Creating a Book List - Political Theory & History

[Smurf]

I'm making a list of books I want to read, just anything really that is thought provocative or informative. I'm paticularly interested in political theory and history, so far I have;
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley(reading it right now)
1984 by George Orwell
Beyond Good and Evil by nietzsche
The Antichrist, Curse on Christianity by nietzsche
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
The last days of Socrates (Compilation of works)
Gorgias by Plato
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Why we Fight by Bill Bennett
9-11 by Noam Chomsky

I appreciate any recomendations from any view point on anything.

 

[franznietzsche]

Read 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' by Nietzsche after reading Beyond Good and Evil, but before reading The Antichrist.

Also Kafka and Camus are highly recommended.

And Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'

 

[gerben]

As for the Nietzsche titles you have in there you might find “The antichrist” a bit to extreme, and it does not give a good view of the kinds of things he wrote in other works. I would recommend "On the Genealogy of Morals" and "human al too human" and perhaps "the gay science"


(and "Twilight of the Idols", "Daybreak", "Thus Spoke Zarathustra")

 

[Smurf]

Evidently we have some neitzsche fans here, thanks for your input, I'll take your advice.

P.S. no such thing as too extreme for me

 

[franznietzsche]

I don't consider The Antichrist too extreme, and i would say it is better than his early works like The Birth of Tragedy.

Be prepared for extreme attacks on christianity, other philosophers, and women. Not for the easily offended.

 

[hypnagogue]

If you like Huxley, try The Doors of Perception.

 

[Smurf]

Be prepared for extreme attacks on christianity, other philosophers, and women. Not for the easily offended.

Please franz, please, don't get me too excited, I have to finish reading A brave new world first.

 

[franznietzsche]

Please franz, please, don't get me too excited, I have to finish reading A brave new world first.

Why do you think i named myself after the guy?

 

[plover]

My Nietzsche recommendations would be The Gay Science and On the Genealogy of Morals. One point which franz did not mention, but which IIRC he agrees with me on: make sure you get the Kaufmann translations! The other early translations are dreck. There are recent translations of at least a few books, and there is a decent chance of these being good since anyone doing a translation now knows they will be measured against Kaufmann, but I don't know any specific ones (it's been years since I've kept track of this stuff). The Kaufmann ones are standard and you can't go wrong with them. Also, while Nietszche is most certainly brilliant, he can also be uneven—his remarks on women are often just kind of silly.

For translations of Homer, your best bets are probably either Lattimore or Fagles. If you enjoy Homer, I would suggest giving Milton's Paradise Lost a try (really!)—if you can get the hang of his syntax, it's amazingly cinematic (at least the opening sections). And remember: it's much more satisfying if you read it with Satan as the hero... see William Blake's poem-thing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell for more on this.

If you decide to try Dostoevsky (or any 19th century Russian), find out whether Pevear and Volokhonsky have done a translation of whatever work you've chosen (I know they've done most of Dostoevesky's important books, but I'm not entirely sure what else). Avoid the old Constance Garnett translations of Russian authors if at all possible (and for editions where the translator's name does not seem to be included, assume it is Garnett).

A couple of more recent favorites I'll recommend:
The Wind-up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
The Gold Bug Variations - Richard Powers

You mention William Gibson—if you're into sf I can offer tons of suggestions.

 

[franznietzsche]

One point which franz did not mention, but which IIRC he agrees with me on: make sure you get the Kaufmann translations! The other early translations are dreck. There are recent translations of at least a few books, and there is a decent chance of these being good since anyone doing a translation now knows they will be measured against Kaufmann

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention that. Settle for nothing less than the Kaufmann translations. Older translations are horrible, and ruin everything. However Kaufmann did not translate all of Nietzsche's works, for example Human, All too Human is the most prominent example And i wish he had, the Hollingsdale translation i have is almost painful to read. Nothing rings with the clarity or power of the lines of Zarathustra or Beyond. That might be the way it was written as it was Nietzsche's first major work after leaving his job as a philologist IIRC. But the way it reads makes it seem like its more a translation problem. But the major works:

Beyond Good and Evil
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
On the Genealogy of Morals'
Ecce Homo (another one i particulary recommend is Ecce Homo)
The Gay Science


He also wrote a number of books of his own on existentialism, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky (possibly the most influential author of the 19th century, just based on his influence on Nietzsche, Kafka, Sartre, and others.), Sartre, Hegel, and so on. Kaufmann was quite the scholar.

