Top 100 books to read for writers

[chadbrian]

I am not speaking of books that are for screenwriting or technical manual type books I am speaking of classic literature and must read literature / books / whatever, that most writers in their lifetime should read. I still need to read the following:

1. Great Gatsby
2. Death Of A Salesman
3. Grapes of Wrath
4. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

What books, in the sense of the question asked above please, have you read that others should read? I feel I have missed out on some great reading and want to play a little catch up so I can understand and learn authors and quotes and things

Go ahead and list them numerically.

Thanks! :)

[randesq]

To Kill a mockingbird
Atlas Shrugged
Catch 22
Jitterbug Perfume
Infinite Jest
Fountainhead
Underworld
Tropic of Cancer
Music of Chance
Grapes of Wrath
Billy Budd
Mrs. Frisby and the rats of Nihm
Watership down
Lion the witch and the wardrobe
Hounds of the baskervilles
Gullivers Travels
Crime and Punishment
Beowulf
Confederacy of Dunces
Tale of two cities
The Sportswriter
Rabbit at Rest
Owen Meany
An American Tragedy
Picture of Dorian grey

Hope that helps

[jasper44]

Where the Wild Things are

Rumble Fish

[mrhamet]

randesq's list is a damn good start. I've read about 2/3 of what he(she?) listed, and second each recommendation. In addition, in the order that they occur to me:

<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--> D ouble Star<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Heinlein
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->The Brothers Karamazov<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Dostoevsky
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->A Town Like Alice<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Nevil Shute
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Shogun<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> -or- <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Noble House<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by James Clavell (better yet, both!)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Shane<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Jack Schaefer (so much better than the film)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Ken Kesey (ditto)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Three Men In A Boat<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Jerome K. Jerome
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->This Side of Paradise<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Fitzgerald
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Murder By The Book<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Rex Stout (or at least one Nero Wolfe book)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->The Maltese Falcon<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Dashiell Hammett (no relation)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->Jane Eyre<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Charlotte Bronte
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Adams (if Catch-22 is too long for you)
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->The Enemy Stars<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--> by Poul Anderson (RIP)

This is by no means exhaustive, and obviously presents my reading biases for public ridicule, but every single one of these has been important to my development as a writer. In fact, choosing just one title for certain authors (Shute, Heinlein, Dostoevsky, Anderson...) is damn near impossible for me.

[fwuffykosak]

Somehow I knew SMind would add those...

9 STORIES
TALES OF THE CITY
THE HOBBIT
LETTERS FROM THE EARTH
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA
HEART OF DARKNESS
THE GOLD BUG
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
FRANKENSTEIN
I, ROBOT
(not a book, but) UNDER MILKWOOD
AMNESIA

[40winks]

All the books already listed are great (the 50-60% I've read anyway). I'd like to add these few titles because they soooo expanded my concept of what can be communicated in written form. In no special order:

THE TRIAL by Kafka -- Frustration, despair, burocracies, spinning your wheels.

KNOTS by R. D. Laing -- Insightful presentation of dysfunctional dialog (very distant kin to the crrr*p one hears on reality TV).

NAKED LUNCH by William S. Burroughs -- Creates an INCREDIBLY VIVID, EXTRAORDINARILY UNIQUE universe. (not for the squeamish)

BOHEMIAN HEART by James Dalessandro -- If you write who-done-it's, a total must. Best writing in the mystery genre, bar none.

John Mortimer's very first RUMPOLE story, Rumpole and the Younger Generation, published in the book Rumpole of the Bailey. The first sentence is extraordinarily long, contains 30 pieces of punctuation, and is absolutely clear in the first reading. Mind boggling. Overall, the wit, the sarcasm, the caustic humor.

and lastly, JOHN STEINBECK. Everything. Winter of our Discontent, for example.

[vindixion]

CHUCK PALAHNIUK has an amazing writing style. Very visually yet very sparce. No fat. He only writes what you need to read. It's GREAT!

Survivor <---- MUST READ
Fight Club
Choke

There is also Invisible Monsters but it is not as good as his others.

[maramaye]

Did we forget Lord of the Rings? Tsk, tsk. ;)

Also, I _have_ to recommend The Best of Fredric Brown (edited by Robert Bloch) or really just about anything by Fredric Brown. Many of his short stories got made into Hitchcock episodes, and one (Arena) became a famous Star Trek episode.

Oh, for long-time or re-read favorites of mine OTHER than the ones already listed...

For Fiction:
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Now Wait for Last Year by Phillip K. Dick (author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep aka Bladerunner)
The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman
Diamond Age by Neil Stevenson
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Dangerous Liasons by de Laclos (in French if possible)
The Complete works of Shakespeare (duh) =)
The Essential Keats/Wordsworth/Poe/etc... I found this series at Barnes & Noble

Any guesses as to my favorite genre? ;)

For Nonfiction:
The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin
Type Talk by Kroeger and Theussen
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
In Search of Schroedinger's Cat by Robert Wilson
Home Improvement 1-2-3 published by Home Depot (suprising amount of insight into how things work, and therefore how things can go wrong. =)
Historical Atlas of the World published by Rand McNally
Patterns for Theatrical Costumes by Holkeboer (great for the mood of your period pieces)

For good books from religious sources:

This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti (Protestant Christian fiction)
Buddha's Little Instruction Book by Jack Kornfield (Buddhism)
www.religioustolerance.org (yes, I know it's not a book..)
Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Millman (Zen fiction)
Living Wicca by Cunningham (witchcraft)
Tao Te Ching (some translations are better than others..)


I could go on.. obviously I spend a lot of my time researching, so I have a ton of nonfiction on a wide variety of subjects. One of the keys to good writing (or successful writing, at least) in any genre is to be an _expert_ on your subject matter. (Consider Michael Crichton.) We all know the axiom 'write what you know'.. but you'd be amazed what kind of authority a few hours of research can lend you on a topic.

And of course, there are books that are just plain fun to read. =)

[fwuffykosak]

DUNE

METAMORPHOSIS

THE HOBBIT (cleaner then LOTR)

THE ALIENIST

FIRESHIP/MOTHER AND CHILD (Joan D. Vinge)

And I can't believe someone reffed O.S. Card... (cool)

[Naudikom]

LORD OF THE FLIES - William Golding:

Awesome, awesome story for perfect examples on character development and plot layering.

THE RAINMAKER - John Grisham

Not quite a classic or anything, but - in my eyes - one of the most definitive first-person narratives. If a screenwriter wants an idea as how to make, say, a voice-over flow well: read this book.

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN - Ray Bradbury

Bradbury's not famous for his concepts (well, okay, Far. 451), but more for character interaction. I've never read a writer so able to create tension between characters to build up to a climax.

[fwuffykosak]

Uhhhhhh, Naudikom?

You never read SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES?

Been made into film successfully once, so much so that the remake is coming up?

Dude...

[Naudikom]

Hey, man - hands off. Bradbury's cool.

[fwuffykosak]

I know. The only point I'm making is that his work applies to cinema, and is saleable.

No beef, bro. Counterpoint is not a challenge. All I meant was that Bradbury has more to offer the cinematic community via his published work than what was stated above. That's all.

Besides, he has had a whole TV Series developed from his work (and his work only). Rewritten by others, yes, but all scripts from his work.

[LeoFSkins]

On The Road
The Jungle
Notes From the Underground
The Catcher in the Rye

Can't believe you guys missed some of these

[WillieEverlearn]

Anything by Hemingway. (My fave: "The Sun Also Rises") Nobody wrote dialogue like Hemingway--"real" dialogue you can actually hear people speaking.

[Tao]

first of all, great thread and great question. These kinds of books are the places where writers are born. The How To books are useless cliff notes compared to the real thing. Read a hundred books and plays a year, and in three years if you have ANY talent - you will know how to write.

I'm organizing this by author, with a sample title - but with the really good authors - you should read everything they've written.
And remember, don't read them "for description" or "for tone" - just read them for joy. They will rock your @#%$ world into the ground. You will never be the same. Giving yourself the gift of reading these authors and these books is a far, far greater gift than a spec sale of half a million dollars.

Since this is off the top of my head, there is no particular organization - but they're all good, trust me. And try to get throught the dense, old ones. They're the birthplace of all drama.

