We shall make a list! In no real order, cause thats too much fucking work. What books do you think should be on it, what books that are on it should be kicked off? (say if you actually read the book or not).
Rules: 2/3rds of people
who have read it must agree it belongs on the list for it to stay.
At least 2 people who have read it must agree it belongs on the list for it to get there in the first place.
Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
Cannibalism in the Cars (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1288/) - Mark Twain (short story)
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain
Quote from: The List So far
Dune - Frank Herbert
Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
A Modest Proposal - Johnathan Swift
The Constitution Of the United States
Common Sense - Thomas Paine
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Goedel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hofstadter
No Exit - Sarte
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, R. A. Wilson
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Neuromancer W. Gibson
Fooled by Randomness, N. N. Taleb
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Phillip K Dick
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Watchmen - Alan Moore
The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli
1984 -George Orwell
Cyteen by CJ Cherryh
Fooled by Randomness/Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann - Richard Feynman
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
Starship Troopers - Robert A Heinlein
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Art of Memetics - Unruh and Wilson
The Tao Teh Ching
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs - Mark Dery
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Promethea - Alan Moore
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann - Feynmann
Robert Greene - The 48 Laws of Power
Book of Five Rings - Musashi
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
Just out of interest, what would be the scoring criterea? Cultural impact, technique, storyline etc? Or should that be left up to us as individuals, to decide which we place more weight on?
(Also, if this list gets completed, I can probably compile a download of it)
The criteria I'm using is cultural impact of PDers, books that qualify as among the best representations of the genre or idea ( Mysterious stranger), or just books I think everyone here would agree on if they read them.
Others of course are free to use their own criteria,
Orwell off.
Dune by Frank Herbert and Cyteen by CJ Cherryh are the best science fiction that I've read.
Quote from: Aufenthatt on February 28, 2009, 11:18:12 PM
Orwell off.
:argh!:
I'll second Dune, Cyteen I've never heard of.
Man And His Symbols, Carl Jung
ETA: A Short History of Nearly Everything, BIll Bryson
The Ascent of Man, Bronowski
The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon - Tom Spanbauer
Quote from: KC on March 01, 2009, 12:40:13 AM
Quote from: Aufenthatt on February 28, 2009, 11:18:12 PM
Orwell off.
:argh!:
I'll second Dune, Cyteen I've never heard of.
Cherryh is my most favorite author of all time. Like Dune, it's more about politics and personality than anything else.
The Gormenghast trilogy is one of my favorite stories, I would put it pretty damn high.
author?
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - RAW/Robert Shea
Breaking the Spell - Daniel Dennett
The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 02, 2009, 11:02:56 PM
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - RAW/Robert Shea
Breaking the Spell - Daniel Dennett
The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
Having not read the book(s), I'd really like to know why people like Narnia.
Granted, I'm biased because I've only ever seen the mindraeps that are the movies, but it seems to me that the story only exists to get across the following points:
1) If a really nice guy (or talking lion) with magical superpowers exists, you should pretty much trust that he'll make everything okay at a critical plot point. However, you will have to put up with annoying comments about believing in him. (Deus Ex Machina, anyone?)
2) Insufferably annoying young children are really, really good at remembering the above point. If you are a headstrong older sibling of said insufferable young child, expect to get your comeuppance.
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 02, 2008, 06:08:27 AM
Also, three words: Leo Ex Machina. :p
Yes, in retrospect the Chronicles of Narnia are overly simplistic Christian allegories but they were my first foray into fantasy lit so they'll always have a place in my heart. I'm sure it was a gateway drug for a lot of nerds over the last 60 years. They were the Harry Potter of their time.
Does anyone like Jonathan Swift? Gulliver's Travels & some of his essays?
Quote from: Honey on March 03, 2009, 11:36:29 AM
Does anyone like Jonathan Swift? Gulliver's Travels & some of his essays?
I found the writing in Gullivers travels very stoic which kinda killed the pace for me, liked it otherwise, I haven't read any of his essays yet.
A Modest Proposal is kinda great.
Quote from: Cain on March 03, 2009, 11:51:52 AM
A Modest Proposal is kinda great.
"A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public"
oh my...
I agree the writing is a little tough to get through, dry & a tad boring, but his satire on the times? I also like that you can read it (or interpret it) on a bunch of different levels.
A Modest Proposal was 1 of his essays I was thinking about.
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 02, 2009, 11:02:56 PM
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
Seconded, the others I haven't read. (Except the Narnia stuff, which I don't remember).
Common Sense (http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense1.htm)
The Prince (http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm)
The Book of Five Rings (http://www.samurai.com/5rings/)
Oh, and The Constitution (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html)
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Common Sense (http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense1.htm) Seconded
The Prince (http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm) I'm sure someone will second it, I never read it
Oh, and The Constitution (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html) This
guinness book of world records
so and so's atlas of the world
Watership Down was my first favorite book, and I still have a massive soft spot for it.
I'll throw out one of my favorites: James Clavell Shogun / the entire Asian Saga kicksass
Quote from: rong on March 03, 2009, 04:55:28 PM
guinness book of world records
so and so's atlas of the world
Webster's Dictionary
Some faint memories from the wasted youth :roll:
Deus X - Norman Spinrad
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Software - Rudy Rucker
I'd also like to nominate Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary.
Neuromancer? Really? It did start the genre and all, but it was such a crappy novel.
Quote from: LMNO once again on March 03, 2009, 01:35:34 PM
Oh, and The Constitution (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html)
That's more of a parchment than a book. How about Thomas Paine's
Rights of Man instead?
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 02, 2009, 11:02:56 PM
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
If you don't like this book, I officially hate you.
As for the list I just have a couple things to nominate. I may add more later.
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (I'm only adding this one of the Discworld series because it was the first)
The Dune books written by Frank Herbert.
Ender's Game wasn't too bad, the sequels were actually pretty awesome.
Quote from: Requia on March 03, 2009, 08:52:16 PM
Neuromancer? Really? It did start the genre and all, but it was such a crappy novel.
It's been too long. I just remember liking it.
And more nostalgic crap :D
The Dark Elf Trilogy - R.A. Salvatore
Quote from: Vene on March 03, 2009, 11:44:40 PM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on March 02, 2009, 11:02:56 PM
Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
If you don't like this book, I officially hate you.
As for the list I just have a couple things to nominate. I may add more later.
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (I'm only adding this one of the Discworld series because it was the first)
Catch 22 I agree with, I really don't think TP is all that good. he is amusing some of the time but his writing isn't all that great. Once you have read one or two of his books you have read them all.
couple more:
Lolita by vladimir nabokov has an awesome melancholy writing style and a pretty tragic story.
The house of spirits by isabel allende doesn't have a great writing style but the story is incredibly well constructed, really bizarre characters.
Sartre, No Exit.
Hesse, Steppenwolf.
Quote from: LMNO redux on March 04, 2009, 08:26:55 PM
Sartre, No Exit.
Hesse, Steppenwolf.
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
All of Sartre's plays are pretty amazing, actually. The Flies might have been my favorite, or Dirty Hands, but the No Exit might be the most worthwhile read for "cocktail conversation" value -- not that it's any less quality than the others, but it's also the most read. Also, I've never read Steppenwolf, but I loved Siddhartha and Demian; similar quality, similar themes, but the characters and period in the latter resonated more strongly with me.
Adding:
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis,
Notes From the Underground by Dostoevsky,
the Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad,
Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans,
the Night In Question by Tobias Wolff, but I've never read a bad collection by the man.
I'm reading American psycho again (stopped half way when my dad was dying, didn't get back to it).
I wouldn't say its one of the 100 greatest books but it definitely has a unique style.
I didn't mention it or any of william burroughs stuff before for the same reason, they are cool and unique but it just feels wrong to put them in lists with other kinds of writing.
Quote from: LMNO redux on March 04, 2009, 08:26:55 PM
Sartre, No Exit.
Hesse, Steppenwolf.
Hey LMNO, you ever read the Vonnegut book Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons? There is a section where he kind of rails against the popularity of Hermen Hesse, basically stating that Hesse was an incurable optimist and that the popularity of his books in the sixties probably led a lot of young people into bad situations.
I forget exactly how he worded it, but I'll type it all out tomorrow if you're interested.
I'm curious as to how you'd feel about it.
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
Quote from: LMNO redux on March 04, 2009, 08:26:55 PM
Sartre, No Exit.
Hesse, Steppenwolf.
All of Sartre's plays are pretty amazing, actually. The Flies might have been my favorite, or Dirty Hands, but the No Exit might be the most worthwhile read for "cocktail conversation" value -- not that it's any less quality than the others, but it's also the most read.
The Flies is definately my favorite, but No Exit I think has unnofficial PD.com sponsorship already. Also VALIS is probably the most 'discordian' of the PKD books, but its also my favorite so I'm probably expressing personal bias.
Goedel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hofstadter
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
I haven't read this one, but I've read
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and it was quite interesting.
Quote from: rong on March 05, 2009, 07:29:06 AM
Goedel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hofstadter
This.
