Five books everyone should read before they die

Cafe Society
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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.

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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.

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Ishmael

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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…)
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What about the zombies. Why are there no zombies?

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The Bible - I hear there’s a closed book test at the end…

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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. 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 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 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 Bill Bryson.

And I have to break the rules
The complete Diskworld series by Terry Pratchett

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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

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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

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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.

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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