The best five books to understand who we are, how we got here, and why we act the way we do (read them in order):
A Brief Hostory of Time Stephen Hawking
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Carl Sagan (or you can substitute Darwin’s little book, though I wouldn’t)
The Demon Haunted World Carl Sagan
The God Delusion Richard Dawkins
The End of Faith Sam Harris
Fair enough. Now that I have more time:
A good place to start with Faulkner. It’s not heavily stream-of-consciousness, and it hits a lot of his main themes, most importantly the fallout down the generations of the Civil War. I like it because it’s in some ways more hopeful than The Sound and The Fury or Sanctuary or a lot of his other work. The main character, Bayard (no relation), recognizes that his social system is cracked, that his father got what was coming to him, and that individuals have to break social norms rather than simply allow a perverse morality to continue. Nothing particularly ground-breaking in that, but it’s very well done, and the writing is…well, it’s Faulkner. The man was a verbose, repetitive, self-indulgent, freakin’ genius.
The flip side to The Unvanquished, in which the main character goes along with a perverse system, all along “warming [himself] with [his] secretly virtuous insides”. It’s moving, less over-the-top surreal than most of Vonnegut’s other work, and beautifully written. He creates images that are still fresh in my mind even several years after the last time I read it. It’s a powerful argument that there is no such thing as an inner person, only the sum of our actions.
This is a non-fiction account of the Rwandan genocide. Gourevitch explains how thousands of people could be convinced to hack their neighbors to death, mostly because men on the radio told them to. He traces the completely arbitrary and irrational beginnings of the Tutsi and Hutu divide, and shows how political leaders exploited it to such an extent that even previously decent people went out and massacred their friends. If you wonder why a lot of us get wound up when people in the media villanize and dehumanize a group of people – based on race or whatever – read this book.
This book was hilarious, and reading it made me really happy. Everyone ought to be happy sometimes.
Uh, because it would, uh, give you a real big vocabulary? OK, now that I have more time, I still don’t know what to put down as my fifth. So…::rolls mental D20::…Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene. Mostly because, the more things change, the more the stay the same.
Ooh, good one. That one was so good, John le Carré had to steal the plot for The Tailor Of Panama.
Stranger
Well, The English Passengers (in addition to being entertaining, witty, educational and humorous) made me think about colonization, especially its impact on native people.
Lonesome Dove I liked because of the characterizations, the scope, adventure, action, tension, and because I’ll never go on a cattle drive. It was realistic, not romanticized, and never dull.
The Dollmaker gives some much-needed dignity to people we often think of as “hillbillies”. It’s set during WWII. Gertie Nevels’ husband decides to go to Detroit to find work in a defense factory. His wife stays behind for awhile, and through incredible hard work and ingenuity, manages to save almost enough money for the family to buy their own land, which was the main reason her husband went to Detroit. Then she’s pressured by her mother to move the family to Detroit – “a wife should be with her husband”. Gertie’s strong, but she’s not strong enough to resist her mother. Gertie takes the kids and moves to Detroit, without ever telling her husband what she’d accomplished. You gotta let the man be the man, ya know? Anyway, tragedy ensues. The Nevels story will break your heart, and you’ll get an insight into a cultural shift.
The Book of Joby is also entertaining, witty, and humorous. It’s a coming of age story that combines the Biblical book of Job with Arthurian legend. I liked it because the author wasn’t afraid of stepping on Biblical or Arthurian toes – he had a story to tell and he told it in his own way. I think that’s brave. The book is a real page-turner, and nothing seems contrived. The story is natural. You believe in those people and understand why they do what they do.
Fevre Dream is a vampire story, also told without apology, or worrying about whether or not it fit with vampire legend. Vampires on a Mississippi riverboat in the late 1800’s. Mark Twain meets Dracula, sorta. Martin is an exquisite writer.
Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand
Lord of the Rings- Tolkien
Huckleberry Finn- Twain
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- Verne
The Complete Sherlock Holmes- Doyle
I will list my reasons why these 5 books when I have more time.
23 out of how many, including some I never intend to read?
I’m gonna live FOREVER! 
Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami
The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving
The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
A Girl Named Zippy, by Haven Kimmel
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkein
The God of Small Things is probably the most beautifully written book I’ve ever read. I wish Roy had not gone over to the Dark Side of political activism. A Girl Named Zippy is an exceptionally cute and entertaining account of childhood in middle America. Hotel New Hampshire and Norwegian Wood are great (and very different) coming-of-age (and more) stories. Lord of the Rings is the necessary fairy tale about good vs. evil.