Quote from: whatc on March 03, 2009, 08:19:29 PM
Some faint memories from the wasted youth :roll:
Deus X - Norman Spinrad
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Software - Rudy Rucker
Don't forget Pratchett's book
The Thief of Time, which is even more appropriate here than Pratchett's other books, due to the blatantly Discordian/SubGenius themes it deals with (ie. the whole novel revolves around time-control, there are FIVE horsemen of the Apocalypse rather than four, the plot involves a conspiracy to wipe out individuality, et cetera)
Yeah, Thief of Time, absolutely.
Ooh! Ooh!
"Rules for Writers", Diana Hacker
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
Garfield Minus Garfield - Jim Davis and some other spag.
Quote from: ᐂ on March 05, 2009, 12:45:45 PM
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
I haven't read this one, but I've read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and it was quite interesting.
Thats the one that Total Recall was based on.
Quote from: Z³ on March 05, 2009, 09:57:58 PM
Quote from: ᐂ on March 05, 2009, 12:45:45 PM
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
I haven't read this one, but I've read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and it was quite interesting.
Thats the one that Total Recall was based on.
Total Recall - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
Bladerunner - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep
Quote from: Kai on March 05, 2009, 07:55:35 PM
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
I haven't read this, but I'm breaking rule two and putting it on the list anyway if there are no objections*
*Creationists may not object
my votes (partly inspired by this thread, only ones I've read myself):
- Goedel Escher Bach, D.Hofstadter
- Thief of Time, T. Pratchett (my favourite Pratchett, still)
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy, R. A. Wilson
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, D. N. Adams
- Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman
- Neuromancer and Pattern Recognition, W. Gibson (hey anyone read that one btw? I should re-read but the way he describes an online forum community really struck a chord with me)
- Cat's Cradle, K. Vonnegut
- Fooled by Randomness, N. N. Taleb (I prefer this one greatly over Black Swan, and deals nearly with exactly the same subject)
- Het allerslechtste van Spekkie Big, M. van der Holst
Quote from: Triple Zero on March 06, 2009, 09:22:08 AM
my votes (partly inspired by this thread, only ones I've read myself):
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, D. N. Adams
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman
I strongly second (or in the case of H2G2, more like thirtysecond) these.
Quote from: Triple Zero on March 06, 2009, 09:22:08 AM
my votes (partly inspired by this thread, only ones I've read myself):
- Goedel Escher Bach, D.Hofstadter
- Thief of Time, T. Pratchett (my favourite Pratchett, still)
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy, R. A. Wilson
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, D. N. Adams
- Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman
- Neuromancer W. Gibson
- Fooled by Randomness, N. N. Taleb (I prefer this one greatly over Black Swan, and deals nearly with exactly the same subject)
The ones I've left in all have my vote, although I'll vote whichever way on BS/FbR with Taleb.
Also, I have read Pattern Recognition. I'm not sure I would include it, since I don't think its his best work, but its well worth a read, yes.
the art of demotivation E.L. Kersten
Something by Kafka?
The Metamorphosis, The Trial, Amerika & he has good short stories too.
QuoteIf the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? Good God, we would also be happy if we had no books, & such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, & distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside of us.
-Franz Kafka
*edited to add quote
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 05, 2009, 10:06:44 PM
Quote from: Z³ on March 05, 2009, 09:57:58 PM
Quote from: ᐂ on March 05, 2009, 12:45:45 PM
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
I haven't read this one, but I've read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and it was quite interesting.
Thats the one that Total Recall was based on.
Total Recall - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
Bladerunner - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep
Does it bother anybody else that the "androids" in that book/movie weren't androids at all?
I never saw the movie, but the androids in the book were definitely androids.
They were biological but artificial in both the book and movie, if that makes sense, it was the artificial brain that defined them as androids I think, they still bled and after death it took a bone marrow test to see if they were human in the book, so they weren't androids as in robots.
would that make them androigynous?
DADOES was interesting, but I don't think it was that great, though I saw Bladerunner first and really liked it.
Also, may I suggest:
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee : Pretty much my favourite book ever
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard : If plays are allowed, it is pretty damn awesome
ETA:
Quote from: UncannyValleyGirl on March 06, 2009, 09:59:41 AM
I strongly second (or in the case of H2G2, more like thirtysecond) these.
:lulz:
Not quite, but you were close.
From Publishers Weekly
In 1966, the late Philip K. Dick published the novelette "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."
Total Recall (Paperback)
by Piers Anthony (Author)
Back to OP:
I've been able to finally sit down with Duquette's "Chicken Cabala", and I have to say, it nails down a lot of Discordian thought... In it's own way, of course.
I'll second To Kill a Mockingbird and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Also:
James Joyce - Ulysses
Thoreau - Walden
anonymous - Evasion
Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Will think more on this.
Quote from: Eve on March 10, 2009, 05:27:05 PM
I'll second Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Also:
Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Thirded.
Breakfast Of Champions by Vonnegut
Promethea by Alan Moore
Sock by Penn Jillette
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
Quote from: Dr Hoopla on March 10, 2009, 07:13:09 PM
Breakfast Of Champions by Vonnegut
Seconded, if not Slaughterhouse 5.
Also, I can't remember if anyone has mentioned Catch-22.
Quote from: LMNO on March 10, 2009, 07:14:38 PM
Quote from: Dr Hoopla on March 10, 2009, 07:13:09 PM
Breakfast Of Champions by Vonnegut
Seconded, if not Slaughterhouse 5.
Also, I can't remember if anyone has mentioned Catch-22.
Thirded (BoC and SH5). Catch-22 was mentioned earlier and should definitely be on the list.
The only reason I chose BoC over SH5 is because it seems to tackle a wider range of topics, most importantly (for me) the idiocy of humanity. I always suggest it for people just starting to 'get it' in their teenage years.
Now I want to reread it. ;)
Giles Goat Boy john barth
Fight Club!
Oh and I second/(if no one has suggested it yet) nominate Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep.
Quote from: The Pariah on March 11, 2009, 02:08:52 AM
Fight Club!
Oh and I second/(if no one has suggested it yet) nominate Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep.
Blarg. Philip K Dick is overrated.
Pertaining to most of his stuff; yes. But I loved that one.
Second Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.
Watchmen by Alan Moore.
The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Read it. Loved it. Should definatly be on the list.
Quote from: fomenter on March 09, 2009, 02:57:54 PM
From Publishers Weekly
In 1966, the late Philip K. Dick published the novelette "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."
Total Recall (Paperback)
by Piers Anthony (Author)
If God has any sense of justice, He'll have devoted a special room in hell for authors who rip off PKD.
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 18, 2009, 08:35:17 PM
Quote from: fomenter on March 09, 2009, 02:57:54 PM
From Publishers Weekly
In 1966, the late Philip K. Dick published the novelette "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."
Total Recall (Paperback)
by Piers Anthony (Author)
If God has any sense of justice, He'll have devoted a special room in hell for authors who rip off PKD.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Siddhartha. Yes, I just recomended a religious book. It's a good read.
Siddhartha isn't religious, spag.
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 19, 2009, 05:03:02 PM
Siddhartha isn't religious, spag.
Some say the same about Fight Club.
I'd suggest the Otherland series by Tad Williams. I still haven't completed those, but they are seriously really neat to read. I don't see them as particularly Discordian, but I don't read much Discordian stuff to begin with.
Neither Pattern Recognition nor Neuromancer are particularly good Gibson books. I'd say his best was All Tomorrow's Parties, the conclusion of the Bridge trilogy.
I'd also say that Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age deserves a spot along side the other two. It's probably one of the very best books I've ever read.
Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder or Distress would be good candidates. I have a particular love for Egan's work.
And while on the subject of Philip K. Dick, the only story of his that I liked would be probably Ubik. The others I've all but forgotten by now. Ubik at least stuck with me.
otherlands has a pretty horrible writing style, but its got good ideas. Its interesting enough.
"the hermetic museum - alchemy & mysticism"
Alexander Roob
ISBN 3-8228-8653-X
It's eighteen feet thick and is mostly pictures - what's not to like?
Neverwhere- Neil Gaiman
Lord of the Flies-William Golding
Second to Watchmen
and V for Vendetta- novel not the movie
Snow Crash is pretty good in my opinion.
Quote from: Soup on March 25, 2009, 07:33:42 PM
Neverwhere- Neil Gaiman
Lord of the Flies-William Golding
Second to Watchmen
and V for Vendetta- novel not the movie
Respectfully disagree - I think the movie is one of the best books ever written
A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund
An alien, assassin, wizard who is traveling in a magical ship on a Quest for the holy grail, What more could you want... seriously?
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 26, 2009, 11:21:35 AM
Quote from: Soup on March 25, 2009, 07:33:42 PM
Respectfully disagree - I think the movie is one of the best books ever written
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Quote from: Soup on March 25, 2009, 07:33:42 PM
Second to Watchmen
I have, after careful consideration, decided comics can go on the list, since there aren't enough of them that are ant good to make their own list of 100
Quote from: Dr Goofy on March 26, 2009, 12:26:01 PM
A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund
An alien, assassin, wizard who is traveling in a magical ship on a Quest for the holy grail, What more could you want... seriously?
