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I have to agree with wwh, that it is so difficult to make a couple of recommendations and stop. The list can threaten to become exhaustive. To those wonderful afore listed books, that I have had the pleasure of reading and experiencing, I would add two more that might be good to start with and are wonderful for appreciations of style. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Beginning and the End - Naguib Mahfouz(who I list as one of the all time greats); The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope...
WW: in response to One area that I've been personally disappointed in is history, may I suggest Lenin's Tomb - David Remnick; a book I recently read and was extremely impressed with. Its an informed, well researched, first hand account of the collapse of the Soviet Union and is written in an easy narrative style that makes for an engrossing read.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The Prisoner of Zenda seems an excellent choice, very well written and not 'heavy'. In a different vein, perhaps some of CP Snow's earlier books and the 'a dance to the music of time' series by Anthony Powell. Also any of Dorothy Sayers detective stories - Murder Must Advertise could be a good one as it introduces a more muscular Wimsey than one usually pictures, but my favourite is The Nine Tailors. None of these are classics or 'heavy' reading, Snow is harder going than the others, but they are well written and hold the reader.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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then there's genre books by writers who really know how to write:
capers/thrillers: Donald Westlake
espionage: John le Carre
sf/fantasy: Gene Wolfe
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
I'll add Truman Capote (short stories; novellas)
What's the Capote story about the little girl that comes to town, is really popular and adored by everyone, then decides she's going to leave for the big city, and ends up being hit by a bus? I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
espionage: John le Carre
Frederick Forsyth is also great. I started with Day of the Jackal back in high school, and I love F.F.'s books so much now that I have to ration them out so I don't exhaust the supply. Typically I pick one up to read on a plane when I absolutely want to have an enjoyable, engrossing read.
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On the subject of books, can anyone tell me how it is that most people that were brought up in the US, havent heard of or read, any of the Enid Blyton series??!!! I grew up on a staple diet of Enid Blytons, and when I first came to the US, it used to baffle me no end that no one seemed to know what I was talking about. All my earnest recommendations met with less than eager responses and I left it at that. Same story with Tintin and Asterix!!?? For me, to this day, these books serve as handy and ready, mood picker-uppers. To get lost in lands of gnomes, elves, fairies with glitter dusted gossamer wings, underground trains with big cushions for seats, coloured sparkly lanterns in tunnels,..... everything seems alright with the world after that little reverie!  Any comments?
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genre books:
murder mysteries: Agatha Christie
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ray Bradbury, for a refreshing and original use of language...and for honing your imagination he can't be beat! Start with some of his many short story collections, preferably The Illustrated Man, S is for Space, and October Country...he is one of the masters of the short-story form (along with Somerset Maugham). His novels include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Halloween Tree, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Herman Hesse -- Demian, Siddhartha, Steppenwolf
Alistair MacLean -- if you like gripping adventure/thrillers written in high literate style check out Ice Station Zebra, The Black Shrike (my favorite), The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, Fear is the Key, The Satan Bug (the original biological outbreak story), and a host of others.
Edgar Allan Poe -- short stories of his such as The Cask of Amontillado, The Telltale Heart, and many others will leave you spellbound. And though macabre in theme, he uses a wonderfully elevated style of language to relate them. And don't miss his poetry either, works such as The Raven and Annabel Lee are a must!
Joseph Conrad -- luscious language! Conrad, who was born in the Ukraine, spoke Polish as his native tongue, and learned English as a second language, took his writing to brilliant heights. If you want to fall in love with the English language look no further than Conrad (well, okay, Shakespeare, too ;)): Lord Jim, The Heart of Darkness, Typhoon, many others.
Oh, and if you like history don't miss H.G. Wells' two-volume The Outline of History.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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In reply to:
On the subject of books, can anyone tell me how it is that most people that were brought up in the US, havent heard of or read, any of the Enid Blyton series??!!! I
In elementary school I devored all the "Secret Seven" books I could find. They had many of them in the public library in my small town in Kentucky. Those books and the ones in the "Three Investigators" series were my favorites. But I had never heard of her "Five..." books until much later.
Oliver Sacks writes some of the most fascinating non-fiction books around. He's a neurologist who writes about some of his more unusual cases and often their spiritual dimensions. His book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat is a goo dtarting point. My one complaint about Sacks is that he always has all these footnotes at the bottom of each page, and I can't resist reading them.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A book that I found engrossing in the history category is "The True History of the Conquest of Mexico" by Bernal Diaz de Castillo. If you want to read Tom Robbins Hi Milo!, start with "Jitterbug Perfume". I just read a delightful little book by Sandra Cisneros titled "The House on Mango Street".
Another thing I would recommend is attending "performance poetry" performances (i.e. Stone Circle*, slam poetry contests, storytelling etc) to get a feel for the rhythm of words. When the writing is right, there is a definite rhythm.
*That's in lower northern Michigan. I'm sure there must be other venues that have the same type of thing going on.
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