# Great books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 18, 2003, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324 "2003-09-18T06:20:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Peppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@Peppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peppy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/1 "2003-09-18T06:20:53Z")
on the lines of the previous thread by someone…great post btw. Has anybody ever read the classics? iliad, odyssey, don quixiote, the republic, decline of the roman empire, the inferno? i love to read. mostly history and biographies. but i feel that no matter how many books i’ve read, as long as i haven’t read the ‘classics’, i’m still not well read. what constitutes being ‘well-read’ i wanna be a snob. help me out. if i were to read: 1 biography 1 epic 1 historical account which 3 books should i read? ideally i’d love to hear from people who has actually read the books. currently i’m working through 3 but am close to completing them 1 biography - winston churchill 1 epic - romance of the three kingdoms 1 historical account - the neanderthal enigma why 3 at time? just like flipping channels. there aer dry spots in every book. small break only serves to revive interest. thanks pep ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/2 "2003-09-18T14:41:21Z")
I just finished reading Tales of the Arabian Nights recently. Now I understand why they call them Classics. Highly recommend it, although parts of it read like a trashy romance novel. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/3 "2003-09-18T15:49:23Z")
Three at a time??? Come on now. Step it up a few notches. At any one point I am ready anywhere between 10-40 books. I get books from various University Press’ to read and critique. Usually review copy. Plus, being a prof I read all new editions of the texbooks we get - yes we actually do know the new editions:) - and I read for leisure. Currently for fun I’m into _A Gental Madness_ by **Nicholas Basbanes** _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crouds_ by **MacKay** _Lonesome Dove_ **McMurty** (I like Westerns) and _The Lobster Chronicles_ because I like **Linda Greenlaw**. **King** captured my fancy with the Dark Tower series…but now I’m laying in wait… ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/4 "2003-09-18T17:08:27Z")
For the past couple years, every time at a loss for something to read, I go to the [Nobel Prize website](http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/index.html) and find an author that’s unfamiliar to me. I’ve discovered some novels that have become extremely important to me; some real timeless classics. I recommend sampling randomly, staying away from the ones you know, like Hemingway and Steinbeck, et al. (though I do insist that everyone in the world read every word that Samuel Beckett ever even _thought_ about writing). I’d be happy to point out specific recommendations, but try the random approach; you won’t be disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/5 "2003-09-18T17:45:16Z")
Biography : Civil War by Julius Caesar Epic : Epic of Gilgamesh Historical Account : The Histories by Herodotus Most of these you can get through Penguin Classics so it won’t cost much. I’d say grab some Robertson Davies if you feeling particularly nationalistic. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/6 "2003-09-18T19:03:47Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by lissener_ > I do insist that everyone in the world read every word that Samuel Beckett ever even thought about writing. Hmmm. All I’ve ever read is _Waiting For Godot_. Help me out here please. a) If you had to recommend only two books of his, what would they be? b) and why? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![me\_again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@me\_again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/me_again)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/7 "2003-09-18T19:05:31Z")
Maybe this is off-thread. I have been re-reading a 20th century classic for thirty years: The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov. This first saw light of day in the 1960s, banned in native Russia, smuggled to the West. A biting satire on the crushing Soviet state system, the devil visits Moscow, wreaks havoc where it is due, amd offers reward to a deserving few. I do not wish to tell you if “the gal gets the guy.” This is a technicolor masterpiece, written without the influence of cinema, television, or the benefit of what we now regard as modern creativity. He was brought up under Stalin’s frightening regime and this work sticks the finger up its most sensitive part. There are many translations and I recommend you read them all: each offers a new dimension. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/8 "2003-09-18T19:41:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Algernon \* > \*\*Hmmm. All I’ve ever read is _Waiting For Godot_. Help me out here please. > a) If you had to recommend only two books of his, what would they be? > b) and why? > > Thanks. \*\* _Molloy_ is a good introduction, and it’s the first of a trilogy, so I’ll overstep your request and recommend three. Why? Because he’s a hoot. His stuff is often avoided because of a mistaken impression that it’s dark. Well, yeah, but it’s dark with a smirk. His stuff is about the light within the dark: the joy of life despite its hopelessness. Last line of Molloy: “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” Think of David Sedaris, a little darker, a little dryer, but just as funny. His stuff isn’t defeatist, as dabblers might tell you; it just acknowledges the shifting realities of what’s good, what’s not good; what’s real, what’s not; what’s here, what’s now, what’s coming, where we’re going. The opening of [\*Molloy](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802151361/ref=lib_rd_ss_TT01/002-2292548-0180040?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader&img=2#reader-link):\* > [@](#): > > I am in my mother’s room. It’s I who live there now. I don’t know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I’d never have got there alone. . . . The truth is I don’t know much. For example my mother’s death. Was she already dead when I cam? Or did she die later? I mean enough to bury. I don’t know. Perhaps they haven’t buried her yet. In any case I have her room. I sleep in her bed. I piss and shit in her pot. I have taken her place. I must resemble her more and more. All I need now is a son. Perhaps I have one somewhere. But I think no. He would be old now, nearly as old as myslef. . . . He’s always reminding you of the unreliability of language, of what you’re reading: > [@](#): > > It was a on a road remarkably bare, I mean without hedges or ditches or any kind of edge, in the country, for the cows wer chewing in enormous fields, lying and standing, in the evening silence. Perhaps I’m inventing a little, perhaps embellishing, but on the whole that’s the way it was. They chew, swalow, then after a short pause effortlessly bring up the next mouthful. A neck muscle stirs and the jaws begin to grind again. But perhaps I’m remembering things. . . . ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/9 "2003-09-18T19:44:09Z")
Plus I second “The Master and Margarita” also good for Beckett fans; similar smirky darkness. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/10 "2003-09-18T19:58:23Z")
Thanks for your thorough response **lissener**. Are the three in the trilogy a single story ala Lord Of The Rings? Or just the same character(s)? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/11 "2003-09-18T20:36:13Z")
Neither; they’re a thematic trilogy: no plots or characters in common. You can get Molloy by itself, or you can get it as, I think, Three Novels, with Malone Dies and The Unnamable. Get it from a library. ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2003, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/12 "2003-09-19T01:44:07Z")
Do yourself a favor **Peppy** , and read these books… \*\* Biography:\_\_\_\_\_\_ The Devil is Dead by\* R A lafferty\* Epic:\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Okla Hanali by _R A Lafferty_ Historical account:\_\_ The Fall of Rome by _R A lafferty_\*\* Afterwards you will be a snob but you’ll forget why you wanted to be one. ---
**Author:** ![lindsay.reid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@lindsay.reid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsay.reid)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/13 "2003-09-20T00:51:15Z")
Biography (or, rather, auto-biography): St. Augustine’s Confessions Epic: Milton’s Paradise Lost Historical Account: Bartolome De Las Casas’ Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-books/202324/14 "2003-09-20T02:04:07Z")
My vote is for Stanley Lane-Poole’s **Saladin** : _All-Powerful Sultan and the Uniter of Islam_. Satisfies all three and is imminently germane. (If you’re into flagellation, read it thrice. OTOH, if you’re more practical, temper it with Menachem Begin’s The Revolt, then finish off with The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood).