~~ Recommended books by Redditors (Fiction) [Epic Thread] ~~

[aehrocker]

Page 1 Fiction Children's Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Various 4.39 of 5 stars 4.39 avg rating — 39,323 ratings — published 2003 Dr. Seuss Geisel published 46 children's books, often characterized by imaginative characters, rhyme, and frequent use of anapestic meter. His most celebrated books include the bestselling Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who!, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. Numerous adaptations of his work have been created, including 11 television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical and four television series. He won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958 for Horton Hatches the Egg and again in 1961 for And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street Link Link N/A The Monster at the End of This Book 4.46 of 5 stars 4.46 avg rating — 83,610 ratings — published 1971 Jon Stone and Michael Smollin Many adults name this book as their favorite Little Golden Book. Generations of kids have interacted with lovable, furry old Grover as he begs the reader not to turn the page—f or fear of a monster at the end of the book. “Oh, I am so embarrassed,” he says on the last page . . . for, of course, the monster is Grover himself! Link Link N/A The Little Prince 4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 avg rating — 485,436 ratings — published 1940 Antoine de Saint Exupery Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures. Link Link N/A Everybody Poops 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 3,615 ratings — published 1993 Taro Gomi With a straightforward text and full-color illustrations showing beasts and bugs doing it, younger children are shown a natural part of life. Illustrations. Link Link N/A Comedy Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg A Confederacy of Dunces 3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 avg rating — 142,597 ratings — published 1980 John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero is one Ignatius J. Reilly, "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures Link Link N/A Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch 4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 avg rating — 225,826 ratings — published 1990 Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett There is a distinct hint of Armageddon in the air. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witch-finders are getting ready to fight the good fight, armed with awkwardly antiquated instructions and stick pins. Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. . . . Right. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon -- each of whom has lived among Earth's mortals for many millennia and has grown rather fond of the lifestyle -- are not particularly looking forward to the coming Rapture. If Crowley and Aziraphale are going to stop it from happening, they've got to find and kill the Antichrist (which is a shame, as he's a really nice kid). There's just one glitch: someone seems to have misplaced him. . . . Link Link N/A Fantasy Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Harry Potter Series 4.73 of 5 stars 4.73 avg rating — 154,495 ratings — published 1998 J.K. Rowling A mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to a wonderful place he never dreamed existed. There he finds not only friends, aerial sports, and magic around every corner, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him... if Harry can survive the encounter. Link Link N/A The Lord of the Rings 4.44 of 5 stars 4.44 avg rating — 319,078 ratings — published 1954 J.R.R. Tolkien In a sleepy villiage in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as the ring is entrusted to his care. He must leave his home and make a perilious journey across the realms of Middle-Earth to the Crack of Doom, deep inside the territories of the Dark Lord. There he must destroy the Ring forever and foil the dark lord in his evil plan. Link Link N/A His Dark Materials Trilogy 3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 avg rating — 741,974 ratings — published 1995 Philip Pullman In an epic trilogy, Philip Pullman unlocks the door to a world parallel to our own, but with a mysterious slant all its own. Dæmons and winged creatures live side by side with humans, and a mysterious entity called Dust just might have the power to unite the universes--if it isn't destroyed first. Here, the three paperback titles in Pullman's heroic fantasy series are united in one dazzling boxed set. Join Lyra, Pantalaimon, Will, and the rest as they embark on the most breathtaking, heartbreaking adventures of their lives. The fate of the universe is in their hands. The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass pit good against evil in a way no reader will ever forget. Link Link N/A A Song of Ice and Fire Series 4.44 of 5 stars 4.44 avg rating — 910,082 ratings — published 1996 George R.R. Martin As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne. Link Link N/A The Hobbit 4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 avg rating — 1,678,362 ratings — published 1937 J.R.R. Tolkien Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon Link Link N/A American Gods 4.10 avg rating — 328,509 ratings — published 2001 Neil Gaiman Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost – the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book. Link Link N/A The Dark Tower Series 4.00 avg rating — 244,997 ratings — published 1982 Stephen King In The Gunslinger King introduces his most enigmatic hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the man in black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake. Link Link N/A The Scar 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 17,521 ratings — published 2000 China Mieville Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage—and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon. Link Link N/A The Prince of Nothing 3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 avg rating — 10,449 ratings — published 2003 R. Scott Bakker With the first book of his Prince of Nothing saga, R. Scott Bakker has begun the assemblage of an all-encompassing world scarred by an apocalyptic past. In a setting that evokes both the past and the distant future, two men and two women encounter a mysterious traveler who they accompany on a great crusade. Link Link N/A Perdido Street Station 3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 avg rating — 34,155 ratings — published 2000 China Mieville New Crobuzon is a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. Isaac, a brilliant scientist, is asked by a bird-man Garuda to restore his power of flight. But one lab specimen threatens the whole city. A vividly colored caterpillar eating a hallucinatory drug grows in order to consume all. Link Link N/A The Wheel of Time Series 4.15 avg rating — 178,608 ratings — published 1990 Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Link Link N/A