What essential books should one read in a life time? I'm

Moby-Dick

>>7622525
both Brothers Karamazov, and the Count of Monte Cristo made a huge mark on me.

Frankenstein

Your bookshelf you in theory reflect the things you like
Your taste in theory should be matured through the consumption of aesthetics
So that should someone see your book shelf they would, if they are a reader, know what you find interesting

the complete works of william shakespeare
the complete works of jane austen
middlemarch
war and peace
anna karenina
ulysses
bleak house
moby dick

What I have so far -- and what I'm slowly going through.

Dante’s Divine Comedy or Inferno

John Milton’s Paradise Lost

C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia

J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy & Hobbit

Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

David Riesman’s Lonely Crowd

Daniel J. Boorstin’s The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America

Frank O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency

Sloan Wilson’s Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

George Orwell’s 1984 & Animal Farm

Alduos Huxley’s Brave New World

J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men & The Grapes of Wrath

Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five

Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man

Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince

Neil Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God

James Joyce’s Ulysses

Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (Just added)

Anything to do with philosophy I usually add to my list and read

>>7622525
Anything by Tolstoy, Dosto, Dickens, Shakesepare, Joyce, etc. Not really hard to fill a bookshelf with great lit. Read the sticky.

>>7622525
The Martian

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>>7622550
>Jane Austen

>>7622550
>being this anglo
>jane austen

>>7622525

start with the greeks

>>7622525
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

Just finished it, and it is one of the best books i have ever read.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez, for sure.

The Dialogues of Plato (At least: Euthyphro, Crito, Apology, Phaedo, Symposium, Laches, Republic)

The Bible

The Histories of Herodotus

Plutarch's Lives

The Plays of Shakespeare

The Poetry of Whitman

The Bhagavad Gita

Sun & Steel

The Kingdom of God is in You

The Heroides

>>7622550

>the complete works of jane austen
>middlemarch
>bleak house

these aren't as important as the others

>>7622552
This is a terrible list, just look at Bloom's Canon. You're significantly lacking in anything that isn't part of popular culture. There's a difference between great literary works and the great literary works most people are aware of.

crime and punishment
the catcher in the rye
little prince
the metamorphosis
1984
mein kampf
dracula

>>7622864
Loved it, but isn't a hundred years of solitude more important?
Also don't call him just Marquez, that's his mother's surname, it can lead to confusion. Everyone knows him as Garcia Marquez

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>more than 15 posts
>Faust by Goethe unmentioned
And this board keeps showing it's full of plebs that didn't read half the books they tall about.
You should read it OP. One of the greatest works literature has to offer.

>>7622971
Faust is rarely talked about. Just because you're favourite isn't listed doesn't mean we're all plebs like you.

>>7622971
i bet u didn't even read it in jewish

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>>7622976
>you're
>doesn't mean we're all plebs like you.

Yes, indeed, you are.

Also Faust's great. Both parts.

>>7622985
Posting a black/white pic doesn't mean your a patrician. Get back to /mu/ or Reddit already.

>>7622985
>Robledo Puch
u argie senpai?
If you are, what is the best translation of the Faust?

>>7622976
Rarely talked about where? 4chan? The board where 90% of the regular poster is postmodern literature? OP asked for essential books that leave a mark on the reader and Faust is goes there.
Also >>7622985 isn't me.

>>7623000
We're all just shitposting don't worry

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>>7622991
>your a patrician
Are you doing this on purpose?

>>7622998
Not him again but I've read Faust in Spanish before learning German. Roviralta Borrell is the best one

>>7623005
>I'm not retarded, I was shitposting
Of course you were

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>>7622998
>>7623021
Roviralta.

Also, if you have the money, you should buy the Cátedra edition.

>>7623026
>>7623021
Gracias

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>>7622991

>>7623034
You're welcome. Just go for Catedra as >>7623026 said and stay away from Losada, as always.

