Great Books to Read.

[Saab]

So this is more of a request page rather than a page about Great Books but... my brother has been in India since September and has really developed an interest in reading(finally). He asked me and some friends to put together a book list for him, but I tend to read a lot of fiction interspersed with good books. I just wanted to ask what books you guys would recommend(fiction or non-fiction) for him to read and pass his time.

 

[sulmoney]

anything by salman rushdie

 

[zagreus]

Anything by Fareed Zakaria...the man really knows how to talk about international politics. Just ignore his stuff on Nehru and stuff, other than that, great author.

Freakonomics was a great read. It was a pretty easy read, and some interesting points were made (i bought it in india dirt dirt cheap )

Nowadays though, I've gotten quite caught up reading different news magazines. Newsweek's Editorial pages are amazing. Good balance of important points and counterpoints.

 

[KingGeorge]

Personal Favorites (Various Genres)-
-The 48 Laws of Power
-Catch 22
-The Prince
-1984
-Animal Farm
-A Tale of Two Cities
-The Picture of Dorian Gray
-The Power of Now
-Freakonomics
-All Quiet on the Western Front
-I Am America (and so can you!)
-Lord of The Rings Trilogy
-Digital Fortress

My To-Read List (in the near future...)
-A Peace to End All Peace
-The Republic
-The Invisible Man
-Tales (E.A. Poe)
-Red Badge of Courage

 

[Jabar Jung]

Khushwant Singh books (train to pakistan)
Vince Flynn- Executive Power
Masters of Sales (more business type of book)

 

[COMTONDAJATT]

anything by salman rushdie

even satanic verses?!?!!? i read midnight's children in high school and loved it. what a book.

saab ji, for something a little different since your brother is in india he will have a chance to find books by R.K. Naryan, he did great english version retellings of mahabharata and ramayana that are a real joy to read.

 

[kinnell]

Aman, we have similar taste in books... At the next competition, we should discuss the actual effectiveness of Machiavellian leadership in the modern world over a glass of Black Label.

Here's a short list of some of my favorite reads:
> Beowulf
> The Fall (Camus)
> I am the Cheese (Cormier)
> Robot Dreams (Asimov) and any of Asimov's works
> The God Delusion (Dawkins)
> Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
> A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)
> The Art of War (Sun-Tzu)
> The Prince (Machiavelli)
> The Odyssey (Homer)
> Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
> One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
> Paradise Lost (Milton)
> Siddartha (Hesse)

 

[[Sher] Imran]

Anything by James Joyce is amazing
Crime & Punishment by Dostoyevsky
A Tale of Two Cities
Heat & Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden
Bernstein Bears to mix it up

 

[KingGeorge]

Aman, we have similar taste in books... At the next competition, we should discuss the actual effectiveness of Machiavellian leadership in the modern world over a glass of Black Label.

"He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command." <-- Sums up my argument.

Ironically enough, Johnny Walker knows how to command.

 

[sulmoney]

anything by salman rushdie

even satanic verses?!?!!? i read midnight's children in high school and loved it. what a book.

especially satanic verses. if you cant read it as a work of great fiction and literature, and all you see is what the ayatollah and everyone who blindly followed him saw, then you miss the point. you have to question and constantly analyze and study your belief system.

 

[Ashveer]

If he's in India I don't know how easy it will be to get some of these books...

God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
Neoliberalism as Exception (Aihwa Ong) academic
The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)
A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemmingway)
Kim (Ruyard Kipling)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
Cows Pigs Wars & Witches (Marvin Harris) academic for a lay audience

 

[Saab]

Thanks I appreciate the list!

 

[Mandi]

Yay a topic I love!!

Here are a couple of my personal favorites:

Freakonomics
Fury by Salman Rushdie
Intern by Sandeep Jauhar (the perfect book for any student in the medical field)
Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Tokoyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Outliners by Malcolm Gladwell
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

I have plenty more..let me know if you want a list.

 

[Sohaj]

If hes into Economics at all...heres a list of good econ related books

The Tipping Point-Malcolm Gladwell
Blink-Malcolm Gladwell
Outliners-Malcom Gladwell
The Worldly Philosophers-Robert Heilbroner
Spin-Free Economics-Nariman Behravesh
Capitalism and Freedom-Milton Freedman
Nudge-Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff-Arthur Okun
The Return of Depression Economics-Paul Krugman
FDR's Folly
The Myth of Rational Voter-Bryan Caplan
Economic Gangsters-Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel
The Price of Everything-Russell Roberts
Freakonomics

I don't read too much fiction but some of the good authors that I have read are:
Eric Seagal
John Grisham
David Baldacci
Dan Brown

Thats all I can think of for now.

 

[Jeeti]

Yay a topic I love!!

Here are a couple of my personal favorites:

Freakonomics
Fury by Salman Rushdie
Intern by Sandeep Jauhar (the perfect book for any student in the medical field)
Stolen Lives by Malika Oufkir
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Tokoyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Outliners by Malcolm Gladwell
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

I have plenty more..let me know if you want a list.

+10..solid list....and Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins...

and anything by Khushwant Singh.

 

[dheerja]

Awesome topic. I love books.


SALMAN RUSHDIE. ALL OF THEM. If you're not going to read all of them then you absolutely have to read:
- Midnight's Children (make sure you have a good chunk of time and a knowledge of Indian history or you won't get any of the references)
- Shalimar the Clown (fast read and absolutely captivating)
- Satanic Verses


Non-Rushdie books:
Nadeem Aslam - Maps for Lost Lovers
Thomas Friedman - The World is Flat
Greg Mortenson - Three Cups of Tea
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years of Solitude

 

[dheerja]

Fury by Salman Rushdie

You're the only other person I know who's read Fury! I loved it.

 

[COMTONDAJATT]

especially satanic verses. if you cant read it as a work of great fiction and literature, and all you see is what the ayatollah and everyone who blindly followed him saw, then you miss the point. you have to question and constantly analyze and study your belief system.

you da man. i read about the first 30 pages before i had to return it to the library, ill look for a pdf of it one of these days and finish it.

 

[Dippy]

Freakonomics was a great read. It was a pretty easy read, and some interesting points were made (i bought it in india dirt dirt cheap )

I loved Freakonmics!! it was a good read if you like sarcastic writers.

By far the best book I read this year, or quite possibly since I started college was "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sachs. I would recommend it to everybody, absolutely facinating case studies!!

ohhh and l like "The Ethical Brain" by Michael Gazzaniga I think.

 

[campy614]

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Literally I could NOT put down the book. I'm a pretty slow reader, and the book was finished within 2 days... and I couldn't stop talking about it for about 2 weeks. I wasn't as thrilled with The DaVinci Code.

Sidenote, anyone read Lost Symbol? Is it worth the money to buy it and support the author, or just borrow it from someone?

Freakanomics was AMAZING. Loved it. The author also came out with a new book with pretty much the same concept, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it yet.

Also, really enjoyed Lethally Blonde. It was fun and witty, despite being a mystery, and so New York it wasn't even funny.

The Woman Who is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach-HYSTERICAL. Beyond hysterical. There were parts of the book were I was crying from laughter. If you're looking for a good laugh-this is the one!

I thought Child 44 was pure genius. It was intriguing and extremely entertaining.

Lastly, Brooklyn Noir is awesome. It's a collection of short stories-all murder/mystery-with Brooklyn, NY as a backdrop. I have books 1 and 2.