Books that stun

[jedusor]

I've been rereading the Harry Potter series, and I'll probably be done with it within another week or so. My little brother just read Ender's Game for the first time, and was impressed enough by it that I'm itching to read it again (I haven't read it since I was about ten). I need to finish Breakfast of Champions and Dr. Seuss Goes to War, which I abandoned a few weeks ago in favor of homework. I'd like to reread Good Omens and Catch-22 too, and I've never read 1984 or The Color Purple or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or Catcher in the Rye. Those are next in line for me.

What should I read after that?

I'm not looking for a list of good books; I'm looking for that one book that you couldn't put down even after you finished it because your mind was frantically clinging to the ideas in it. Fight Club did that for me. So did The God Eaters and A Prayer for Owen Meany and, when I was younger, Jacob Have I Loved.

What's a book that did that for you?

Comments

[palecur.livejournal.com]

A Prayer for Owen Meany was fantastic -- nothing else I've tried by Irving has even been legible, by comparison or otherwise.

I think it's unfair that Stephen R. Donaldson gets the most recognition for what I consider his weakest work, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, because his novella The Killing Stroke is simply the finest example of that form I've ever read, period. The novella is in Reave the Just and Other Tales, and Reave the Just is also a fine read. The rest of the stories go from pretty good to merely all right, with one outright dud, What Makes Us Human, but the book is worth purchasing for The Killing Stroke alone. His two-novel set called Mordant's Need, made up of The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through, is also a superb exposition of Donaldson's core obsession -- desperation, and the things we do in its grip.

Garcia Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude is dazzling and baffling, utterly deserving of the Nobel prize he got for it. It's a symphony of sorrow and futility, beautifully wrought but completely depressing. I'm not sure I'll ever read it a second time -- the echoes alone are still too strong. But then, I was able to read it in the original Spanish -- I've yet to find a translation that suits me. Most don't make it past the opening paragraph. But I'm a picky, picky fellow with translations, and just getting 99.5% of the effect is probably just as good.

[misterajc.livejournal.com]

Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Babel-17 by Samuel R Delaney

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Infinite Jest (http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Jest-David-Foster-Wallace/dp/0316921173).

It's amazing. I should also warn you that it's known with some truth as Infinite Book.

[thebitchingpost.livejournal.com]

Julia I'm so so SO sorry! I didn't realize it, but my cell phone has been temporairly shut off. It'll definately be back on by Thursday night/Friday day, but I'm sorry I couldn't talk to you tonight.
Gonna call you when I get home from work tomorrow (6ish) and we'll talk then and I can chill with you in St. Louis :D

If you wanna call me, it's (314) 524-5031

Cya soon :D

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

It's okay. :) I'll talk to you when you call, and we can discuss details. Can't wait to see you!

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces. The story of Cupid and Psyche, from the point of view of Psyche's sister.

A more tentative recommendation for G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, which is darned good but darned weird, and not everybody's cup of tea. OTOH, it's in public domain--you can read it online if you like.

Trip report: Lewis and Chesterton

[palecur.livejournal.com]

I finished, practically in one sitting, Thursday, and found it made of equal parts distress and amazement. With the best will in the world, I can't make it more than five pages at a time with Till We Have Faces. It feels like there's a good story in there, somewhere, but I have to fish it out with a gaff.

The mileage, it varies.

[foggyb.livejournal.com]

I've always liked Matt Ruff's A Fool on the Hill and Sewer, Gas, & Electric for that...the first is a little college-y, but nonetheless, a wonderful sense of fantasy mixed with reality.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

I read Zen too late in life, I think; it's the sort of thing that sounds really deep at a certain age, and a few years later elicits more of a "How baked was I when I enjoyed that?" sort of reaction (see also: Tim Robbins and Richard Bach, works). I don't think it's devoid of worth -- there's some good stuff in there -- but it can be heavy mining, no doubt.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Oh, you need to read Youth in Revolt, by C.D.Payne. I skipped all my homework the week I read that in high school.

[(Anonymous)]

Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuinn best thought provoking book ive ever read. Tops Farenheight 451 and 1984 any day.

that was me

[cfb4629.livejournal.com]

additions, although less high on the list.

Shogun
Atlas Shrugged

[slightly-wrong.livejournal.com]

Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov. it's better then the movie and there are chunks of french in it.

100 years of solitude by gabriel garcia marqez. my mom suggested it, i've never read it.

Valley of the dolls by Jaquline Sussan. sex, drugs and beautiful girls. i take my copy with me everywhere because no matter how much i've already read i can always read some more.

Girl, Interuppted by someone whos name i totally forget, sorry. it's very diffrent then the movie (if you've even seen the movie) and i could see myself writing a book like that.

Running with scissors by Augusten Burroghs. it's a bit like a car crash, you can't really look away.

those are all good books, and if you need more i could give you two dozen others to read too.
oh, i apologize because i think most words and names here are spelled wrong but hey, that's narcotics for you.

[slightly-wrong.livejournal.com]

also! i had a dream about you and your whole family. you were all having a pic nic and ice fishing. execpt the ice fishing was Wiley attached to a fishing pole and he'd dive in this hole in the ice and come back with fish. and Lincoln had this dark brown 70's TV anchor hair which i thought looked really funny on him. and you didn't recegnize me beacuse it was windy.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Know what's really, really weird? Link has been saying, "Wiley is a snow dog!" a lot lately, for no apparent reason.

Did you finish that Anytown thing? Have you sent it to Judith yet, or can I see it first?

[slightly-wrong.livejournal.com]

yeah it's done and i sent it to judith. which email address of yours should i use?

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

jedusor att sbcglobal dott net, please.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

j4 gave me Z&TAOMM and A Room of One's One (Virginia Woolf) around last Easter, because she was still Approved Of and she knew I was going quietly insane; the former I liked more because of the questions I ended up asking about myself than the actual content, I suspect, but there was some gorgeous stuff in the second one.

Have you read any Jostein Gaarder? I adored Frog Castle. How about Cider With Rosie? (Laurie Lee.) If you're after something very British, try the various Diaries of Adrian Mole.

All Quiet On The Western Front is... incredible.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is something I adored, too.

And I gave you a couple of other recommendations in the letter...

(Chaucer? Catullus?)

Animal Farm.

[(Anonymous)]

1984 is worth reading, but Animal Farm shows how it all begins.