Historical Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Gravity's Rainbow 4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 avg rating — 21,752 ratings — published 1973 Thomas Pynchon Tyrone Slothrop, a GI in London in 1944, has a big problem. Whenever he gets an erection, a Blitz bomb hits. Slothrop gets excited, and then (as Thomas Pynchon puts it in his sinister, insinuatingly sibilant opening sentence), "a screaming comes across the sky," heralding an angel of death, a V-2 rocket. The novel's title, Gravity's Rainbow, refers to the rocket's vapor arc, a cruel dark parody of what God sent Noah to symbolize his promise never to destroy humanity again. History has been a big trick: the plan is to switch from floods to obliterating fire from the sky. Link Link N/A Here Be Dragons 4.31 of 5 stars 4.31 avg rating — 13,689 ratings — published 1985 Sharon Kay Penman Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John. Then Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce with England by marrying the English king's beloved, illegitimate daughter, Joanna. Reluctant to wed her father's bitter enemy, Joanna slowly grows to love her charismatic and courageous husband who dreams of uniting Wales. But as John's attentions turn again and again to subduing Wales--and Llewelyn--Joanna must decide to which of these powerful men she owes her loyalty and love. Link Link N/A The Pillars of the Earth 4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 avg rating — 360,923 ratings — published 1989 Ken Follett The spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England, The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known—and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother. Link Link N/A Horror Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg House of Leaves 4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 avg rating — 61,523 ratings — published 2000 Mark Z. Danielwelski Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Link Link N/A John Dies at the End 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 31,503 ratings — published 2007 David Wong Its street name is Soy Sauce - a drug that lets its users drift across time and dimensions. But sometimes, those who come back bring something with them. Suddenly, a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can′t... Link Link N/A The Stand 4.32 of 5 stars 4.32 avg rating — 341,536 ratings — published 1978 Stephen King And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man. Link Link N/A Cthulhu Mysteries 4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 20,057 ratings — published 1972 H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes--dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness--have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre. Link Link Link Haunted 3.56 of 5 stars 3.56 avg rating — 57,865 ratings — published 2005 Chuck Palahniuk Haunted is a novel made up of twenty-three horrifying, hilarious, and stomach-churning stories. They’re told by people who have answered an ad for a writer’s retreat and unwittingly joined a “Survivor”-like scenario where the host withholds heat, power, and food. As the storytellers grow more desperate, their tales become more extreme, and they ruthlessly plot to make themselves the hero of the reality show that will surely be made from their plight. This is one of the most disturbing and outrageous books you’ll ever read, one that could only come from the mind of Chuck Palahniuk. Link Link N/A The Long Walk 4.1 of 5 stars 4.10 avg rating — 58,726 ratings — published 1979 Stephen King as Richard Bachman On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as "The Long Walk". If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying... Link Link N/A Literature Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg The Catcher in the Rye 3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 avg rating — 1,598,684 ratings — published 1951 J.D. Salinger Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. Link Link N/A To Kill a Mockingbird 4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 avg rating — 2,242,457 ratings — published 1960 Harper Lee Tomboy Scout Finch comes of age in a small Alabama town during a crisis in 1935. She admires her father Atticus, how he deals with issues of racism, injustice, intolerance and bigotry, his courage and his love. Link Link N/A Siddhartha 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 294,222 ratings — published 1922 Herman Hesse In the novel, Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, unsatisfied, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life -- the beginning of suffering, rejection, peace, and, finally, wisdom. Link Link Link Crime and Punishment 4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 avg rating — 321,687 ratings — published 1866 Fyodor Dostoyevsky Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption. Link Link Link Lolita 3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 avg rating — 401,449 ratings — published 1955 Vladamir Nabokov Awe and exhiliration--along with heartbreak and mordant wit--abound in Lolita, Nabokov's most famous and controversial novel, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love--love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation. Link Link N/A The Count of Monte Cristo 4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 avg rating — 469,108 ratings — published 1844 Alexandre Dumas Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas' epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialised in the 1840s. Link Link Link The Stranger 3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 avg rating — 333,829 ratings — published 1941 Albert Camus Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." Link Link N/A The Lord of the Flies 3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 avg rating — 1,266,317 ratings — published 1954 Willim Golding William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible. Link Link N/A A Hundred Years of Solitude 4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 447,177 ratings — published 1967 Gabriel Garcia Marquez The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Link Link N/A Odyssey 3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 avg rating — 585,691 ratings — published -800 Homer The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, renowned translator Robert Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the general reader, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. Link Link Link Fahrenheit 451 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 847,257 ratings — published 1953 Ray Bradbury Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. Link Link N/A The Great Gatsby 3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 avg rating — 1,969,724 ratings — published 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. Link Link N/A The Brothers Karamazov 4.28 of 5 stars 4.28 avg rating — 129,446 ratings — published 1880 Fyodor Dostoyevsky