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Or, books you have recently read, and actually mean something to you. Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy, a story that moves you and highlights what it means to be human, something the film never managed.
Care to recommend a book worth taking the time to read?
Catcher in the Rye. If you haven't already. Come back to discuss what it's actually about if you like.
I’m reading Caitlin Moran’s “How to Build a Girl”.. it was cheap on Amazon, so I took a punt, didn’t really seem like my sort of thing, but its brilliant (so far). She’s a really good writer and the era it’s set in was a really important one in my life, so it really hits home.
I've put it up here before I think but
Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada.
Moving, tense and harrowing. The story of a German mother and father who after the news of their son's death in France decide to drop anti war postcards around Berlin in Hitler's Germany.
To me the Trump/May/Putin era has also brought new meaning to 1984 by George Orwell.
The Bible. Specifically the New Testament
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
Not for the faint of heart, by any means, but one of the most complex and riveting novels I have ever read.
About a refined, educated German man who becomes an officer in the SS, whom we watch fragmenting into something subhuman and profoundly human at the same time.
Try "The Diceman" by Luke Rhinehart.
Makes you query your decision making process.
Catcher in the Rye. If you haven’t already. Come back to discuss what it’s actually about if you like.
Now. I read this on holiday last week, just 'cause I never had, and was very glad when it ended. Is there a website that explains it? I'm rubbish at spotting symbolism and subplot and metaphor and stuff - he just seemed like a bit of a waster kid to me.
1984.
It's ****ing horrible.
Brilliant, but horrible.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest is an excellent counterpoint.
Don't ever want to see/read either ever again.
1984 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest are both great books. So are Catch 22, Heart of Darkness, To Kill a Mockingbird. Pretty much anything by Hunter S. Thompson, but Hell's Angels is a good place to start. I mostly don't like Tom Wolfe, but The Right Stuff was his best book IMO. For non-fiction, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is excellent (not at all the warmongering drivel that I expected), as is Guns, Germs, and Steel. If you want something a bit more weird, Perfume and The Wasp Factory are excellent.
Pretty much all Cormac McCarthy's books do that. I'd also add House of Leaves, Lord of the Rings, Grapes of Wrath, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Swan Song.
PS. I thought they did a decent job with the film of The Road.
Birds Without Wings - Louis de Bernierres
Tells the story of a fictional Anatolian village prior to and leading up to the events of WW1, along with some semi-non-fiction accounts of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the Battle of Gallipoli. It is very definitely a story that moves you and highlights what it means to be human.
Collins English Dictionary; lots of meanings
Catcher in the Rye.
Personally i think its bloody boring and nithing else.
Bomber by Len Deighton
1984 has been mentioned so Fahrenheit 451.
as is Guns, Germs, and Steel
Is a terrible book, worth only to read to understand how to write a book about cultural imperialism while disguising it (badly) about history/anthropology
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
Really hit home for me when I read it living in Vancouver weirdly...
Burmese Days by Orwell felt far too close to the bone for me as it took the worrying little differences in mine and my wife's backgrounds, politics and aspirations, and exaggerated and caricaturised them into a whole novel. In some ways I really want to read it again, and in some ways I want to bury it at the back of my bookcase in case my wife decides to read it too...
Fiction ?
I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with “meaning”. I’ve read plenty that have either made me think about the subject matter and the context, yet never made that much of an impression on me.
Research or Factual ?
Yeah, Some autobiographical and biographical books have made an impression on me. Certainly the more Adventurous tomes.
And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson is up there, as an examination of the Scottich psyche and a great read - I felt like I knew several of the characters and some of the incidents in the book seemed to have relevance to me or people I know, and I almost felt like I was part of it in some way;
The Crossing by Cormac Macarthy I absolutely loved, I got very emotionally involved and cant bring myself to read the Cities of The Plain yet;
Never really got on with Orwell but when I was about 17 I read and loved Coming up for Air, a sort of tale of perceived failure and redemption in middle class post war England.
Farenheit 451, Brave New World and 1984 are three that immediately spring to mind. Shadows of times gone by and portents of the future.
Something a little different, but still one to jog the brain into action is the semi-fictional Munch by Steffen Kverneland.
https://www.waterstones.com/author/steffen-kverneland/1113958Munch, by Stefan Kvae
Iain Banks - The Quarry
As mentioned above The Grapes of Wrath. Read when I was 19 and it left an impression I'll never forget. The book group I'm part of read it recently some 30 odd years since I'd first read it. I was a bit reluctant to read it again as I knew it could never have the same impact as it had when I was young. I couldn't have been more wrong. I won't claim it's the best book ever written but there certainly is no better book.
