I’ve read the first, and I agree, but I haven’t read the second book you mentioned. A friend of mine is reading it, so I’m curious: What’s it about and why is it good (perhaps this will be answered by the first question)?
Any book will do. I’m a firm believer that it doesn’t matter what you read so long as you read something.
**To Kill A Mockingbird ** by Harper Lee
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, as well as collections of his essays.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo.
And if you don’t like it, I’ll shoot you.
What? Aren’t we talking about being Supreme Dictator of the World? You can dislike the sequels but if you don’t like the first one I’ll know you don’t have a sense of humor. And no citizens without a sense of humor in *my * country. 
Agreed. I put the two other books in my list mainly so people can draw a comparison between the world descripted in 1984, and our schooling system. I feel we need a drastic change when it comes to public schooling, and we’re not going to get it untill become become aware of what the actual problems are. Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was added just so the person reading will learn that reading can be fun. You wouldn’t believe how many people out there refuse to believe this. Yes, I think them reading a small, 200 page book could change the way many people see books in this country.
The Science of Discworld. It’s fiction and non-fiction. By three guys, one of which is Terry Pratchett.
Fiction
The Phantom Tollbooth
Catch-22
Small Gods
Witches Abroad
Guards! Guards!
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Titus Groan
Gormenghast
The Grapes of Wrath
Vanity Fair
Emma
David Copperfield
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
King Lear
Twelth Night
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Ender’s Game
Hyperion
The Catcher in the Rye
The Illiad
The Odyssey
Nonfiction
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Origin of Species
The Big Bang
The Prince
Leviathan
Second Treatise on Civil Government
The Communist Manifesto
The Lives of the Noble Greeks
Knowledge and Social Imagery
The Bible
Another vote for Demon Haunted World
Any collection of Mencken
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
A Book Of Five Rings by Musashi
Jitterbug Perfume- Tom Robbins
I second Night by Elie Wiesel and recommend Five Chimneys by Olga Lengyel, *Black Boy * by Richard Wright, Journey Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginsberg, and Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.
Animal Farm, not just because of the social commentary, but also because it’s an enjoyable story. It’s layered, and I like that. I find that a lot of these social commentary lit-class books focus so much on their symbolism and such that the story itself is kind of crappy, and that makes for a book that’s important, but not very good. This one, otoh, is both important and good.
To Kill a Mockingbird, for a lot of the same reasons listed above.
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede, mostly because they’re just a lot of fun, and I think it’s important for people to have fun reading. You’re never going to get people to look at a lot of the books on these lists as anything but a chore if they don’t enjoy reading. Besides, I think it’s a really good thing for people, especially kids and most especially young girls, to see a female protagonist who’s strong, smart, independent, and brave.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay. First published 1841; shows the eternal human will to be stupid. A primer for basic skepticism.
I think it would be helpful if you wrote a paragraph or so why everyone should read the book you chose.
Well…
If I was supreme dictator, I wouldn’t want anybody reading anything.
They might get unhealthy ideas.
The Bible, or at least the Gospels. Obviously a must-read for anyone claiming to be a Christian or anyone claiming to have an opinion on Christ or Christianity.
Something like Little House on the Prairie that shows how people actually lived back before all our modern conveniences.
Thoreau’s Walden (+ “Civil Disobedience”)
Carroll’s Alice, Milne’s Pooh, Baum’s Oz, Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Dickens’s Christmas Carol, Twain’s Tom Sawyer: go back and see the humor, joy, imagination, and fun in the originals, before they were dumbed down, Disneyfied, Hollywoodized, or diluted and dispersed throughout popular culture,
*Blindness * by José Saramago.
It’s mindblowing. A statement about what it means to see and be seen, how it is we know we exist, and what happens when we feel like we no longer do. An epidemic of contagious blindness sweeps the world, leaving people reliant on each other, afraid of each other, hunting blindly for food and a place to sleep and a way to keep warm.
A Short History of a Small Place and Pride and Prejudice. Both are terrific character studies, with wonderful details. Both are also laugh-out-loud funny. I plan to read Short History aloud to my husband someday, so he can hear the Southern voice that Pearson captures so beautifully. Hey, maybe I should have him read Pride and Prejudice to me, so I can hear it in its proper accent.
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Ilsa: Ilsa:Dubliners, A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Ilsa! You have depth! (I bought a copy of Ulysses from the bookstore that published it in Paris in the 1920’s – Shakespeare & Co – when I was there in April.)
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Waccoe: The Sun Also Rises – The cafe where Hemingway wrote most of this book (and which serves as part of the setting) is still there in Paris too. I’m not sure that I’m spelling it right. I think it’s the Closerie de Lilas. I use photographs of it for bookmarks. (Love the book too!)
The book that I would most recommend for sheer amazing entertainment and genius of storytelling would be John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. My granddaughter made me read it and I will always be grateful.
Maybe I should also read How to Code Good.
I read Guns, Germs and Steel twice so I’ve pretty much got it down(after the first read I wanted to dig into the details a bit more). I will state that without a doubt if you forced anyone to read this they would probably kill you. Forcing anyone to read about the migration of agriculture patterns would be frowned on. About the time the book gets cranking and the person has to read about squirrel competition for acorns and the long growth time of Oak Trees keeping humans from domesticating acorns, I would expect a knife in the back.
After that bit of spurious commentary, I’ll say a good read is The Goal by Goldratt. While it is a novel about manufacturing improvement, it has a lot to say about getting through life and getting what you want. Develop a goal and determine the steps needed in achieving that goal. A rather interesting read. Maybe not everyone should read it but I know many people who should.