The Official "Books to Read Before you Die" thread
I'm talking about non-finance books but good finance books can also be recommended.
My input:
The Alchemist
Ender's Game
Brave New World
Too Big to Fail
I'm talking about non-finance books but good finance books can also be recommended.
My input:
The Alchemist
Ender's Game
Brave New World
Too Big to Fail
+186 | Creepy MD - what do I do? | 58 | 15h | |
+75 | Finance Fiction Sub-Forum? | 17 | 1d | |
+68 | Remember to take care of yourself | 8 | 1d | |
+64 | Why was Reddit IPO so successful? | 41 | 1d | |
+61 | Are banking MDs happy with their life? | 20 | 14h | |
+56 | Waiting for a Girl | 26 | 14h | |
+43 | Is it a bad idea not to save anything as a junior? | 15 | 9h | |
+37 | Fucking quit today | 12 | 8h | |
+32 | Enron + Smartest Guys in the Room | 14 | 2d | |
+30 | Harassment in the Workplace. What to Do? | 22 | 5d |
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Probably the works of Plato and Aristotle. Maybe throw in some Netwon. Honestly, just look for any "great books" list and you'll be set.
The giving tree.
Seriously.
The Great Gatsby.
My all time favorite book.
Great book hopefully Leo does justice to him.
Jack Kerouac - on The Road
The Catcher in the Rye. Best book ever.
http://amzn.to/jZ62Vx
In all seriousness: Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Trader Vic by Victor Sperandeo (last half of the book is nothing short of stellar) Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque If This is a Man by Primo Levi Swann's Way by Proust The Bible
Martin Eden by Jack London
Goodnight Moon
Autumn of the Patriarch Lucky Bastard God Is Not Great Patriot Acts The Road to Serfdom
Guns, Germs, and Steel
100 years of solitude
I had to include several finance related titles... psychology, philosophy, classics:
The Black Swan Extreme Money The Numerati Why People Believe Weird Things How We Know What Isn't So Predictably Irrational Money Game The Education of a Speculator A Demon of Our Own Design A People's History of the United States The Misbehavior of Markets The Crowd Thus Spoke Zarathustra The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
*Guns, Germs, and Steel (as posted earlier... amazing book)
Overall Books +1 for The Alchemist A Clockwork Orange The Catcher in the Rye
Business Books Boomerang Hot, Flat and Crowded Liar's Poker
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom Reminisces of a Stock Operator- Edwin Lefevre The Razor's Edge - Somerset Maugham
Anything by Christopher Hitchens or Niall Ferguson. Yeah. I have a thing for British non-fiction writers.
Bonfire of the vanities Crime and Punishment Catch 22
2001: A Space Odyssey
/nerdass... sorry, I loved that book. It was assigned for a class and I blew through it.
I also liked City of Glass but I can see why some people wouldn't want to read it.
Freakanomics was good too
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse - my all time favorite, i read it about once a year +1 for All Quiet on the Western Front Tortilla Flat - Steinbeck Into Thin Air - Krakauer
I'll throw Dune and Dune Messiah in there too, bc it changed the way I think about religion. But obviously wouldn't hold up to much literary criticism.
The ones I have read that you should:
Catcher in the Rye Great Gatsby 1984 A Brave New World Fahrenheit 451 Atlas Shrugged The Sun Also Rises The Old Man and the Sea From Beirut to Jerusalem Liar's Poker Outliers Animal Farm All The King's Men To Kill a Mockingbird Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Ender's Game Lord of the Rings
Books I haven't read that I've been told I have to:
As I Lay Dying Point Counter Point For Whom the Bell Tolls Catch-22 Slaughterhouse Five The Sound and the Fury The French Lieutenant's Woman On the Road A Clockwork Orange Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance A Farewell to Arms
Also have to give an honorable mention to the 4 Hour Body and the 4 Hour Work Week, they aren't great literature, but they show you different ways to think about how you live life (which is really what literature is in the most basic sense).
The Count of Monte Cristo is by far the best book I've ever read. I read it at least once a year. Get the full version, why our society creates abridged versions of books is beyond me.
Shit, don't know how I missed this one. I absolutely agree with CMC being the best book I've ever read. Well, it's a close tie between that and The Catcher in the Rye.
