Classical Literature: Anyone with a Taste for the Finer Stuff?

[Marlimus]

I have a passion for classical literature, the stuff Mark Twain said that
"Everyone praises and no-one ever reads."
I would just like to list my favorite works and ask others to list their favorites as well.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (all-time favorite)


War and Peace by Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The Dialogues of Plato
Paradise Lost by Sir John Milton
The Iliad by Homer
Ngugi wa Thongo - Grain of Wheat (African classic)
The Wine of Astonishment - Earl Lovelace
The Odessy by Homer
The Aeneid by Virgil
Beowulf
The Prince by Machiavelli (every man who has fantasies of greatness or power has probably devoured this book at some point, I think )
The Art of War by Sun-Tzu
The Tale of Genji - Lady Murasaki
The Epic of Gilgamesh - (unknown. ancient sumer.)
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

I'm not an antiquity snob- there are quite a few works within the last century that deserve mention:

The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien (yes. same guy that wrote Lord of The Rings. Same fantasy universe, actually. But keep in mind he was a professor of English at Oxford University in England. Not all fantasy is geek adolescent trash)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Any others? Post them!

 

[Taviii]

I read about half of the works you mentioned, and I'm putting The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius on top of my to read list if you are so enthusiast about it

Shakespeare
Nietzsche
Victor Hugo
Balzac - La Comédie humaine
Byron
Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy is the ****, maybe the best thing I read so far!

 

[doctoroxygen]

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. I love African-American modernist literature, and he's definitely the best.

 

[diplomatic_lies]

I once read Jurassic Park: The Junior Novelisation. It was really cool. A whopping 56 pages, and all the words were extra big.

 

[S1NN3R]

The Dialogues of Plato
Paradise Lost by Sir John Milton
The Iliad by Homer
The Aeneid by Virgil
Beowulf
The Prince by Machiavelli (every man who has fantasies of greatness or power has probably devoured this book at some point, I think )
The Art of War by Sun-Tzu
The Tale of Genji - Lady Murasaki
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

Those are pretty much the essentials, I can only add Voltaire and assorted Hellenic stories such as Pygmalion, Oedipus, Elektra, those sorts of things.

Ah, I almost forgot. Essential classical reading, "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio. 100 short stories of various subjects, and even though it was written in 13huzzuhfruh AD, it's still pretty fresh reading today.

 

[undesputable]

Ovid: The art of love. Goes with the theme of so suave and its a good read.

 

[Cruise]

And no poetry by Khalil Gibraan!?!?!?

The man's perspectives and imagery ... timeless ... could leave tons of modern writers at their tables taking notes.

 

[picard]

oh man. I am up to my ears in reading IT text books that I don't have time for fine literature anymore. I am working on tight deadline. I will be extremely lucky If I get laid at all.

 

[comic_relief]

Check out books by Luo Guanzhong

He wrote the books "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (think Dynasty Warriors Series) and "Outlaws of the Marsh" (think Suikoden series).

Really good books about wartime strategy. They are underlooked in the west because they were made by Chinese Authors.

comic_relief

 

[Marlimus]

I heard about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms both from reading up on world history and its also listed as a cited source in Robert Greene's the 48 laws of power. Thanks for reminding me, comic.

Also Great Reads:
The Black Jacobins by CLR James-
An account of the Hatian revolution. An ex-slave in his forties was able to carve an independent black republic in the middle of the colonial Caribbean, in spite of opposition from the major three imperialists: Britain, France and Spain.

The Memoirs of Pablo Neruda
This Chilean poet and ambassador had rubbed shoulders with everyone from Picasso to Josef Stalin. He truly lived the way very few human beings ever do, and his poetry is still cherished in Latin America. It is said that Che Guevara carried an autographed copy on Neruda's "cancion general" during his campaigns in Bolivia.

The Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela's own autobiography. Need I say more?

Gifted Hands: The Benjamin Carson story:
A half-blind, black kid from a broken home bouncing from ghetto to ghetto with his mother and brother becomes the top neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. True story. 'Inspiring' just doesn't cut it.

 

[Egoist]

That reminds me, i've been meaning to read Meditations of MA for a while.

I hear that maxims by Balthazar Gracian are good as well

i also think that everyone should read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, even if you choose to disagree with some of the Rands philosophy, there are real gems in there if you want to live your own life.

Anyway, classical literature always amazes me, so much stuff we think is knew can be found in there.

Illiad, Aenid and Art of Love are amazing in terms of richness of the content that's applicable and current in todays world.

P.S. how are the memoirs of casanova?