I could imagine philopshy would be something having quite an impact, however I literally haven't even read one page of philophsy

Anyway, 1984 and animal farm by George Orwell are a must read

>>7622525
American Psycho. Trust me on this one.

>>7622947
How very contrarian of you.

>>7622537
This guy knows

>>7622985
>>7623009

Lurk more faggot

>>7622552
Nice reddit top 10 + lit starter guide combo you have going there. How many of these have you actually read? If not all of them you have no right in responding in this thread

>>7622525
The Bible & Moby Dick

>>7622957
why the little prince?

Books that have made an impact on me and would never want to give up.

KJV Bible, Iliad & Odyssey, Complete Works of Plato, Histories by Herodotus, Histories by Thucydides, The Oresteia, The Odepius Plays, Lives by Plutarch, The Divine Comedy, Canterbury Tales, St. Augustine's Confessions, Don Quixote, Hamlet, Macbeth, Midsummer Nights Dream, Shakespeare's Poetry, Paradise Lost, Complete poetry of John Donne, Complete Poetry of John Keats, Essays by Emerson, Walden, Moby-Dick, and Brave New World.
Haven't read much 20th or 21st century literature

>>7624913
Really, why are people listing children's books?

>>7625018
because it's the penultimate form of literature

Hey, /lit/ newfag here trying to get into books. What makes Moby Dick so good?

read the fucking sticky you retard

>>7626729
everything. read it. or you'll never understand.

>>7625000
I can't tell anything interesting about you by looking at your list list.

>>7622971
>>7623000
damn anon i've been seeing you in like every thread this day. you're the only other person i see shilling faust as hard as i do, good job senpai

>>7627318
I really have no idea why /lit/ ignores Faust. It's really strange because other great works are mentioned here and there and it should be one of the first books people mention to someone asking what OP asked. Timeless literature that only gets better with age.

>>7627467
Are you german? Not the anon you're answering to, but is it okay to read it translated? I've heard people saying it becomes meaningless.

>>7627479
Let them meme all they want. It doesn't. Sure, you're going to lose some if not all of Goethe's rhymes and metres because of the difficulty of translating an extremely complex text like this, but after you experience the vastness of this masterpiece you can only feel admiration for such genius.
My knowledge about translations for Faust is limited to Spanish, so make sure you do your research. My humble advice is to target a translation that cares more about meaning than sound and medium to heavily annotated (it's full of references and the second part is hard as fuck).

>>7627479
>>7627555
Also I'm not German but Goethe's works were one of the main motivations to learn the language.

>>7627555
Great to hear that. Recommend me some good spanish translations, I read spanish.
Thanks, anon.

>>7627559
We talked about that already, anon. Have fun reading it.

>>7623021
>>7623026
>>7623051

>>7627566
Thanks a lot anon.

>>7627574
De nada amigo/a.

what a dumb question, is subjetive you fruit.

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>>7622971
I already watched madoka.

>>7627623
>he fell for the subjectivity meme

>>7622525

>bret easton ellis
>essential

REEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>7622877
You could consider yourself educated after reading this

Notes from Underground and the Brothers Karamazov. Those two books completely changed me as a person. Honorable mentions:

1) Hunger by Knut Janson
2) Paradife Loft
3) Love in the time of Cholera
4) Catch 22

And one book that's near and dear to my heart is something called The Cay written by Theodore Taylor. It's not as good as the classics but it's the first book I remember to have read. It probably made the biggest impression on me.

>>7625000

>moby dick changed your life

Lmao nigga have toy even read the book? It's an excellent book, but the subject matter simply isn't supposed to change your life you mango! It's literally about a cripple and a fish

>>7628272
Did YOU even read the book?

The Denial of Death.

Started rereading it and it's basically what The Myth of Sisyphus and all the other existentialist writings should have been. A fantastic merger of psychology, philosophy and spirituality.

>>7622537
Which translation of the brother karanazov may I ask?

>>7628478
Not him but go for McDuff or Avsey.