On the Road.
Hunger Games
For anybody who even remotely likes watching sports - Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN
The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli
King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone - David Carey
Post American World - Fareed Zakaria
Private Capital Markets - Robert Slee
Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
The prince of tides - pat conroy
really anything by conroy is fantastic
Wow, this thread has my name written all over it.
Anything by Leo Tolstoy or Fyodr Dostoyevsky must be read by default. Anna Karenina is truly beastly. Also rounding out the top 10 would be All Quiet On the Western Front, Brave New World, Complete Works of Shakespeare, 1984, Brothers Karamazov, anything by H.P. Lovecraft, complete works of Edgar Allen Poe (especially Arthur Pym of Nantucket), For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Trial by Franz Kafka. Honorable mention to "Count of Monte Crisco by Alexandree Dumbass." :)
The Alchemist, I'm sorry to say, is a terrible book. This girl I liked begged me to read it, and by the time I was done with it, I didn't like her anymore. No development, no conflict, and the main character just has all these random flashes of inspiration that aren't brought on my anything. "And then he realized X, Y, and Z. And he was happy." But I am thankful for all of the above.
Since you like Dostoyevsky, quick question, did you enjoy Notes From UNderground? I am reading it right now but it just seems like he is rambling on, gets to a point then does a 180 and goes off on a different direction? What are your thoughts on Gogol, Pushkin, Turgenevov (Sketches from a Hunter albums?)
My List: The Selfish Gene 48 Laws of Power The Game My Journal
I read Notes From Underground a couple of years ago. It's a good primer for Fyodr's broader style, and his stories in general are very character/conversation-oriented. It's kind of open-ended and chaotic that way. There isn't a clear 180-degree turn, but treat it as a journey rather than as a destination.
For those of you out of school, where do you find the time for pleasure reading? Right before bed for 30min a night or something?
A Clockwork Orange The Fountainhead Oil by Upton Sinclair (There will be blood is based on this) Reminiscence of a Stock Operator Requiem for a Dream This Side of Paradise The Partnership (book about GS)
atlas shrugged is the best book i ever read. Its long but if u can get through it it is well worth it. regardless of if you agree with the political/philosophical message, the book is a great story as well.
i know ill catch shit for this but the girl with the dragon tattoo series is pretty gripping. The mark of a good book to me is the inability to stop reading even when your dead fucking tired and want to go to bed.
I think we need to separate these books into general literary classics and books related to finance/economics. No good when you mix up these 2 categories.
Wind up bird chronicle by Murakami
+1 for On The Road
Autobiography of Malcolm X Catcher in The Rye The 48 Laws of Power Great Expectations Short Stories of Hemingway
A Moveable Feast - Hemingway
Just finished that recently. Wonderful stuff!
Franz Kafka - The Trial Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations Dostoyevsky - Brothers Karamazov John Updike - Terrorist Coetzee - Disgrace Kant - Critique of Judgement Hamid - Reluctant Fundamentalist James Joyce - Ulysses Hemingway - Men without Women
This is a great thread. Got so much to still catch up on.