THE BASICS

Sophocles (Oedipus)
Euripides (Medea)
Aristophanes (Lysistrata)
Shakespeare (EVERYTHING - start with Hamlet)
Goethe - (sorrows of young werther, Faust)
Cervantes - Don Quixote
Moliere - (The Misanthrope, Imaginary Invalid)
Dante - (Inferno)
Dostoevsky (EVERYTHING - start with Crime and Punishment)
Tolstoy (Master and Man)
G.B Shaw (Major Barbara - EXCELLENT for the concept of dialectic of ideas through character)
Ibsen (EVERYTHING - start with Ghosts - this man invented modern drama)
Proust (Remebrance of things past)
Conrad (Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness)
Nabakov (Lolita, Pale Fire)
Fitzgerald (Gatsby)
Joyce (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
Salinger (EVERYTHING - start with Catcher in the Rye)
Faulkner (As I lay Dying, Sound and Fury)
Melville (billy budd)
H. Miller (EVERYTHING - his passion will never cease to inspire you - start with Sexus)
Hemingway (sun also rises)
Brecht (EVERYTHING - start with Baal)
Buchner (Woyczek)
Kafka (EVERYTHING

MODERN

Borges (Labrynths)
Beckett (EVERYTHING - Charlie Kaufman's great grandfather - start with Waiting for Godot)
Pinter (EVERYTHING - start with the homecoming)
Shepard (Buried Child)
Mamet (EVERYTHING - start with Glengarry Glen Ross)
Peter Handke (Offending the Audience)
Heinrich Muller (Hamletmachine)
Tony Kushner (Angels in America)
Vaclav Havel (The memorandum)
Len Jenkin (Dark Ride)
Christopher Durang (Sister mary Ignatius)
David Foster Wallace (Brief Interviews with hideous men)
Lorrie Moore (birds of america)
Rick Moody (demonology)
Dave Eggers (heartbreaking work of staggering genius)
Donald Barthelme (40 stories)
Knut Hamsun (Hunger)

The O. Henry best short story anthologies are great for discovering writers whose voices you identify with. It's like a sampler plate.

BONUS POINTS

Nietzche (Beyond Good and Evil)
Joseph Campbell (EVERYTHING - hero with a thousand faces)
Spengler (Decline of the West)
Freud (EVERYTHING - start with case studies, great for characters)
Jung (EVERYTHING - Four archetypes)
Marx (communist manifesto)
Jon Tarrant (The Light inside the Dark)
Deleuze and Guattari (Anti-Oedipus)
Havel (Living in Truth0
Artaud (Theater and its Double)
Schopenhauer (will and representation)
Hegel (phenomenology of spirit)
Camille Paglia (sexual personae)


and so, so, so many others that have been shamefully neglected or forgotten by addle-headed Tao. But its a decent foundation. Work your way very slowly through the above works, and i promise, I PROMISE, you will learn in your bones what storytelling, character, dialogue and the purpose for writing on earth is.

[ytorf]

trying not to repeat.

raymond carver- any of his short stories. "where i'm calling from" is kind of a best of. very organic. nothing artificial.

o. henry- other extreme. great constructs all of his stories have great twists

vonnegut- "cat's cradle," "slaughterhouse five." the man's amazing

john irving- "world according to garp" and "158 lb marriage" (there are other i haven't gotten to that are supposd to be better). "garp" made me want to be a writer.

also read some bukowski.

[BlueParrot]

You know how I hate to agree with Tao, but that's a good starting list.

Might I add some other books. I've gone somewhat East in my selection...only because I believe that Eastern culture offers an equally valuable diet of material but is often overlooked in favor of Western thoughts and influence.

This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentleman by Tadeusz Borowski
The Analects by Confucius
The Art of War by Sun-Tzu
Tao Te-Ching by Lao Tzu
Anything by Flannery O'Conner
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift
A Common Sense by Thomas Paine


Yeah, I believe reading lots of literary works are great but also reading historical text of significance would add value.

[StJo]

What a great thread. Here's some of mine, please forgive any repetition:

Fiction
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Red Sky at Morning - Richard Bradford
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan - Aldous Huxley
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
The Painted Bird - Jerzy Kosinski
The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
Kate Vaiden - Reynolds Price
Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer
My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
Underworld - Don DeLillo
Ask the Dust - John Fante

Non-Fiction
The Seven Storey Mountain - Thomas Merton
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The Tao of Physics - Fritjof Capra
The Famine Ships - Edward Laxton

I could go on and on... but will spare you that. Thanks everyone for sharing your inspiration.

