# Books that everyone should read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 25, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989 "2004-10-25T03:40:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/1 "2004-10-25T03:40:42Z")
The title pretty much says it all which books do you think that everyone should read? I personally can’t think of any that I would require everyone to read when I become dictator. ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/2 "2004-10-25T03:51:35Z")
_The Demon-Haunted World_ by Carl Sagan. ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/3 "2004-10-25T04:10:00Z")
A bit dated, but _Free to Choose: A Personal Statement_ by Milton Friedman. ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/4 "2004-10-25T04:28:39Z")
_Cat’s Cradle_ by Vonnegut. _Captured by Aliens_ by Joel Aurbach (sp?) _The Great American Novel_ by Astroboy14 (yet to be written, but I’m a thinkin’!) ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/5 "2004-10-25T04:42:48Z")
_Fahrenheit 451_ by Bradbury. ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/6 "2004-10-25T04:55:33Z")
Lord of the Flies-Golding Death of a Salesman-Miller Anger-Madow Make Friends with your Shadow-Miller If you Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him-Kopp The Foxfire Book-Wigginton Lonesome Dove-McMurtry Perfect Storm-Junger Young Men and Fire-Maclean Cold Mountain-Frazier ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/7 "2004-10-25T05:14:04Z")
_Timeless:_ **1984,** George Orwell **Romeo and Juliet,** William Shakespeare **The Art of War,** Sun Tzu **Alice In wonderland,** Lewis Carroll **Good Omens,** Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman **The Demon-Haunted World,** Carl Sagan **At Home In the Universe,** Stuart Kauffman **The Straight Dope,** Cecil Adams 😃 _Timely:_ **The Betrayal of America,** Vincent Bugliosi **Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,** Al Franken **The Microsoft File,** Wendy Rohm ---
**Author:** ![JoeSki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b487fb/32.png) [@JoeSki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeSki)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/8 "2004-10-25T05:19:11Z")
**Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy** by Douglas Adams **1984** by George Owell **Lies My Teacher Told Me** by Zack Lowe or **A Different Kind of Teacher** by John Taylor Gatto ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/9 "2004-10-25T05:20:10Z")
_After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection_ by James West Davidson and Mark H. Lytle. In the narrow sense, it’s a book about historical scholarship. But in the broader sense, it has a lot of valuable insight into how to look at evidence in all kinds of situations. ---
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/10 "2004-10-25T05:37:49Z")
_Dubliners, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Ulysses_ and _Finnegans Wake_ by James Joyce _Lolita_ - Vladimir Nabokov ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/11 "2004-10-25T06:49:40Z")
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Long\_Road](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@The\_Long\_Road](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Long_Road)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/12 "2004-10-25T06:52:41Z")
_Animal Farm_ I can think of few books that can give such a fundamental explanation of such an important topic. ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/13 "2004-10-25T07:07:14Z")
> [@Ilsa\_Lund](#): > > … > _Lolita_ - Vladimir Nabokov And _Ada, or Ardor, A Family Chronicle_, by the same. Also, in the non-fiction category, _The Selfish Gene_ and _The Blind Watchmaker_, by Richard Dawkins. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/14 "2004-10-25T07:31:11Z")
_Ishmael_, _The Story Of B_ and _My Ishmael_, by Daniel Quinn. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/15 "2004-10-25T11:09:13Z")
_A Scanner Darkly_ by Philip K. Dick. I just finished reading it tonight (this morning?) and I think it might just be the best book I’ve ever read. Actually, people should be reading a lot more Dick in general. I think he might just be the most underrated American writer of all time. Yeah, uh, pick this book the hell up. ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/16 "2004-10-25T11:16:06Z")
Hrm… if I become dictator, everyone in my Protectorate will be reading _The Bridges of Madison County_. A populace in a semi-comatose state is a populace which is not plotting to overthrow or otherwise inconvenience its benevolent cough cough leader. Word. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/17 "2004-10-25T11:27:34Z")
Ditto Sagan’s “The Demon Haunted World.” Also “The Lucifer Principle” by Howard Bloom. ---
**Author:** ![Waccoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Waccoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waccoe)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/18 "2004-10-25T11:39:16Z")
Of Human Bondage, W Somerset Maugham Brazzaville Beach, William Boyd The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway The Honourable Schoolboy, John Le Carre The Wasteland, TS Eliot ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/19 "2004-10-25T11:50:49Z")
**Night** by Elie Wiesel. Dealing with WW2 concentration camp and its atrocities as told through the eyes of a teen age boy who went on to win a Nobel Peace prize in 1980. Fast, dark, grim read. [Donbas](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595150438/qid=1098705305/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-1690821-8276009?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Jacques Sandalescue ( sp?) WW2 schoolboy is taken prisoner by the Russians and sent to work in a slave labor camp in Siberia. His story, his escape is nothing short of amazing. True story. **Why these books need to be read** So that these horrible things that humans did to other humans may never happen again and that the human spirit can endure. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989/20 "2004-10-25T14:40:00Z")
1984 - George Orwell Brave New World - Aldous Huxley [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-everyone-should-read/270989.md?page=2)