Thanks for the warning on the doestovsky translations. I just checked my copy (haven't yet started it) and saw it was in fact constance garnett. So i'll have to look around for a better translation.

 

[plover]

Thanks for the warning on the doestovsky translations. I just checked my copy (haven't yet started it) and saw it was in fact constance garnett. So i'll have to look around for a better translation.

Yeah, Garnett was the first translator of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and her stuff is public domain now so there are lots of cheap editions. I haven't read them, but I've heard they can be a bit quaint. Pevear and Volkhonsky (who I have read) are terrific.

Have you looked at the recent translation of Kafka? I've only read the standard Muir translation, but I've heard the new one is an improvement.

 

[franznietzsche]

Yeah, Garnett was the first translator of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and her stuff is public domain now so there are lots of cheap editions. I haven't read them, but I've heard they can be a bit quaint. Pevear and Volkhonsky (who I have read) are terrific.

Have you looked at the recent translation of Kafka? I've only read the standard Muir translation, but I've heard the new one is an improvement.

I read one translation of the metamorphosis in high school(I don't know which, but it wasn't muir.), but all the copies i own are Muir translations. I liked the other one better. Page for page the other translation read better.

 

[humanino]

stuff to read in french

W by Georges Perec.
OK nobody reads french books

In any case, I wanted to point that no translation done without the author can be trustable. I tried to read Nietzsche in german. It is even more difficult than in native language of course, but it brings much light.

 

[franznietzsche]

I recommended Camus, and he's french!

 

[humanino]

You also recommended Dostoevsky, but i doubt that you read russian (and german, and french) !
Especially Camus : it makes really no sens not to read it in the original language, since it is mainly poerty anyway !

 

[franznietzsche]

You also recommended Dostoevsky, but i doubt that you read russian (and german, and french) !
Especially Camus : it makes really no sens not to read it in the original language, since it is mainly poerty anyway !

The only two languages I'm even close to fluent in are Spanish and English. Of course its in translation.

The Stranger is not poetry, and is a rather fantastic work, even in translation.

I wish i was fluent in german and russian. It would be nice, even just for literature reasons.

 

[the number 42]

I'm making a list of books I want to read, just anything really that is thought provocative or informative. I'm paticularly interested in political theory and history, so far I have;
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley(reading it right now)
1984 by George Orwell
Beyond Good and Evil by nietzsche
The Antichrist, Curse on Christianity by nietzsche
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
The last days of Socrates (Compilation of works)
Gorgias by Plato
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Why we Fight by Bill Bennett
9-11 by Noam Chomsky

I appreciate any recomendations from any view point on anything.

Far better than Brave New World is Island, Huxley's final book. Its a lot more upbeat than BNW. (What isn't).

 

[mathlete]

Here is my huge list of books to read (I need more science/math ones!):

Ere Literature & Fiction
1. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
2. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay : A Novel, The – Michael Chabon
3. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
4. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
5. Children's Story - James Clavell
6. Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
7. Ciudad De Dios - Paulo Lins
8. Farseer Series, The – Robin Hobb
9. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
10. Flatland – Edwin. A. Abbott
11. Forgotten Soldier, The – Guy Sajer
12. God's Debris: A Thought Experiment – Scott Adams
13. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas – Tom Robbins
14. Illuminatus! Trilogy : The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, Leviathan, The – Robert Shea
15. Invisible Monsters – Chuck Palahniuk
16. Manchurian Candidate, The – Agatha Christie
17. Mere Christianity – C.S Lewis
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
19. Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, Part 3) - J.R.R. Tolkien
20. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
21. Song of Fire and Ice Series – George R.R Martin
22. Starship Troopers – Robert A. Heinlein
23. Strange - Albert Camus
24. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein
25. Survivor: A Novel – Chuck Palahniuk
26. Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan - Eiji Yoshikawa
27. Tale of Genji, The - Murasaki Shikibu
28. Wheel of Time Series – Robert Jordan

