books

[!Aviso!]

Read "We the Living" first. It's Ayn Rand's first book, and therefore a naturally good starting place. It's also a little bit less involved in the philosophical end of things, and so the story is a little bit more interesting. It's also about 600 pages shorter, so you'll get a better idea of whether or not you'd like her other books without having to invest a thousand pages of reading just to gauge!

That said, "Atlas Shrugged" really is her masterpiece. It's absolutely staggering. The characters are SOOOOO well-developed and the dialogue is engrossing. I love that book. I can't even count how many times I've read it.

But then again, I'm an objectivist nerd, so.... take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Beelzebub]

We the Living?! Eh... since it was her first book she wasn't too sure what she was talking about and you can pick up on it when you read. She didn't know what direction to take her philosophy to. Because it's so short, it gets preachy since she was trying to condense all her thoughts into such a short (if you want to call 300 pages short) book. And I thought the ending sucked.

 

[dargormudshark]

Read "We the Living" first. It's Ayn Rand's first book, and therefore a naturally good starting place. It's also a little bit less involved in the philosophical end of things, and so the story is a little bit more interesting. It's also about 600 pages shorter, so you'll get a better idea of whether or not you'd like her other books without having to invest a thousand pages of reading just to gauge!

That said, "Atlas Shrugged" really is her masterpiece. It's absolutely staggering. The characters are SOOOOO well-developed and the dialogue is engrossing. I love that book. I can't even count how many times I've read it.

But then again, I'm an objectivist nerd, so.... take it with a grain of salt.

I'm really into philisophical stuff though, I will probably read all of them anyway.

 

[!Aviso!]

I don't look at "We the Living" as an objectivist book, I look at it as a book about communist Russia. Fascinating from a historical perspective.

 

[Rose Immortal]

The problem with Dante's Inferno is that through the whole book he's making references and alusions to people none of us know about from ancient Italy, and it is also translated from ancient Italian so some stuff may be lost in translation.

The best thing to do is to go to the library and take out a really good translation with lots of footnotes in the back. While that can be a little bit disruptive while you're reading, to be referring to them, it does help a lot with understanding what's going on and getting the most out of it. I read both the Inferno and Purgatorio, and I actually managed to get quite attached to the characters.

 

[dargormudshark]

The best thing to do is to go to the library and take out a really good translation with lots of footnotes in the back. While that can be a little bit disruptive while you're reading, to be referring to them, it does help a lot with understanding what's going on and getting the most out of it. I read both the Inferno and Purgatorio, and I actually managed to get quite attached to the characters.

Yeah, I have not gotten to Inferno and Purgatoria yet, but I have the annotated Paradise Lost and it helps alot. It doesn't distract me too much once I get used to it.

 

[Rose Immortal]

I dunno if you've ever seen it, but there's this one hardback translation of it that's got the entire Divine Comedy. Its cover is a blue-grey and it's extremely nice. That's the one with all the explanations in the back. Granted, the illustrations in there (there are a few) are a bit hokey in places, but that's a very, very small price to pay for being able to understand better what's going on.

 

[Beelzebub]

ooh! ooh! ooh! I have that copy! It's wonderful.

 

[MC Pee pants]

Oh I understood it fine, the Inferno that is I never read the other two, but I was just saying that it is very possible to get confused about what is going on for several reasons. I might check out that book though if I ever feel I have the time to read The Divine Comedy top to bottom (i've heard the second two arn't nearly as interesting as the first, did you guys find that to be the same?). And I don't usually get too distracted by footnotes or other distractions so I probably will give that a try at some point.

 

[soundgarden]

A really good guide in helping me read Inferno was Gustav Dore's illustrations.

My favorite is that of Farinata:

"As soon as I was at teh foot of his tomb,
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
(Inferno. X, 40-42)

 

[dargormudshark]

A really good guide in helping me read Inferno was Gustav Dore's illustrations.