 

[Bile]

nah, not really...I've read like half of the Light in august...which I found pretty damn boring, even thought I liked the setting and so on.
Hamlet is pretty entertaining...but on the other side, I tend to like religous litterature...I find it interesting, and Even thought I've never read neither of the main religious books, like the bible, the torah, or the koran througt completely, I find it interesting to read some chapters here and there...
I like Anne Rice's more religious works, like Interview with the Vampire, Memnocht and the devil, and so on.Im looking forward to reading Jesus christ out of egypt.

I've also read some other religious works, like the knowledge of reality, by henry t laurency, which is a hylozoistic work(hylozoik=spiritual materialism, basicly that everything that exist in this world has a spirit), and found them pretty interesting.

 

[ShizamDaMan]

Don't forget Jalaluddin Rumi, one of the best mystic poets, if not the best.

Another vote for Gibraan, he is awesome.

 

[Marlimus]

k...Khalil Gibran, Jalaluddin Rumi, got it.
The Maxims of Balthasar Gracian also come highly recommended, it was another source for the 48LP (48 laws of power. yay! I invented an acronym!)

As for casanova's memoirs, distinguished though he was for his other talents, he was never acclaimed as a writer, and his memoirs are thousands of pages long. In my estimation they will most likely be distastefully self-congratulatory and long-winded. I do not intend to read them.

 

[Yotsuya-san]

What is it with all this literati obsession. If you like this sorta thing, then fine. But it won't make you more DJ, it'll only make you more artsy fartsy. This only leads to intellectual wanking. Let's face it. The average person, unless they are literature professors would read these books unless there was a practical reason such as being students in a literature class. I'm well aware that the mainstream New York Times bestsellers are trash for the most part but my point is read what you like. I can't help but notice no one mentioned my favorite authors. Oh well, I guess this is one genre that you can read only if you're really into this kind of stuff (and almost nobody I know is) and not just trying to show off.

Here's my 2 cents
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Foundation Trilogy Issac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land Robert Heinlein.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress also by Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert

 

[Yotsuya-san]

What is it with all this literati obsession. If you like this sorta thing, then fine. But it won't make you more DJ, it'll only make you more artsy fartsy. This only leads to intellectual wanking. Let's face it. The average person, unless they are literature professors would read these books unless there was a practical reason such as being students in a literature class. I'm well aware that the mainstream New York Times bestsellers are trash for the most part but my point is read what you like. I can't help but notice no one mentioned my favorite authors. Oh well, I guess this is one genre that you can read only if you're really into this kind of stuff (and almost nobody I know is) and not just trying to show off.

Here's my 2 cents
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Foundation Trilogy Issac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land Robert Heinlein.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress also by Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert

These are considered all classical literature by Science Fiction standards. The most recent of these was published in 1972.

 

[StrangeButTrue]

Has nobody mentioned Crime and Punishment?

Brilliant book. I like all the old stuff, too. Good to know I'm not alone.

 

[DarkLight]

You all mentioned some pimp books here.
Few I can think of too add would be...

Camus: (the Plague, the Stranger)
Shakespere: (Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, 12th night)
The Book of 5 Rings (Mayamoto Musashi?)
Herman Hesse: (Damien, Narciss & Goldmund, all his sh!t)
Hagakure (was outlawed 2x in Ancient Japan, Maxims, etc. about the samurai way)
Paulo Coelho (most all of his books, especially The alchemist)
Dracula (the original Bram Stoker's version... badass)
Diary of a Seducer (Kierkagaard)
OSHO (Baddest Buddha that ever lived... homey was outlawed from 22 dif. countries, lol)

 

[Marlimus]

What is it with all this literati obsession. If you like this sorta thing, then fine. But it won't make you more DJ, it'll only make you more artsy fartsy. This only leads to intellectual wanking. Let's face it. The average person, unless they are literature professors would read these books unless there was a practical reason such as being students in a literature class. I'm well aware that the mainstream New York Times bestsellers are trash for the most part but my point is read what you like. I can't help but notice no one mentioned my favorite authors. Oh well, I guess this is one genre that you can read only if you're really into this kind of stuff (and almost nobody I know is) and not just trying to show off.

There is a reason why this forum is entitled 'anything else'. To whimsically dismiss the greatest literary accomplishments of the human race to date as being effete and 'arts-fartsy' is ignorance.

 

[Marlimus]

The average person, unless they are literature professors would read these books unless there was a practical reason such as being students in a literature class

I don't care what the average person does or does not read. The average person will spend roughly nine years in front of a television throughout the course of a lifetime.

The 'intellectual wankering' you speak of is what lead to the high-minded ideals of the French Revolution and the decline of European monarchy, which inspired in turn the American revolution. The founding fathers were weaned on the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau, whch is why your beloved Constitiution indulges in such silly intellectual wankering as 'free speech' and 'all men are created equal'.

Intellectual wankering, indeed.