My Other Favorite Books

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The usual caveat: these recommendations aren't current. Rather, I'm focusing on books that I grew up with—ones that might even be overlooked by today's readers. I also do not mean these are books you should read—I enjoyed very few of the books I was forced to read in various English and literature classes. These are simply books I loved reading (and re-reading). I think you'll enjoy them too.

(Yes, some of these could easily have been categorized as fantasy instead. It's a fuzzy boundary.)

Favorites of General Fiction and Nonfiction

Adams, Cecil
  • The Straight Dope
Adams, Richard
  • Watership Down
Allen, Woody
  • Without Feathers
Austen, Jane
  • Pride and Prejudice
Bulgakov, Mikhail
  • The Master and Margarita
Calvino, Italo
  • The Castle of Crossed Destinies
  • If on a winter's night a traveler
Christie, Agatha
  • And Then There Were None
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
  • The ABC Murders
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • Sleeping Murder
Cialdini, Robert B.
  • Influence
Crichton, Michael
  • The Andromeda Strain
  • The Terminal Man
Diamond, Jared
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel
Doyle, Arthur Conan
  • The Sherlock Holmes canon
Dumas, Alexandre
  • The Count of Monte-Cristo
Dunnett, Dorothy
  • The Lymond Chronicles
  • The House of Niccolò series
Eco, Umberto
  • The Name of the Rose
Ferris, Timothy
  • Coming of Age in the Milky Way
Forsyth, Frederick
  • The Day of the Jackal
Haley, Alex
  • Roots
  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Hall, Adam
  • The Quiller series
Helprin, Mark
  • Winter's Tale
Henry, O.
  • The short stories
Hofstadter, Douglas R.
  • Gödel, Escher, Bach
Hugo, Victor
  • Les Misérables
Huxley, Aldous
  • Brave New World
Iles, Francis
  • Before the Fact
Le Carré, John
  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
  • Smiley's People
Meyer, Nicholas
  • The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Niffenegger, Audrey
  • The Time-Traveler's Wife
Orwell, George
  • Animal Farm
  • 1984
Pears, Iain
  • An Instance of the Fingerpost
Pirsig, Robert M.
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Poe, Edgar Allen
  • "The Gold Bug"
  • "The Cask of Amontillado"
  • "The Tell-Tale Heart"
  • "The Purloined Letter"
Robbins, Tom
  • Still Life With Woodpecker
  • Jitterbug Perfume
Sacks, David
  • Language Visible
Schaeffer, Jack
  • Shane
Stephenson, Neal
  • Cryptonomicon
Tey, Josephine
  • The Daughter of Time
Verne, Jules
  • Around the World in 80 Days
Vollman, William T.
  • The Ice-Shirt
Vonnegut, Kurt
  • Cat's Cradle
Wodehouse, P.G.
  • Something Fresh
  • Summer Lightning
  • Heavy Weather
  • Psmith in the City
  • Psmith Journalist
  • Leave It to Psmith
  • The Jeeves stories

…and once again, a shoutout to a short story anthology with some ripping yarns: Masterpieces of Adventure, compiled by Louis Morris. Not to be missed:

  • "Leiningen Versus the Ants", by Carl Stephenson
  • "The Most Dangerous Game", by Richard Connell

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