My favorite is that of Farinata:

"As soon as I was at teh foot of his tomb,
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
(Inferno. X, 40-42)

That is an awesome picture...make a cool cover for an album insert, maybe even a cover. Where can you get the illustrations online?

 

[OfSinsAndShred]

Soundgarden - Wicked pic from my favorite book. Lovin' it.

 

[MC Pee pants]

Do you think you guys could recommend some american classics for me (or award winning)? I have to read one in english comming up pretty soon, and since there was a book thread here I thought I might see what you guys have to think.

 

[soundgarden]

Do you think you guys could recommend some american classics for me (or award winning)? I have to read one in english comming up pretty soon, and since there was a book thread here I thought I might see what you guys have to think.

The Great Gatsby
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill a Mocking Bird

I think these are the most popular american novels.

 

[soundgarden]

That is an awesome picture...make a cool cover for an album insert, maybe even a cover. Where can you get the illustrations online?

Click here for all the illustrations from the Devine Comedy

I think you will appreciate the illustrations much more if you read the Devine Comedy.

 

[Beelzebub]

American classics? Hmm... ATLAS SHRUGGED! haha

The Things They Carried
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Color Purple
Of Mice and Men
The Pearl
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (only if you're into chick-flick types of books)
A Clockwork Orange (Burgess was born American)
The Haunting of Hill House
And I'll begrudgingly throw in To Kill A Mockingbird
It's hard to think of American novelists, I usually read stuff by foreigners. If you're allowed to read plays then:

A Raisin in the Sun
Glengarry Glenn Ross (the language is coarse, if you have to write an essay it'll be hard to use it for quotes)
Our Town
The Glass Menagerie

 

[MC Pee pants]

Soundgarden: actually I have read all of those books or I am going to this year in American lit. but thank you anyway.

Beelzebub: Don't worry, I won't have to read to kill a mockingbird, since we had to read it two years ago in school. Of the others i'm sure one of them will work although I'm not sure about plays. And I two read forgein books or non "classics" which is why I thought you guys could help me out. Thanks for all of the input.

 

[arglebargle]

Uh, Maxim and stuff.






Other stuff, too.



Wait, no, that's pretty much it. I don't really have time to read. I like Salvatore's Forgotten Realms books, but those are pretty much the only things I've read for pleasure in many years.

 

[Rose Immortal]

Beelzebub--cool that we have the same translation of The Divine Comedy. I actually bought it one year for Christmas. It's been way too long since I've read it, though.

Somebody asked about the other two books in comparison to Inferno. When I read Purgatorio, it still held my interest. In fact, there was something that happened at the very end of Purgatorio (or the beginning of Paradisio? not sure) to one of the two main characters that just about had me crying! It was amazing how emotionally invested I became in reading it. The other really moving section was the end of Inferno, when Dante writes of his re-emergence to the surface of the Earth.

I kinda lost interest in Paradisio, although I admit I'm regretting that, and when I get some time, I intend to try again to read the entire Divine Comedy. I think what angered me had to do with the idea of circles of Heaven just as Dante describes circles of Hell. In retrospect, over the years I've begun to wonder if perhaps this was yet another satirical element of his writing, and I'm interested in trying again, to see if that might be the case.

About American classics, I'd also add Tom Wolfe's book The Bonfire of the Vanities. It's a satire of the 1980s when the economy was booming...but if you didn't live through the 1980s or don't remember it, you'll find a very, VERY striking resemblance to the time during the recent "Internet bubble"! Some of the humor is very cutting and goes into things that are not usually acceptable for public discussion--but I think we all have thick enough skins here to deal with it. I highly recommend that book.

 

[Yngvai X]

My favorite is that of Farinata:

"As soon as I was at teh foot of his tomb,
Somewhat he eyed me, and, as if disdainful,
then asked of me, "Who were thine ancestors?"
(Inferno. X, 40-42)

Is this the hax0r version of the text?