There are millions of books published over the centuries. Nevertheless, some books continue to be read for decades, and centuries for some, after they have been published. I am very curious as to books that you think stand the test of time. I want to know what books you consider to be great books. What are the master pieces in your field? Can you think of five or six books immediately? Why do you feel they are such? Therefore, what are the books everyone should read?
A few I could think of in English Fiction Classics
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
8. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
9. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
10. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
11. And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8192263011
The question is too general to be answered! Kindly clarify!
Are you referring to fiction, non-fiction, religious books, self-help books, or subject (technical) books? I have some 5-10 books to suggest in each category! But I wish to hear first from others!
Best wishes
Sundar
A few I could think of in English Fiction Classics
1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
2. Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
7. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
8. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
9. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
10. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
11. And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=8192263011
Dear Reginald, thank you very much for your nice question. You know, there are numerous books to read. I have read various kinds of books. One of the most impressive and best books, i have recently read, is Blindness by Saramago. In my opinion, it is really something, and a must-read book. I recommend it for those who haven't read it.
Dear Reginald, thank you very much for your nice question. You know, there are numerous books to read. I have read various kinds of books. One of the most impressive and best books, i have recently read, is Blindness by Saramago. In my opinion, it is really something, and a must-read book. I recommend it for those who haven't read it.
For adults with a lot of time - (not always the most famous ones):
1. Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy
2. Saul Bellow. Herzog
3. Willard Van Orman Quine: Word and Object
I have recently read the following books:
Emotional Intelligence. by Goleman, D. (1995).New York: Bantam Books.
Working with emotional intelligence. by Goleman, D. (1998). New York: Bantam Books.
I recommend it for Emotional Intelligence Subject.
Dear Reginald,
At first I thought this is about books at all worth reading, but when it comes to my area of research, namely culture and intellectual disabilities and / or psychiatric disorders I like biographies, autobiographies and diaries. I would recommend a diary tit.: "Elegy for Iris" written by John Bayley of philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. The book has many literary grace, because was also written by the writer and literary critic, as well as a dramatic observations. It is an description of life of the spouses and moving image of Alzheimer's disease in Iris. Other books in the area on the continuum disability-ilness is a (novel) "Chimeric tenant" by Roland Topor. The book is sensitive study of solitude and paranoid schizophrenia in a man. "Chimeric tenant" does not dazzle with quirks but gives a picture of loneliness in the contexts of origins of the disease. There are, of course, many other books I could recommend in the area of disabilities-diseases-families. Very interesting are three personal narratives, written by Ingmar Bergman, his wife Ingrid and their daughter Maria, tit.: "Three diaries" about cancer in Ingrid and family entanglement in it. Dear Reginald, another good written book is study of recovery after brain stroke and aphasia of our Polish writer and dramawriter, graphic artist - Sławomir Mrozek. Autobiography is tit. "Balthazar. Autobiography". He was also known for specific humor.
Dear Martin,
My first association with Herzog. were different. Herzog was for me Werner, also interesting personality.
Dear Beata,
No, no, this novel by Saul Bellow is a book which is carried by the author’s love for the persons in his book. I wished I could put it a better way.
Dear Martin,
Seems interesting also because the "Herzog" word is impressive. Are there any deviations, diseases or eccentricities in this book ?
Dear Beata,
Eccentricities, yes, deviations: maybe, diseases: some. – The book is not very easy. It moved me. I read it twice (after many years).
Dear Sundarapandian,
My question is very specific with a general purpose. I'd like to hear from you (and all my colleagues) as to what you think are great books that everyone should read, regardless of the book's genre or its period of publication. The goal is pretty simple--to learn what highly educated people think are the great books.
Dear Martin,
Thank you, this book may be interesting, even if it is not easy.
Dear Beata, dear all
Tristram Shandy (1759 -1767) - is the story of the life of this gentleman during the months that preceded his birth. The rest of the world is also present.
Quine’s Word and Object is fundamental for modern science. A readable book but not a dispensable one.
Dear @Reginald, I would recommend the novels of Nageeb Mahfuz, especialy those describing the old egyptian daily life; ALHARAFEESH is a very good example.