I have no credibility. For Christmas last year I got a book called 1,000 Books you must read before you die and apart from those by Dostoyevsky, I have read few.
Some of my books I picked based on the writing and narrative of the book itself, and some for loftier life reasons.
John Irving is a modern master of classic-style narrative. A Prayer for Owen Meany is my favorite of all his works. I’ve gone through six copies, simply reading out a few and then loaning some out and never getting them back. The ending blows me away every in time I read it, leaving me in tears and in awe.
Tom Robbins has books disguised as rants… or rants disguised as books. Either way. Several times in my life, Robbins has put to print thoughts I was trying to formulate for myself, but could quite manage to put into cohesive sentences. And Fierce Invalids… has some wicked awesome n uns.
The Blind Assassin has some wonderful lessons on family and love and regret. Plus, my list was shockingly lacking in female authors. Plus, Margaret Atwood is a female author who rises above that terrible pigeonhole of the “female author” and become just a beautiful and thoughtful author.
Motherless Brooklyn’s main character is an impossible one: A private detective with Tourette’s Syndrome. Instead of being all the things a private eye should be – suave, cunning, sneaky, silent – he’s twitchy and freaky and awkward. And it feels so real! Plus, I have a major crush on Jonathan Lethem and I know if I keep recommending his books, he will come to my house and want to be my boyfriend.
Finally, The Pigman was a favorite as a child. It put some important lessons into my pre-pubescent mind: Treat people as you would be treated, think of the consequences of your actions, don’t take advantage people who genuinely care about you. Obvious lessons, yes, but not always to 11-year olds.
“Steal” is such a harsh word. Let’s call it a homage. Actually, I have yet to make it through a John Le Carre novel. I did really enjoy the movie The Tailor Of Panama, however. I thought Brosnan was wonderfully smarmy.
Two people have mentioned “Atlas Shrugged”. If you were only going to read one of Rand’s book, I’d say make it “The Fountainhead”. It’s much more readable, and isn’t so heavy handed on the philosophy. If you don’t like it, no need to read “Atlas”. If you do, then “Atlas” is there waiting for you.
I almost hesitate to bring this up, as it is not my intention to turn this thread into (yet another) Rand bashing fest. I hope that doesn’t happen…
In no particular order, and for no other reason than my love of the storytelling is as great on every re-read as it was the 1st time.
Geez, TheMerchandise, do you know how tough it is to narrow it down to five? 
Anyways, my list may not be the same six months from now, but here goes.
Replay by Ken Grimwood
Post Office by Charles Bukowski (in fact, all of Buk’s works)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Ditto.
.
.
.
*Brideshead Revisited
A Bright Shining Lie
Catch-22
In Search of Lost Time
The Twelve Caesars*
well…
[ol]
[li]Huckleberry Finn[/li][li]The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress[/li][li]The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague De Camp[/li][li]Fear & Loathing On The Campaign Trail 72 by Hunter S. Thompson[/li][li]The Complete Plays Of William Shakespeare.[/li][li]The Straight Dope by Some Guy Whose Name I Can’t Recall[/li][/ol]
OK, I’ll play:
The Pretentious List:
The **Iliad ** by Homer
The **Odyssey ** by Homer
The Aeneid by Virgil
La Divina Commedia by Dante Alighieri
and finally
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Reading these in order provides the framework for all of Western Literature.
The Fun List:
A cold six thousand by Elroy
Perfume by Süskind
*Lolita ** by Nabokov
The talented Mr Ripley by Highsmith
American Tabloid by Elroy
Because this is how evil, depraved and ugly people really are. The good guys don’t win and the assholes get away with murder.
*I’m still waiting for Police Gazette. If it’s as good as AT and A Cold 6000, making it a trifecta, I’m hoping for an omnibus to include all three.
I completely disagree. If you are going to read only one of Rand’s books, it needs to be “Atlas Shrugged.” The “Fountainhead” can be twisted to mean, “Follow your dreams and be an individual,” assuming you squint enough and ignore the plain meaning. “Atlas Shrugged” cannot. I know plenty of people who like “The Fountainhead” but do not like “Atlas Shrugged” for this very reason. They have convinced themselves the former means something different than the latter when, in fact, both books expound on the same philosophy.
If you are only going to read one book by an author, it ought to be their crowning achievement, and “Atlas Shrugged” is certainly Rand’s.
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Hemingway
On The Road - Kerouac
The Great Railway Bazaar - Theroux
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut
Any Bukowski
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Elfquest - Wendy Pini
The Art of War - Sun Tzu
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Sadly, I only have one.
*Magic’s Pawn * - Mercedes Lackey