16 January 2010

Reading List

I don't feel like posting any of my writing. It's been a while.

Here is a reading list instead of things you should check out if you have not already. It is far from exhaustive, I'm sure I will make additions as more come to mind.


The Invention of Morel [Adolfo Bioy Casares]
Invisible Cities [Italo Calvino]
The Aleph [Jorge Luis Borges]
Franny and Zooey [JD Salinger]
Exile and the Kingdom [Albert Camus]
Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Friedrich Nietzsche]
Civilization and its Discontents [Sigmund Freud]
The Iliad [Homer]
1984 [George Orwell]
Hunger [Knut Hamsun]
Blessed Assurance [AG Mojtabai]
The Ascent of Man [Jacob Bronowski]
The Ramayana [Valmiki]
Dracula [Bram Stoker]
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress [Robert Heinlein]
Œdipus Rex [Sophocles]
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym [Edgar Allan Poe]
The Island of Dr. Moreau [HG Wells]
Moon in a Dewdrop [Dogen]
The Death of Ivan Ilyich [Leo Tolstoy]
Things Fall Apart [Chinua Achebe]
Barabbas [Pär Lagerkvist]
King Lear [Billie Shakespeare]
The Declaration of Independence [Thomas Jefferson]
The Elegant Universe [Brian Greene]


These are largely representative of their genres and their authors. And they're all gateway drugs. Get addicted.

Beware: Close reading of great literature will change your relationship to the world around you. Only get into these if you are prepared for that.