Classics
1. Aeneid, The – Virgil
2. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
3. Art of War - Sun Tzu
4. Brothers Karamazov, The – Fyodor Dostoevskey
5. Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
6. Complete Sherlock Holmes –
7. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
8. Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
9. Count of Monte Cristo, The – Alexander Dumas
10. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Divine Comedy, The – Dante Alighieri
12. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
13. Dracula – Bram Stoker
14. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
15. From the Earth to the Moon – Jules Verne
16. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
17. Hobbit, The – J.R.R Tolkien
18. Iliad – Homer
19. Inferno (Part 1) – Dante Alighieri
20. Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne
21. Lost World, The – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
22. Man In the Iron Mask, The – Alexander Dumas
23. Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
24. Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
25. Republic – Plato
26. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
27. Stranger, The – Albert Camus
28. Swiss Family Robinson, The – Johann Wyss
29. Three Musketeers, The – Alexander Dumas
30. Time Machine, The – H.G. Wells
31. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Utopia - Sir Thomas More
33. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
34. War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
35. Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
36. Zorba The Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis


Science & Mathematics
1. Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design – Richard Dawkins
2. Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography - Simon Singh
3. Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity (Great Discoveries) - David Foster Wallace
4. Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality - Brian Greene
5. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas R. Hofstadter
6. Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number - Mario Livio
7. Journey Of Man – Spencer Wells
8. Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe – Terence Dickinson
9. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes
10. Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution – Neil deGrasse Tyson
11. Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics - John Derbyshire
12. Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins

Non-Fiction
1. A Walk In The Woods – Bill Bryson
2. America (The Book): Jon Stewart
3. Bill Bryson’s African Diary – Bill Bryson
4. Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche
5. Eats, Shoots & Leaves – Lynne Truss
6. Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
7. Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission - Hampton Sides
8. Gulag: A History – Anne Applebaum
9. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
10. History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon
11. How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle - How the World's Smartest Company Selects the Most Creative Thinkers - William Poundstone
12. I’m A Stranger Here Myself – Bill Bryson
13. In A Sunburned Country – Bill Bryson
14. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw - Mark Bowden
15. Life of Reason, The – George Santayana
16. Made In America – Bill Bryson
17. Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary - Simon Winchester
18. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game – Michael Lewis
19. Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, The – Hernando De Soto
20. Naked – David Sedaris
21. Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, The – Robert Lifton
22. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe – Laurence Bergreen
23. Pegasus Bridge - Stephen E. Ambrose
24. Philosophy of History, The – George Hegel
25. Salt: A World History - Mark Kurlansky
26. Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea - Gary Kinder
27. United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy – T. R. Reid
28. Why Things Are They Way They Are – B. S. Chandrasekhar

 

[franznietzsche]

23. Strange - Albert Camus

Thats 'The Stranger'

Classics
1. Aeneid, The – Virgil
2. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
3. Art of War - Sun Tzu
4. Brothers Karamazov, The – Fyodor Dostoevskey
5. Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
6. Complete Sherlock Holmes –
7. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
8. Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx
9. Count of Monte Cristo, The – Alexander Dumas
10. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. Divine Comedy, The – Dante Alighieri
12. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes
13. Dracula – Bram Stoker
14. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
15. From the Earth to the Moon – Jules Verne
16. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
17. Hobbit, The – J.R.R Tolkien
18. Iliad – Homer
19. Inferno (Part 1) – Dante Alighieri
20. Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne
21. Lost World, The – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
22. Man In the Iron Mask, The – Alexander Dumas
23. Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle
24. Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
25. Republic – Plato
26. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
27. Stranger, The – Albert Camus
28. Swiss Family Robinson, The – Johann Wyss
29. Three Musketeers, The – Alexander Dumas
30. Time Machine, The – H.G. Wells
31. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
32. Utopia - Sir Thomas More
33. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
34. War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
35. Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
36. Zorba The Greek – Nikos Kazantzakis

I think you''ll find Sherlock holmes a little pedestrian compared to some of the real classics up there, same with 'The Lost World'. 'Treasure Island' is better, but still not great. Same goes for a few others up there. They're entertaining, but they're not exactly high literature.

As long as you are of this Earth you will hate 'War and Peace'. I couldn't force myself to read it, although as has been pointed out that may have been a bad translation. Go for newer translations, avoid Garnet.

Frankenstein is a great novel, one of my favorite pieces of romantic literature.

Don Quixote de la Mancha, is one I'm not sure about. I've only read it in spanish, but it was like giving a fourth grader Shakespeare to read (that's about the level of my spanish). Its in an old spanish that is difficult to read. Made it hard to follow. However I've never read it in translation.

