Recommendations

[Oldposts]

The Upanishads [in English]

Shashi Tharoor--The Great Indian Novel
Shashi Tharoor--From Midnight to Millenium

Gita Mehta--Snakes & Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India

Arundhati Roy--The God of Small Things

R.K.Narayan--My Malgudi Days
R.K.Narayan--Painter of Signs & other stories

Ayn Rand--Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand--Fountainhead

Fyodor Dostoevsky--Brothers Karamazov (Vol 1 & 2) [quite depressing!]

Erich Fromm--Escape from Freedom

Anthony Burgess--The Clockwork Orange

Albert Camus--Resistance, Rebellion & Death

Frederik Nietzsche--Thus Spake Zarathustra

Franz Kafka--The Castle

O'Henry--Short Stories

Gore Vidal--Live from Golgotha

Isaac Isimov--The Foundation Trilogy [SF]

Alduous Huxley--The Brave New World

Ray Bradbury--Fahrenheit 451 [SF]

Arthur C. Clarke--Childhood's End [SF]
Arthur C. Clarke--2001: Space Odyssey, 2010, 2064 series [SF]
Arthur C. Clarke--Fountains of Paradise [SF]

Carl Sagan--Cosmos [SF]

[Oldposts]

Here are my recommendations on travelogues :

Paul Theroux's The Great Patagonian Express
Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster
Peter Mathiessen's The Snow Leopard ....lots of Buddhist philosophy..riveting..
Dervla Murphy's On a Shoestring to Coorg .This Irish woman has also written about her adventures in the Andes,Ethiopia.
Norman Lewis's The Goddess in the Stones
Geoffrey Moorhouse's OM - An Indian Pilgrimage ....writes about our own Madras,Pondicherry..
Other great travelogue writers are Bruce Chatwin,Jonathan Raban,Eric Newby.
Rushdie has written about his travels in the Central American country of Nicaragua. I think it's titled "Jaguar's Smile".
Check them out.

[Oldposts]

Hello
Those are excellent reco's,to add a few more
Strongly recommend
KMMunshi's Krishnaavatara(Vol 1 to Vol 7) available at Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan bookstores and several big bookstores all over india.It's an amazing narration of Lord Krishna's life and the life and times of all others in a really human point of view.I have learnt a lot about diplomacy and decision-making from these volumes.
2."magnificient obsession" by Lloyd C Douglas

[Oldposts]

More recommendations:
-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (one of the best literary stylists)
-Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges (a collection of short stories that prove one doesn't need a narcotic to travel unknown territory)
-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (a mindblowing tour-de-force in magical realism)
-A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (never been a big fan of his for all the bad writers he influenced, but this novel is one of the best romances I have read. What I most like about Hemingway is what he doesn't tell the reader. His short stories set the trend that everybody apes today)
-The Stranger by Albert Camus (I came onto Camus after having read many existential imitators, so his subject matter was nothing new, but his precisive language and spare style were hypnotic)
-Exile and The Kingdom and other stories by Albert Camus (I almost prefer his short stories more than his novels since his style suits shorts much better)
-As I lay Dying by William Faulkner (Considered the father of the now bastardized magical realism movement, Faulkner lyrically portrays the glory and curse of the American South and life itself. This novel hooked me and influenced my own novel's structure in that each chapter in the book assumes a character's voice which propels the story on. A phenomenal read)
-Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Doestoyevski (Empathy thy name is Russian)
-Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (Just when I thought Doestoyevski was the best Russian writer...)
-The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (brought honor to pulp crime novels, great in characterization. His other popular works are "After Dark My Sweet" and "Grifters", both made excellent movies)

more later

[Oldposts]

Udhaya, great selection!
Krishnan/ Kanchana:
I remember seeing a famed Kubrick film titled "Clockwork Orange"? Is it based on the same story?

Anyone for Thurber? or Somerset Maugham?

Travelogues: Have u read William Darlymple's "City of Djinns"? a quite amusing view of how Delhi does (or does not) work!

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hi
looking at the amount of talk on magic realism, the most magic realism i have seen is in gabriel's
"The Autumn of the Patriarch"
Highly recommended

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Hi all,

Glad to see there are other Roald Dahl fans
around !!
I love his works; so imaginative !

I was very thrilled when I got a chance to
work on a movie based on one of his (short) novels...( Ok, so I am a showoff )

[Oldposts]

I see kanchana has mentioned carl sagan's Cosmos.
I have read read that book atleast two times - A very good one. A few other carl sagan's work worth reading

Dragons of Eden
Braco's brain

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What about "On Human Bondage - Somerset Maugham ? the title itself deserves credit and none of the novel I have read describes unrequited love and intense obsessions with such passion.
Vikram Seth's novel "The suitable Boy" is the best book I have read, its huge some 1300 pages but I have read it in full four times and in parts a zillion times. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND EVERYBODY TO READ IT.
Arundhati's God of Small Things is brilliant of course ( in spite of certain unacceptable elements in the end ), but compared to vikram she pales. I would like to talk to someone who has read the book.
The Seven Minutes- Irving Wallace
The Three Sirens - Irving Wallace
...
more later
more later ...

[Oldposts]

babu: i have read god of small things...
and i wouldn't recommend a suitable boy.. humlog or buniyaad is much better)