My favorite book of all time bolded out of those choices. Normally I don't like dystopian lit (it usually makes me cry rivers) but Fahrenheit 451 was awesome. It's my all-time favorite book, full stop. Plus, Ray Bradbury in general is the bizzomb. Which reminds me I gotta read some more by that author.

The books I always recommend to pretty much everyone are:

Dune, by Frank Herbert - brilliant novel, one of the most important works of modern sci-fi and fantasy. Full of intrigue and interesting, morally ambiguous characters with one of the most believable fictional cultures you'll find in any book. Absolute must-read.

Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead, both by Orson Scott Card, are two really neat books. The former deconstructs the idea of a kid hero saving the Earth from aliens and the second is a sequel set 3000 years later and is all about human xenophobia and the aftermath of the events in Ender's Game. Very interesting characters - characterization is probably Card's greatest strength. Speaker is followed by Xenocide and Children of the Mind, which are worth reading if you liked Speaker but aren't as good.

To comment on some of the other posters' recommendations, Lovecraft is good sometimes but a lot of his stuff is purple prose-filled crap so you have to look for the good stuff (I recommend The Rats in the Walls and The Color out of Space), His Dark Materials is an excellent series, Discworld and Hitchhiker's Guide are hysterical, and A Song of Ice and Fire is a really neat deconstruction of high fantasy (the author has no pity whatsoever for any of his characters, which is what makes it so interesting to read).

For more recent books I'd suggest the Night Angel Series by Brent Weeks, and if you don't mind the actual genre, the Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey.

That's a big shame. A lot of people judge the first few pages of that book saying that Humbert Humbert is just some perv, but in reality, it's a psychological thing he could never help. Nabokov does an excellent job delving into that taboo subject. Not to mention, it's beautifully written. The ending is a little bittersweet.

Anything by Ray Bradbury is A+++++. My favorite of his is Dandelion Wine.

Incarnations of Immortality novels or Xanth novels by Piers Anthony.

Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

Sword of Truth by ... that other guy, can't remember.

Semi-related: Reading Lolita in Tehran was good, if a little overhyped a few years back. I think the author just released a sequel.

Donald Barthelme's Snow White is trippy as but good.

Jeanne de Jussie's The Short Chronicle is a very interesting (non-fiction) story about the women in a Catholic convent during the Reformation.

Moliere's Tartuffe is HILARIOUS. It's a play, so be advised if you hate reading scripts. I have Wilbur's translation, which is pretty good.

It's a young adult book, but I still love The Only Alien on the Planet; it's being re-issued in September. It's very much a psychological book, and has little to do with actual aliens.

I got about halfway through it. I drew the line when he talked about having sex with the child.

Two fairly new s-f masterpieces:
Charles Stross - Accelerando
Peter Watts - Blindsight

I read the first three books in a row, and finally burned out on Ayla. It's really a great series, although I thought that the author spent a bit too much time on scene descriptions. I like detail, but a five page detailing of the way the leaves move in the wind and the color of the rocks was a bit too much.

Today I found myself wandering into Barnes & Nobles-- equipped with several giftcards. I walked out with Joyce's Ulysses. Always intended to read this book, but you inspired me to read it sooner rather than later. I'm making plans to begin over Easter vacation.

Keep the recommendations coming along... This is a great thread!

PS-- no one mentioned Bill Bryson yet. Read "A Walk in the Woods." It is as much informative as it is comical.

I thought it was rather comical that Humbert Humbert spent the first, oh I don't know, quarter of the book? trying to seduce Lolita. And in the end, it's SHE who seduced HIM after confessing that she was no where near a virgin, even at 12 years old. And he reflected upon that, realizing he'd been stooped, and had a 'd'oh' moment.

This. I'll edit my post later with some actual suggestions, but this is the top of the list for me as well. Dune is, even I sound cliche, pretty deep sometimes. Herbert was a genius of his field, and I'll respect him till the day I die.

Just going to go ahead and say Ulysses again.

Those are all good and I would also recommend The Road.

I loved Dandelion Wine!

The Martian Chronicles!

For dystopian novels, having just finished Clockwork Orange I have to recommend it again. Also, The Trial by Kafka is another, anything by him is pretty good. The Castle also by Kafka, is good but is unfinished. 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin is another, which George Orwell read and used as a model for 1984. I have only read the first chapter, having seen it at an interactive art exhibit, so I can't tell you how good it is yet.

My other recommendation for today is Nausea, by Sartre. Which is awesomesauce with sprinkles of win.

Joyce, Tennyson or Homer?


I no longer seem to have the time to read. But I keep a pocket book of Hawthorne's short stories in my coat pocket and dip into them occasionally on the tube. I recommend it.

How could I forget Dune and Ender's Game? Both awesome books.

As for all the dystopian recommandations, wooo! I'm made a to-read list of dystopian novels, and have most of those recommended on my list, although there are a few that I'm adding now.

I believe that's Homer. I think Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus.

There are more than one book titled Ulysses, which is why Fain is clarifying which Ulysses Rakor is referring to.