When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya is placed under suspicion, Ivan's mental tortures drive him to breakdown, Alyosha tries to heal the family's rifts, and there is always the shadow of their bastard half-brother, Smerdyakov. Link Link Link Heart of Darkness 3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 avg rating — 219,846 ratings — published 1899 Joseph Conrad Dark allegory describes the narrator’s journey up the Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by, Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the unruly inhabitants of the region. Masterly blend of adventure, character development, psychological penetration. Considered by many Conrad’s finest, most enigmatic story. Link Link Link Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 avg rating — 846,803 ratings — published 1884 Mark Twain Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Intended at first as a simple story of a boy's adventures in the Mississippi Valley - a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - the book grew and matured under Twain's hand into a work of immeasurable richness and complexity. More than a century after its publication, the critical debate over the symbolic significance of Huck's and Jim's voyage is still fresh, and it remains a major work that can be enjoyed at many levels: as an incomparable adventure story and as a classic of American humor. Link Link Link Notes from Underground 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 65,660 ratings — published 1864 Fyodor Dostoyevsky ‘It is best to do nothing! The best thing is conscious inertia! So long live the underground!’ Alienated from society and paralysed by a sense of his own insignificance, the anonymous narrator of Dostoyevsky’s groundbreaking Notes from Underground tells the story of his tortured life. With bitter sarcasm, he describes his refusal to become a worker in the ‘ant-hill’ of society and his gradual withdrawal to an existence ‘underground’. The seemingly ordinary world of St Petersburg takes on a nightmarish quality in The Double when a government clerk encounters a man who exactly resembles him – his double perhaps, or possibly the darker side of his own personality. Like Notes from Underground, this is a masterly study of human consciousness. Link Link Link A Clockwork Orange 3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 349,708 ratings — published 1962 Anthony Burgess In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?" Link Link N/A Atlas Shrugged 3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 avg rating — 228,028 ratings — published 1957 Ayn Rand This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world—and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world’s motor—and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story. Link Link N/A War and Peace 4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 avg rating — 129,763 ratings — published 1869 Leo Tolstoy Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirees alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. Link Link Link The Dharma Bums 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 54,427 ratings — published 1958 Jack Kerouac One of the best and most popular of Kerouac's autobiographical novels, The Dharma Bums is based on experiences the writer had during the mid-1950s while living in California, after he'd become interested in Buddhism's spiritual mode of understanding. One of the book's main characters, Japhy Ryder, is based on the real poet Gary Snyder, who was a close friend and whose interest in Buddhism influenced Kerouac. Link Link N/A Moby Dick 3.41 of 5 stars 3.41 avg rating — 322,983 ratings — published 1851 Herman Melville Over a century and a half after its publication, Moby-Dick still stands as an indisputable literary classic. It is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopedia of whaling lore and legend, Moby-Dick is a haunting, mesmerizing, and important social commentary populated with several of the most unforgettable and enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humor, Moby-Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception. Link Link Link The Old Man and the Sea 3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 avg rating — 357,050 ratings — published 1952 Ernest Hemingway Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish. In a perfectly crafted story, which won for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements in which he lives. Link Link N/A Infinite Jest 4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 37,434 ratings — published 1995 David Foster Wallace Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, the screwed-up residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the Enfield Tennis Academy search for the master copy of a movie so dangerously entertaining that its viewers die in a state of catatonic bliss. Explores essential questions about what entertainment is, why we need it, and what it says about who we are. Link Link N/A The Turner Diaries 2.86 of 5 stars 2.86 avg rating — 577 ratings — published 1978 Andrew MacDonald At 9:02 am on Wednesday April 19, 1995, two tons of explosives ripped apart the federal office building in Oklahoma City and the psyche of America. The worst case of domestic terrorism in our history, this explosion killed 169 men, women, and children. The author of this book has written, If [this book] had been available to the general public . . . the Oklahoma bombing would not have come as such a surprise. It has been considered by the Justice Department and other government agencies as the bible of right-wing militia groups, and the FBI believes it provided the blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing. Barricade Books has published it so America can better understand the cause of racism and extremism. Link Link N/A Steppenwolf 4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 avg rating — 67,962 ratings — published 1927 Herman Hesse "Steppenwolf" is a poetical self-portrait of a man who felt himself to be half-human and half-wolf. This Faust-like and magical story is evidence of Hesse's searching philosophy and extraordinary sense of humanity as he tells of the humanization of a middle-aged misanthrope. Yet this novel can also be seen as a plea for rigorous self-examination and an indictment of the intellectual hypocrisy of the period. As Hesse himself remarked, 'Of all my books "Steppenwolf" is the one that was more often and more violently misunderstood than any other'. Link Link N/A Naked Lunch 3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 avg rating — 48,564 ratings — published 1959 William Burroughs Since its original publication in Paris in 1959, Naked Lunch has become one of the most important novels of the twentieth century. Exerting its influence on the relationship of art and obscenity, it is one of the books that redefined not just literature but American culture. For the Burroughs enthusiast and the neophyte, this volume—that contains final-draft typescripts, numerous