A cure for schizophrenia, for starters.
How did we get this far without "Billion Dollar Bunko/How to Cheat at Everything" by Simon Lovell being added to the list? That thing is a treasure trove of confidence games.
Dante - Inferno
Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger
Max Brooks - World War Z
Palahniuk- Haunted
i havent read it yet, just bought it,but:
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann
Feynmann was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, just not very famous because he researched quantum field theory (or something equally obscure), but most of all he was a brilliant prankster and this book is filled with his antics. I'm sure I'd add it to the list when I get to read it, maybe someone else can vouch for it already.
Quote from: Triple Zero on April 02, 2009, 11:32:29 PM
i havent read it yet, just bought it,but:
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann
Feynmann was one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, just not very famous because he researched quantum field theory (or something equally obscure), but most of all he was a brilliant prankster and this book is filled with his antics. I'm sure I'd add it to the list when I get to read it, maybe someone else can vouch for it already.
i will vouch for this book and then some... 10 out of 10
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 26, 2009, 11:21:35 AM
Quote from: Soup on March 25, 2009, 07:33:42 PM
and V for Vendetta- novel not the movie
Respectfully disagree - I think the movie is one of the best books ever written
The movie was juvenile, though still fun. The comic was like reading something an adult had written and even more fun.
For pure satire value, Terry Pratchett's
Small Gods and
Feet of Clay. (Small Gods involves what is an approximation of the Abrahamic god being turned into a tortoise and explores organized religion's many faults, and
Feet of Clay explores all sorts of interesting things, from gender to the way we treat those we see as inferiors and our historical reactions to that).
Passionate Declarations by Howard Zinn has been one big MF for me, and certainly pushing me away from American capitalism even faster than I was going before, not to mention opening my eyes to the flaws of the American verision fo representative democracy I don't know that anyone else has read it, but you should.
In sheer Oh-my-god-I'm-just-a-monkey!
The Pscyhodynamics of Family Life* by Nancy Chodorow was the most de-humanizing things I've ever, ever read. For every behavior--love of all kinds--to be reduced to a series of survival traits, was utterly painful.
*It's been a couple years since I read the study and I think that's it. All I remember is the horror that was my reaction.I second whoever said Dante's Inferno.
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 03, 2009, 06:32:18 AM
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
classic - i have already submitted a recipe from it for the fat Eris cookbook
Quote from: Requia on March 03, 2009, 03:24:22 PM
The Prince (http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm) I'm sure someone will second it, I never read it
I'm about halfway through The Prince, seconded.
I would have seconded it, regardless.
Also, I will draw up a list later today, for reals.
The Zombie Survival Guide -Max Brooks
1984 -George Orwell
Quote from: BADGE OF HONOR on February 28, 2009, 11:37:26 PM
Dune by Frank Herbert and Cyteen by CJ Cherryh are the best science fiction that I've read.
Just finished reading this. Seconded, and then some.
List of top books
Machiavelli - The Prince
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness/Black Swan
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea - The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club
Robert Rankin - Apocalypse: The Musical
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange (uncut UK edition)
Joesph Heller - Catch 22
Voltaire - Candide
Jonathan Swift - A Modest Proposal
Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Albert Camus - The Rebel
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Unruh and Wilson - The Art of Memetics
Stephen Colbert - I am America, and So Can You
Douglas Hofstader - Godel, Escher, Bach
James Gleick - Chaos
John le Carre - The Perfect Spy
The Tao Teh Ching
Sun Tzu - The Art of War
Deleuze and Guattari - Anti-Oedipus
Deleuze and Guattari - A Thousand Plateaus
Kierkegaard - The Seducer's Diary
Mark Dery - Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs
Joesph Matheny and others - The Incunabula and Ong's Hat Papers
Howard Campbell - Poker without Cards
Robert Greene - The 48 Laws of Power
Quote from: Cain on May 24, 2009, 02:01:11 PM
List of top books
Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Fooled by Randomness/Black Swan
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea - The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club
Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Unruh and Wilson - The Art of Memetics
The Tao Teh Ching
Mark Dery - Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs
Robert Greene - The 48 Laws of Power
hell yeah seconded
The Bible (I could probably make a more focused list by book, but it's all pretty inter-related.)
Babylonian Talmud
Zhuangzi (probably inspired a lot of the PD, yet is much less well-known than the Tao Te Ching)
Bhagavad Gita
Science And Health With Key to the Scriptures - Mary Baker Eddy (One of the best philosophical texts I've ever read. Also batshit crazy.)
(There were some Buddhist texts on change and substance that I thought were pretty inspired, but I'm having trouble remembering their names.)
(I can't put the Koran on the list because I've never read more than excerpts, but I think it probably deserves to be)
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Demian - Herman Hesse
Book of Five Rings - Musashi
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Marquez
Don Quixote - Cervantes
Journals of Ayn Rand - (excerpts by Leonard Piekoff, edited by David Harriman)
I support the recommendations for Snow Crash, The Art of War, Hitchiker's Guide (all), The Prince, Breakfast of Champions, and something by PKD -- just not sure what yet.
I'm not going to nominate House of Leaves by Danielewski, but I'm mentioning it in case someone else thinks it belongs but hasn't thought of it yet.
Other things I think worthy of mention as texts, although not books:
Planescape: Torment by Black Isle Studios (not the novelization)
Fallout by Black Isle Studios
Wikipedia
(Various) by Jack Chick
The Clouds - Aristophenes
I would like to see Daniel Quinn's Ishmael on the list, or perhaps better for Discordians would be The Story of B... http://thestoryofb.com/ is my coverage on the book. May I suggest The Story of B replace my space.
Thank you for your considerations.
Hail Discordia!
Quote from: The List So far
Dune - Frank Herbert
Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
A Modest Proposal - Johnathan Swift
The Constitution Of the United States
Common Sense - Thomas Paine
The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Goedel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hofstadter
No Exit - Sarte
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
The Illuminatus! Trilogy - R. A. Wilson
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Neuromancer - W. Gibson
Fooled by Randomness - N. N. Taleb
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Phillip K Dick
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Watchmen - Alan Moore
The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli
1984 -George Orwell
Cyteen - CJ Cherryh
Fooled by Randomness/Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmann - Richard Feynman
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
Starship Troopers - Robert A Heinlein
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Art of Memetics - Unruh and Wilson
The Tao Teh Ching - Lao Tsu
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs - Mark Dery
You had a few repeats, fixed.
Also, I propose:
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (even though everyone here hates it lol)
Don Quixote - Cervantes
Beowulf
Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Carroll
Promethea - Alan Moore
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (I'm sure people will knock it off soon, but its on for now).
seconding these, went back through and added some I missed
we have 42/100 so far, apparently PD is picky.
The Raw Shark Texts- Steven Hall
If just for the cool pictures and the fact it turns into a flipbook part way through
Illusions - the advenntures of a reluctant messiah by Richard Bach..
Borrughs nova express trilogy
Carlos Castaneda
A Clockwork Orange - anthony burgess
Flatland - Edward A. Abbott
The Quran - Mohammad
Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
Candide - Voltaire
The Republic - Plato
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Fahrenheit 451 - I forget.
Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Flies - william golding
Chronicles of Narnia - C.S Lewis
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Beowulf
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
Don Quxiote - Cervantes
Seconding or thirding..
Thief Of Time- Terry Pratchett
Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Art of War- Sun Tzu
Catch 22- Joseph Heller
James Gleick - Chaos
American Gods- Neil Gaiman
The Watchmen- Alan Moore
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas- Hunter S Thomspon
neverwhere- Neil Gaiman
The Zombie Survival Guide -Max Brooks
Adding to the list
Anansi Boys- neil Gaiman
Sandman- Neil Gaiman (ok im definately a HUUUGE fan)
Hells Angels- Hunter S Thompson
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail- HST
Hellblazer (vertigo comic series, various writers)
Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintainance.
Condensed Chaos- Phil Hine
Farenheit 451 seconded also...
and finally for at least today- Stranger in a Strange land by Robert Heinlein
I didn't think Anansi Boys was as good as American Gods or Neverwhere (Plus I have a thing against having too many of the same author in the one list)
The Wise Book of Baloney :D
I would like to second this:
QuoteThus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
And I would like to propose this:
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
Quote from: Requia ☣ on February 28, 2009, 10:26:04 AM
Cannibalism in the Cars (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1288/) - Mark Twain (short story)
Thank you. I dug that...
a gentleman by the name of Buckminster--a poor stick of a vagabond that wasn't any good for company and no account for breakfast. We were glad we got him elected before relief came.
The Bucky Virus lives Rx23 = LOVE, just ask Pynchon
Quote from: Dimo1138 on August 17, 2009, 11:26:12 PM
I would like to second this: QuoteThus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
And I would like to propose this:
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
off with that
rather "Der Wille Zur Macht" (The Will to Power?)
