2007-04-20 02:27:29 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
(-: If you find that Dickens doesn't float your boat, give Jane Austen a try. Also, there are a lot of classics that were popular novels in their own time. "Don Quixote" was great. So was "The Scarlet Pumpernickel." "The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam" was also really good (it's poetry, though).
If you are a female, then Jane Austen is an obvious choice. I also really liked "Elizabeth and her German Garden."
Try Project Gutenberg. You can get a feel for if you like the books or not, and then buy them in the bookstore if they are really good (I hate reading e-books, but if you have no problem with that, then Project Gutenberg is the way to go).
If you want to find the classics that are in the making today, you can find great book reviews in the New Yorker, Harper's and Atlantic Monthly. All of these magazines are probably at your library.
Oh, and your library is a great resource! Talk to the librarian -- s/he can steer you to books that will suit your particular taste.
2007-04-20 02:47:33 · answer #1 · answered by Madame M 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Read John Steinbeck's books, East of Eden, Cannery Row etc. Hugh McLennan's Two Solitutdes. Dickens, Austen, Brontee, the Illiad, the Odessey, Shakespeare, To Kill a Mocking Bird, books about the Holocaust, autobiographies of people you admire or look up to, John Jakes historical novels. Ask a librarian, join a book club or better yet start one and see if others share your opinions.
2007-04-20 09:40:37 · answer #2 · answered by Lizzy-tish 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Non-fiction: Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Abraham Lincoln, William Manchester's multi-volume biography of Winston Churchill, Sylvia Nasar's "A Beautiful Mind," Carl Sagan's "Cosmos," Ernest Hemmingway's "A Movable Feast."
Fiction and poetry: Anything by William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, J.R.R. Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein or Rudyard Kipling. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe. "The Rubaiyat" by Omar Khayyam. "The Divine Comedy" by Dante.
That should keep you busy for a while. Check back with me when you're done! ;-)
2007-04-20 09:46:49 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The books don't have to have been written at least a century ago to be well written and intellegent, etc. Check out these authors for some mind blowing think-outside-the-box intelligence.
Ted Dekker
Francine Rivers
Tracy Chevalier
Dee Henderson
Michael Phillips/ Judith Pella
2007-04-20 11:02:05 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Moby Dick
The Grapes of Wrath
Les Miserables
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Catch 22
1984
Anything by Shakespeare
2007-04-20 13:57:52 · answer #5 · answered by Adoptive Father 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I love Herman Melville's Moby Dick, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the Durbervilles and especially Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo! MOnte Crito has something for everyone- adventure, betrayal, revenge, romance...
2007-04-20 10:34:37 · answer #6 · answered by Lady Macbeth 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That depends on what kind of books that you like to read. There are quite a few authors that have series that have multiple books in them, and they are quite good.
Jeffrey Deaver's novels w/Lincoln Rhyme are good - they make you think.
W.E.B. Griffin writes great military & police fiction.
Tom Clancy, Christopher Newman, James Clavell, Dana Fuller Ross (Wagons West), Clay Harvey, Lee Child, the list goes on and on.
It really depends on what kind of genre you like.
2007-04-20 16:15:01 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just to get you started, some of my favorite fiction books have been:
"The Hound of the Baskervilles", "Treasure Island", "Moby Dick", "The Tao of Pooh", "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", "Old Yeller", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "The Old Man and the Sea"
Hope this helps. You can get the text of books online, and college reading lists are great places to start.
2007-04-20 09:48:43 · answer #8 · answered by PetieDP 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Anything by Dickens is good. Avoid Jane Austin like the plague! - Or you could branch off into the obscure and try for a good old Icelandic Saga (Eigil's Saga is good if you want a bit of fantasy/magic theme. Njall's Saga is tops for the CSI buff).
2007-04-20 09:37:41 · answer #9 · answered by brad_lucas 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I also would like to highly reccomend Dickens, esp. Tale of Two cities. What a great story
I too would like to reccomend "The Scarlet PIMPERNEL" (NOT pumpernickel) for a light, not very long book, easy to read, quite enjoyable classic.
2007-04-20 10:26:09 · answer #10 · answered by Shelly P. Tofu, E.M.T. 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