Yesterday I talked about books that I think shouldn’t be banned at all. That got me thinking of some of the other good books I’ve read before, and I figured I should list them here. I didn’t just include good books though, I also included short stories and plays that I think are good as well.
http://venturearchitecture.com/_blog/Blog death of a salesman is a classic play by Arthur Miller about national values and the american dream (or if you think small scale, one family’s struggles)
We already covered to kill a mockingbird
no exit is an existentialist play by Sartre. It starts out with a man arriving in Hell… You can find this one free online somewhere, a must read
the stranger is a novel by another existentialist, Albert Camus. It details the interesting take on life that Merssault (a man who didn’t cry at his mom’s funeral) seems to have.
1984 & Animal Farm have so many comparisons to what’s going on in this country right now that every American should be forced to read it.
leningen vs the ants is a short story about a man saving his farm from ants. At one point he digs a moat and the ants simply keep marching into it until they fill it up and cross on the dead bodies of other ants. China could do this to the US if they wanted.
cat on a hot tin roof is a tennessee williams play about mendacity, or as big daddy describes it “Liars and Lying”. I did a research paper on this in school.
the great gatsby was also mentioned earlier so I won’t get into it.
the chocolate war is probably one of the most banned books in America. It’s about high school kids and starts out with one taking a picture of another masturbating.
the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime is a british novel told from the point of view of a 15 year old with a mental problem (like rainman) who’s trying to figure out why his neighbor’s dog is dead.
henderson the rain king is the basis for the counting crows song, and is about a millionaire who goes to africa and joins a tribe.
The Pearl is a short story about a villager who finds a pearl and all the evil it brings upon his simple life.
Internet Slang Dictionary is my book. Buy it
If we have to mention shakespeare, the following plays get my vote:
King Lear, MacBeth, Hamlet, Oedipus
That’s a pretty big list. Sometime this weekend I’ll list the non-fiction books that everybody should read.
Did I miss any? Let me know, leave your reccomendations in the comments.