Zarathustra is "pretty" and poetic, but has too many narcicistic ramblings that just show his pathological side
this other book contains more clearly his ideas on everything, im not sure if the "eternal recurrance" is there do, should be somewhere in those 600 pages...
this thread seems badass, i should venture out of apple talk and OKM more often
I second Siddhartha and Beyond Good and Evil.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy (when the apocalypse comes, it will look like this)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle (tell me I'm not serious)
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak (I see no need to disclude children's lit)
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien (there, I said it, so help me if The Chronicles of Narnia were nominated I'm throwing this one out there)
A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories - Will Eisner (the first graphic novel)
Quote from: JohNyx on August 30, 2009, 12:53:45 PM
Quote from: Dimo1138 on August 17, 2009, 11:26:12 PM
I would like to second this: QuoteThus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
And I would like to propose this:
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
off with that
rather "Der Wille Zur Macht" (The Will to Power?)
Zarathustra is "pretty" and poetic, but has too many narcicistic ramblings that just show his pathological side
this other book contains more clearly his ideas on everything, im not sure if the "eternal recurrance" is there do, should be somewhere in those 600 pages...
I thought this was just a large collection of his notes. It didn't seem to be as cohesive as some of his other works (I know, in some cases that doesn't say much). Zarathustra covers eternal recurrence.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on September 23, 2009, 11:43:16 PM
The Road - Cormac McCarthy (when the apocalypse comes, it will look like this)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle (tell me I'm not serious)
Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak (I see no need to disclude children's lit)
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien (there, I said it, so help me if The Chronicles of Narnia were nominated I'm throwing this one out there)
A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories - Will Eisner (the first graphic novel)
I agree with the bold. Although, they're making a live action movie after it, and I doubt it will ever be portrayed the same after it's released.
And, he's right. If friggin' Narnia is being considered, Tolkien should be on here.
The Will to Power was drafts for a planned book, which had to be shelved due to syphilitic insanity. Its not as cohesive, but there are many bad edits out there which do not help (as always, Walter Kaufmann's version should be the one to get).
It also has a massive section on metaphysics which was only alluded to in many earlier books.
The Will to Power is also notorious for being posthumously selectively edited by Nietzsche's sister to play more to her own anti-semitic ideals than Nietzsche intended.
Yeah, thats why you need the Kaufmann one. He used the original manuscript and did the translations (with R.J. Hollingdale, I think) himself, and didn't rely on Frau Nietzsche's antisemetic edit, or Schlect's somewhat more competent, but less grounded in philosophy and Nietzsche's ideas edited verion to try and understand the notes.
As "all over the place" as The Will to Power actually is, i find it to be a very good analysis of diverse stuff(?).
Im not even gonna bother arguing about eternal recurrence appearances cz it would just mean hunting down quotes and pages... but as i recall, it is much dealt with in WTP too...
Any way you slice it, N. theres a lot of things one should ignore (according to my personal experience): when he starts going off into metaphor-narcissistic-fairy-land and the paragraphs he speaks of his stupid nationalism. But then again, who does appreciate or even care what he wrote about political, racial and possibly even aesthetically? Its strenght and value (i think) are his analysis and critiques of morals/metaphysics.
Edit: and im kind of fucked as to know the origin of my version, it only says Anibal Froufe is the translator.
Quote from: JohNyx on September 29, 2009, 03:28:09 AM
As "all over the place" as The Will to Power actually is, i find it to be a very good analysis of diverse stuff(?).
Im not even gonna bother arguing about eternal recurrence appearances cz it would just mean hunting down quotes and pages... but as i recall, it is much dealt with in WTP too...
Any way you slice it, N. theres a lot of things one should ignore (according to my personal experience): when he starts going off into metaphor-narcissistic-fairy-land and the paragraphs he speaks of his stupid nationalism. But then again, who does appreciate or even care what he wrote about political, racial and possibly even aesthetically? Its strenght and value (i think) are his analysis and critiques of morals/metaphysics.
Edit: and im kind of fucked as to know the origin of my version, it only says Anibal Froufe is the translator.
I'm glad you brought this up, actually. I have a copy of The Will to Power (Kaufmann) and had pushed it to the back of my reading list due to it being incomplete or unfinished (or whatever), but based on this thread, I had picked it up again. "Book Two," second section, on the origin of Christianity is really interesting.
Poor Nietzsche, syphilitic insanity and then opportunistic relatives. He just wanted to save that horse...
Also, I like how the Kaufmann translation takes every every opportunity to shit all over Schlect's translation in the footnotes.
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - Ann Coulter
Quote from: Suu on October 01, 2009, 03:33:01 AM
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - Ann Coulter
:crankey: I actually tried to read "Godless, the Church of Liberalism" a couple of years ago. I couldn't get past page 4. It's like she is fractally wrong.
Her best work was Treason, the love-poem to Joe McCarthy.
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on October 01, 2009, 05:20:18 AM
Quote from: Suu on October 01, 2009, 03:33:01 AM
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - Ann Coulter
:crankey: I actually tried to read "Godless, the Church of Liberalism" a couple of years ago. I couldn't get past page 4. It's like she is fractally wrong.
That's an awesome description.
It also rhymes with "factually wrong", which is something else Coulter often is.
Quote from: LMNO on October 01, 2009, 01:37:07 PM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on October 01, 2009, 05:20:18 AM
Quote from: Suu on October 01, 2009, 03:33:01 AM
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - Ann Coulter
:crankey: I actually tried to read "Godless, the Church of Liberalism" a couple of years ago. I couldn't get past page 4. It's like she is fractally wrong.
That's an awesome description.
I'll admit, I stole it from this:
(http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr147/Westley878/fractal-wrong.jpg)
First, I noticed this on the list:
Quote from: The List So far
...
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann - Richard Feynman
...
Surely you're joking mr. Feynmann - Feynmann
...
Pattern Recognition
Snow Crash
Diamond Age
Cryptonomicon
Anathem
Finnegans Wake
Fight Club
Steal This Book
Zombie Survival Guide (It is shit, but that it was meant as a joke and taken so seriously makes up for that. Plus prepping is generally a good idea, just seek advice elsewhere.)
Accelerando
Illuminatus!
Tao Te Ching
Condensed Chaos
Oven-Ready Chaos
Prime Chaos
The Pseudonomicon
I prefer the Oxford dictionaries to the Webster ones, but the only dictionary I have read all of was one of the Webster Vest Pocket dictionaries, so I guess that invalidates my input on all others. Do you have to read the whole book for your vote to count? There are many partially read books I could either add or provide feedback on.
That means Pattern Recognition, Diamond Age, Zombie Survival Guide and Condensed Chaos get added, right?
I might bring some ideas later, when I can think of more nonfiction books to include.
"The Third Policeman" by Flann O'Brien highly seconded. It's an awesome book.
Accelerando: 2nded
That was a wild ass tale.
Don DeLillo's
Mao II should be considered. An extract:
Quote"Tell me about New York," he said. "I don't get there anymore. When I think of cities where I lived, I see great cubist paintings."
"I'll tell you what I see."
"That edginess and density and those old brownish tones and how cities age and stain in the mind like Roman walls."
"Where I live, okay, there's a rooftop chaos, a jumble, four, five, six, seven storeys, and it's water tanks, laundry lines, antennas, belfries, pigeon lofts, chimney pots, everything human about the lower island — little crouched gardens, statuary, painted signs. And I wake up to this and love it and depend on it. But it's all being flattened and hauled away so they can build their towers."
"Eventually the towers will seem human and local and quirky. Give them time."
"I'll go and hit my head against the wall. You tell me when to stop."
"You'll wonder what made you mad."
"I already have the World Trade Center."
"And it's already harmless and ageless. Forgotten-looking. And think how much worse."
"What?" she said.
"If there was only one tower instead of two."
"You mean they interact. There is a play of light."
"Wouldn't a single tower be much worse?"
"No, because my big complaint is only partly size. The size is deadly. But having two of them is like a comment, it's like a dialogue, only I don't know what they're saying."
"They're saying, 'Have a nice day.'
"Someday, go walk those streets," she said. "Sick and dying people with nowhere to live and there are bigger and bigger towers all the time, fantastic buildings with miles of rentable space. All the space is inside. Am I exaggerating?"
"I'm the one who exaggerates."
"This is strange but I feel I know you."
"It is strange, isn't it? We're managing to have a real talk while you bob and weave with a camera and I stand here looking stiff and cloddish."
"I don't usually talk, you see. I ask a question and let the writer talk, let the tension drain out a little."
"Let the fool babble on."
"All right if you put it that way. And I listen only vaguely as a rule because I'm working. I'm detached, I'm working, I'm listening at the edges."
"And you travel all the time. You seek us out."
"You're dropping your chin," she said.
"You cross continents and oceans to take pictures of ordinary faces, to make a record of a thousand faces, ten thousand faces."
