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"Must Read" Books


Anileve

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As a child I used to think that Anushavan Poghosyan's "Potorkic Arach" was the best book ever :D It was the first book I read in my life, it was good...

"Seven Pillars of Wisdom" is a really good one; I'd recommend it to everyone.

Thanks, but I am sure you have other books on your list.

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Naughty.

 

As an Armenian, I think at least one work by an Armenian author should be on your must-read list. Other than that, read whatever you want.

 

It's funny - but one of my favourite books as I was growing up was (and is, I suppose), My Name is Aram by Saroyan...

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All of you are too lazy to post your lists!

 

Here is mine (partial):

 

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

 

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

 

Martin Eden - Jack London

 

Three Comrads - Erich Maria Remarque

 

The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

 

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

 

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

 

Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain

 

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

 

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

 

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

 

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

 

The empty mirror; experiences in a Japanese Zen monastery by Janwillem Van de Wetering (this one is fantastic! Search for the truth, meaning of life, self disciplining and finding out if any of them mean anything, all through fiction)

 

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

to be continued...

 

 

 

 

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All of you are too lazy to post your lists!

 

I don't have a list to post it. ;)

 

I generally tend to read a few books or works at the same time. I get side-tracked too easily. I recently finished Little Titans (Titaantjes) by Dutch writer Nescio. Good for those who like a bit of pro-Marxist, turn of the twentieth century European/modernist lit.

 

I've also turned back to the eighteenth century for some reason. It started with Voltaire's Zadig et autres contes (there's a small surprise for Armenian-diggers in his short story "Histoire des Voyages de Scarmentado: Écrite par lui-même" (1756) -- Eng. trans. here). That lead me to reread Daudet's Tartarin de Tarascon and start in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I'm still reading Defoe, but have been side-tracked a few times since I started last summer, among others to Swift's Gulliver's Travels. And so on and so forth.

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Most books of Paulo Coelho, I adore "The alquimist" and "Veronica decides to die", they are truly fab books.

I'll think of other good ones...

 

Agreed. His work is amazing.

 

Eleven Minutes

By th River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (amazing)

The Zahir

 

 

 

 

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Share your lists of "Must Read" books! What do you think everyone should read at least once in their lifetime?

 

 

Evelina, have you read anything by Anais Nin? The diaries perhaps?

 

Other than her obvious over-exaggerations at times, I find her writing to be very frank and memorable. I am curious as to your opinion of her work- assuming you are familiar with any of them.

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All of you are too lazy to post your lists!

 

Here is mine (partial):

 

Interesting list.

 

I've been meaning to reread Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, because I have a mild suspicion that the Greek in it is based largely on Michael Arlen. Apparently Arlen also introduced Hemingway to Duff Twysden in Paris, who would become Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises. That is, if we are to believe Arlen's son, Michael J. Arlen, in Exiles.

 

As for Twain's Tom Sawyer, interesting to know perhaps that My Name is Aram was advertised by the publisher (Harcourt Brace) as "the delightful story of a foreign-American Tom Sawyer born in California thirty years ago, growing up in a lopsided and comic environment, and becoming both a full-fledged member of the incredible and amazing Garoghlanian tribe of Armenia and an excellent American Democrat." :) You may judge for yourself what the similarities and differences are, though I do warn you as a feminist that you won't appreciate Saroyan's treatment of his female characters (or the lack thereof -- e.g. where are Aram's aunts and female cousins?) very much. Then again, no one beats D.H. Lawrence in that department, esp. Lady Chatterley's Lover (Michaelis is supposed to be based on Michael Arlen), but also Sons and Lovers.

Edited by nairi
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Umm... How many books can we include in the list?

 

For starters I'll say definitely everyone should read Chekhov's Short Stories.

 

Also Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.

 

And One Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez.

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Umm...let's see.

 

Anything written by Franz Kafka is good but my favorite is Metamorphosis.

 

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow

 

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

 

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

 

Anna Karanina by Leo Tolstoy

 

I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stocker (It's ok...I like how it's written in articles and journal entries :) )

 

And...by far the biggest must read...is...

 

 

Edited by Zara
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