All books which I've found interesting or liked
Alan Paton - Cry, the Beloved Country - a touching novel on apartheid in South Africa
Albert Camus - The Plague - Camus used the incidence of a plague to delve into the human psyche
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World - A description of a possible Utopia, but is it a Utopia?
Arthur C. Clarke - Odyssey Series - Science fiction
Agatha Christie - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - I find her books too dry but this is a classic.
Alexander McKee - The Friendless Sky - A book on the lives of men who piloted fighter planes in WWI
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead - I don't agree with her philosophy but her literary style ls something to be admired.
Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson - Prequels and pre-prequels to the Dune Saga - Do you want racy, scifi thrillers which will make you stick your nose in the book? Then these is for you. The Pre-prequels are The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, The Battle of Corrin and the prequels are House Harkonned, House Corrino and House Atriedes.
Enid Blyton - all her stuff, its great reading for children.
Edgar Allan Poe - Collected Short Stories, don't remember which ones exactly but they include the Pit and the Pendulum.
Frank Herbert - The Dune Saga - truly amazing and possibly my favorite series. A creative blend of metaphysics, fantasy and science fiction. Recommended!
Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamazov - The amount of wisdom this book contains is unbelievable...recommended!
George Martin - The Song of Ice and Fire - a fantasy series in which magic plays less of a role, with a heavily intertwined and subtle plot.
George Orwell - Animal Farm - A satire on communism.
Guy de Maupassant - all his works, especially Ball of Fat and The Necklace
H.H. Munro - all this works, I like his style and irony
Issac Asimov - The Foundation Series, I, Robot, lots of short stories, and parts of his Daniel Olivaw centered works...must complete reading it sometime.
Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men in a Boat - This is possible my favourite book, it had me in splits. I'm willing to bet that this will be the funniest book you've ever read, inspite of it being published in the 19th century its humour remains fresh are ever.
J.D. Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Jostein Gaarder - Sophie's World
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Ring, The Silmarrion The Hobbit - fantasy at its best
Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle - The pointlessness of war and strife
Kim Stanley Robinson - The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars,Green Mars,Blue Mars)
Leo Tolstoy - War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich - The 2nd book is an introspective on the nature of death and why we fear it.
Pearl S. Buck - The Good Earth - Its potrayal of human nature really struck me.
P.G. Wodehouse - Really comic, the coincidences he comes up with are hilarious.
Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time Series
Richmal Crompton - William Series - Simply hilarious, I think I've read ever single one
Steven Errikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen (7 books)
Thomas Hardy Leahey - A History of Psychological Thought
Will Durant - Story of Philosophy - a great introduction to Western Philosophy
Asimov's foundation series is excellent! I loved them all, have you read "I, Robot" by him? Much better than the film.
Yup, I've read that and I've read a lot of this other works too, just hadn't listed it at that point in time. I thought the movie was fine though.
For what I see, I didn’t read a lot of them, of course this is just the beginning.
Agatha Christie is fun to read. It’s a guilty pleasure. My favourite books from her are: And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I’ve just three books of the Dune saga. I will try to finish one day. I have problems to keep continuing long series. Guy de Maupassant is a great shortstoryteller. The last version of The Horla is amazing. You would probably like Edgar Allan Poe, if you didn’t already try him.
Keep continuing this list! I love to have ideas for my TBR pile.
I done a list of favorites too: my 300 favorite books.
Yeah, I've to really update this list...lots of books to go.
Well, Agatha Christie's plots were well-thought out but there were very dry, it was an effort to go through the 200 odd pages before Poirot brings everyone together and settles the issue. Maybe I read them too early, and I'd appreciate them more now.
I haven't read the Horla as yet, but I sure will.
I've read Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, but again quite some time ago. My reading time has, of late, been consumed by these convoluted, voluminous and absorbing fantasy series.
Which book from Jerome K. Jerome do you like?
Oops! Thanks for pointing that out. Its Three Men in a Boat, highly recommended if you like light, uproariously funny humour.
Any opinions on great philosophical books?
The only philosophical books I've read till now are War and Peace, Death of Ivan Ilyich and Brothers Karanavoz. I liked "Death of Ivan Ilyich" because it helps one understand death and why we fear it. I liked War and Peace because it confirmed what I'd already thought out about determinism. And Brothers Karamazov is a work of art, Doestoevsky fits in so much, he covers such a breadth of topics in that book!
Else, I've only read general philosophical books, to get a taste of it first, like Will Durant's book. Again, as an engineering student, not much time to go further into the subject. I'm reading this book on psychology right now which is taking a bit of time, but its very interesting :)