unpublished contemporaneous writings by Burroughs, his own later introductions to the book, and his essay on psychoactive drugs—is a valuable and fresh experience of a novel that has lost none of its relevance or satirical bite Link Link N/A Of Mice and Men 3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 avg rating — 1,143,107 ratings — published 1937 John Steinbeck The tragic story of the complex bond between two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simple-minded man, calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength. Link Link N/A Watership Down 4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 avg rating — 233,353 ratings — published 1972 Richard Adams Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of rabbits on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. Link Link N/A Breakfast of Champions 4.09 of 5 stars 4.09 avg rating — 147,357 ratings — published 1973 Kurt Vonnegut In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth. Link Link N/A The Grapes of Wrath 3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 avg rating — 403,354 ratings — published 1939 John Steinbeck The novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity and a future. When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]." The book won Steinbeck a large following among the working class, perhaps due to the book's sympathy to the workers' movement and its accessible prose style. Link Link N/A American Psycho 3.80 avg rating — 129,593 ratings — published 1991 Brett Easton Ellis In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront. Link Link N/A On the Road 3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 avg rating — 218,025 ratings — published 1957 Jack Kerouac On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Link Link N/A The Kite Runner 4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 avg rating — 1,369,193 ratings — published 2002 Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys. Link Link N/A One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 399,914 ratings — published 1962 Ken Kesey In this classic of the 1960s, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless oppnonents: Nurse Ratched, back by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Nurse Ratched uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story's shocking climax. Link Link N/A Kafka on the Shore 4.12 of 5 stars 4.12 avg rating — 123,938 ratings — published 2002 Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle - yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own. Link Link N/A Ulysses 3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 avg rating — 65,082 ratings — published 1920 James Joyce William Blake saw the universe in a grain of sand. Joyce saw it in Dublin, Ireland, on June 16, 1904, a day distinguished by its utter normality. Two characters, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, go about their separate business, crossing paths with a gallery of indelible Dubliners. We watch them teach, eat, stroll the streets, argue, and (in Bloom's case) masturbate. And thanks to the book's stream-of-consciousness technique--which suggests no mere stream but an impossibly deep, swift-running river--we're privy to their thoughts, emotions, and memories. The result? Almost every variety of human experience is crammed into the accordian folds of a single day, which makes Ulysses not just an experimental work but the very last word in realism. Link Link Link Women 3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 avg rating — 31,509 ratings — published 1978 Charles Bukowski Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling in his sudden rock-star life, running three hundred hangovers a year, and maintaining a sex life that would cripple Casanova. Link Link N/A Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West 4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 avg rating — 55,413 ratings — published 1985 Cormac McCarthy An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Link Link N/A A Suitable Boy 4.08 avg rating — 27,889 ratings — published 1993 Vikram Seth Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multi ethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence. Link Link N/A The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica 3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 avg rating — 5,360 ratings — published -250 Apollonius of Rhodes The Argonautica is the dramatic story of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece and his relations with the dangerous princess Medea. The only surviving Greek epic to bridge the gap between Homer and late antiquity, this epic poem is the crowning literary achievement of the Ptolemaic court at Alexandria, written by Appolonius of Rhodes in the third century BC. Appollonius explores many of the fundamental aspects of life in a highly original way: love, deceit, heroism, human ignorance of the divine, and the limits of science, and offers a gripping and sometimes disturbing tale in the process. This major new prose translation combines readability with accuracy and an attention to detail that will appeal to general readers and classicists alike. Link Link Link The Fountainhead 3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 avg rating — 207,702 ratings — published 1943 Ayn Rand When The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This edition contains a special afterword by Rand’s literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand’s own notes on the making of The Fountainhead. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero—and about those who try to destroy him. Link Link N/A

[aehrocker]

Page 2 Fiction Philosophy Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 avg rating — 113,628 ratings — published 1974 Robert M. Pirsig Arguably one of the most profoundly important essays ever written on the nature and significance of "quality" and definitely a necessary anodyne to the consequences of a modern world pathologically obsessed with quantity. Although set as a story of a cross-country trip on a motorcycle by a father and son, it is more nearly a journey through 2,000 years of Western philosophy. For some people, this has been a truly life-changing book. Link Link N/A Ishmael 4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 avg rating — 6,821 ratings — published 1997 Daniel Quinn The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined? Link Link N/A The Unbearable Lightness of Being 4.06 avg rating — 179,713 ratings — published 1981 Milan Kundera A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals--while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel "the unbearable lightness of being." Link Link N/A Thus Spake Zarathustra 3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 avg rating — 175 ratings — published 2003 Friedrich Nietzche In this masterpiece of philosophical literature Friedrich Nietzsche utters the famous phrase "God is dead!" This powerful book spells out Nietzsche's belief in the will to power, and