"It's crazy. I'm devoting my life to a gesture. Yes, I travel. Which means there is no moment on certain days when I'm not thinking terror. They have us in their power. In boarding areas I never sit near windows in case of flying glass. I carry a Swedish passport so that's okay unless you believe that terrorists killed the prime minister. Then maybe it's not so good. And I use codes in my address book for names and
addresses of writers because how can you tell if the name of a certain writer is dangerous to carry, some dissident, some Jew or blasphemer. I'm careful about reading matter. Nothing religious comes with me, no books with religious symbols on the jacket and no pictures of guns or sexy women. That's on the one hand. On the other hand I know in my heart I'm going to die of some dreadful slow disease so you're safe with me on a plane."
She inserted another roll. She was sure she already had what she'd come for but a hundred times in her life she thought she had the cluster of shots she wanted and then found better work deep in the contact sheets. She liked working past the feeling of this is it. Important to keep going, obliterate the sure thing and come upon a moment of stealthy blessing.
"Do you ask your writers how it feels to be painted dummies?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've got me talking, Brita."
"Anything that's animated I love it."
"You don't care what I say."
"Speak Swahili."
"There's a curious knot that binds novelists and terrorists. In the West we become famous effigies as our books lose the power to shape and influence. Do you ask your writers how they feel about this? Years ago I used to think it was possible for a novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on human consciousness. What writers used to do
before we were all incorporated."
"Keep going. I like your anger."
"But you know all this. This is why you travel a million miles photographing writers. Because we're giving way to terror, to news of terror, to tape recorders and cameras, to radios, to bombs stashed in radios. News of disaster is the only narrative people need. The darker the news, the grander the narrative. News is the last addiction before—what? I don't know. But you're smart to trap us in your camera before we disappear."
"I'm the one they're trying to kill. You're sitting in a room making theories."
"Put us in a museum and charge admission."
"Writers will always write. Are you crazy? Writers have long-range influence. You can't talk about these gunmen in the same breath. I have to steal another cigarette. You're no good for me, this is obvious. You have a look on your face, I don't know, like a bad actor doing weariness of the spirit."
"I am a bad actor."
"Not for me or my camera. I see the person, not some idea he wants to make himself into."
"I'm all idea today."
"I definitely don't see it."
"I'm playing the idea of death. Look closely," he said.
She didn't know whether she was supposed to find this funny.
He said, "Something about the occasion makes me think I'm at my own wake. Sitting for a picture is morbid business. A portrait doesn't begin to mean anything until the subject is dead. This is the whole point. We're doing this to create a kind of sentimental past for people in the decades to come. It's their past, their history we're inventing here. And it's not how I look now that matters. It's how I'll look in twenty-five years as clothing and faces change, as photographs change. The deeper I pass into death, the more powerful my picture becomes. Isn't this why picture-taking is so ceremonial? It's like a wake. And I'm the actor made up for the laying-out."
"Close your mouth."
"Remember they used to say, This is the first day of the rest of your life. It struck me just last night these pictures are the announcement of my dying."
"Close your mouth. Good, good, good, good."
She finished the roll, reloaded, reached for her cigarette, took a drag, put it down, then moved toward him and touched a hand to his face, tilting it slightly left.
"Stay now. Don't move. I like that."
"See, anything you want. I do it at once."
"Touching Bill Gray."
"Do you realize what an intimate thing we're doing?"
"It's in my memoirs, guaranteed. And you're not cloddish by the way."
"We're alone in a room involved in this mysterious exchange. What am I giving up to you? And what are you investing me with, or stealing from me? How are you changing me? I can feel the change like some current just under the skin. Are you making me up as you go along? Am I mimicking myself? And when did women start photographing men in the first place?"
"I'll look it up when I get home."
"We're getting on extremely well."
"Now that we've changed the subject."
"I'm losing a morning's work without remorse."
"That's not the only thing you're losing. Don't forget, from the moment your picture appears you'll be expected to look just like it. And if you meet people somewhere, they will absolutely question your right to look different from your picture."
"I've become someone's material. Yours, Brita. There's the life and there's the consumer event. Everything around us tends to channel our lives toward some final reality in print or on film. Two lovers quarrel in the back of a taxi and a question becomes implicit in the event. Who will write the book and who will play the lovers in the movie? Everything seeks its own heightened version. Or put it this way. Nothing happens until it's consumed. Or put it this way. Nature has given way to aura. A man cuts himself shaving and someone is signed up to write the biography of the cut. All the material in every life is channeled into the glow. Here I am in your lens. Already I see myself differently. Twice over or once removed."
"And you may think of yourself differently as well. It's interesting how deep a picture takes you. You may see something you thought you'd kept hidden. Or some aspect of your mother or father or children. There it is. You pick up a snapshot and there's your face in half shadow but it's really your father looking back at you."
"You're preparing the body all right."
"Chemicals and paper, that's all it is."
"Rouging my cheeks. Waxing my hands and lips. But when I'm really dead, they'll think of me as living in your picture."
"I was in Chile last year and I met an editor who'd been sent to prison after his magazine did caricatures of General Pinochet. The charge was assassinating the image of the general."
"Sounds perfectly reasonable."
"Are you losing interest? Because I sometimes don't realize the way a session becomes mine. I get very possessive at a certain point. I'm easy and agreeable on the edges of the operation. But at the heart, in the frame, it's mine."
"I think I need these pictures more than you do. To break down the monolith I've built. I'm afraid to go anywhere, even the seedy diner in the nearest little crossroads town. I'm convinced the serious trackers are moving in with their mobile phones and zoom lenses. Once you choose this life, you understand what it's like to exist in a state of constant religious observance. There are no halfway measures. All the
movements we make are ritual movements. Everything we do that isn't directly centered on work revolves around concealment, seclusion, ways of evasion. Scott works out the routes of simple trips I occasionally make, like doctor's visits. There are procedures for people coming to the house. Repairmen, deliverymen. It's an irrational way of life that has a powerful inner logic. The way religion takes over a life. The way
disease takes over a life. There's a force that's totally independent of my conscious choices. And it's an angry grudging force. Maybe I don't want to feel the things other people feel. I have my own cosmology of pain. Leave me alone with it. Don't stare at me, don't ask me to sign copies of my books, don't point me out on the street, don't creep up on me with a tape recorder clipped to your belt. Most of all don't take my picture. I've paid a terrible price for this wretched hiding. And I'm sick of it finally."
He spoke quietly, looking away from her. He gave the impression he was learning these things for the first time, hearing them at last. How strange they sounded. He couldn't understand how any of it had happened, how a young man, inexperienced, wary of the machinery of gloss and distortion, protective of his work and very shy and slightly self-romanticizing, could find himself all these years later trapped in
his own massive stillness.
"Are you fading at all?"
"No."
"I forget how weary all this concentrated effort can make a person. I have no conscience when it comes to work. I expect the subject to be as single-minded as I am."
"This isn't work for me."
"We make pictures together after all."
"Work is what I do to feel bad."
"Why should anyone feel good?"
"Exactly. When I was a kid I used to announce ballgames to myself. I sat in a room and made up the games and described the play-by-play out loud. I was the players, the announcer, the crowd, the listening audience and the radio. There hasn't been a moment since those days when I've felt nearly so good."
He had a smoker's laugh, cracked and graveled. "I remember the names of all those players, the positions they played, their spots in the batting order. I do batting orders in my head all the time. And I've been trying to write toward that kind of innocence ever since. The pure game of making up. You sit there suspended in a perfect clarity of invention. There's no separation between you and the players and the room and the field. Everything is seamless and transparent. And it's completely spontaneous. It's the lost game of self, without doubt or fear."
"I don't know, Bill."
"I don't know, either."
"It sounds like mental illness to me."
He laughed again. She took pictures of him laughing until the roll was finished. Then she loaded the camera and moved him away from the quartz lamp and started shooting again, using window light now.
"Incidentally. I bring a message from Charles Everson."
Bill hitched up his pants. He seemed to look past her, frisking himself for signs of cigarettes.
"I ran into him at a publishing dinner somewhere. He asked how my work was going. I told him I'd probably be seeing you."
"No reason you shouldn't mention it."
"I hope it's all right."
"The pictures will be out one day."
"Actually the only message I bring is that Charles wants to talk to you. He wouldn't tell me what it's all about. I told him to write you a letter. He said you don't read your mail."
"Scott reads my mail."
"He said that what he had to tell you couldn't be seen or heard by anyone else. Far too delicate. He also said he used to be your editor and good, good friend. And he said it was distressing not to be able to get in touch with you directly."
Bill looked for matches now, clearing papers off the desktop.
"How's old Charlie then?"
"The same. Soft, pink and happy."
"Always new writers, you see. They sit in their corner offices and never have to worry about surviving the failed books because there's always a new one coming along, a hot new excitement. They live, we die. A perfectly balanced state."
"He told me you'd say something like that."
"And you waited to tell me about him. Didn't want to spring it on me prematurely."
