# The most profound books? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652 "2013-04-14T01:58:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/21 "2013-04-18T14:08:50Z")
In terms of being easy to read, entertaining and though-provoking you can’t go too far wrong with 1984, Animal Farm or any Pratchett (but especially mid-period city watch) ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/22 "2013-04-18T14:18:38Z")
Here’s a few I really enjoyed reading - books I think have ‘profound’ themes but, importantly, are also fun reads: 1. _The Man Who Was Thursday_ by Chesterton; 2. _The Master and Margarita_ by Bugalikov; 3. _Invisible Cities_ and _If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller_ by Calvino. I also loved Borges’ short stories, which have already been mentioned. The former two deal with religious themes, but not in a cheap and easy way (I can say without spoiling anything that _The Master and Margarita_ on its surface deals with the mayhem that ensues when Satan makes a personal appearance in Stalin’s Russia, with hilarious and tragic consequences; there are subtexts at work, of course!). ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/23 "2013-04-18T14:25:05Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’ve read two novels by Martin Amis: _Time’s Arrow: or The Nature of the Offence_ many years ago and _Money: A Suicide Note_ recently. Next time I’m in a bookstore I’m heading straight to Amis. I’m a big fan of Martin Amis. I think _Money_ might be his best. Try _The Information_. That was really good too. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/24 "2013-04-18T14:32:26Z")
I thought as simple as **Animal Farm** is, it is still profound. It is short and simple but **The Razor’s Edge** stuck me as profound. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/25 "2013-04-18T17:53:06Z")
What about, I don’t know, _Brideshead Revisited_ or something like that that’s about what makes people happy and how some people aren’t happy and why? _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, mmm, no. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/26 "2013-04-18T17:56:20Z")
_The Eden Express_, perhaps? It’s Mark Vonnegut’s story of how he went insane and came back from insanity. Mark is the son of Kurt. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/27 "2013-04-18T18:10:31Z")
I agree with the _Siddhartha_ suggestion, by Hesse. I would maybe add something by Camus - _The Stranger_ or _The Plague_ have a decent amount to think about, IMO, yet still work as stories. Kafka is a solid suggestions as well. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/28 "2013-04-18T18:22:34Z")
Umberto Eco tends to be good for deep reads. The Name of the Rose Foucault’s Pendulum The Island of the Day Before ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/29 "2013-04-18T18:36:03Z")
_The Power and the Glory_ by Graham Greene _The Road_ by Cormac McCarthy ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/30 "2013-04-18T18:43:59Z")
If you like Steinbeck, there’s lots of stuff he wrote they don’t assign in high school. _Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Cannery Row, Wayward Bus_… And you might well like Hemingway too - _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ and _A Farewell to Arms_ are usually not high school fare either. _Crime and Punishment_ can be life-changing, and is the most accessible of Dostoevsky’s works that I’ve read. Is Dickens profound? I don’t know what you mean by profound. Willa Cather’s stuff moves me, and reminds me of Steinbeck in being very American, very unaffected prose. _My Antonia_ and _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ are my favorites. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/31 "2013-04-18T18:50:19Z")
Just checked my goodreads favorites shelf. Tove Jansson’s _The Summer Book_ is short, simple and profound. _All Quiet on the Western Front_. Profound. Easily digestable. _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot. Long as shit, but profound. _Unbearable Lightness of Being_ by Milan Kundera - hot, sexy, profound. _Poisonwood Bible_ by Barbara Kingsolver. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/32 "2013-04-18T19:18:20Z")
_The Art of War_ by Sun Tzu _The Republic_ by Plato _Common Sense by Thomas Paine The Grapes Of Wrath_ by John Steinbeck _Cosmos_ by Carl Sagan _Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas R. Hofstadter _Synergetics_ by Buckminster Fuller _Aesop’s Fables_ ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/33 "2013-04-18T19:20:33Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > [Here](http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/deep-fiction) is a GoodReads link for “deep fiction” novels. > > I’ve enjoyed the novels of Hermann Hesse. _Steppenwolf_ and _Siddhartha_ were my favorites. > > Russian novels are excellent for depth. You can’t do much better than Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_ and Dostoevsky’s _Crime and Punishment_. The first paints a broad portrait of the human condition and the second examines one messed-up human in incredible detail. +1 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/34 "2013-04-18T19:32:22Z")
How about _Gilead_? It’s about aging, religion, fathers and sons… ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/35 "2013-04-18T19:40:40Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Willa Cather’s stuff moves me, and reminds me of Steinbeck in being very American, very unaffected prose. _My Antonia_ and _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ are my favorites. Seconded, and will add _O Pioneers!_. I’ve never thought of her work as profound, but in retrospect it has affected my very deeply. Suzuki’s _Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind_ may fit here, too. One may call it profound in its simplicity. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/36 "2013-04-18T19:41:59Z")
Second vote for Catch 22 and Dostoevsky, although the one I liked was Brothers Karamazov. I’ve recently been reading a lot of Pratchett, which was suggested up thread. There’s a fair bit of earthy wisdom thrown around as satire, but I’ll bet even he would never want “profound” used to describe his books. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/37 "2013-04-18T19:52:44Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > Seconded, and will add _O Pioneers!_. I’ve never thought of her work as profound, but in retrospect it has affected my very deeply. And _The Professor’s House_. Willa rocks. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/38 "2013-04-18T20:09:49Z")
_Await Your Reply_ by Dan Chaon - about family, identity, crime, the Internet, love, vengeance, and the lies too many tell even their loved ones. Good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Renifer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Renifer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renifer)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/39 "2013-04-20T05:23:11Z")
Another Kurt Vonnegut suggestion: _Galapagos_. Took my breath away. _Pretty Birds_ by Mark Simon captured the War of the Balkans quite movingly. It shifts with the seventeen year old protagonist who is a high school student one month, a sniper the next. The movie _Children of Men_ was done really well, but the book by P.D. James is also worth reading. It gives a fascinating insight to what a world without children would be like. _The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat_ by Oliver Sachs. Sachs writes about patients with mental anomalies; the title refers to a man who has no ability to recognize faces. Sachs suggests to his wife that she wear a piece of clothing (like a hat) so he can recognize her. ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652/40 "2013-04-20T05:38:28Z")
Voltaire’s _Candide_. A very short, quite hilarious, incredibly biting satire written as a response to the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake, and as a criticism of Leibniz’s then quite popular idea that despite all the apparent evils of the world, this is the best of all possible ones. If you’re not already familiar with it, read the bit of its wiki on [its historical background](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide#Historical_and_literary_background) before you start on the novella proper for an enhanced experience. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-profound-books/655652.md?page=3)