Zenn and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig.
Total mind*&^^% - its a difficult read, but it gets you thinking!
There are two follow on books if you really want to go for it.....
not a big reader by any means, but what i do read tends to be more classical such as orwell, catcher in the rye, zen and the art etc.
no book has ever made me go 'wow' as much as 'and the ass saw the angel' by nick cave. i tried to read it once and gave up, then when i felt ready to give it another go i read it on holiday. i was just stunned by it. the story of a mute lad, dragged up by a drunken mother who he hates, a dad born through incest. cant really describe the way the books written other than copy and paste wiki......
"The story, set in the American South and told through the voice (or non-voice) of Euchrid Eucrow, was written in a kind of hyper-poetic thought-speak not meant to be spoken, a mongrel language that was part Biblical, part Deep South dialect, part gutter slang, at times obscenely reverent and at others reverently obscene."
really dark book, some horrible stuff in it and like i say, it just stunned me how NC could come up with the story, the language, i think the blokes a genius. maybe not everyones cup of tea but i really would recommend it.
Consider the lilies by Iain Crichton Smith is a short beautiful and merciless description of colonialism.
Homage to Catalonia always resonates with me.
I'll second Galloway boy regarding And the land lay still
I was really lucky to have read And the Land Lay Still at the perfect time, I'd just moved back to Scotland and spent the first month commuting by train between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Perfect reading time with some appropriate scenery rushing by outside.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It basically explains that if you eat enough you'll develop the ability to fly.
Some good calls already, I think 1984 is very timely in the age of Trump & 'enemies if the people' Brexiters. The Road was the book that leapt to mind first, though I'm stuffed if I know what the meaning is/was, but I read it just after out 1st child was born and it poleaxed me . His other books, the Plains trilogy all good.
Hubert Selby jr, last exit to Brooklyn & requiem for a dream. All the Iaian m Banks books for me. William Gibson, Dan Simmons, Philip k Dick, Alistair Reynolds, Dune, Asimov, I like sci-fis ability to talk about humanity by exploring what's not human- aliens, robots, cyborgs, consciousness, AI etc. joe Abercrombie's The Blade itself is a great character study of The Bloody Nine!
Adam Rutherford's 'A Brief History of Everyone Whos Ever Lived' stands out as is better than many popular science/history books. As did 'Selfish Gene' by Dawkins (God Delusion is a distraction from his better stuff imho) & Matt Ridley's 'Genome' when I'd just started as a scientist.
Also Brian K Vaughns graphic novels 'Saga' & 'Y The Last Man'
And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson
I had never heard of this but a quick Google suggests that I simultaneously really want to read it and really don't.
It might be a bit too close to home.
Not sure I read books with 'meaning' that much - I mean, you can only be reminded that humans can be bastards so many times. I usually go for entertainment. The nearest thing I could suggest is reading about five or six Culture novels, which is about what it took me to figure out what they are all actually about.
Is a terrible book, worth only to read to understand how to write a book about cultural imperialism while disguising it (badly) about history/anthropology
Have you actually read the book? His thesis was that the dominant nations got that way largely through geographical luck. A frequent criticism of the book is that he dismisses cultural factors as unimportant. You seem to have projected something onto the book that is completely the opposite of what it says.
For something very different to any of the above - With The Jocks by Peter White. A wonderfully written book about his own experiences in WW2 – so vivid and also full of compassion for not only his own men and innocent civilians, but also for the German troops his regiment was fighting against.
The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Milman. A bit Americany/schmaltzy but I enjoyed nonetheless.
The Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Perfect short story.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Might be a bit dated but I remember enjoying it at the time.
If you liked A Catcher in the Rye then some of the stuff in For Esme with love and Squalor is good. Particularly the title story.
Not sure I read books with ‘meaning’ that much – I mean, you can only be reminded that humans can be bastards so many times.
Intended or not, that could imply a very narrow definition of 'meaning', ironically almost to the point of rendering 'meaning' as 'meaningless' ?
I'll throw in:
'The Pearl' - John Steinbeck
'Jude The Obscure' - Thomas Hardy
'The Power Of Now - 'Eckhart Tolle'
'Narcissus and Goldmund' - Herman Hesse
'Swimming Studies' - Leanne Shapton
'Thursbitch' - Alan Garner
'The Wild Asses Skin' - Balzac
That's why I put it in inverted commas, as it's rather hard to define isn't it? According to many of these suggestions it does seem to be a synonym for 'depressing content' no?
it does seem to be a synonym for ‘depressing content’
maybe, but its that content that resonates with you most & leaves you thinking about it after youve finished, addressing topics that are easier to avoid
Have you actually read the book?
