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Even though I often feel too lazy to do it, I like writing. I find it very entertaining and the easiest means for me to express my ideas and thoughts. As such, it should come as no suprise that I have had aspirations of becoming a writer for some time.
However, the key to being a good writer (besides developing a good working ethic; contrary to popular belief, being a writer is very tough and requires a lot of hard work) is to read a lot. Sadly, this is an aspect that I have always neglected and in recent times in particular. It's not so much that I don't like reading, I just rarely find the time to do it. =/
In any case, once I am done with exams, I was hoping to dedicate some time to reading. That is why I would like to ask for some recommendations. Specifically, I am looking for literature that was originally written in English (or alternatively, that was translated into English really well). While I am not a native English speaker myself, I generally perfer English as a literary language.
I am not looking for work of any specific author or genre. As long as it's not some cheesy romance novel, I am generally open to anything. It also doesn't have to be considered a classic, although I would certainly love some recommendations of that kind as well.
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Dune series
A Song of Ice and Fire series
Wheel of Time series
Wuthering Heights
The Things They Carried
Hamlet
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My class read Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. It's considered a bigtime classic. The majority of the class found it a great read.
However, the books I found most amusing is The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy.
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I mostly ready scifi type novels, but some of my favorite literature is, Dune by Frank Herbert, 1984 and Animal Farm both by George Orwell.
Hope this helps.
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The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Atlas Shrugged, Shogun, Brahm Stoker's Dracula, Anything by Jules Verne or H.G. Welles.
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Self Reliance - Ralph Emerson
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Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (if you have time to burn)
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Great Gatsby - Scott Fitzgerald
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Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
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If you want to refine your English writing, then you should read Hemmingway IMHO. The Old Man and the Sea and A Farewell to Arms should be a good starting point. But in general, I can't argue with Dickens, Fitzgerald, Conrad, etc...
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Norton multi-volume anthologies of English and American literature.
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Michael Crichton's stuff is pretty good. I loved Prey.
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An Unstable friend once recommended me this list ...
J. Ajvide Lindqvist
nosferatu, caligari
george orwell
the man who was thursday -- chesterton
Personally though, I like Chuck Palahniuk's writing.
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Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
^this book is imo the best book ever written
Also, anything written by James Clavell tends to be good, albeit very long.
(READ BRAVE NEW WORLD ITS REALLY GOOD)
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I will put some of the recommendations that my English teacher gave me or made us read :
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Oscar and Lucinda or anything by Peter Carey
A Heartbeaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez(Translated)
Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Translated, but still a extremely impressive feat of literature)
Henderson The Rain King by Saul Bellow
Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
Have fun and Good luck! This list should be plenty, I did not read all of these, but I trust my teacher on his taste.
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On June 14 2010 13:08 jackofclubs81 wrote:
Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
^this book is imo the best book ever written
Also, anything written by James Clavell tends to be good, albeit very long.
(READ BRAVE NEW WORLD ITS REALLY GOOD)
Clavell is fucking BOSS. Favorite book out of the Asian saga?
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This is a cool list that really gives insight into Vonnegut's writing and thought process, which we dont often get with writers.
In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O'Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
I think 7 is the greatest rule there, it seems like the fastest way to develop personal style(s) . Write a story for your best friend that would guarantee their enjoyment - there are surely others out there like your friend and now they finally have someone to connect to.
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I dunno if these are considered classics, but i read them a long time ago and i found them awesome.
The dice man - Luke Rhinehart
New york trilogy - Paul Auster.
Music of chance - Paul Auster.
I read most of austers work back then, havent read anything from him in a while tho, anyone know if his recent work is any good?...
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Thank you for all the recommendations, everyone! Hopefully, it will inspire me and help me become a better writer.
Sadly, riptide, my local library doesn't have The English Patient (just the movie and it's soundtrack -_-), so I had to go with A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway for now.
Having said that, upon reading the first three chapters of the book (although the chapters in this book are really short), I was suprised to find that Hemingway has a tendency to make really long-winded sentences and descriptions. I suppose it might be beacuse this was his first work, but it almost feels like he tended to get carried away at times. But I must admit, his ability to describe things is rather uncanny.
Either way, I am glad to be reading again.
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EPT
![[image loading]](http://heylady.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/english-patient.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://whatamireading.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/divisadero.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/people/permanentacademicstaffstaff3/manavratti/article/anil.jpg)
Good luck with the reading!
