The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): do i even have to explain this one? there is an entire tribe of devotees of this book that spans the globe. you probably know something about it b/c of the movies; don't form your whole opinion based on that. Read it.
The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien): read this before LoTR, it's lighter and funnier, and utterly enchanting. you will never, ever forget it.
Harry Potter (J. K. Rowling): because you'll like it, dammit.
Treasure Island (R.L. Stevenson): this book should be a staple of everybody's imagination and literary life. it's fast and easy if you're over eleven, and the characters are practically archetypes by now. a very entertaining read.
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury): an absorbing, thought-provoking, gripping scifi that will stay with you years after you have read it.
Dracula: if you like horror, read this- regardless of whether you have seen the movie or not. it's much more than you'll expect. very vivid, and scenes linger in your mind like dreams for the rest of your life.
Moby Dick (Melville): okay, i have to warn you: don't read this if you haven't read or finished a book in the last month. don't read this if you're not a serious reader. it's like six hundred pages, and it goes off on tangents and lectures. if you've got alot of patience for books, by all means, give this a shot. it's worth it if you can get through it. this book is, to quote the vernacular, a doosy. but the characters are indelible and epic, and so is the theme. this is a heavy-hitter. also, if you have no remote interest in sea-stories, history, whaling (you will know alot about whaling when you finish this), and the like, don't bother with it. but if this kind of stuff sounds like your cup of tea, go for it. i loved it, myself.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey): this is a definite must. it's heavily psychological, it's one of those "descending into the pit of madness and despair" books. but you'll walk away from it satisfied, and smiling. it will really get to you. plus it's pretty funny.
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky): ... wow. i haven't finished this yet, but MAN. i love it already. it's also one of the "descending into the pit of madness and despair" books. it will mess with your head, great for late-night and weekend reading. heavily intellectual and philosophical, not to mention psychological. it's got all the good stuff. =)
The Metamorphosis (Kafka): very, very weird and thought-provoking. read it when i was younger, i don't want to give the plot away but it's pretty awesome and a moderately fast read.
Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky): yet another "descending into the pit of madness and despair" book, less plot than Crime and Punishment, more introspection and aLOT of philosophical rambling. may test your patience, but very, very good.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Carroll): you should not go through life not having read this book. no, the Disney cartoon is not enough.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo): oh, my god. this book definitely left a mark on me, maybe even my whole life. it's the most sad, despairing, heartwrenching, ironic, fateful story you'll ever hear. it's sad and terrible and beautiful. there is just so much to be gotten out of this book. you will be able to relate with one character at the very least, and you will be captivated by all the others. this book is very human. human nature, the human condition, the highs and lows of humanity are here. it's just as complicated and ironic as real life. no apologies. Absolutely Amazing. i could not put it down.
The Silence of the Lambs (Harris): this may be one of the best book-to-film adaptations ever. read it if you haven't seen it, read it if you have seen it. it's just like the movie, but with more detail: darker shadows and starker highlights. you get more into the heads of the characters, and there is such mindblowing imagery- it is almost better to read after seeing the movie. it will add to the experience infinitely. it's even more intense than the movie; it's so gripping that i stayed up reading it until four in the morning... then fell asleep for about two hours, and finished it the second i woke up. i actually fell asleep holding it. wow.
A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, et cetera (L'Engle): this woman's books, all about the same set of characters, will test the farthest reaches of your imagination. kudos to her for creating something so mindblowing it's almost surreal... but far too strangely realistic and beleiveable to be surreal.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson): this book is WAY more than you'll expect. it's worth reading, even with the coutless adaptations to film and tv. it'll grab you, and hold you 'til you finish it. a very memorable read. also suprisingly quick.
The Invisible Man (H.G. Wells): this book is insane. it's incredibly cool; you crawl into the mind of an inhuman egotist, and get lost. it's so freakin' creepy. my god. the end is like a punch in the gut.
Lightning (Dean Koontz): awesome awesome awesome. you have no idea where it's going. i refuse to give ANYTHING away because that would be MONSTROUSLY unfair. it's so imaginitive. involves nazi-bashing, death, meddling, a writer, and a comedienne. and toads. read it.