"I wanted my pictures first. I didn't know how you'd react to news from out there."
He struck the match and then forgot it.
"Do you know what they like to do best? Run those black-border ads for dead writers. It makes them feel they're part of an august tradition."
"He simply wants you to call him. He says it's a matter of some importance."
He swiveled his head until the cigarette at the corner of his mouth came into contact with the flame.
"The more books they publish, the weaker we become. The secret force that drives the industry is the compulsion to make writers harmless."
"You like being a little bit fanatical. I know the feeling, believe me. But what is more harmless than the pure game of making up? You want to do baseball in your room. Maybe it's just a metaphor, an innocence, but isn't this what makes your books popular? You call it a lost game that you've been trying to recover as a writer. Maybe it's not so lost. What you say you're writing toward, isn't this what people
see in your work?"
"I only know what I see. Or what I don't see."
"Tell me what that means."
He dropped the match in an ashtray on the desk. "Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there. On one level this truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and poise, but down deeper it's the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language. I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence. The language of my books has shaped me as a man. There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live. The deeper I become entangled in the process of getting a sentence right in its syllables and rhythms, the more I learn about myself. I've worked the sentences of this book long and hard but not long and hard enough because I no longer see myself in the language. The running picture is gone, the code of being that pushed me on and made me trust the world. This book and these years have worn me down. I've forgotten what it means to write. Forgotten my own first rule. Keep it simple, Bill. I've lacked courage and perseverance. Exhausted. Sick of struggling. I've let good enough be good enough. This is someone else's book. It feels all forced and wrong. I've tricked myself into going on, into believing. Can you understand how that can happen? I'm sitting on a book that's dead."
"Does Scott know you feel this way?"
"Scott. Scott's way ahead of me. Scott doesn't want me to publish."
"But this is completely crazy."
"No, it's not. There's something to be said."
"When will you finish?"
"Finish. I'm finished. The book's been done for two years. But I rewrite pages and then revise in detail. I write to survive now, to keep my heart beating."
"Show someone else."
"Scott is smart and totally honest."
"He's only one opinion."
"Any judgment based strictly on merit is going to sound like his. And how it hurts when you know the verdict is true. And how you try to evade it, twist it, disfigure it. And word could get out. And once that happens."
"You finish, you publish and you take what comes."
"I will publish."
"It's simple, Bill."
"It's just a question of making up my mind and going ahead and doing it."
"And you'll stop redoing pages. The book is finished. I don't want to make a fetish of things are simple. But it's done, so you stop." She watched him surrender his crisp gaze to a softening, a bright-eyed fear that seemed to tunnel out of childhood. It had the starkness of a last prayer. She worked to get at it. His face was drained and slack, coming into flatness, into black and white, cracked lips and flaring brows, age lines that hinge the chin, old bafflements and regrets. She moved in closer and refocused, she shot and shot, and he stood there
looking into the lens, soft eyes shining.
just read the first bit of that, seems pretty cool, just for the writing style. what is the book about?
for some reason it reminds me of Pattern Recognition by Gibson
There is something of Pattern Recognition to it, I must admit.
DeLillo usually has several themes. One is the most obvious one above, the writer and the terrorist. He thinks the two are far more similar than most people give credit for, and that art fails when it comes to violence and dogmatism on a massive scale, that terrorists have, in effect, seized the narrative of the present.
It's also about crowds. The novel starts with a mass wedding ceremony for Rev. Moon's cult, the crowds of homeless in New York are ever present and crowds of mourners at Khomeni's funeral. Mao's name invokes crowds as well, both on the Long March and those who were killed in Tianneman Square to safeguard his revolution.
Interpretation is one that pops up now and again too. Both Bill, the novelist and Rashid, the Maoist, have "assistants" who do their work for them, including meeting with people. The inner circle writes, and says. The outer circle explains.
your list sucks, and is pretentious...
No one likes Robbins? Still Life was one of the best books I have ever read, and Ive reread it numerous times. There are MANY better stories by PKD. Ubik, Three Stigmatas..., and Scanner Darkly just to name a few of the better known ones. Galactic Pot-healer is better than fucking the PKD books you have listed. Valis and Radio free-albemuth are fucking amazing, but thats two books...
Hero with a Thousand Faces
Stranger in a Strange Land
Imajica
The Crystal Shard
Post Office(or Ham on Rye)
Cats Cradle
*OR*
Breakfast of Champions
Storming Heaven: The history of LSD
Plato's Republic (yeah, fuck you I like plato)
now fuck off and die
Fuck Plato.
Oh dear no, not pretentious! God forbid PDers actually list what they read and admire, they must now conform to standards of authenticity in writing, or forever more be shamed.
Quote from: Hangshai on December 18, 2009, 06:24:44 AM
your list sucks, and is pretentious...
[...]
now fuck off and die
Don't worry everyone, he already PMd me that he was in a foul mood today.
!!!!
:roll:
Given that this is supposed to be the greatest books, isn't pretentiousness mandatory? I mean, you could fill it with selections off the bestseller list, and its still pretentious just by virtue of claiming them to be the greatest books.
If this list is going to be relevant, it should be alist of books that arent gleaned from other lists. Books that SHOULD be read, but no one else will tell you to. Or maybe if it is important for discordianism, which now I cant remember if this was the greatest books of all time, or just greatest discordian literature. If its the greatest, check here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
and here
http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100novels/
Its only a hundred books, you could read it in a couple years tops. Most of the books if not all that you have mentioned can be found on these lists. And some you didnt mention. And some you probably should have mentioned.
QuoteIf this list is going to be relevant, it should be alist of books that arent gleaned from other lists. Books that SHOULD be read, but no one else will tell you to. Or maybe if it is important for discordianism, which now I cant remember if this was the greatest books of all time, or just greatest discordian literature. If its the greatest, check here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
and here
http://www.thebest100lists.com/best100novels/
Its only a hundred books, you could read it in a couple years tops. Most of the books if not all that you have mentioned can be found on these lists. And some you didnt mention. And some you probably should have mentioned.
Um, you're the only one looking at other lists.
Also, one of those lists manages to contain all 4 of Ayn Rand's books. :lulz:
It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure my intention was for it to be a list of books important to PDers. (I have no clue what the rest of these spags picked books based on).
All '100 Greatest ______' lists are irrelevant.
Yeah, I was really thinking about this today. I just kind of bounce around from book to book, Ill hear about something cool, or someone will recommend something, and then Ill get in to that for a while... Much better than going down a list. Plus, the idea of handing someone a 100 book list to read is, well, thats sort of a shitty thing to do, dont ya think? I mean, 1 good recommendation will go a lot farther than a list of 100 books you will never read... Ya feel me?
shit, forgot about Good Omens.... now thats a good book!!
Quote from: Hangshai on December 23, 2009, 07:23:51 AM
shit, forgot about Good Omens.... now thats a good book!!
You aren't supposed to say things I agree with :argh!:
Quote from: Hangshai on December 23, 2009, 04:51:10 AM
Yeah, I was really thinking about this today. I just kind of bounce around from book to book, Ill hear about something cool, or someone will recommend something, and then Ill get in to that for a while... Much better than going down a list. Plus, the idea of handing someone a 100 book list to read is, well, thats sort of a shitty thing to do, dont ya think? I mean, 1 good recommendation will go a lot farther than a list of 100 books you will never read... Ya feel me?
Yeah, I get that.
These kinds of lists can be fun but it's a mistake to give them much credence. A century from now, there will be people looking over these '100 best' lists and they'll be like this --> :x
Quote from: Mangrove on December 23, 2009, 07:57:29 PM
Yeah, I get that.
These kinds of lists can be fun but it's a mistake to give them much credence. A century week from now, there will be people looking over these '100 best' lists and they'll be like this --> :x
fix't
Quote from: Cain on December 18, 2009, 09:25:58 AM
Oh dear no, not pretentious! God forbid PDers actually list what they read and admire, they must now conform to standards of authenticity in writing, or forever more be shamed.
:lulz:
If you're putting Starship troopers on, then you should also add Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on March 01, 2009, 12:40:13 AM
Quote from: Aufenthatt on February 28, 2009, 11:18:12 PM
Orwell off.
:argh!:
I'll second Dune, Cyteen I've never heard of.
While I can't exactly say "Dune" is the best Sci-Fi I've ever read, I cant think of anything that's strikingly better. Neal Asher's "The Skinner" is right up there with it though.
Second/Thirds;
Bhadvad Gita
Cat's Cradle
The Prince (HO.LEE.SHIT!)
(in defense of the reject vote) Orwell.
The nominated Dictionary.
Chick Tracts
Garfield Minus garfield.
Where the wild Things are
Catch 22
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Tral '72 (better than las vegas imo)
Reject vote for
American Psycho (doesn't achive the effect it seems to be after)
Haunted (epic dissapointment, even though two of the short stories woven in towards the end were really really fantastic.)
New Nominate
I'm sure this is controvercial but... Principia Discordia?