Ayn Rand- The Fountainhead Erich Maria Remarque- All Quiet on the Western Front Herman Wouk- The Winds of War and War and Remembrance John Steinbeck- The Grapes of Wrath James Michner- Poland Leon Uris- QB VII, Exodus, Mila 18 Cormac McCarthy- Blood Meridian Larry McMurtry- Lonesome Dove Jack London- The Call of the Wild Frank McCourt- Angela's Ashes Anne Frank- The Diary of Anne Frank Richard Adams- Watership Down Ernest Hemingway- For Whom the Bell Tolls William Faulkner- As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury Kurt Vonnegut- Slaughterhouse Five Upton Sinclair- The Jungle George Orwell- 1984 and Animal Farm Ken Kesey- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Harper Lee- To Kil a Mockingbird Joseph Conrad- Heart of Darkness Leo Tolstoy- War and Peace Salman Rushdie- The Satanic Verses Miguel de Cervantes- Don Quixote Gabriel Garcia Marquez- One Hundred Years of Solitude Alex haley- The Autobiography of Malcolm X Vladimir Nabokov- Lolita Jules Verne- Journey to the Center of the Earth / 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Henry David Thoreau- Walden Voltaire- Candide Stephen Crane- The Red badge of Courage Rudyard Kipling- The Jungle Books, Kim, The White Man's Burden Homer- The Odyssey, The Illiyad John Milton- Paradise Lost Charles Dickens- A Tale of Two Cities Sophocles- Oedipus Rex Victor Hugo- The Hunchback of Notre dame, Les Miserables James Cooper- The Last of the Mohicans Harriet Beecher Stowe- Uncle Tom's Cabin Robert Louis Stevenson- Treasure Island Alexandre Dumas- The Count of Monte Cristo, The Vicomte of Bragelonne Aldous Huxley- Brave New World Virgil- The Aeneid Machiavelli- The Prince Daniel Defoe- Robinson Crusoe Dante- The Divine Comedy H.G. Wells- The Time Machine Bram Stoker- Dracula William Golding- Lord of the Flies George Eliot- Silas Marner Mary Shelley- Frankenstein F Scott Fitzgerald- The Great Gatsby Ralph Ellison- The Invisible Man J.D. Salinger- The Catcher in the Rye Richard Wright- Native Son Joseph Heller- Catch-22 Franz Kafka- the Trial, The Metamorphosis Joseph Conrad- Nostromo Nathaniel Hawthorne- The Scarlett Letter W. Somerset Maugham- Of Human Bondage
I can probably think of more
Benito Cereno, Moby Dick, Bartelby the Scrivener Herman Melville Capitalism the Unknown Ideal Ayn Rand (A great defense of capitalism)
Not a book, but an essay: George Orwell - A Hanging; You're lurking this forum, you have spare time. Read it now!
Aldous Huxley - Island Herman Melville - Moby Dick
I have "Too Big to Fail" but am waiting til I finish some others til I read it.
Count of Monte Cristo unabridged is probably one of the best novels Ive ever read.
Road to Serfdom Free to Choose Capitalism and Freedom
Books all cultured people should have read: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and the things inspired by it e.g. Achebe's Things Fall Apart Gabriel Garcia Marquez: 100 Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a death foretold TS Eliot's the Wasteland (not really a book, but the most amazing piece of modern literature, save perhaps Ulysses) His four quartets are also amazing. Even if you don't understand him, you can read eliot purely belletristically Catcher in the Rye Gulliver's Travels Ezra Pound's the Cantos Philip K Dick: Man in the HIgh Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the MOuntain and Invisible Man Wuthering Heights (yeah, laugh if you want. Great novel) Tolstoy's War and Peace, Anna Karenina (better than War and Peace imo) Sophocles' Oedipus cycle Goethe's Faust -- a fundamentally modern novel written hundreds of years ago. Flaubert's letters to Madame Bovary Charles Baudelaire's poems. Huck finn, tom sawyer (huck finn's better imo) Rimbaud's poetry. Virgil's Aeneid Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, WCW, Yeats, Keats poetry Ovid's Metamorphoses George Orwell's 1984, Animal Farm Cervantes' Don Quixote Melville's Bartleby the scrivner (whatever, moby dick) Homer's Illiad and Odyssey Virginia woolf (imo the greatest female writer who's ever lived): Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves, Jacob's Room Chaucer's canterbury tales Dante's divine comedy As much dostoevsky as you can Nabokov- Ada or Ardor, Lolita, Pale Fire (1st or 2nd best writer in past 100+ years imo, rivaled possibly by Joyce) Proust's remembrance Becketttt - Endgame,Waiting for Godot Milton's Paradise Lost Joyce's Dubliners, Portrait of the artist, ulysses All Shakespeare, including sonnets Kafka's Penal colony, metamorphosis, and the trial Faulker's sound and the fury, as i lay dying Great Gatsby All Quiet on the Western Front The THings They carried I, Claudius Em Forster's Howard's end
Can't really say anything about other famous novels as I haven't read a lot of them. Read dickins and hawthorne but im omitting them as I don't really like them much as writers.
More modern/lighter/for fun stuff after you've got a good grounding in the western canon:
Catch-22 Slaughterhouse Five Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Mason & Dixon (The philip k dick stuff I listed above belongs in this fun section)
Really modern stuff: David Foster Wallace: A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again, Consider the Lobster, Infinite Jest (would not recommend to those who aren't "readers," it's quite heavy). Has anyone read the Pale King? Been meaning to look into it, as i love DFW
Murakami: Kafka on the shore, A Wild Sheep Chase. Wouldn't recommend 1q84 so far, im the middle of it right now.
