Home Library and Top 100 Essential Texts

Brave New World, Huxley
1984, Orwell
A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
Foundation, Asimov
Slaughterhouse 5, Vonnegut

I'd say you need all of these

Edit to add Common Sense by Thomas Paine

a reply to: Excallibacca

Nice picks, and I am so glad you mentioned Huxley and Paine!



PS: I'd like to edit my Milton to be his complete works, so I could include the crucial Areopagitica.

How to make money in your spare time.
www.amazon.com...

a reply to: ADSE255

This one's new to me! Looks fun, thanks!

How about The Politics of Experience , RD Laing and similar existentialist works
Mein Kampf , a must read if you're serious about knowing what is relevant about politics and recent world history.
Bhagavad Gita , and The Upanishads , the oldest texts available in the world
The Tao of Pooh , Jonathan Seagull , Gita Govinda all good maybe not essential though
Food for Free or similar comprehensive book on wild edibles ,
and The Natural Way of Farming / The One Straw Revolution both by Masanobu Fukuoka

a reply to: GeneralMayhem

Oh, absolutely. Excellent choices!

Have you read Hoff's biography about Opal Whiteley btw? I would include her childhood diary in my top 100 now that I think of it.

Here's more on Opal:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Back in my idyllic college days, I would have insisted on all works by Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins and Gunter Grass. All of their collective works continue to stand the test of time.

Still, I would add Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children." Anything by Kazuo Ishiguro, and both "The Angel's Game" and "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon as absolute must reads in my personal library.

Bible
Catch 22
Fear and loathing in las vegas
Understanding physics by Isaac Asimov
Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
anarchists cookbook
the red book by Carl Jung
Art of War
Probably a few coloring books

a reply to: zosimov

Had to throw in some Asimov and Vonnegut so the list wasn't ultra serious.

Could add Two Treatises of Government by Locke for good measure.

a reply to: maria_stardust

I am a huge fan of Rushdie's, and Midnight's Children is my favorite. I had never read anything like it. Have you read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy? It's devastatingly sad, but so good. Reminds me of Midnight's Children a bit.

Thanks for the other suggestions as well! I love Japanese literature and we had none on our list.
I've read some Murakami and Kenzaburo, and am looking forward to more.

a reply to: dashen

Great to include Jung and The Anarchist's Cookbook

and lol on the coloring books (but do you have one I could take a look at? )

a reply to: zosimov


The Odyssey and The Illiad. The complete Sherlock Holmes collection. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. The Way of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo. House of Leaves if you want your mind opened, eaten and then put back.

a reply to: zosimov


Oh, and you were supposed to give me a heads up when you made this. Boooo.

What good are the COTUS and Declaration without The Federalist Papers which make many of the underpinning arguments for their principles?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Yes, thank you for the essential additions!

Oh and that heads up I promised... is on it's way! Check your inbox

a reply to: ketsuko

Great point, ketsuko! (Although I do truly believe the document is great enough to stand alone)

Actual books:
The Oxford Essential Guide to Egyptian Mythology
King James Bible
Nag Hammadi Scriptures
The Kybalion
(The) I Ching
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ubik
Philip K. Dick Reader (short stories)
ETA:
Watership Down
A Clockwork Orange
ETA^2: The Book of The Law

Unabridged Author collections (YMMV):
Friedrich Nietszche
H.P. Lovecraft
Aesop

Big fan of Rushdies too so.
- "The Satanic Versus" have all of his books they are great. Although I don't have the new one "The Golden House".
- "Papillon" &
- " Banco" by Henri Charrière one of my favourite novel/true stories from my younger years.
- " The Koran" by Mohammed with praise be to Allah.
- "Hells Angels" and all Hunter. S. Thompson's work make me laugh.
- "For the term of his natural life". Marcus Clarke one of the best books ever written about Australian convicts.
- "RigVeda" and the Vedic epics.
- "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" by Jhon. M. Alegro. And the list goes on.

How about a bit of Robert Anton Wilson?

The Real Frank Zappa Book by Frank Zappa is an all time classic for me and Vilaynur Ramachandram The Emerging Mind should be required reading.

Mervyn Peake Gormenghast series is a great read.

a reply to: Tulpa

Wilson is awesome, but I'd nominate his collaborative "Illuminatus!" Trilogy to don a well deserved place on the Top 100.