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Hello! It's quite intimidating to post here as a new account but I only have a few online friends that share my love for reading and academia so I thought I might give this a shot. If you all can humor me, please drop your best and most favorite books of all time in the replies! It doesn't have to fit a specific genre, just your utmost appreciation and love for it will suffice. Can't wait to read your recos. <3
Through a basis in a motley of texts in my more emotive, non-cognitive stage of pre-awareness development, there is a grey cloud of decentralized but compartmentalized and enlightened chaos that forms the foundation from which my particular disposition maps itself onto the external world. There are a number of books...there must be 30 books here, and I just keep adding them. My opinions, thought patterns, and expressions were all cast by the molten trial by fire from which all derivative behavior and nuances were wrought here. Maybe more pointed to discuss are the books that comprise my particular emotional and directional state of being in the present year of 2025. To start, we have the 4 fractals that express my obsession toward intensity in deliberated thought and strategy: 1) Desperation and Seriousness of Consequences: The Cask of Amontillado (Edgar Allan Poe) 2) Power of Familial Fraternalistic Synergy & Alignment Amongst Brothers: The Five Chinese Brothers (Claire Hutchet Bishop) 3) The DIY Self-Made Governor of Men: Mosquito Coast (Paul Thereoux) 4) Apotheotic Heroism & Daedalian Ardor: The Odyssey (Homer) Which brings me to my 6 picks, which are the most front of mind when going about my daily life and daily ideations given the implications held therewithin the text and metacontext of the authors, all of which have not been most fully explored to its most thorough extent by myself. -One Nation Under Blackmail Vol 1 & 2 (Whitney Webb) -Surveillance Valley (Yasha Levine) -Iranian Leviathan (Jason Jorjani) -Ghost Seer (Frederick Schiller) -Symposium (Plato) -The Asian Saga Series (James Clavell) And just for a type of fun that's also deeply fundamental, and even though I read this quite a few years back (2018), I feel this book has most adeptly shaped the lens through which I am excited by the ultimate striver experience in present day in present society in the present cell through which we present our imprint on the world. -American Kingpin (Nick Bilton)
I don't think my response will be adequate to this reply but still, thank you so much for such a diverse collection of recommendations! I'll be sure to add these to my list and hopefully in the near future, I can also talk to you about this with a much deeper sense of knowledge and appreciation for these texts.
Welcome! Some of my faves are Tristram Shandy, Don Quixote, The Tempest, Under the Volcano, Garantua and Pantagruel (Urquhart/Motteax), The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, Ulysses, Gogol's stories, Herodotus, J.G. Farrell, Midnight's Children, JR, The Unconsoled, South Wind, most of Conrad, The Adventures of Augie March, and prime: Flann O'Brien, Woolf, Waugh, Melville, Steve Erickson, Wm Gerhardie, Gass, Wm Eastlake, Peter Reading, P.K. Dick, Barbara Comyns, Pynchon, Ballard, Murdoch, Henry Green, etc. And recently Catling's Vorrh trilogy.
Hello hello! I feel a little ashamed that most of these are unfamiliar BUT I will take that as a challenge to expand my horizons. Thank you very much for this list, I'm really grateful, and hopefully I'll get to spark a conversation with you about these soon enough.
Historically, Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson esp. the third, and Carlyle's French Revolution. Philosophically Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations give rise to most of my questions in the field. For fiction, Murdoch's Under the Net and The Sea, The Sea are incredible. The Bible doesn't fit in any of those but it might be my favorite.
I'm not much of a philosophy reader and still less a Bible reader but I passionately loved the first volume of Caro, and both those Mudoch novels are to die for. Really have to get to the rest of Caro.
Love that you put them in categories—thank you so so much! Trust that these will be added to my reading pile soon. PLUS, I'm happy to see the Bible in your list! Definitely need to be more consistent with my reading and studying of it.
Howdy! Don't worry, we don't bite too hard. As far as absolutely definitive true-to-me favourites, I'd go: - Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard - Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë - The Reivers - William Faulkner - History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides - Four Quartets - T.S. Elliot - True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey - As You Like It - Billy Shakes - Whichever work of Anne Carson you choose (but most recently Beauty of the Husband) - The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes - Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre - David Foster Wallace's Essays on Tennis - My old pal Sherlock Holmes
Glad to see another fan of Kelly Gang. One of the great feats of literary ventriloquism. Carey is such an up and down writer.
Wow, thank you so much for this! I'll make sure to refer back to this once I finish my current reads!! ♡
Welcome! Happy to have you. My personal favorites are Mason & Dixon, Lonesome Dove, Matterhorn, Gilead, and Peter Matthiessen's Watson trilogy. Yours?
Hello, thank you so much for these! I'm excited to add these to my TBR, hopefully I get to read them before the year ends. My personal favorites are a few, mainly works of fiction read during my teenage years: The Harry Potter Series, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Glitter by Aprilyn Pike, Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom, and One Hundred Years of Solitude (which I haven't finished yet), and From Superman to Man by Rogers. Super thrilled to meet you and I hope we can interact more here! ♡
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was recommended to me by an advisor for my high school thesis; I've crossed paths with it at several of my life's inflection points since. Since it chose me and not the other way around I can't help but recommend it. :)
It's wonderful to hear you had such an experience with the book, its fascinating how certain books just find us at the right time when we need/want them most (even if we don't know it yet). Will definitely add this to my list, thank you so much!