# Which books would you describe as "brilliant"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164 "2006-01-09T16:02:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/101 "2010-10-02T21:55:29Z")
> [@E.Thorp](#): > > Honorable mention for insight **and** composition: Edward Tufte, _The Visual Display of Quantitative Information_ [http://markandrewgoetz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/tufte-wallpaper.png](http://markandrewgoetz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/tufte-wallpaper.png) ---
**Author:** ![Liz\_Marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Liz\_Marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liz_Marie)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/102 "2010-10-02T22:39:47Z")
**Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace**. Much respect for this book. I have others, but this one gets my most immediate praise. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/103 "2010-10-03T05:12:22Z")
And noticing no mention yet for \*American Gods \*by Neil Gaiman. ---
**Author:** ![lshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lshaw)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/104 "2010-10-04T10:00:15Z")
_ **I Hotel** _ by Karen Tei Yamashita ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/105 "2010-10-04T10:34:58Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > > [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > > > I only realised a few years ago that _The Red Badge of Courage_ by Stephen Crane …blah blah blah\* > > I love this book. Though for years I would quote “The sun was a red wafer pasted in the sky” until I recently reread it and learned it was “The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer” which is kind of silly, 'cause wafers aren’t usually pasted in the sky. But that tangent aside, the prose is just crazy-amazing. Actually though your reinvented quote works better today, I think Crane is using **wafer** in the sense of his times - the adhesive disk of paste used to seal letters. So he is saying that the sun looks like something round just stuck on up there. And it is poetic how it comes after this: \*He now sprang to his feet and, going closer, gazed upon the pastelike face. The mouth was open and the teeth showed in a laugh. As the flap of the blue jacket fell away from the body, he could see that the side looked as if it had been chewed by wolves. The youth turned, with sudden, livid rage, toward the battlefield. He shook his fist. He seemed about to deliver a philippic. “Hell–” The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.\* And that is the end of the chapter. F Scott Fitzgerald used the same meaning of **wafer** in another favorite _The Great Gatsby_: _A wafer of a moon was shining over Gatsby’s house, making the night fine as before, and surviving the laughter and the sound of his still glowing garden. …_ See, he doesn’t mean a mere sliver of moon he means a big disc pasted up there. Sorry for the pedantry but in both cases I wondered what the author meant and found out. And thought it kind of interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/106 "2010-10-04T12:38:08Z")
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie–for the solution to the crime, which gobsmacked me (I’m so lucky to have not known it before reading the book) Moby Dick by Herman Melville–for the lilting first chapter, which made me cry A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett–for being the most astonishing, audacious, in-your-face middle finger to Victorian literary conventions (yes, this from the woman who wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy!) Lolita by Victor Nabokov–for its linguistic and psychological brilliance ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/107 "2010-10-05T01:43:55Z")
All the King’s Men ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/108 "2010-10-05T01:52:52Z")
I’ll second **A Clockwork Orange**. As far as I’m concerned, **The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy** revolutionized comic writing. Franz Kafka’s **The Trial** Ernest Hemingway’s **For Whom the Bell Tolls** Rudyard Kipling’s **Kim** , not so much because of what he said, but how he said it and my favorite American novel, **Arrowsmith**. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/109 "2010-10-05T02:19:47Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@Tamerlane](#): > > > > An idiosyncratic pick, but Watership Down by Richard Adams. Brilliant in concept, marvelous in execution. > > Heh, I just re-read that the other day - my wife was all “WTF are you reading a kid’s book about rabbits for?” and I was "well, it isn’t _really_ … ". 😃 Not that I am unwilling to read well-written kids books for fun, but I’m not sure this really qualifies. Imagine if _Watership Down_ had been written with human characters. The plot narrative transposed precisely, with only descriptions revised. The warrens as city-states… adventurers like Hrairoo the deformed mystic and Thlayli the unconquerable warrior… elil as fantastic monsters… the perversity and horror of the Warren of Snares, the brutality and terror of Efrafa… the expeditions to seize/liberate captive women for fervid subterranean polyamorous sex… It would be seen as high fantasy for a _distinctly adult_ audience. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/110 "2010-10-05T03:48:36Z")
[quote=“Malthus, post:72, topic:339164”] > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Not that I am unwilling to read well-written kids books for fun, but I’m not sure this really qualifies. > ) My most-frequently read book is “A Little Princess”. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that book. And I really wish someone would do a faithful adaptation. The Shirley Temple one is a travesty, completely undermining the whole thing. The more recent one was just blah. I’ve also reread “The Secret Garden” by the same author a number of times. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/111 "2010-10-05T04:37:45Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie–for the solution to the crime, which gobsmacked me (I’m so lucky to have not known it before reading the book) Heh. My experience with this film: [spoiler]Me: Sitting watching movie Brother: Wanders in and sees the movie. “Oh hey, I know this one.” Me: I’ve never seen it. Brother: “Sure you have! This is the one where everyone did it. Remember? The train, and there’s this conspiracy… among the passengers… to avenge this… kidnapping… you’ve not seen it, have you?” Me: _Deathstare_[/spoiler] I don’t remember the book, but it involved an LA detective who’s wife was executed by the Russian mob and he was shot in the head, but lives. The bullet, however, can’t be removed, and is slowly killing him. The morality center of his brain is destroyed, and he goes on a vicious revenge rampage against the men who killed his wife, and eventually, him. He can see and hear his wife somewhere just above him, and as his partner tries to find him and stop him you know that he’s building something, but it’s not clear what. At the end of the book, the mobsters are dead, and his partner finds him standing on the edge of a cliff in his dress uniform, and also wearing an elaborate set of wings, like an angel’s wings. He built them so he could fly up and be with his wife. When his partner tries to grab him he jumps, and as he falls (naturally) to his death, he sees himself sailing up to his wife’s arms. I’ve never been that moved by a book before. It as just beautiful imagery. Damn, wish I could remember what it was. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/112 "2010-10-05T11:00:12Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > > [@Malthus](#): > > > > Heh, I just re-read that the other day - my wife was all “WTF are you reading a kid’s book about rabbits for?” and I was "well, it isn’t _really_ … ". 😃 Not that I am unwilling to read well-written kids books for fun, but I’m not sure this really qualifies. > > Imagine if _Watership Down_ had been written with human characters. The plot narrative transposed precisely, with only descriptions revised. The warrens as city-states… adventurers like Hrairoo the deformed mystic and Thlayli the unconquerable warrior… elil as fantastic monsters… the perversity and horror of the Warren of Snares, the brutality and terror of Efrafa… the expeditions to seize/liberate captive women for fervid subterranean polyamorous sex… > > It would be seen as high fantasy for a _distinctly adult_ audience. Yeah. Gor novels, in essence. ---
**Author:** ![Truman\_Burbank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@Truman\_Burbank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truman_Burbank)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/113 "2010-10-05T15:16:39Z")
Patch - I’m pretty sure you are describing Black Water, by T. Jefferson Parker. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/114 "2010-10-05T16:43:03Z")
> [@DirkGntly](#): > > “There is a Monster at the End of This Book” Definitely endorsed by my then three-year-old son! 😃 You must be reading this quite a bit before nap time? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/115 "2010-10-05T17:19:42Z")
If you liked _Red Badge of Courage_, try _Maggie_. Depressing as hell, but the depiction of utter poverty–not just material but emotional and social poverty–and the damage it can do is amazingly universal. A couple not mentioned: _Paradise Lost_. The way Milton just _moves you_ line after line all the way through the whole damn tragic story is really without compare. “Benito Cereno” by Melville. More of a long short story than a novel, this is probably my favorite piece of writing ever. There’s so much insight into how people work, how we know what we know (or think we know), how our experiences limit our perspective . . . it gives me chills every time. A few less known, more contemporary choices: _The Hero and the Crown_ by Robin McKinley. Really a young adult novel, but every time I read it (which is quite often, and has been for 20 years) I get chills. The prose is simply gorgeous. _Flanders_ by Patricia Anthony. An epistolary novel of The Great War, it creates some amazing images and characters. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/116 "2010-10-05T17:24:02Z")
I was going to post that I liked threads like this, because I found recommendations for great books, when I realized that it was a zombie and it was likely this very thread that I was thinking of…no wonder so many of the recommendations are familiar. In particular, I read _The Sot-Weed Factor_, probably because of the recommendation on the first page. I liked it a lot, though I might not call it brilliant. I will recommend Jerome K Jerome’s _Three Men in a Boat_. Funny, touching, and a vision of a vanished age. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/117 "2010-10-05T17:51:06Z")
The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip. ---
**Author:** ![unwashed\_brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@unwashed\_brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unwashed_brain)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/118 "2010-10-05T18:03:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The Riddle-Master Trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip. Interesting. The first book in this series is noteworthy to me in that it’s the first fantasy book I never finished reading. I don’t recall why, either, as it’s been quite a long time since I last attempted it. Relatively small in stature, it taunted me for years on my bookshelf, until I either gave it to Goodwill or boxed it up and stuffed it in my storage closet. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/119 "2010-10-05T19:33:13Z")
The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. An utterly brilliant work of philosophy on the moral failings of human beings. And the expository method is just ingenius. I was enormously impressed with it even before I read the preface to “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” and realized the level of brilliance that went into its development. Also seconding “Grendel.” ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164/120 "2010-10-05T19:43:38Z")
+1 for **Illuminatus!** by Shea and Wilson I would also nominate Bill Bryson’s **A Short History of Nearly Everything** - I was amazed at how he managed to carry the subject and combine history and science with such a strong human narrative, and with a sense of humor and wonder showing through the entire work - great stuff [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-books-would-you-describe-as-brilliant/339164.md?page=7)