I know this comes up from time to time, but I'm looking for some summer reading, and was wondering if anyone would care to recommend one or two good works of fiction, as well as one or two good works of non-fiction.
During the summer I go on holiday to a remote island in the mediterranean where I sit on my patio atop a hill overlooking the sea and read for about a week. The only electronic devices I have are my e-book reader and a charger. Here's some of the best summer reading I've gone through:
For non-fiction it really depends on what you're looking for but I really enjoyed Joel Bakan's The Corporation and Mark Thomas' As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela.
I always recommend, to anyone who hasn't already read them, that they read Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars and The Civil Wars.
One of the greatest generals and leaders of all time personally wrote amazing war journals, and they survive mostly intact today. Nothing else like these exist.
Here are the first books that crossed my mind.
The Road.
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.
How to Read a Modern Painting: Lessons from the Modern Masters.
The Sun Also Rises.
The Wind Up Bird Chronicles.
Reamde: A Novel.
1984.
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith, is of the funniest books I have ever read and it contains the most important lesson about getting to the root of a problem that I have yet seen articulated: "The shit is not the shit. The pigeon is the shit."
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 47.8 ms ] threadhttp://www.amazon.com/dp/1107609178
the latest nonfiction book by an expert author, and I'm really liking it a lot. I highly recommend at least one book by Flynn for your summer reading.
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski - http://www.amazon.com/Painted-Bird-Jerzy-Kosinski/dp/0802134...
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini - http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Splendid-Suns-Khaled-Hosseini...
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - http://www.amazon.com/Brave-World-P-S-Aldous-Huxley/dp/00617...
Burmese Days - George Orwell - http://www.amazon.com/Burmese-Days-Novel-George-Orwell/dp/01...
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway - http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Also-Rises-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/074...
Catch 22 - Joe Heller - http://www.amazon.com/Catch-22-50th-Anniversary-Joseph-Helle...
The Road - Cormac McCarthy - http://www.amazon.com/Road-Oprahs-Book-Club/dp/0307387895
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee - http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee/dp/0446310...
The Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger - http://www.amazon.com/Catcher-Rye-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316769487
For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway - http://www.amazon.com/Whom-Bell-Tolls-Ernest-Hemingway/dp/06...
For non-fiction it really depends on what you're looking for but I really enjoyed Joel Bakan's The Corporation and Mark Thomas' As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela.
One of the greatest generals and leaders of all time personally wrote amazing war journals, and they survive mostly intact today. Nothing else like these exist.
http://www.amazon.com/Give-Take-Revolutionary-Approach-Succe...
Bruce Schneier - Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Fear-Thinking-Sensibly-Uncertai...
* Walter Tevis: Mockingbird
* Karin Boye: Kallocain
Non fiction Computing:
* John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said
* Jef Raskin: The Humane Interface
Non fiction society:
* P.M.: Bolo'bolo
The Jeffersonion Transformation (the first and last chapters of a much longer history) by Henry Adams, selected and introduced by Gary Wills.