it weren't for the lazy conclusion. It's like Hemmingway spent 20 years perfecting the novel and right at the end, someone knocked his door and said, "Cmon! Time to go!" And he just threw a hastily-written epilogue on the end.

I might add that one book I most enjoyed reading, was when my son was about 6 I read aloud Twain's Huckelberry Finn to him. It's a great book, but the experience of living the book with my son ranks as one of my favourite reading experiences.

"Good Night, Good Night" by Sandra Boynton

A classic to read before bed and you can certainly have it finished before the end of the summer.

Don't get the cheap knockoff "The Going to Bed Book". That version is missing the song and a few important pages in the middle.

Watership Down

anything by Cornell West or Maya Angelou is brilliant........NOT!!! it is crap

"Once An Eagle" by Anton Myrer

but will second the "Atlas Shrugged" nomination

Have read "Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors" by Piers Paul Read multiple times ... just an amazing, inspirational story