serves as an introduction to his doctrine of eternal return. One of the most influential books of philosophy ever written. Nietzsche writes with style, power, and conviction. Link Link Link Sophie's World 3.83 avg rating — 103,913 ratings — published 1991 Jostein Gaarder One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?” From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined. Link Link N/A Satire Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Catch-22 3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 avg rating — 421,951 ratings — published 1961 Joseph Heller At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Link Link N/A Animal Farm 3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 avg rating — 1,472,898 ratings — published 1945 George Orwell Tired of their servitude to man, a group of farm animals revolt and establish their own society, only to be betrayed into worse servitude by their leaders, the pigs, whose slogan becomes: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." This 1945 satire addresses the socialist/ communist philosophy of Stalin in Russia. Link Link N/A Cat's Cradle 4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 avg rating — 204,736 ratings — published 1963 Kurt Vonnegut Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he is the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to mankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh ... Link Link N/A Don Quixote 3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 avg rating — 123,996 ratings — published 1759 Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances, that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray -- he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants -- Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years. Link Link Link Candide Voltaire Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best'. But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world. Link Link Link Fight Club 4.19 of 5 stars 4.19 avg rating — 289,259 ratings — published 1996 Chuck Palahniuk An underground classic since its first publication in 1996, Fight Club is now recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels published in this decade. Chuck Palahniuk's darkly funny first novel tells the story of a godforsaken young man who discovers that his rage at living in a world filled with failure and lies cannot be pacified by an empty consumer culture. Relief for him and his disenfranchised peers comes in the form of secret after-hours boxing matches held in the basements of bars. Fight Club is the brainchild of Tyler Durden, who thinks he has found a way for himself and his friends to live beyond their confining and stultifying lives. But in Tyler's world there are no rules, no limits, no brakes. Link Link N/A Flatland 3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 avg rating — 27,549 ratings — published 1884 Edwin Abbott Classic of science (and mathematical) fiction — charmingly illustrated by author — describes the journeys of A. Square and his adventures in Spaceland (three dimensions), Lineland (one dimension) and Pointland (no dimensions). A. Square also entertains thoughts of visiting a land of four dimensions — a revolutionary idea for which he is banished from Spaceland. Link Link Link The Master and Margarita 4.33 of 5 stars 4.33 avg rating — 102,069 ratings — published 1966 Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Bulgakov's devastating satire of Soviet life was written during the darkest period of Stalin's regime. Combining two distinct yet interwoven parts-one set in ancient Jerusalem, one in contemporary Moscow-the novel veers from moods of wild theatricality with violent storms, vampire attacks, and a Satanic ball; to such somber scenes as the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, and the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of Gethsemane; to the substanceless, circus-like reality of Moscow. Its central characters, Woland (Satan) and his retinue-including the vodka-drinking, black cat, Behemoth; the poet, Ivan Homeless; Pontius Pilate; and a writer known only as The Master, and his passionate companion, Margarita-exist in a world that blends fantasy and chilling realism, an artful collage of grostesqueries, dark comedy, and timeless ethical questions. Link Link N/A Science-Fiction Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 3,389 ratings — published 2012 Douglas Adams Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Link Link N/A 1984 4.10 avg rating — 1,460,598 ratings — published 1949 George Orwell Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while the year 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions. A legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time. Link Link N/A Dune 4.13 avg rating — 387,065 ratings — published 1963 Frank Herbert Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as he and his family accept control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the "spice" melange, the most important and valuable substance in the universe. The story explores the complex and multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other for control of Arrakis and its "spice". Link Link N/A Slaughterhouse 5 4.02 of 5 stars 4.02 avg rating — 672,217 ratings — published 1969 Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Link Link N/A Ender's Game 4.28 avg rating — 658,814 ratings — published 1985 Orson Scott Card Government drafts genius child Andrew "Ender" Wiggin to defend against alien Buggers, but rejects sadistic brother Peter and beloved sister Valentine. In orbiting Battle School, rigorous military training, skill and natural leadership elevates boy to isolated position, respected by jealous rivals, pressured by teachers, afraid of invasion. Link Link N/A Brave New World 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 796,451 ratings — published 1932 Aldous Huxley Far in the future, the World Controllers have finally created the ideal society. In laboratories worldwide, genetic science has brought the human race to perfection. From the Alpha-Plus mandarin class to the Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons, designed to perform menial tasks, man is bred and educated to be blissfully content with his pre-destined role. But, in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, Bernard Marx is unhappy. