Ask Slashdot: What Are the Books Everyone Should Read?

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."

Comments

An incomplete list from my shelf

[Cronopios]

A Confederacy of Dunces
Catch-22
Dharma Bums
Lord of the Flies
Momo
On the Road
Siddharta
The Golden Notebook
The Grapes of Wrath
The Razor's Edge
A Clockwork Orange
Brave New World
Player Piano
Slaughterhouse Five
Snowcrash
The Diamond Age
The Dispossessed
The Island
The Stand ...

Re:Well...

[runningduck]

I understand how the "errors" comment relates to #8 & #9, but how does it relate to #10? Have you read the Wealth of Nations? What errors did you find? I suspect that you have been exposed Adam Smith's work via someone else's filter and interpretation.

Unlike Atlas Shrugged and The Communist Manifesto, The Wealth of Nations does not take a position and is consistantly observational throughout the book based on data of the time. Although Adam Smith is often noted as the father of capitalism, he is first and foremost a philosopher. It is clear throughout his works that he does not always agree with what he observes, but lays out the facts regardless. Most people latch onto the observations regarding self-interest in The Wealth of Nations and extrapolate it to mean that "greed is good" when in fact Smith is more focused on the notion that people have to do what is best for themselves and their families. A reading of his earlier work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, expands upon his observations and helps balance the nuanced conflicts within each of us and society as a whole.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

> couch surfing writers like Karl Marx

Karl Marx was an economist. Ayn Rand was a fanatic.

Re:What to read

[Trepidity]

You clearly haven't read Capital, if you think it's a pipe-dream proposal, or a proposal at all. It's mostly just an analysis of capitalism; unlike the Communist Manifesto, it's not a proposal of or advocacy for any particular alternative.

42

[savuporo]

I cant belive i didnt find "Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy" here. It has answers for everything.