Beegu - Alexis Deacon
The War of the Worlds
A breif History of Time
Freakonomics/ Superfreakonomics
Killing Aurora
Edit: Also Irvine Welsh's 'Marabou Stork Nightmares'
"The Secret Teachings of all Ages" Manly.P.Hall
"The Ilead"
"The Oddyssey" Homer
"The Golden Bough" Sir James Frazer
"Steppenwolf" Herman Hesse
Superfreakonomics? He wrote a sequel?
:fap:
Hell yes.
Economics of prostitution, simple solutions to global warming, why the male female wage gap, how can you tell a good doctor from a bad one, whagt are the financail behaviors of a suicide bomber, are people actually good or bad...
It's delicious.
Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky. That should be a no-brainer. With no other piece of classic literature were my expectations so incredibly surpassed.
Personal favorites:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig (after 3 times, I still want to read it again)
illuminatus!
I just finished a book that I absolutely loved, and should be read by every person that will every grow old. It's called Über Das Altern(though I read it in French, so Du Vieillissement) by Jean Amery. I think it was recently translated into English as "On Aging" or something like that.
Otherwise, 2 books that I have not read cover to cover, but I have spent a long, long time working on and writing about on certain parts of, and can't wait until I have the time to finish them:
Being and Nothingness - Sartre
Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche
I'm still sticking to my suggestion of "The Third Policeman"
What the hell, add "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene to the list. It's stuff that should be common sense but isn't.
Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation, by Mark Millar. (An absolute must)
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on May 24, 2010, 10:54:53 PM
What the hell, add "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene to the list. It's stuff that should be common sense but isn't.
Only if common sense should include rational approaches to social institutions that maximize personal gain. :lulz:
Quote from: Sigmatic on May 25, 2010, 03:12:39 AM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on May 24, 2010, 10:54:53 PM
What the hell, add "The 48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene to the list. It's stuff that should be common sense but isn't.
Only if common sense should include rational approaches to social institutions that maximize personal gain. :lulz:
It doesn't, of course, but it damn well should. At the very least the book gives a better view of human nature and provides a better moral code than the Bible. And just like the Bible it contradicts itself just enough time to read into it whatever you want. ;)
"The Magicians" by Lev Grossman
I want to say House of Leaves, though I know many would disagree, since it's a little self-bloated.
But definitely The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Technically it's a medical journal, but his stories
make me laugh in a way that proves I'm a nerd.
I see Watchmen made the list. Other comics/mangas I'd consider are Akira and Buddha. Even though Buddha is clearly Buddhist, the moral values that run through it can be so willynilly. And it's done by the guy who did Astroboy!
What else? Uh. The Kama Sutra, because only Eris would dream up a sex position that can dislocate your ribs if performed incorrectly.
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on March 07, 2009, 07:37:27 PM
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 05, 2009, 10:06:44 PM
Quote from: Z³ on March 05, 2009, 09:57:58 PM
Quote from: ᐂ on March 05, 2009, 12:45:45 PM
Quote from: nostalgicBadger on March 04, 2009, 10:58:18 PM
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
I haven't read this one, but I've read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and it was quite interesting.
Thats the one that Total Recall was based on.
Total Recall - We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
Bladerunner - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep
Does it bother anybody else that the "androids" in that book/movie weren't androids at all?
They were too. In the original sense of the word.
I want to second Watership Down and Lord of the Rings
I also want to offer up Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and vote against 1984 and Animal Farm
And I want to offer Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and Kurt Vonegut Jr's Player Piano
I think 1984 was a good book, but not as prescient as either Brave new World or player piano.
Also the Invisibles series of comic books.
Quote from: Neil PostmanWhat Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In Nineteen Eighty-Four, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
Haven't read Postman's book, but have read Orwell and Huxley and loved them both. I think they're both equally valid as social criticism. I enjoyed 1984 more in the way it was written; Huxley felt a lot more about the ideas, almost at the expense of the writing.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on May 27, 2010, 08:41:10 AM
Quote from: Neil PostmanWhat Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In Nineteen Eighty-Four, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
Haven't read Postman's book, but have read Orwell and Huxley and loved them both. I think they're both equally valid as social criticism. I enjoyed 1984 more in the way it was written; Huxley felt a lot more about the ideas, almost at the expense of the writing.
I think 1984 did it's job, in that the world we live in does not resemble that of 1984 partly because it made us aware of those possibilities. I would say the world we live in does, rather closely, resemble brave new world.
We grow kids in vats and think love is dirty? :?
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 28, 2010, 03:04:01 AM
We grow kids in vats and think love is dirty? :?
We're getting close on the growing kids in vats part. Love meanwhile has been absorbed into the orgy porgy.
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on May 28, 2010, 03:44:33 AM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 28, 2010, 03:04:01 AM
We grow kids in vats and think love is dirty? :?
We're getting close on the growing kids in vats part. Love meanwhile has been absorbed into the orgy porgy.
I call bullshit.
Maybe not kids in vats, but i think we're looking more like a society distracted by shiny things, than crushed into submission.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on May 28, 2010, 06:50:25 AM
Maybe not kids in vats, but i think we're looking more like a society distracted by shiny things, than crushed into submission.
This is what I should have said.
It's a nice list, and me being 15, therefore having a lot of reading to do decided to read all of the books to the end of this year. I've read some of them, but I still have a lot to go. Currently reading Dune
Quote from: DALEKK on July 14, 2010, 10:15:48 PM
It's a nice list, and me being 15, therefore having a lot of reading to do decided to read all of the books to the end of this year. I've read some of them, but I still have a lot to go. Currently reading Dune
Good choice. Great book.
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on May 28, 2010, 03:44:33 AM
Quote from: Requia ☣ on May 28, 2010, 03:04:01 AM
We grow kids in vats and think love is dirty? :?
We're getting close on the growing kids in vats part. Love meanwhile has been absorbed into the orgy porgy.
Every single child I've grown in a Vat, has had to be
discorded discarded for exhibiting signs of retardation, physical abnormalities, and anti-social behaviour. But the two I grew using the more traditional Womb gestation method are now fully functional Adults, with no sociopathic tendencies whatsoever.
So I think we should stop using the Vats altogether, and concentrate on getting Ladies pragnent with the time honoured and tested method of sexual congress.
posted for now just so i don'tr lose it still working
1.The Constitution Of the United States
2. The Tao Teh Ching
3. The Epic of Gilgamesh.
4. Beowulf.
5. The Koran (Translation of;)
6. The Bible.
7. Evasion - Anonymous
8. Flatland - Edward A Abbot.
9. Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
10. Watership Down - Richard Adams
11. The house of spirits - Isabel Allende
12. Über Das Altern - Jean Amery.
13. The Skinner - Neil Asher
14. The Wasp Factory - Ian Banks
15. Giles Goat Boy - John Barth
16. Killing Aurora - Helen Barnes.
17. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
18. Farenheight 451 - Ray Bradbury.
19. The Ascent of Man - Bronowski
20. World War Z - Max Brooks
21. The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks.
22. A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson.
23. The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
24. A Clockwork Orange (uncut UK edition) - Anthony Burgess
25. The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger - Albert Camus
26. The Rebel - Albert Camus.
27. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
28. Alice Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. Poker Without Cards - Howard Campbell.
31. Don Quixote - Cervantes
32. Cyteen by CJ Cherryh
33. Shogun - James Clavel
34. I am America and so can you - Stephen Colbert.
35. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
36. If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - Ann Coulter
37. Inferno - Dante
38. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life - Charles Darwin
39. The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
40. Anti-Oedipus - Deleuze and Guattari
41. A Thousand Plateaus - Deleuze and Guattari.
42. Mao II - Don Delillo
43. Breaking the Spell - Daniel Dennett
44. Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs - Mark Dery
45. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Phillip K Dick
46. We Can Remember it for you Wholesale - Philip k Dick
47. Ubik - Phillip K Dick.
48. Notes From the Underground - Dostoevsky
49. Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
50. Foucalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
51. Schild's Ladder - Greg Egan
52. Distress - Greg Egan.
53. A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories - Will Eisner
54. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
55. Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmann - Richard Feynman
56. The Golden Bough- Sir James Frazer
57. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
58. Neverwhere- Neil Gaiman
59. Anansi Boys- Neil Gaiman
60. Sandman- Neil Gaiman
61. Neuromancer - W. Gibson
62. Pattern Recognition - W. Gibson
63. Chaos - James Gleick
64. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
65. The 48 Laws of Power- Robert Greene.
66. The Magicians - by Lev Grossman
67. Rules for Writers - Diana Hacker
68. The Raw Shark Texts- Steven Hall
69. The Secret Teachings of all Ages Manly.P.Hall
70. American Fascism - Christ Hedges
71. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
72. Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein
73. Stranger in a Strange land by Robert Heinlein
74. Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
75. Dune - Frank Herbert
76. Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
77. Siddatha - Herman Hesse
78. Condensed Chaos- Phil Hine
79 The Illiad - Homer
80. The Odyssey - Homer.
81. Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
82. Goedel, Escher, Bach - Douglass Hofstadter
83. The Wise Book of Baloney - Baron Von Hoopla
84. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
85. Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans
86. Sock - Penn Jilette
87. Ulysses - James Joyce
88. Man And His Symbols - Carl Jung
89. The Metamorphosis - Kafka
90. The Trial - Kafka
91. Amerika - Kafka
92. The art of demotivation - E.L. Kersten
93. The Seducer's Diary - Kierkegaard
94. The Jungle Books - Kipling
95. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
96. The Perfect Spy - John Le Carre
97. The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
98. Billion Dollar Bunko/How to Cheat at Everything - Simon Lovell
99. The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli
100. Principia Discordia - Mal2 and Omarr Ravenhurst
101. The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
102. The Incunabula and Ong's Hat Papers - Joseph Matheny et al.
103. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
104.Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation - by Mark Millar
105. Watchmen - Alan Moore
106. Promethea - Alan Moore
107. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore
108. The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
109. Book of Five Rings - Musashi
110. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
111. Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
112. Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Nietzsche
113. A Game of Universe by Eric S. Nylund
114. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
115. 1984 - George Orwell
116. Animal Farm - George Orwell
117. Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
118. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
119. Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk
120. Common Sense - Thomas Payne {Is this actually meant to be 'The American Crisis, which Payne wrote AS 'Common Sense'?)
