Daniel William Gray,
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Well this question is certainly the Height of Subjectivity (which I also think is the title of a Jane Austen novel (kidding, that's a literary joke).
That said, this list is based off of books I have read and which I think take you places that will benefit your intellect throughout your life and provide empathy,creativity, stimulation, and a magical little world.
1. The Sound and The Fury, by William Faulkner
-- this book is real. It is so fucking real. It's probably the best book ever written, though not necessarily my favorite.
2. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" - Milan Kundera
3. "The Plague" - Albert Camus
Camus' won the Nobel for literature (as did Faulkner). His two big works outside of The Plague are The Stranger an The Fall, neither of which are as wide-sweeping or as much of a traditional novel as is "The Plague".
4. Grendel - John Gardner
5. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
This is a trilogy but the first novel is legendary. Very modern setting as it tells the backstory leading up to an apocalypse. Picture if Harry Potter was an aspie Genetic Engineer bent on making all of nature as efficient as possible.
6. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostovesky
Nothing really needs to be said here. About 1,000 pages long, it details society in a way that is applicable to all times of humanity. It's considered the "Greatest Novel Ever Written".
7. The Phantom Tollbooth -Norton Juster
This is my #1 favorite novel of all-time.
It's basically Alice in Wonderland but with a boy as Alice. Milo is his name and goes on some grand journey through bizarre and fantastical realms which all serve as a realm to highlight particular logistics and philosophies of life.
I read this at 6 years old and suddenly the universe made sense. It's a Young Adult novel but I think anyone will enjoy this. I contribute all my success in reading, math and life to this novel and how it lighted a flame inside my brain as big and bright as a California wildfire.
“There’s lots to do; we have a very busy schedule——
“At 8 o’clock we get up, and then we spend “From 8 to 9 daydreaming.
“From 9 to 9:30 we take our early midmorning nap.
“From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay.
“From 10:30 to 11:30 we take our late early morning nap.
“From 11:30 to 12:00 we bide our time and then eat lunch.
“From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter.
“From 2:00 to 2:30 we take our early afternoon nap.
“From 2:30 to 3:30 we put off for tomorrow what we could have done today.
“From 3:30 to 4:00 we take our early late afternoon nap.
“From 4:00 to 5:00 we loaf and lounge until dinner.
“From 6:00 to 7:00 we dillydally.
“From 7:00 to 8:00 we take our early evening nap, and then for an hour before we go to bed at 9:00 we waste time.
“As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, plodding, or procrastinating, and if we stopped to think or laugh, we’d never get nothing done.”
- Pure Genius ^
8. "Still Life With Woodpecker" - Tom Robbins
The most contemporary writer on my list. Robbins is like Kurt Vonnegut on insane amounts of cocaine.
"Another Roadside Attraction" and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" are two other novels of his I enjoy. But I feel one should have the experience of reading at least one Robbins novel in their life.
9. "100 Years of Solitude" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Marquez is like the Colombian version of William Faulkner.
10. The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan, finished by Brandon Sanderson
I could have put other fantasy series here with the last spot like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter but everyone knows of them. Also I think Wheel of Time is better.
It's 15 books long if you count the prequel but this series is like Lord of The Rings, HP, and GoT all rolled into one.
Jordan was a physicist, then served tours in Vietnam, they decided to spend the rest of his life writing a fantasy series about how everything in nature is a repeating cycle for all eternity and combine physics, philosophy and war into the series in a depth never before seen. And his story telling ability is second to none.
Honorable Mentions --
Sylvia Plath really just wrote one novel, The Bell Jar -- that's a great read. Very dark like a Camus novel, but her writing style is so poetic and clear. Her "Unabridged Journals" are amazing as well.
I left Vonnegut off entirely, but his books are great. I can go on forever. Sci-Fi classics like Dune. Medieval books like Ivanhoe.
The Little Prince, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy . . .
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