Ask Slashdot: What Are the Books Everyone Should Read?

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 1, 2014 @10:19AM from the i-loved-that-one-with-the-plot-and-the-characters dept.

dpu writes "Part of my New Year's resolution is to encourage reading as a hobby in those around me — especially my friends' children (ages 2 to 22), but my wife and I as well. There is a lot of 'classic' literature out there I'm familiar with, and will be promoting to the short masses here (Fahrenheit 451, To Kill A Mockingbird, In The Heat of the Night, Huckleberry Finn, Cryptonomicon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Wrinkle In Time, When Rabbit Howls, etc.), but I know many of you are much better read than I am. What recommendations would you make? What are the books that everyone should read? I don't care if it's been banned by schools, burned by communists, or illuminated by 15th century monks. If you think everyone around you should read it, I'd love to know about it."

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The manual by El_Muerte_TDS · 2014-01-01 10:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Just for once, read the f'ing manual.
1. Re:The manual by TeknoHog · 2014-01-01 10:51 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  The fucking manual, also known as Kama Sutra.
  
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  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
2. Re:The manual by behrooz0az · 2014-01-01 11:32 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Just don't forget to get a recent version: http://xkcd.com/414/
  
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Re:It's kind of long and meandering by R3d+M3rcury · 2014-01-01 10:50 · Score: 5, Funny

The Dictionary. All other books are generated from this one.
Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-01 11:02 · Score: 4, Funny

I think John Rogers sums it up well: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.