Dear All,
This is a déja vue question. In spite of it here you are some Belles-lettres:
the Bible
Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita
Jorge Luis Borges: Short stories
Nikos Kazantzakis: Zorbas, the Greek
Gyula Krúdy: Sindbad stories
Guy de Maupassant: Short stories
Victor Hugo: Les misérables
Jane Austen: Pride and prejudice
Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Faust
Edgar Allan Poe: Short stories
Arkady and Boris Strugadsky: Stalker
I propose to read them and you will find they are worth reading!
A short list with books that I have read and I'd love to read again is the following:
Hatter's Castle by A.J. Cronin
Crime and Punishment by F. Dostoevsky
Anna Karenina by L. Tolstoy
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov
In fact I think the genius of the writer is that he makes us do read a book over and over again and not its subject.
Dear All,
In addition:
Homer: Odyssey
Erich Kastner: Lottie and Lisa
Wladimir Arsenjew: Dersu Uzala
The thousand and one nights
Aristotle : Poetica
I note I like all folk tales!
Dear Viorica,
I propose you to read Ilf and Petrov: The golden calf. Is is much better than The 12 chairs !
The list would not be complete without The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, published in 1605 and 1615.
Aldous Huxley is already on the list; my favorite work by this author is the historical novel The devils of Loudon (1952), for its profound insights into human nature and society.
From America, I highly recommend the Maya K'iche' classic Popol vuh, transcribed by a Dominican friar in the early 18th century, in what is now highland Guatemala.
Here are two nice books by Richard Feynman about his life and adventures in the academic world: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?":
http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0393316041
http://books.google.com/books?isbn=0393079813
Dear Andras,
Thank you for your suggestion. Indeed, "The golden calf" is another great book. In fact I love all their books. It is amazing how they could write together.
Dear Reginald,
There are many books that everybody should read. One of the important books is "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë.
Here are a few on my list. These books are very important and you can find criticisms of these books supporting their belonging on anyone's list of great books. I have read them and can make a case for their greatness. I find them to be brilliant master pieces:
1. The Practice of Management by Peter F. Drucker
2. The Art of War by Sun Tsu
3. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
4. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes (you can download for free if you have a Kindle.)
5. Something in Common and Other Stories by Langston Hughes
In the category of nonfiction, the one book that I would recommend to people of any age, gender, or cultural background is Carl Sagan's swan song, The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark. It tends to make people think.
Well, as the Chinese used to say: The important is not reading but re-reading.
Any list, by definition, can be inexhaustible.
Strangely enough, most of us have heard about Euclid's Elements of Geometry but few of us have actually read Euclid's monumental book. This book is example of something that is simply written with many geometric figures to illustrate the ideas. And this book provides the foundation for a number of important offshoots, starting with Non-Euclidean geometry from Bolyai and Lobachevsky and Riemann's manifolds.
This book has been translated using a split-page format (Greek on the left, translation on the right) in
Euclid, Elements of Geometry, translated by Richard Fitzatrick with the Greek text from J.L. Heiberg (1883-1885), 2007, 546 pages:
http://microblog.routed.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/elements.pdf
Euclid himself freely included in his geometry results attributed to others. A very detailed account about Euclid and his predecessor is given by Sir Thomas L. Heath in
Euclid, The Thirteen Books of The Elements, translated with commentary by Sir Thomas L. Heath, 2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press, 1968:
http://www.aaaban.com/books/In%20English%20History%20and%20Philosophy%20of%20Science/Heath%20-%20Thirteen%20Books%20of%20Euclid%27s%20Elements%202e%20Unabridged%20-%20Vol.%201%20-%20Books%20I-II%20%28Cambridge,%201968%29.pdf
These are my favorite books (fiction-non-fiction-all combined - not in any order)
There are more books I like - but these 10 are my favorites !
Best wishes
Sundar
Here is a list of books for Mechanical Engineers:
Here is a list of my favorite books for Control Engineers:
Best wishes,
Sundar
Dear Reginald, thank you very much for your nice question share to me. I agree @ Carlos Eduardo Maldonado.
A few must read for Management Professionals, through there are many...
Each and every book written by Sir Henry Rider Haggard.
[Note: this reflects my personal choice]
Hello!
Among my recommended books are:
1- "Love is Letting Go of Fear" by Gerald G. Jampolsky
2- "Nonviolent Communication: a Language of Life", by Marshall B. Rosenberg
Cheers,
Alexis
There are very nice suggestion above for classical literature. I wouls like to comment that every one of us is specialised in a specific field. In addition there is a need to have a general knowledge . This knowledge does not go into depth. There are some series of books of this typs, for example, "Very Short Introductions" of Oxford U. Press,
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/series/general/vsi.do
After this step one can choose some books to go deeper.