I myself would like to read Machiavelli, but have not yet done so. Again with everything that would be in translation go for the newest translations if you can (they will be more expensive, but the book will read better, and be more clear.)

 

[plover]

16. Manchurian Candidate, The – Agatha Christie

This is by Richard Condon, not Agatha Christie...

 

[Chrono]

5. Children's Story - James Clavell
26. Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan - Eiji Yoshikawa

Don't forget Shogun by James Clavell and Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.

3. Art of War - Sun Tzu

Also there's The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto.

 

[Smurf]

Wow guys thanks for so many suggestions and commentary. I've given up BNW in favour of Neuromancer and will be going down to my library tomorrow to check out Neitzsche and Dostoevsky, I will never get through these suggestions Perfect.
I am not really looking for fiction so much as philosophy and politics, and I do read French half decently so I'll be looking for Camus

 

[mathlete]

Thats 'The Stranger'

This is by Richard Condon, not Agatha Christie...

Thanks, I don't know why I made those mistakes. Must have been miscopies.

I think you''ll find Sherlock holmes a little pedestrian compared to some of the real classics up there, same with 'The Lost World'. 'Treasure Island' is better, but still not great. Same goes for a few others up there. They're entertaining, but they're not exactly high literature.

As long as you are of this Earth you will hate 'War and Peace'. I couldn't force myself to read it, although as has been pointed out that may have been a bad translation. Go for newer translations, avoid Garnet.

Frankenstein is a great novel, one of my favorite pieces of romantic literature.

Don Quixote de la Mancha, is one I'm not sure about. I've only read it in spanish, but it was like giving a fourth grader Shakespeare to read (that's about the level of my spanish). Its in an old spanish that is difficult to read. Made it hard to follow. However I've never read it in translation.

I myself would like to read Machiavelli, but have not yet done so. Again with everything that would be in translation go for the newest translations if you can (they will be more expensive, but the book will read better, and be more clear.)

I've read Sherlock Holmes before, so I know what I'm getting into - it's just there to remind me to finish them. I'll give the rest of them a shot, but now I'm wary of War and Peace. I probably won't bother buying it now, even if I get it on the cheap. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[arildno]

'Treasure Island' is better, but still not great. not exactly high literature.

HOW DARE YOU!
I love "Treasure Island"; Israel Hands crawling up with a dagger clenched between his teeth is real high-point.

As an aside, I very much enjoyed "Remembrance of things past" by M. Proust.

 

[tribdog]

we are talking about the same Smurf aren't we? This isn't a new Smurf? I'd suggest:

Classics
1)One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
2)Are you My Mother?
3)Dick and Jane

Science
1)The Cow Goes Moo
2)Brush, Brush, Brush Away The Tooth Meanies
3)Anything by Gribbin

 

[tribdog]

28. Why Things Are They Way They Are – B. S. Chandrasekhar

I so wanted to like Chandrasekhar, he should be so cool, but I couldn't get interested. He bored me.

 

[tribdog]

you've got a lot of Verne, why not 20.000 leagues?

Don Quixote cracked me up so many times. It has a very juvenile sense of humor and that appeals to me.

And based on a lot of what you have up there I'd recommend Robin Hood, I believe it was written by Pyle. I enjoyed it more than any of Dumas books. Gulliver's Travels was pretty good once he left liliputia, simply because he went places I never knew he did. I've never made it through a Dostoevskey. And the best Robinson Crusoe I've ever read was a reader's digest condensed version.

 

[Sisyphus]

Some short stories by Kafka maybe

 

[arildno]

Do not tell me you read all of Proust! You have a lot of patience.That is a long reading!
.

That IS what I told you, a couple of years ago. Paleontologist..:smile;

 

[foxgod]

I'm making a list of books I want to read, just anything really that is thought provocative or informative. I'm paticularly interested in political theory and history, so far I have;
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley(reading it right now)
1984 by George Orwell
Beyond Good and Evil by nietzsche
The Antichrist, Curse on Christianity by nietzsche
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
The last days of Socrates (Compilation of works)
Gorgias by Plato
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Why we Fight by Bill Bennett
9-11 by Noam Chomsky

I appreciate any recomendations from any view point on anything.

is that all?i more than you