121. Rights of Man - Thomas Payne.
122. The Gormenghast trilogy - Marvyn Peake
123. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
124. The Republic - Plato.
125. Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
126. Mort - Terry Pratchett
127. Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
128. Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
129. Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
130. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
131. Apocalypse: The Musical - Robert Rankin.
132. Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
133. The hermetic museum - alchemy & mysticism - Alexander Roob
134. Software - Rudy Rucker
135. Catcher in the Rye - J.D Salinger.
136. The Dark Elf Trilogy - R.A. Salvatore
137. No Exit - Sarte
138. Being and Nothingness - Sartre
139. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
140. The Man who Fell in Love with the Moon - Tom Spanbauer
141. Deus X - Norman Spinrad
142. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
143. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
144. The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
145. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
146. A Modest Proposal - Johnathan Swift
147. Fooled by Randomness/Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
148. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
149. Hells Angels- Hunter S Thompson
150. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail- HST
151. Walden - Thoreau
152. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
153. The Mysterious Stranger - Mark Twain
154. Cannibalism in the Cars - Mark Twain (short story)
155. Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - Mark Twain
156. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
157. The Art of Memetics - Unruh and Wilson
158. Het allerslechtste van Spekkie Big - M. van der Holst
159. Hellblazer - Various
160. Candide - Voltaire.
161. Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
162. Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
163. Cat's Cradle - K. Vonnegut
164. Garfield Minus Garfield - Dan Walsh/Jim Davis
165. Marabou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh.
166. The Illuminatus! Trilogy, R. A. Wilson
167. The Historical Illuminatus - R.A.W
168. Otherland Series - Tad Williams.
169. The Night In Question by Tobias Wolfe
170. Soldier in the Mist - Gene Wolfe
171. Passionate Declarations - Howard Zinn
I want to add American Fascism by Christ Hedges. I don't quite buy everything in the book, but overall it's very very good.
I've only read 28 of those. But of the 28, there isn't one that I haven't re-read again. And some of them, I must have re-read at least 7 or 8 times. (Dune, Gaiman, Moore, Pratchet) Bit disappointed to see no Gene Wolfe though. Or Kipling.
A lot of the rest of them are on my "going to read" list though.
Holy shit we actually hit a hundred?
Looks that way. I'm really glad Hellblazer made it too. But no Invisibles? Or Sandman? I'm sure we could get the list up to 200 without too much trouble.
Off the top of my head, I'd add
The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
The Jungle Books - Kipling
Foucalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
The Historical Illuminatus - R.A.W
The Ilead - Homer
The Odyssey - Homer
The Wasp Factory - Ian Banks
Soldier in the Mist - Gene Wolfe
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
(Spot the joke entry?)
It's certainly one of the most bizarre lists I've ever seen.
Sandman is in there.
That last one had better be a joke. :argh!:
I guess the question now is, do we actually try to pare it down to 100.
Quote from: BadBeast on December 05, 2010, 05:29:23 AM
Off the top of my head, I'd add
The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
The Jungle Books - Kipling
Foucalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
The Historical Illuminatus - R.A.W
The Ilead - Homer
The Odyssey - Homer
The Wasp Factory - Ian Banks
Soldier in the Mist - Gene Wolfe
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
(Spot the joke entry?)
Clearly, you can't be serious about The Jungle Books. :lulz:
Quote from: Requia ☣ on December 05, 2010, 05:31:41 AM
I guess the question now is, do we actually try to pare it down to 100.
Why? Why not just keep adding?
To start a fight over which books should go. :lulz:
Well, we could start by splitting down the multiple volumes, into the best part. For instance, The Two Towers bit of "Lord of the Rings" goes on a bit about quite boring stuff. And "So long and thanks for all the fish" is clearly heads above the rest of the "Hitch Hikers".
And there are parts of the Martian Chronicles that I simply cannot stand.
Quote from: Phox on December 05, 2010, 06:08:02 AM
And there are parts of the Martian Chronicles that I simply cannot stand.
I've always found Ray Bradbury a little tedious, to be honest. Let's chuck the lot. Moorcock's "Dancers" should go in it's place. Plus it has the bonus of a really hilarious H.G Wells as a main character.
So there's 175 all together. That's me putting all the suggestinops in a big list
We could probably use this thread to crank it up to ONLY 200 and another to whittle it down to 100?
Sound OK?
Quote from: Placid Dingo on December 05, 2010, 06:19:55 AM
So there's 175 all together. That's me putting all the suggestinops in a big list
We could probably use this thread to crank it up to ONLY 200 and another to whittle it down to 100?
Sound OK?
Sounds good to me.
I'll go start the book murder thread.
Done ; http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=27616.0
I'd suggest we use an upvote/downvote system like Reddit has (meaning everyone can either give +1 or -1 to an entry, or abstain from voting about it, and then entries are sorted by their Lower bound of Wilson score confidence interval for a Bernoulli parameter (http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html) aka clever statistical formula that calculates "expected" upvote ratio regardless how many votes an entry got in total)
yeah. but don't hold your breath for me implementing that, do it the easier way first :-P
Is that like they do it in Elections?
Quote from: Phox on December 05, 2010, 06:08:02 AM
And there are parts of the Martian Chronicles that I simply cannot stand.
That's because you are an unwashed heathen who doesn't enjoy good Literature. And you probably like Pie.
Also, Discordians trying to shoehorn a list into a neat number like 100 is kind of amusing.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on December 06, 2010, 01:50:46 PM
Also, Discordians trying to shoehorn a list into a neat number like 100 is kind of amusing.
I was thinking of maybe somehow re-quantifying the unit value of the decimal numerical system, so that we could increase the number of books on the list, as required, yet keep to the "100" figure as a technically relevant parameter. But I'm not
anally retentive awesomely clever enough to actually work out any details.
A logarhythmic scale, then.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on December 06, 2010, 04:20:51 PM
A logarhythmic scale, then.
Yeah, probably. But one that allows for an endlessly bickering group of Discordians, trying to find a mutually acceptable list of volumes. A Discordiorhythmic scale, maybe?
Why not just have everyone post the books they would most want on the list, and then only include those that have more than [X] overlaps?
Because that would be what I was originally doing, and the rules had to be changed when I slacked off and BadBeast took over.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on December 06, 2010, 04:45:01 PM
Why not just have everyone post the books they would most want on the list, and then only include those that have more than [X] overlaps?
Excellent idea. Although I think Placid Dingo is trying the bloodbath approach first, in "The Great Book Slaughter" thread.
And sorry Req, didn't mean to take over, or change any rules. I'm happy just to get myself a list of good books I haven't read yet.
It's fine, like I said, I slacked off.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on December 06, 2010, 01:50:46 PM
Also, Discordians trying to shoehorn a list into a neat number like 100 is kind of amusing.
the slaughter thread has already got messy.
Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on December 06, 2010, 01:49:39 PM
Quote from: Phox on December 05, 2010, 06:08:02 AM
And there are parts of the Martian Chronicles that I simply cannot stand.
That's because you are an unwashed heathen who doesn't enjoy good Literature. And you probably like Pie.
Those are all true. :lulz:
I'm cool with messy, I'll admit to probably being a bit more controlling to try and get a product out of it.
Really, the point of the slaughter thread was so that if people didn't like my approach they could keep doing things as Requia had been, or however.
The only thing i don't like about the automatic method is that there's a lot of books that only one person has read on this list. A voting system would epically kill that.
I propose adding The School Of Licentiousness by the Marquis De Sade
From Hell - Alan Moore
Post Office - Bukowski
Collected Poems of Philip Larkin
das Kapital - Karl Marx
Seconding Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
The End of History and the Last Man - Francis Fukuyama
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
the Rebel - Albert Camus
The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins