Non-SF/Fantasy books

[JP]

Out of curiosity, which non-sf books would you consider to be excellent. This would include general fiction, crime, horror and non-fiction (anything really).

This is a (partial) list of books which I think are good.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
The Shining by Stephen King (this kept me awake at nights when I was 18)
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
The Quincunx by Charles Palliser

I dont read many non-fiction books. But I recently read Collapse by Jared Diamond which is very thought provoking.

Let me know what you like

[SoulThief]

Interesting question. I am afraid I am very much a reader of popular rather than literary fiction.

In no particular order:

"First Man in Rome" and "The Grass Crown" by Colleen McCullough (did not like the rest of the series)

"Sensei" and "Sensei II" by David Charney (the period costumes etc are quite wrong but the story is compelling)

"I Claudius" and "Belisarius" by Robert Graves

Ludlum's "Bourne" series

"To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

Nigel Tranter's "House of Stewart trilogy"

"Memoirs of a Geisha"

"The DaVinci Code" (shock, horror at my taste you must be thinking)

"Mindhunter" by John E. Douglas

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond


ST

[pablo]

Also in no particular order:

House of Sand and Fog
Secret Life of Bees
Gavelston
A Fine Balance
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Rapture of Caanan
Ten Little Indians
To Kill A Mockingbird (previously mentioned but worth mentioning twice!)

[admin]

Treasure Island
Kidnapped
Kim
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catch 22
Gone With the Wind
Master and Commander and everything else by Patrick O'Brien
The Maltise Falcon
The Big Sleep
All the Ellery Queen books, but especially Double, Double
Crime and Punishment
War and Peace
Life of Pi

Interesting what books rise to the top of my consciousness.

Rick

[spacecat]

The Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian(already mentioned but these are excellent and deserve a second nomination. C.J.Cherryh recommended them the first time I heard of them.) Twenty plus books - all great.

Endurance(Shackleton) by Caroline Alexander - This is the account of the Shackleton expedition which in 1914(?) was stranded and wintered over in Antarctica and managed not to lose a single man. Amazing account with lots of photos.

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

[Keis]

Anything by:

Tolstoy
Conan Doyle
Dumas
A. Huxley
Umberto Eco

But I must say, that I dont read that much fiction compared to nonfiction, where politics, history and biology are preferred topics. Guess that my "must read" list in those categories would be:

Capital, Marx
Imperialism, Lenin
The History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon
Histories, Herodotus
Origins of Species, Darwin

[SoulThief]

I guess that if you are going to include Herodotus, then Thucydides is a natural companion. Also, Polybius for an early Roman Republican history (unless you feel up to the mamoth task of reading Livy). Then Plutarch to round off the Republican reading, along with Caesar's Battle for Gaul. For me the historical sources are a topic in their own right (even though my prior reading list included some historical fiction). I never did get much into the later Roman writers.

BTW - has anyone here read Catcher in the Rye? I have never been able to get more than halfway through that book. Too damned depressing.

ST

[admin]

Love Catcher in the Rye, and everything else by Salinger. If you've soured on Catcher, Soulthief, try Franny and Zooie.

Currently reading Livy. Clearly Bush read Livy in prep school. Livy goes into great detail about how the upper class holds on to power by envoking the gods and keeping the people distracted with endless foreign wars. Big difference between the Roman Republic and the American Republic: In Rome, the upper class leaders had to personally lead the soldiers into battle, risking their own lives. Clearly not so, today.

[JP]

BTW - has anyone here read Catcher in the Rye? I have never been able to get more than halfway through that book. Too damned depressing.

ST

Just read Catcher in the Rye for the second time (I read it a long time ago and had almost forgotton it). And you are right - it can be depressing. But I think its worth it to find out the meaning of the title.

[Brightonian]

I've never read Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird as they don't tend to feature on our high-school curriculum here in th UK. And I couldn't finish Moby Dick. For me the Great American Novel is Huck Finn, closely followed by The Monkey Wrench Gang.

[hegemon]

Huck Finn is great, but so is Tom Sawyer, and the unfinished Tom Sawyer and the Indians.

I'm not sure how Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird would resonate with someone who didn't grow up in the US. I'm too close to them to judge how much is topical, how much universal.