Bloodchild (Octavia E. Butler): actually a short story. pretty freaking creepy, and brings up things that are hard to reconcile with easily. sci/fi. involves moderate grossness.
Any and all Dragonlance books (various authors, mainly Weis and Hickman): for all my fellow geeks out there. D&D, Tolkien-influenced fantasy with elves and dwarves and kender and men and dragons and hobgoblins and magi. i know that this isn't really a heavy-hitting series, per se, but it's tons of fun, and always well-written. i'd recommend the short story collections for anyone who is mildly interested in this kind of fantasy and who has a short attention span (or not much spare time).
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (P.K. Dick): i went through the whole book, and by the end, i still wasn't sure whether i liked it or not. it's an amazing peice of work, either way. definitely worth a read. see, it's not that i didn't enjoy the book, after a fashion, it was v. entertaining. but it's such an intense book, that it's hard to put a simple opinion on it. you'll see when/if you read it. it's a bit of a doosy, so be forewarned.
Neuromancer (William Gibson): now this is a challenge. you have to kind of work to read the book, but it just makes it that much better if you understand it. it's beautifully written. so much detail. an insane amount of detail. this book was the basis for the Matrix. and, in my opinion, it's better. "basis" means really that the Matrix stole a lot of story elements/concepts. it's SciFi- "cyberpunk" at its best. "The first and best," to quote my professor.
Troll Bridge (Neil Gaiman): Yes, Neil Gaiman. The writer of Sandman. This is a short story, a twist on the old classic fairy tale. Darker, rather sad, very adult. since it's a short story i won't say too much, for fear of giving something away. but it kicks @$$. it's such a bizzare story; i haven't forgotten it, and i doubt you would either. it really leaves you with something. hard to explain, but that's the point, i think. five stars out of four. ^.~
The Mask (Dean Koontz): scary as hell by the end. and just as freaky as the best segment you ever saw on Unsolved Mysteries or Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction?. i made the mistake of finishing it up late at night. i ran down a dark hallway to flip the light on. i flipped every lightswitch i came across, in fact. that bit with the cat?? jeeeeeeeez. that's some CLASSIC shit there. it's one of those books where you see everything coming and it just tortures you until the end... it's about a mysterious, beautiful teenage girl who appears out of seemingly nowhere, with no past. involves much reincarnation. definitely out of the "freaky as hell" files.
Solaris (Stanislaw Lem): this is what Science Fiction is meant to be. it will test the limits of your understanding, it will challenge you, it will frustrate you, and you will never forget it. the concept is that humanity, when faced with something TRULY alien, will have no idea what to do with ourselves.
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury): it's the kind of thing that seems to have been around forever; it's so archetypal- it just feels right. Holloway and Nightshade... well, anyway- if you wanna know about the genre, that's hard. it's definitely fantasy- but it's kind of a Halloweenish/mild horror story. You get me? it's a tale. go read it. gotta love demonic circuses...
Twilight Eyes (Dean Koontz): longish (450 pgs), engrossing tale that will creep the f^ck out of you. not what you would think from the title, either. great for late night reading. involves goblins, shape-changing, love, betrayal, coal mining operations, and running away to the carnival, and a man with a third eye.
The Stand (Stephen King): as for length? it's like Moby Dick on Steroids. dude, this is a long long book and it will take you a long long time to read. yet another one that i literally could not put down. i spent hours at a time, every spare second, reading this book. if you've seen the miniseries (which i have seen parts of), read it anyway. i know i've said that a lot on this page but oh well, deal with it. One of the reasons i loved this was that the characters and the dialog and the way they all interacted was so real, despite some classic melodrama. but you need the drama, am i right?? Anyway... King's Big Bad Guy, The Walkin' Dude, is in this ... and he's SCARY AS ALL GETOUT. just... fuckin' scary man. he crawls into your brain. still frightening even when "defeated". reading this book will make you feel like you're being watched. i don't wanna give too much away but... when i was dumb enough to read this book long into the wee hours, i'd be scared shitless when i had to walk around my dark and silent house... i was afraid to turn a corner because at every turn i'd (more than) half expect to see Randall Flagg, The Walkin' Dude standing there, grinning at me... but that was only half the time. the other half of the time, it'd be Harold Lauder standing there grinning. Harold Lauder is a complex character... utterly scary, but tragic and even sympathetic. well anyway what i'm saying is read this book, because it's great. when you finish reading it you'll feel almost as if you've just lived an entire other life, in addition to your current one. PS- you see if you're not quoting Tom Cullen before the book is over. M-O-O-N, that spells good readin'. PPS- go for the uncut version.
