The 100 Greatest Books, according to PD.com

[the last yatto]

Fuck Plato.

[Requia ☣]

Superfreakonomics?  He wrote a sequel?

[Placid Dingo]

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.

[NWC]

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

[Dimocritus]

I'm still sticking to my suggestion of "The Third Policeman"

[Iason Ouabache]

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.

[BadBeast]

Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation, by Mark Millar. (An absolute must)

[Jasper]

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. 

[Iason Ouabache]

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. 

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.

[Juana]

"The Magicians" by Lev Grossman

[memy]

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.

[BabylonHoruv]

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.

[BabylonHoruv]

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. 

[Placid Dingo]

What 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.

[BabylonHoruv]

What 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.