# Five books everyone should read before they die **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 5, 2007, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672 "2007-10-05T19:27:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/81 "2011-08-22T20:11:55Z")
Borders of Infinity, by Lois McMaster Bujold Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper The Golden Treasury of Poetry, edited by Louis Untermeyer What all these books have in common is that they lead me to read other wonderful books by that author, even if they weren’t the first book in the series. In the case of the last, it opened up a world of poetry for me. Which reminds me of something I heard David Brin say at a science fiction convention: “Want some Heinlein, little girl? The first one is free…” Oh, I’d better add, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/82 "2011-08-22T20:19:28Z")
Didn’t read whole thread. Mongo sorry. The NT translation by Jerome The Iliad “In Search of Lost Time,” or however it was translated. The Aeneid The Georgics Horace Odes can be substituted for Proust, I guess. I honestly don’t know how it’s called in English, although I had to buy a translation for some stupid class. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/83 "2011-08-22T22:53:50Z")
Ishmael ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/84 "2011-08-23T02:08:44Z")
In no order; 1. _Way of the Peaceful Warrior,_ Dan Millman 2. _The Celestine Prophecy,_ James Redfield 3. _In Cold Blood,_ Kurt Vonnegut 4. _The Shining_ Stephen King 5. The Bible (not done yet myself…) ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/85 "2011-08-23T02:44:22Z")
What about the zombies. Why are there no zombies? ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/86 "2011-08-23T16:27:09Z")
The Bible - I hear there’s a closed book test at the end… ---
**Author:** ![MacGyverInSeattle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@MacGyverInSeattle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacGyverInSeattle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/87 "2011-08-23T21:09:00Z")
So many of my favorites are already mentioned here, Tolkien, Card, Heinlein, Pratchett, Goldman, Feynman, Adams, So many others that I have read and didn’t like as well. Keeping in the trend of some, I will only mention ones that are not on here yet. [What dreams may come](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Dreams_May_Come). Richard Matheson. Not the movie, it stunk. The book is based on many years of research into life after death by interviewing people who had been revived after being dead for a time and physic experiences. The book agrees with my own experiences into the paranormal done long before the book was written. Why, for instance, when you head to heaven in a trance or death, does everyone first come upon rolling hills of rocks, round river washed rocks as I did in my many trances, long before I had read any of this. Then they threw out all the research and details when they made the movie. Phooey! The world this fictional story is set in is pretty much what I had come to expect when I die, Then the book came out and made it much more real for me. [The sex lives of Cannibals](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sex_Lives_of_Cannibals) Maarten Troost. Very fun read of the experience of a modern young American trying to adapt to life on a south Pacific atoll. [American Gods](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gods) Neil Gaiman. This is right up there as one of the best books I have ever read. It is a very fun fantasy. [The life and times of the thunderbolt kid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Times_of_the_Thunderbolt_Kid) Bill Bryson. And I have to break the rules [The complete Diskworld series](http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Main_Page) by Terry Pratchett ---
**Author:** ![Melysnl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Melysnl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melysnl)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/88 "2011-08-23T22:33:06Z")
_The Fountainhead_, Ayn Rand _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_, Hunter Thompson (funniest book EVER) _American Psycho_, Brett Easton Ellis _The Drifters_, James Michener _The Secret History_, Donna Tartt ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/89 "2011-08-23T22:44:29Z")
_We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families_ by Philip Gourevitch _Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century_ by Greil Marcus _Going Native_ by Stephen Wright _Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell _The Complete Works of Mark Twain_ by Mark Twain ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2011, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/90 "2011-08-23T22:51:22Z")
What a great thread! So many people have mentioned books I’ve enjoyed and forgotten, and I’ve put others on my Amazon wish list. I’m looking around the 3,000 + volumes in my apartment, and trying to choose some that I think are more than just idisyncratic favorites. I’ll try not to list the same ones others mentioned: **Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from East and West** , edited by Daniel Ladinsky. Some lovely word packets and images that make fireworks in the mind **The Riddle-Master of Hed** , by Patricia McKillip. A fine fantasy evocation of how a person can evolve into something like a god. The entire Discworld series, by Terry Pratchett. Because it covers every topic of interest to humans, with satiric insight softened with compassion, and humor. Oh, all right, someone else has mentioned them already, and they references to current events and fads will make them go out of date faster than some others, but dang! they are good. **Loving What Is** , by Byron Katie. Simple psychological technique that changes everything, that ends suffering for those who use it. Totally secular way to get to the same goal most religions have at their heart, before they get corrupted by power-seekers. **The Lord of the Rings** , by JRR Tolkien. Okay, it’s been mentioned. But I’ve reread it more than any other book, and it has the capacity to transport me entirely from this world into its own. It teaches the lessons of self-sacrifice, the struggle with temptations and with one’s own lower self, and love of others, with great beauty and with passion. So I have to include it. ---
**Author:** ![HawksPath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f07891/32.png) [@HawksPath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HawksPath)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672/91 "2011-08-25T00:03:30Z")
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller All the King’s Men - Robert Penn Warren Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey Essential Muir: A Selection of John Muir’s Best Writings The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/five-books-everyone-should-read-before-they-die/421672.md?page=4)