The Eyes of the Dragon (Stephen King): i can't believe i haven't listed this one yet. i believe, if memory serves me quite well, that this was the only book (well, only novel) that i read, start to finish, in one day. it's definitely a tale. a wonderful book, that's really all i can say. v. different from most of his other books. pretty self-contained, relatively short... very magic-ey... like a longer, more involved Grimm's Fairy Tale. Flagg, The Walkin' Dude is in it. Kind of.
Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire): so everyone knows i'm a madwoman in bookstores. i'm like a kid in a candy store, i want everything i see. but one day, a certain book caught my eye on the way in. WICKED, it said in big letters. a saw an unmistakable picture of a witch- green with a black hat... but in a peculiar pose, almost a sympathetic one. certainly not an evil one. i went in for a closer look. The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, went the subtitle. well, i was indeed struck with interest and curiosity. i read the back of the book. looked at the inside covers. the author had written Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which i hadn't read and hadn't the foggiest idea the plot about, but had heard of. (later i read that Wicked had been made into a play, which i had some recollection of hearing about). anyway i found that, once having the book in my hand, i could not put it down. i did once or twice, but my eye never left it, and i kept picking it up again. so i decided to indulge this sudden odd urge and buy it. i didn't imagine i'd read it for a while... but i ended up starting it that very night, in bed, under my powerful little reading light. it was amazing. i actually put off finishing the last few pages of the book because i didn't want it to end. i never read the book, the wizard of oz, but everyone knows at least one version of the story. it's part of so many people's childhoods; including mine. this book took that world and forced it to grow up... and though the innocence was lost, it was a small price to pay. this book takes what was already there from the Wizard of Oz and twists it's way farther into your brain, maturing, and blurring the lines between Good and Evil. both tragic and triumphant. by the end of the book, The Wicked Witch of the West became one of my literary heroes. that's all i'll say. read it!
Love, Janis (Laura Joplin): this is a biography of Janis Joplin by her sister. i'm still in the process of reading it... but if you love her singing, and her style, and feel an odd urge to reach out to her, past time and death, read this.
Whatever You Want: We Write, You Decide: A Pick-Your-Own-Ending Escapade (Timms, Hayes): remember those choose-your-own-ending books that you read in gradeschool? well this is the adult version. the "adult" adult version. highly entertaining. you WILL go back a million times to get to the "perfect" ending (yes there is one, all the endings are listed in the beginning). you can either go through this book as a chick or a dude. lots of fun to read, and very addictive. you are going to want a bookmark or two. and yeah it took me a while, but i DID find the perfect ending. go me! great to tote along with you to somewhere you know you're gonna be bored. Sex, Gambling, Parties, Illegal stuff, Sex, Hookups, Revenge, and Sex. Holy Crap. but it's fun and some of it'll make you giggle.
God Is Dead (Ron Currie Jr.): The title is mildly grabbing, but actually not as grabbing as the cover art (the title might seem provocative to some, but certainly not to me). the cover art was what made me pick this up. and i'm glad i did. it's not what you'd think it is. it's not a really long theological essay, like you would think from the title, it's a story (actually pretty short). the premise is that God inhabits the body of a young Sudanese woman and when that woman dies, God dies too. And everything that happens (and doesn't happen) after that. I couldn't put it down- i finished it by the afternoon after i bought it, and i'd recommend it to anyone (in fact i've lent it to my brother). it's told in the pov of several people (one narrator has one chapter, another has the next, etc), and one chapter is actually an interview with one of the feral dogs who fed on God's corpse (who "started speaking a mishmash of Greek and Hebrew, and walking along the surface of the White Nile as if it were glass"). a fast read but worth at least 20x the amount of time it actually takes to read it. It's wacky, it's sad, it's funny, it's quirky and thought-provoking. Oh man, it's freakin' awesome. Go read it! whether you believe in God or not. if i'm not mistaken this is the author's first novel. quite an entrance. i'd read anything else this guy puts out.