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, feeling only distaste for the endless pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress Link Link N/A Snow Crash 3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 avg rating — 140,474 ratings — published 1992 Neal Stephenson In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous you’ll recognize it immediately. Link Link N/A Stranger in a Strange Land 3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 avg rating — 179,664 ratings — published 1961 Robert A. Heinlein This novel tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised from infancy by Martians, who returned to Earth in early adulthood with seemingly magical powers. The novel explores his interaction with—and the eventual transformation of—Earth culture. The title is an allusion to the phrase in the Biblical Book of Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the novel's working title was "The Heretic". Several later editions of the book have promoted it as "The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written." Link Link N/A The Foundation Saga 4.31 of 5 stars 4.31 avg rating — 8,027 ratings — published 1982 Isaac Asimov For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire has ruled supreme. Now it is dying. But only Hari Sheldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future--to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a fututre generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation. Link Link N/A Neuromancer 3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 avg rating — 161,592 ratings — published 1984 William Gibson Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction. Link Link N/A The Giver 4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 avg rating — 1,037,563 ratings — published 1993 Lois Lowry Jonas' world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back. Link Link N/A The Road 3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 avg rating — 430,953 ratings — published 2006 Cormac McCarthy A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. Link Link N/A Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep 4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 avg rating — 164,474 ratings — published 1968 Phillip K. Dick A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet. Those who remain, venerate all remaining examples of life, and owning an animal of your own is both a symbol of status and a necessity. For those who can't afford an authentic animal, companies build incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep . . . even humans. Link Link N/A Flowers for Algernon 3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 avg rating — 236,356 ratings — published 1959 Daniel Keyes In this classic story that inspired the hit movie by the same name. Charlie Gordon, a mentally disabled adult who cleans floors and toilets, becomes a genius through an experimental operation. Link Link N/A The Hyperion Cantos 4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 avg rating — 46,771 ratings — published 1990 Dan Simmons The Hyperion books are credited with single-handedly reinventing and reinvigorating SF in the 1990s. A broad canvased, hugely imaginative and exciting SF epic, the books draw on the works of Keats and provide a uniquely intelligent and literary approach with cutting edge science, compelling characterisation and edge-of-your-seat excitement. Link Link N/A A Canticle for Leibowitz 3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 avg rating — 51,479 ratings — published 1959 Walter M. Miller Jr. Down the long centuries after the Flame Deluge scoured the earth clean, the monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz the Engineer kept alive the ancient knowledge. In their monastery in the Utah desert, they preserved the precious relics of their founder: the blessed blueprint, the sacred shopping list and the holy shrine of Fallout Shelter. Link Link N/A Ringworld 3.94 avg rating — 58,764 ratings — published 1970 Larry Niven A new place is being built, a world of huge dimensions, encompassing millions of miles, stronger than any planet before it. There is gravity, and with high walls and its proximity to the sun, a livable new planet that is three million times the area of the Earth can be formed. We can start again! Link Link N/A The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 avg rating — 63,126 ratings — published 1966 Robert A. Heinlein It is the year 2076, and the Moon is a penile colony for the rebellious and the unwanted of Earth. The exiles have created a libertarian society in order to survive in their harsh and unforgiving environment, their motto being TANSTAAFL: "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Looming over them is the Luna Authority, the heavy-handed Earth administration, who trades life necessities to the "Loonies" in exchange for grain shipments to the starving populations of Earth. Link Link N/A The Forever War 4.13 of 5 stars 4.13 avg rating — 70,057 ratings — published 1974 Joe Haldeman The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand—despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. Pvt. Mandella is willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries. Link Link N/A Contact 4.05 of 5 stars 4.05 avg rating — 69,583 ratings — published 1985 Carl Sagan It is December 1999, the dawn of the millennium. A team of international scientists is poised for the most fantastic adventure in human history. After years of scanning the galaxy for signs of somebody or something else, this team believes they've found a message from an intelligent source--& they travel deep into space to meet it. Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan injects Contact, his prophetic adventure story, with scientific details that make it utterly believable. It's a Cold War era novel that parlays the nuclear paranoia of the time into exquisitely wrought tension among the various countries involved. Sagan meditates on science, religion & government--the elements that define society--& looks to their impact on & role in the future. His ability to pack an exciting read with such rich content is an unusual talent that makes Contact a modern sci-fi classic. Link Link N/A The Diamond Age 4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 avg rating — 49,641 ratings — published 1995 Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. Link Link N/A Starship Troopers 3.97 avg rating — 100,435 ratings — published 1959 Robert A. Heinlein In one of Robert Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe--and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most frightening enemy. Link Link N/A Rendezvous with Rama 4.02 of 5 stars 4.02 avg rating — 71,614 ratings — published 1973 Arthur C. Clarke At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door. Link Link N/A Childhood's End 4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 avg rating — 64,017 ratings — published 1953 Arthur C. Clarke Without warning, giant silver ships from deep space appear in the skies above every major city on Earth. Manned by the Overlords, in fifty years, they eliminate ignorance, disease, and poverty. Then this golden age ends--and then the age of Mankind begins.... Link Link N/A The Book of Ler 4.23 of 5 stars 4.23 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 2006 M.A. Foster Out of print since 1985, these three classic novels form a trilogy that chronicles the history of an alternate human race, the Ler, from their origins as a bioengineered "superhuman" race on Earth to their complex civilizations in space. Together, the books form a challenging examination of what it means to be human. Link Link N/A