I am John von Dorf.

Are you an angsty '90s kid who resorted to the internet as an escape from your reality, only to battle with the jaded narcissism on 4chan? You are John von Dorf.

Vladmir Nabokov - Lolita.
>Convinced me of the sheer vivacity and evocative beauty language can have. Contributed to my belief that communication and self-expression are the most powerful tools at our disposal.

Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road
>The most affecting account of how our wants clash with and are distorted by what is expected of us. How we long to escape our immediate surroundings and people, how we live vicariously through others and how we rationalize our bullshit while pointing the finger elsewhere at signs of unhappiness. Middle class ennui is well-trodden ground, but never with as much human insight as this

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>>7628677

>>7628478
i just read the good ol' garnett translation, but i really enjoy the victorian style of literature. avoid P&V, very clunky, but i'd just look through a few different samples, and pick whichever one flows best for you.

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>>7622971
>Faust by Goethe is ebin

O look, it's some pleb who cannot into Schiller

>>7622985
I asked myself who that semen demon was and I didn't like what I found out

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>>7630127
Keep trying. 2/10 for making me answer.

>>7630147
Goethe was just an old fag who wanted Schiller's boipussy

Boswell's Life of Johnson t.b.h.

most of the stuff in the top 100 list

>>7630178
Not good enough.

Flowers for Algernon

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>>7622525

>>7622552
>>7622957
High-School Tier

>>7622550
No

>>7628233
>>7625000
>>7622877
Pretty good lists.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
The Holy Bible
100 Years of Solitude
Sons and Lovers
A Farewell to Arms
The Brothers Karamazov
Meditations
The Trial
Walden/Civil Disobedience
The Sound and the Fury

Where should one begin with philosophy? Which ones should one avoid?

I have already buried myself deep in all kinds of different texts of philosophy, but I worry that I'm too deep in and have missed or written off the essentials

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>>7622525

>>7631554
Start with the Greeks.

>>7622850
I finished it before christmas and I still miss reading it. It's definitely my all time favorite book.

>>7622552

Poorly disguised troll.

>>7628233

>Knut Janson

You may show yourself out.

I think this is probably the most appropriate thread to ask this but does there exist some good /lit/ on drinking from an alcoholic author's point of view?

>>7632570
JVD has a cocaine and whiskey problem

How do you deal with never being able to read all the books you want to in your lifetime? I'm only 18 and I'm already terrified that there's just not enough time to get through, it seems, even a fraction

>>7633168
I used to feel the same way, and still do sometimes, but I realized it actually made me appreciate books less. I don't want to think of them as titles to cross off a list or something to "get through." Just try to give whatever book you're reading at the moment you full attention and get as much enjoyment out of it as you can.

>>7633168
Plenty of things I'm not going to accomplish before I die. About literature specifically, I used to be depressed by that thought and felt crushed by the sheer size of the literary work of men until I started appreciating its vastness instead of viewing it as a negative thing.
You're young anyway and probably want to read every thing at the same time and desire all that sweet knowledge right now, but trust me, it goes away with time. At least in most cases.

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>>7628478
>>7628656
>>7629995

>tfw read it in Russian

>>7622947
>>7624846
>>7631504
>>7631617
Aside from Narnia and a few questionable novels there's nothing wrong with his list you autists

>>7633782
what's wrong with Narnia?

>>7628299

loved this. norm told me to read it.

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Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.

Followed immediately by Upanishads.

Pure distilled philosophy of life, and beautifully written both.

>>7628856
Disagree with you on Lolita proving the power of language as a tool. Lolita is entirely masturbatory and that is why it is beautiful. Language is too ludicrously flowery to be conflated with communication and understanding.

>>7622525

Rainbow SIx - Tom Clancy

>>7631554
Greeks - Cicero - Aurelius - Machiavelli - Hobbes - Locke - Spinoza - Rousseau - Kant - Mill - Nietzsche - Heidegger