Other fun reading: Godel, Escher, Bach Elegant Universe, Fabric of the Cosmos, Liar's Poker Moneyball Barbarians at the gate random walk down wall street Ascent of money Road to Serfdom by FA Hayek
Writers to avoid because I hate them: Dave Eggers (though McSweeney's is marvelous) Dan Brown (can't write for shit, he gets enough hate though. At least he knows how to attract a large audience.)
Writers I don't want to but feel like I have to comment on because im on WSO: Ayn Rand:- I've come around a bit with my utter hate for Ayn Rand. One of the things I hated about her was how smug she was about how logically and intelligently she thought she had the answer to philosophical and political problems, when she didn't introduce a single novel idea to either philosophy or political philosophy. I must admit, though, that for someone with political views as strong as hers, few have written a novel that as many people find entertaining. As someone who's well versed in philosophy and political philosphy as well as literature, however, her terrible style of writing (objectively speaking, it is pretty bad), along with old points and ideas makes Atlas Shrugged painful for me to read thorugh. For those who don't want to go through the nerdiness and time of reading through libertarian arguments, various ethical philosphies, etc, I guess Atlas shrugged may be an important book for the budding libertarian mind.
Which reminds me, Philosphers everyone should be familiar with (top 10 greatest philosophers imo). I only deal with modern philosophers, as most of what Plato/ARistotle talked about is really taken for granted as philosophical ideas by us nowadays. If you've gone through modern LIFE, you won't feel that much satisfaction becoming rigorously familiar with Plato/Aristotle/pre Socratic philosphers. Those are really only useful for helping you understand later philosophers who responded to them. But you can just read summaries.
Ender's game is a great read.
indeed sir
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald The Virgin Suicides- Jeffrey Eugenides (prob my favorite book on par with gatsby) The Illustrated Man- Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles- Ray Bradbury
Funny no one has spoken about a Confederacy of dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. It is really one of my favourites.
The american CMC movie is a joke.
+1 to Enders Game Watchmen Dune series Foundation series The Cosmos
Animal Farm (Orwell), 1984 (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley) and The Europeans (James)
The Brothers Karamazov Crime and Punishment To Kill A Mockingbird Black Swan Atlas Shrugged The Catcher in the Rye Invisible Man Beloved Tropic of Cancer Don Quixote
I'll have to agree to classics like The Great Gatsby and The Count of Monte Cristo- they are both excellent reads.
I would also strongly recommend Eric Larson's Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts. Malcom Gladwell is also great.
Additionally a truly amazing read that is without a doubt the most humorous novel ever written: John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. You will laugh out loud while reading this book. Also most people have never heard of J.K. Toole because the book was published posthumously after his suicide. You will develop serious street cred among avid readers and literary critics after reading this cult classic.
Things Fall Apart No Longer at Ease Lord of the Flies Seize the Day Of Mice of Men The Prince The 48 Laws of Power The Autobiography of Malcolm X The Bible
To whoever mentioned All Quiet on the Western Front +1!
I'm a history/World War I/II junkie...
The Seawolf by Jack London - short 200 page story and one of my favs, seldom peeps read it. The Art of Seduction by Robert Greene - will prolly get you laid. The 3 Musketeers by Dumas - a classic, great if you like Count of Monte Cristo.
THE ARISTOS by John Fowles
Decided I wanted to read a book after at least a couple years of dormancy, saw the title "Ender's Game" suggested multiple times, burned through it, and finding myself wishing that I could read it for the first time again despite finishing it not even a half hour ago. Incredible book.
What a great thread. Thanks to everyone who contributed. From my own experience I would add A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. The Selfish Gene (already mentioned) is another book which changed my thinking. On fiction side, I recommend Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa.
Excellent books which I highly recommend to read:
Books that I haven't read yet but saw good reviews:
There are far too many to name here, but a few that might be of interest to WSO users are: 1. Anything by Jim Collins 2. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow 3. Anything about Warren Buffett
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