A Fire Upon the Deep 4.12 avg rating — 27,828 ratings — published 1992 Vernor Vinge Thousands of years hence, many races inhabit a universe where a mind's potential is determined by its location in space, from superintelligent entities in the Transcend, to the limited minds of the Unthinking Depths, where only simple creatures and technology can function. Nobody knows what strange force partitioned space into these "regions of thought," but when the warring Straumli realm use an ancient Transcendent artifact as a weapon, they unwittingly unleash an awesome power that destroys thousands of worlds and enslaves all natural and artificial intelligence. Fleeing the threat, a family of scientists, including two children, are taken captive by the Tines, an alien race with a harsh medieval culture, and used as pawns in a ruthless power struggle. A rescue mission, not entirely composed of humans, must rescue the children-and a secret that may save the rest of interstellar civilization. Link Link N/A The Saga of Seven Suns 4.25 of 5 stars 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2012 Kevin J. Anderson In the far future, Ildirans give Earth the stardrive. Two archaeologists glean forbidden knowledge from the ruins of a dead world. Robot servants of ruling insectoid Klikiss guard the Klikiss Torch, which has the power to create suns. The reasons for the fall of the Klikiss empire may return. Link Link N/A The Mote in God's Eye 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 40,946 ratings — published 1974 Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle In 3016, the 2nd Empire of Man spans hundreds of star systems, thanks to the faster-than-light Alderson Drive. No other intelligent beings have ever been encountered, not until a lightsail probe enters a human system carrying a dead alien. The probe is traced to the Mote, an isolated star in a thick dust cloud, & an expedition is dispatched. In the Mote the humans find an ancient civilization--at least one million years old--that has always been bottled up in their cloistered solar system for lack of a star drive. The Moties are welcoming & kind, yet rather evasive about certain aspects of their society. It seems the Moties have a dark problem, one they've been unable to solve in over a million years. Link Link N/A The Stars My Destination 4.15 avg rating — 23,071 ratings — published 1955 Alfred Bester In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hit men - and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive. The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction. Link Link N/A The Dispossessed 4.15 of 5 stars 4.15 avg rating — 34,098 ratings — published 1974 Ursula K. Le Guin Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. he will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change. Link Link N/A Red Mars 3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 avg rating — 33,482 ratings — published 1993 Kin Stanley Robinson John Boone, Maya Toitavna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars. For some, Mars will become a passion driving them to daring acts of courage and madness; for others it offers and opportunity to strip the planet of its riches. And for the genetic "alchemists, " Mars presents a chance to create a biomedical miracle, a breakthrough that could change all we know about life...and death. Link Link N/A The Day of the Triffids 3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 avg rating — 47,268 ratings — published 1951 John Wyndham Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen. Removing his bandages the next morning, he finds masses of sightless people wandering the city. He soon meets Josella, another lucky person who has retained her sight, and together they leave the city, aware that the safe, familiar world they knew a mere twenty-four hours before is gone forever. But to survive in this post-apocalyptic world, one must survive the Triffids, strange plants that years before began appearing all over the world. The Triffids can grow to over seven feet tall, pull their roots from the ground to walk, and kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers. With society in shambles, they are now poised to prey on humankind. Wyndham chillingly anticipates bio-warfare and mass destruction, fifty years before their realization, in this prescient account of Cold War paranoia. Link Link N/A Book of the New Sun 3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 avg rating — 11,238 ratings — published 1980 Gene Wolfe "The Shadow of the Torturer" is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim. Link Link N/A The Baroque Cycle 3.9 of 5 stars 3.90 avg rating — 24,374 ratings — published 2003 Neal Stephenson Set against the backdrop of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Quicksilver tells the intertwining tales of 3 unforgettable main characters (ancestors of characters from Cryptonomicon) as they traverse a landscape populated by mad alchemists, Barbary pirates, and bawdy courtiers, as well as historical figures including Ben Franklin, William of Orange, Louis XIV, and many others. Link Link N/A Cloud Atlas 4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 avg rating — 127,189 ratings — published 2004 David Mitchell The narrators hear their echoes in history and change their destinies in ways great and small, in a study of humanity's dangerous will to power. A reluctant voyager crosses the Pacific in 1850. A disinherited composer gatecrashes in between-wars Belgium. A vanity publisher flees gangland creditors. Others are a journalist in Governor Reagan’s California, and genetically-modified dinery server on death-row. Finally, a young Pacific Islander witnesses the nightfall of science and civilization. Link Link N/A The Chrysalids 3.91 of 5 stars 3.91 avg rating — 24,036 ratings — published 1955 John Wyndham The Chrysalids is set in the future after a devastating global nuclear war. David, the young hero of the novel, lives in a tight-knit community of religious and genetic fundamentalists, who exist in a state of constant alert for any deviation from what they perceive as the norm of God's creation, deviations broadly classified as 'offenses' and 'blasphemies.' Offenses consist of plants and animals that are in any way unusual, and these are publicly burned to the accompaniment of the singing of hymns. Blasphemies are human beings; ones who show any sign of abnormality, however trivial. They are banished from human society, cast out to live in the wild country where, as the authorities say, nothing is reliable and the devil does his work. David grows up surrounded by admonitions: KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT. At first he hardly questions them, though he is shocked when his sternly pious father and rigidly compliant mother force his aunt to forsake her baby. It is a while before he realizes that he too is out of the ordinary, in possession of a power that could doom him to death or introduce him to a new, hitherto-unimagined world of freedom. The Chrysalids is a perfectly