Recommend Six Must-read books.

[luiz]

To the people suggesting fiction books...

Can you explain how this will help the original poster expand his knowledge? This is what he was asking for...

You'll learn a lot reading great fiction books. If nothing else, you'll learn how to write well. People who don't read good books are as rule terrible at writing. That makes them look stupid even when they aren't. Many of my engineer colleagues suffer from this. The OP was probably looking for non-fiction tips, but he'll be a better person if he reads some good fiction as well.

@Hygro: if you don't think many fiction books are "must-read", you probably haven't read very good books. My opinion is the opposite of yours: you can learn anything you need that is on non-fiction books from secondary sources, internet articles, etc. There is no secondary source for the experience that is reading "Crime and Punishment".

 

[zjintz]

For example Animal farm teaches a lot of totalitarianism.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

I've found that reading and studying fiction has made me more of a humanist. Literature has given me perspective on the lives of various types of people, from many different cultures and social classes. This has made it easier to be more empathetic and compassionate, even to total strangers. Fiction can help you become a better person if you read the right stuff.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Non fiction is all about knowledge. Fiction is about story telling that when well done feeds our imagination and emotions.

 

[Narz]

Finally finished this. Amazing the time you find to read when you have no power or internet for a week

Yep, power outages & having to take public transportation are some of the main ways I catch up on reading.

 

[Linkman226]

1. The God Delusion, Dawkins
2. A People's History of the United States, Zinn
3. Collapse, Diamond
4. A Theory of Justice, Rawls
5. Lord of the Rings (the whole series, plus Hobbit, plus the 'other' books, i.e., The Silmarillion), Tolkien
6. 1984, Orwell

 

[MantaRevan]

Small Gods- Terry Pratchett
Flowers for Algernon(short story)- Daniel Keyes
The Selfish Gene- Richard Dawkins
A people's history of the United States- Howard Zinn
Animal Farm- George Orwell

These aren't necessarily my top five, but they all represent a good variety.

1. The God Delusion, Dawkins
2. A People's History of the United States, Zinn
3. Collapse, Diamond
4. A Theory of Justice, Rawls
5. Lord of the Rings (the whole series, plus Hobbit, plus the 'other' books, i.e., The Silmarillion), Tolkien
6. 1984, Orwell

Good ones.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I honestly need to read more books, as I can think of one, and one only, that I have read on my own time and has affected me a bunch: Buy Jupiter by Issac Azimov.

Then again I have an awful memory, so I'm probably forgetting a bunch right now. More the reason to keep reading this thread, eh?

 

[Lillefix]

Then again I have an awful memory, so I'm probably forgetting a bunch right now. More the reason to keep reading this thread, eh?

No. Stop reading this thread. Stop reading this forum. Get yourself a book. What about Honor Harrington? I'd recommend that series.

 

[Cutlass]

No. Stop reading this thread. Stop reading this forum. Get yourself a book. What about Honor Harrington? I'd recommend that series.

Up to a point. It's good low thought entertainment. But while it's compelling in some ways, it doesn't stand too close of an examination.

 

[Lillefix]

Absolutely, but you don't recommend War and peace to someone who wants to begin reading. Dr Zhivago on the other hand, is a much easier and more entertaining read if I'm going to namedrop Russian novels. The thing is, we can't let impressionable young minds' first meeting with literature be Dan Brown, Raymond Khoury and others like them. So we need something in the middle, and I find Weber or any good space opera to be appropriate. Dragonlance is also quite good. Saw the movie today. Less good.

 

[MantaRevan]

Absolutely, but you don't recommend War and peace to someone who wants to begin reading. Dr Zhivago on the other hand, is a much easier and more entertaining read if I'm going to namedrop Russian novels. The thing is, we can't let impressionable young minds' first meeting with literature be Dan Brown, Raymond Khoury and others like them. So we need something in the middle, and I find Weber or any good space opera to be appropriate. Dragonlance is also quite good. Saw the movie today. Less good.

Oddly enough, I didn't even know Tolstoy wrote War and Peace until about a year ago. I always knew him as a menshevik and for his role in the Russian Revolution.

 

[Lillefix]

Oddly enough, I didn't even know Tolstoy wrote War and Peace until about a year ago. I always knew him as a manshavik and for his role in the Russian Revolution.

Tolstoj died years before the Russian revolution unless you mean the one in 1905.

Unless you're confusing him with Trotski who was a Menshevik for some time according to wiki.

 

[MantaRevan]

Tolstoj died years before the Russian revolution unless you mean the one in 1905.

Unless you're confusing him with Trotski who was a Menshevik for some time according to wiki.

Crap. I knew there was a reason I didn't know it. Leo Tolstoy and Leo Trotsky can be confusing. Derp.

 

[Blue Emu]

QED by Richard Feynman.

 

[muhtesem insan]

1) Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
2) The Daemon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
3) Guns, Germs, and Steel - Jared Diamond
4) Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevski
5) Elementary Principles of Philosophy - Georges Politzer
6) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn

 

[Flying Pig]

Tolstoj died years before the Russian revolution unless you mean the one in 1905.

Unless you're confusing him with Trotski who was a Menshevik for some time according to wiki.

On that note, what's the convention for transliterating Russian names? I've never seen either Trotski or Tolstoj before.

 

[Lillefix]

On that note, what's the convention for transliterating Russian names? I've never seen either Trotski or Tolstoj before.

That was completely unintentional. But I can see now that those are the Norwegian transcriptions of the name(Trotski is also called Trotskij). I wasn't trying to make a point or anything. The thing is that I wrote that post at 4(or 3) in the morning, so I just wrote what I thought was most natural.

 

[MantaRevan]

Think it's actually 'Tolstoy' and 'Trotsky'.

 

[luiz]

The thing is, we can't let impressionable young minds' first meeting with literature be Dan Brown, Raymond Khoury and others like them.

Don't forget JK Rowling...