Yes, it's well written, I'll give you that, and it trundles along, the problem with it is that's its mostly made up bollocks to suit the authors' agenda
It fails as it offers any defence or explanation of individual actions, fails to deal with important concepts like governments (especially non European ones) or money exchange. Makes European domination look like a happy distant accident, becoming almost inadvertent occupying forces, and paints the natives as passive or even complicit in their own subjugation, and revives long abandoned theories about environmental determinism. Its a tremendously distorted and patchy work at best, and perhaps even racist at worst. He recounts the reasons/ability of expansion without ever once asking whether they "should've"
How's that?
maybe, but its that content that resonates with you most & leaves you thinking about it after youve finished, addressing topics that are easier to avoid
But those two things are orthogonal - something that leaves you thinking after you've finished, that's just a book with high impact; but something that's easier to avoid implies it's an uncomfortable topic that makes you miserable.
China Mieville - Un Lun Dun
Voltaire - Candide
BF Skinner - Walden 2
Doris Lessing - Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta (<i>Personal, psychological, historical documents relating to visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (Grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days)</i>
Cory Doctorow - Little Brother
Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game
One I really couldn't get into is:
Georges Bataille - The Trial of Gille de Rais
Some non fiction:
The Forest Unseen - David George Haskell
The Shining Levels - John Wyatt
The Living Mountain - Nan Shepherd
He recounts the reasons/ability of expansion without ever once asking whether they “should’ve”
It's not a book on moral philosophy, it's an attempt at explaining why Europeans colonized far away countries rather than the far away countries colonizing Europe (that's the question raised right at the beginning). It's about the "is" not the "ought".
He's very clear in his belief that humans everywhere have always been extremely good at exploiting any resources available. He's saying that Europeans weren't smarter than other people, just luckier, so the racist accusation doesn't stand up to scrutiny. He may well be wrong about his main thesis but it is a book that raises interesting ideas.
If this is a man - Primo Levi - It's a hard read because of the subject but amazing none the less.
Brave New World - I worry we're already there in some ways.
Latin American Trilogy - Louis De Berniers - Pretty harsh in places, hilarious in others but these three make you feel better about the world
The Hand that First Held Mine - resionated for me a alot but for personal reasons (might not for you)
A Farewell to Arms
If this is a man – Primo Levi – It’s a hard read because of the subject but amazing none the less.
A very good call. Somehow I had temporarily forgotten about it.
He’s saying that Europeans weren’t smarter than other people, just luckier
Read that back to yourself, do you honestly think that Europeans "just happened" to make the decision to go looting and conquering? Just lucky that Indigenous folk were technologically less advanced Didn't choose to brutally kill them in unequal wars, instead of honest trade?
He has nothing to say about the political and religious decisions that drove exploitation on a world scale, its factually wrong, and blatantly misleading
Anyway, enough. this thread is about recommending books rather than arguing about bad pop science, so my recommendation is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. Yes it's vast, yes you'll know more about crop rotation in 19th century Russia, but it's a work of art. Betrayal, sacrifice, unbearable love, faith, family, all explored: Glorious
Just lucky that Indigenous folk were technologically less advanced
Yes, that's basically the main point of the book. Europeans were geographically lucky, the technological advantage arose from luck, not virtue. That technological advantage is what made it possible for Europeans to colonize far away lands. It's not an argument that Europeans should have done that, it's just saying that it was possible because of fortuitous circumstances. A racist viewpoint would be that Europeans were smarter, not luckier. He's saying the opposite of what racists would say.
Anyway, enough. this thread is about recommending books
So perhaps you should stop criticizing books you don't seem to understand.
books you don’t seem to understand
Its rubbish, OK? He takes history and applies abritary rules to it that do not stand up to scrutiny such as "agrarian societies will always win over nomadic ones" apart from the Dorian invasion of Greece, the Hittites, the Aryans, the Huns and Mongols...he cuts and pastes history to fit his narrative, and does it over and over again in a way that's blatantly misleading in order for world history to fit his chosen narrative
He's like a 19th century writer suggesting that written history is a valuable "end product" that carries more weight than pre-history, which is obviously bogus. His opening statement about how Europeans came to have more 'stuff' than folk new guinea Is entirely a moral question and not an historical one, obvious to even the most casual reader.
I urge you, if you're interested in the idea of "world history" to read properly researched books, start with Collingwood's "The Idea of History" and go from there
Anyway, enough. this thread is about recommending books
I thought you said you were going to stick to recommending books, not arguing.