conceived and constructed work from the classic era of science fiction. It is a Voltairean philosophical tale that has as much resonance in our own day, when genetic and religious fundamentalism are both on the march, as when it was written during the Cold War. Link Link N/A Speculative Fiction Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Oryx and Crake 3.98 avg rating — 114,253 ratings — published 2003 Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining. Link Link N/A Cryptonomicon 4.24 avg rating — 60,011 ratings — published 1999 Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods- -World War II and the present. Our 1940s' heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, crypt analyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702,and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious." Link Link N/A The Handmaids Tale 3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 avg rating — 394,716 ratings — published 1985 Margaret Atwood Published in 1985, it echoes Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, but a vibrant feminism drives Atwood's portrait of a futuristic dystopia. In the Republic of Gilead, we see a world devastated by toxic chemicals and nuclear fallout and dominated by a repressive Christian fundamentalism. The birthrate has plunged, and most women can no longer bear children. Offred is one of Gilead's Handmaids, who as official breeders are among the chosen few who can still become pregnant. Link Link N/A Thriller Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg The Girl Next Door 3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 avg rating — 10,791 ratings — published 1967 Jack Ketchum A teenage girl is held captive and brutally tortured by neighborhood children. Based on a true story, this shocking novel reveals the depravity of which we are all capable. Link Link N/A We Need to Talk About Kevin 4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 75,657 ratings — published 2003 Lionel Shriver Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails. ink Link N/A Tragedy Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Macbeth 3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 avg rating — 394,766 ratings — published 1606 William Shakespeare Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.' One of Shakespeare's darkest and most violent tragedies, Macbeth's struggle between his own ambition and his loyalty to the King is dramatically compelling. As those he kills return to haunt him, Macbeth is plagued by the prophecy of three sinister witches and the power hungry desires of his wife. Link Link Link King Lear 3.88 avg rating — 114,229 ratings — published 1605 William Shakespeare King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. Link Link Link Hamlet 3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 avg rating — 433,216 ratings — published 1603 William Shakespeare Hamlet is a Tragedy written by English playwright William Shakespeare, who is widely considered to be the greatest writer of the English language. Hamlet is the story of Prince Hamlet, who learns that his father was killed by his Uncle Claudius. Claudius becomes the new King and marries Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Hamlet works to get King Claudius to confess to the murder of his father. Hamlet is an important work of William Shakespeares, and is highly recommended for fans of his works as well as those discovering his plays for the first time. Link Link Link War Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg All Quiet on the Western Front 3.86 of 5 stars 3.86 avg rating — 178,679 ratings — published 1928 Erich Maria Remarque Paul Bäumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other --- if only he can come out of the war alive. Link Link N/A Johnny Got His Gun 4.15 avg rating — 19,450 ratings — published 1939 Dalton Trumbo This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make the world safe for democracy. And if democracy was made safe, then nothing else mattered--not the millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of ruined lives...This is no ordinary novel. This is a novel that never takes the easy way out: it is shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible, uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome...but so is war.Winner of the National Book Award Link Link N/A For Whom the Bell Tolls 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 158,427 ratings — published 1940 Ernest Hemingway In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms. Link Link N/A Miscellaneous Comics Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg Calvin and Hobbes 4.61 avg rating — 87,278 ratings — published 1987 Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes is unquestionably one of the most popular comic strips of all time. The imaginative world of a boy and his real-only-to-him tiger was first syndicated in 1985 and appeared in more than 2,400 newspapers when Bill Watterson retired on January 1, 1996. Link Link N/A Sandman 4.34 of 5 stars 4.34 avg rating — 99,245 ratings — published 1991 Neil Gaiman A wizard attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. Fearful for his safety, the wizard kept him imprisoned in a glass bottle for decades. After his escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On the way, Morpheus encounters Lucifer and demons from Hell, the Justice League, and John Constantine, the Hellblazer. Link Link N/A Erotic Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg 120 Days of Sodom 3.15 of 5 stars 3.15 avg rating — 4,043 ratings — published 1785 Marquis de Sade The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille and the manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille. Sade wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over the manuscript's loss. Many consider this to be Sade crowning achievement. Link Link N/A Mystery Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime 3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 avg rating — 685,891 ratings — published 2003 Mark Haddon Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years. Link Link N/A Poetry Title Author Description Google Books Good Reads Gutenberg The Wasteland 4.21 avg rating — 6,865 ratings — published 1922 T. S. Eliot While recovering from a mental collapse in a Swiss sanitarium in 1921, T. S. Eliot finished what became the definitive poem of the modern condition, one that still casts a large and ominous shadow over twentieth-century poetry. Built upon the imagery of the Grail legend, the Fisher King, and ancient fertility cults, “The Waste Land” is both a poetic diagnosis of an ailing civilization and a desperate quest for spiritual renewal. Through pastiche and collage Eliot unfolds a nightmarish landscape of sexual disorder and spiritual desolation, inhabited by the voice (literary, historical, mythic, contemporary) of an unconscious that is at turns deeply personal and culturally collective. Link Link Link Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/Books