1) "Dhammapada" - Collection of teachings of Buddha in simple verses.
This is a great book - very simple to read & profound thoughts.
The first verse of Dhammapada (translation) begins like this:
"All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, 'dukkha' follows him just as the wheel follows the hoofprint of the ox that draws the cart."
[In Buddhism, 'dukkha' means suffering, or physical or mental pain, misfortune, unsatisfactoriness, evil consequences, etc.]
This is a great book - highly inspiring to read, learn & develop good attitude.
Best wishes
Sundar
A few books from Indian thought not in any order:
1. Bhagavad-gita as it is by Swami Prabhupada
2. Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
3. Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru
4. Godan by Munshi Premchand
5. The Story of My Experiments With Truth by Mahatma Gandhi
6. The Mahabharata of Vyasa by Anonymous (Translation)
7. Pather panchali: Song of the road by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
8. The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic by Vālmīki
9. Karma Yoga: the Yoga of Action by Swami Vivekananda
10. The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo
Dear Reginald, Thanks for putting such a nice question on RG, I selected few good books to read out of an excellent collection here.
My favorite books (recently):
Best wishes
Sundar
Non-fiction books
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
First things First Stephen R. Covey
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Dear Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan:
I am very glad about your selection of Dale Carnegie classic - "How to stop worrying and start living?" I also like his other books - "How to win friends and influence people?" and the book on Public Speaking.
I am one of the millions of people who got benefited by self-help books of Dale Carnegie.
With best wishes
Sundar
Dear Sundarapandian Vaidyanathan,
Good suggestion. How to win friends and influence people is another excellent book by Dale Carnegie. Most of his books are translated in many languages. The Wikipedia page provides further info about all his books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie
Pre-monastic name of Swami Vivekananda was Narendra. He met his Guru Sri Ramakrishna when he was nineteen. One day Narendra asked following question to his Guru.
NARENDRA: Sir, have you seen God?
SRI RAMAKRISHNA: Yes, I have seen God... I have seen Him more tangibly than I see you. I have talked to Him more intimately than I am talking to you... But, my child, who wants to see God?... People shed jugs of tears for money, wife, and children, but who does that for God? If they weep for God for just one day, they would certainly see Him.
I recommend following books about the detailed account of a person who saw and experienced (communed with) God.
"Sri Ramakrisha The Great Master" by Swami Saradananda, (tr.) Swami Jagadananda.
"The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna." by Mahendranath Gupta, (tr.) Swami Nikhilananda.
Above books available across the world at Vedanta Society bookstores.
http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/links/centers.html
I CAN THINK OF:
1."To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
2."Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
3. "The Diary of Anne Frank" by Anne Frank
4. "1984" by George Orwell
5. ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling
6. "The Lord of the Rings" (1-3) by J.R.R. Tolkien
7. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. "Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
9. "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien
10."Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
11. "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
12. "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte
13. "Animal Farm" by George Orwell
14. "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell
15. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger
16. "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak
17. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain
18. "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
19. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
20. "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wadrobe" by C.S. Lewis
21. "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck
22. "The Lord of the Flies" by William Golding
23. "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
24. "Night" by Elie Wiesel
25. "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare
26. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
27. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck
28. "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens
29. "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare
30. "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
Dear Reginald,
I´m gonna answer about a few books in my field.
Fluid mechanics:
"Viscous fluid flow", White. (more advanced)
"fluid mechanics", White
'Introduction to Fluid Mechanics", Fox McDonald and Pritchard
'Mechanics of Fluids', Potter
Heat Transfer
'Introduction to Heat transfer", Incropera
'Convection Heat transfer", Bejan
'Heat and Mass Transfer", Cengel
''A heat transfer text book", Lienhardt and Lienhardt
"Handbook of Heat Transfer", Rohsenow
"Convective Heat and Mass transfer",Kays and Crawford
Two phase flow:
Fluid mechanics:
"One-dimensional two-phase flow", Wallis.
Heat Transfer:
"Convective Boiling and Condensation", Collier and Thome.
"Engineering data book III", Thome.
'Handbook of phase-change Boiling and Condensation',Kandlikar et al.
"Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Minichanneels and Micronnels", Kandlikar et al.
Those are just a few books about the area of convective heat transfer, there many others.
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