Yeah I know... Look I'm not having a pop OK, it's a personal gripe I have about that book. It's glossy it's well written it's bloody persuasive, but it's really really badly researched and the theory that it all hangs on is dubious at best, its scientific fake news...
Just read some other stuff that is properly researched is all I ask.
So anyway, I like The Da Vinci Code.
A novel with meaning - my take on that is that some books are just a nice self contained story; compelling narrative but that's about it. A book with meaning is one where the native and/or characters are a vehicle for a more significant comment on life. A good book with meaning is one that works both on the immediate and in a deeper sense - the 'contained story' also needs to be compelling irrespective of the deeper 'meaningful' context.
In addition to a few of the above I'd add 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' by John Irving. A bizarre but highly entertaining story at a superficial level that only comes together and makes sense in a very profound way in the last pages.
FWIW I agree with nickc. I thought Blood, Germs and Steel had the kernel of an interesting idea then a load of cod science piled on top.
If you are after a recent non-fiction book with some interesting ideas in it then I'd highly recommend "Sapiens". "Prisoners of Geography" was a good read too.
'A Prayer for Owen Meany'.
Good call convert,still one of my favourite books.
Some great titles already and nice to see Perfume getting a mention.
Dunno about novels but reading 'The Ethical Carnivore' by Louise Gray has struck more than a few chords. A lot of unanswered questions IMO but good nonetheless. Of course I could be a victim of confirmation bias...
Was fancying 'Alone in Berlin', seem to have developed a taste after 'The Man in the High Castle' and 'Fatherland'.
'Fahrenheit 451' seems poignant in today's climate.
Farnhams Freehold, Robert Heinlein
racisim, the fall of the white man, more racism and eugenics
The World Inside, Robert Silverberg
what happens when the population is allowed to explode
Startide Rising, David Brin
A chilling picture of the galaxy beyond, what it might be like for a technologically primitive man to venture into the galaxy where religious fundamentalists with god like technology hold sway and really don’t like us after we find something that contradicts their religious views
Peter Davidson’s Book if Alien Mosters, a collection of short stories including the hilarious “Vurfing the Gwrx “ (be careful playing games in arcades) and also a chilling story about sample collecting on alien worlds, because mummy and daddy of the samples might be 300ft tall angry carnivorous mobile mushrooms.
The State of the Art Ian M Banks only today Mrs Anagallis seemed aghast that I took the dog for a walk without my phone.
Sophie's World - fabulous introduction to philosophy seemingly aimed at the likes of me! i.e. easy to understand 🙂
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
Very difficult to summarise the plot threads that comprise this satire set in Stalin's Soviet Union. Don't google too much or you could spoil it.
Lots of other good books already mentioned.
Flowers for Algernon certainly been one that's stuck with me. And Lord of the Flies, if you only ever read it at school. Totally different read when you're an adult.
I forgot to add: I am Legend and Sacrament (latter by Clive Barker).
The Diceman for sure - already recommended up there ^
The Stranger/Outsider - Camus
The Alchemist - Coelho
Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Bach
Filth - Welsh
Five off the top of my head there, but yeah loads more - How about Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail?
Animal Farm.
I have never been an avid reader, but do enjoy a graphic novel or two. Ones that get me thinking are,
The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman
Watchmen by Allan Moore.
Sacrament (latter by Clive Barker)
Not read it, but the mention of his name reminds me of his wonderful book Weaveworld – a book I have read many times.
I love Cormac McCarthy. But I always seem to finish his books thinking "That was incredible, but I never want to read it again". They're just emotionally draining. I loved his Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain). But I never want to read it again 🙂
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Anything by Kurt Vonnegut, actually.
Post Office by Charles Bukowski.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.
+ 1 for Zen and The Art. I can see how it can look a bit like armchair philosophy from some angles, but I read it at just the right time and it definitely changed the way I thought about things.
The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns and And The Mountains Echoed all by Khaled Hosseini
The film of the Kite Runner is one of the best adaptations I've seen.
My grandfather had Alzheimer's and the telling of that in And The Moutains Echoed pretty much had me in tears, something no other book I can think of has done
EDIT - which got me looking at Hosseini's Wiki entry in which he says Jack London's White Fang was an early influence. An excellent book with some truly awful films made of it.
+ 1 for Zen and The Art. I can see how it can look a bit like armchair philosophy from some angles, but I read it at just the right time and it definitely changed the way I thought about things.
I ripped it in half and chucked it in the bin 😀
Watchmen by Allan Moore.
Interesting (for a graphic novel) and entertaining fo'shure., I always find Alan Moore's writing exciting and interesting. But meaningful? I don't know what meaning we're supposed to take away from a blue godlike man, and the death of pretend superheros. (spoilers, duh...)