[iwritescripts]

Okay, I have to add Geek Love.

[wasup jude]

So, chadbrian:

Have you finished reading all those yet?

Then let me add to the list:

La Maravilla (Alfredo Vea Jr.)
Mumbo Jumbo (Ishmael Reed)
The Crying of Lot 49 (Thomas Pynchon)
A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry)
1984 (George Orwell)

Tonights assignments is light - only 5 books!

Enjoy!

[durande]

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD
3. WE THE LIVING
4. ANTHEM
5. LES MISERABLES
6. 1793
7. THE MAN WHO LAUGHS
8. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
9. TOILERS OF THE SEA
10. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
11. THE POSSESSED
12. THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
13. GONE WITH THE WIND
14. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
15. CAMILLE
16. SHANE
17. THE GODFATHER
18. THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
19. THE SPY WHO CAM IN FROM THE COLD
20. 1984
21. ENEMIES: A LOVE STORY
22. DOUBLE CROSSING
23. DON QUIXOTE
24. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST
25. WAR WITH THE NEWTS

[RDJ Was Banned]

in no particular order:

1) beyond good and evil
2) the divine comedy
3) hamlet
4) common sense
5) the crying of lot 49
6) the world according to garp
7) waiting for godot
8 ) gulliver's travels
9) notes from underground
10) the idiot
11) slaughterhouse 5
12) cat's cradle
13) letters from the earth
14) the adventures of huckleberry finn
15) what matters most is how well you walk through the fire
16) the martian chronicles
17) romeo + juliet
18 ) man and superman
19) don quixote
20) death on the installment plan
21) pnin
22) lolita
22) ficciones
23) a potrait of the artist as a young man
24) ulysses
25) the naked and the dead
26) origin of species
27) wonder boys
28 ) the stranger
29) a heartbreaking work of staggering genius
30) the unnamable
31) 1984
32) portrait of the artist as a young dog
33) their eyes were watching god
34) collected stories of bertold brecht
35) oedipus rex
36) a clockwork orange
37) catch 22
38 ) lord of the flies
39) the importance of being earnest
40) pygmalion
41) 3 tall women
42) the oresteian trilogy
43) lysistrata
44) prometheus bound
45) of human bondage
46) alice's adventure's in wonderland
47) through the looking glass
48 ) candide
49) heart of darkness
50) the world as will and repesentation
51) brave new world
52) thus spake zarathustra
53) fear and trembling
54) the metaphysics of morals
55) being and nothingness
56) the myth of sisyphus and other essays
57) the language instinct
58 ) naked lunch
59) critique of pure reason
60) some mistakes of moses
61) crimes against criminals
62) the decline and fall of the roman empire
63) a people's history of the united states
64) john wayne and tonto fist fight in heaven
65) the feast of love
66) the satanic verses
67) being dead
68 ) mother night
69) soft machine
70) howl and other poems
71) a skanner darkly
72) angry candy
73) tales of ordinary madness
74) burning in water, drowning in flame
75) fear and loathing in las vegas
76) still life with woodpecker
77) the giving tree
78 ) where the wild things are
79) violent cases
80) philosophy in the bedroom
81) red-dirt marijuana and other tastes
82) invisible man
83) the sun also rises
84) the magic christian
85) the last temptation of christ
86) collected poems of dylan thomas
87) civil disobedience
88 ) walden
89) ovid's metamorphoses
90) paradise lost
91) tartuffe
92) the essential writing of ralph waldo emerson
93) dead souls
94) the 42nd parallel
95) dreamtigers
96) self-portrait in a convex mirror
97) essays on the blurring of art and life
98 ) godel, escher, bach: an eternal golden braid
99) the anatomy of melancholy
100) the book of the subgenius: being the divine wisdom, guidance, and prophecy of j.r. 'bob' dobbs, high epopt of the church of the subgenius, here inscribed for the salvation of future generations and in the hope that slack may someday reign on this earth

[BlueParrot2]

rdj, i wish it was in order. you disappoint me....

[RDJ Was Banned]

i know. i keep slacking. i think it's due to the fact that i have read book number 100 on my list.