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Handbook of Chemistry and Physics If you don't already know why, you wouldn't appreciate it anyway.
Webster-Merriam Collegiate Dictionary. vars. eds. Before I could afford an unabridged, I couldn't get enough of it. I wore the covers off several.
War and Peace. I've read it about a dozen times including at least four times in Russian. Everytime I read it I see a different point of view within the book from which to approach the story. Truly amazingly writing.
Don Quixote When I read it in high school, it was the first really long book I'd read without being forced to. I was impressed that something written so long ago, could seem so fresh. Even though it's pretty much an anti-fantasy, I think it's still one of the best fantasies ever.
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek. A hilarious anti-war novel from just after WWI. Probably the first great book I was able to introduce my high school teachers to instead of the other way around. The old bawdlerized translation I had in high schoool was actually funnier than the more complete one I've bought more recently.
Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the Greek; Greek titlte Captain Michalis. I read a number of books by Kazantzakis late in high school to impress a Greek girlfriend of mine. It was the first glimpse I had into a truly different culture from the western european one I knew about before. Also the first glimpse at a culture repressed by a foreign power. Of several books on the same theme by Kazantzakis, I think Freedom or Death is probably the best written.
The Riverworld Series by Philip J Farmer. not the most impressive sci-fi, but certainly some of the most imaginative.
On Borrowed Time by Leonard Mosley. A history of the events leading up to the beginning of World War II. A good reminder that wishful thinking simply can't replace action when it's needed.
August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Maybe the best Russian novel of the Twentieth Century. As with Gogol (Dead Souls) and Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov) before him. Solzenitsyn hasn't been able to complete the earth shattering cycle of stories he intended. But like the others it's probably good enough to stand the test of time as a single volume.
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.
Webster-Merriam Collegiate Dictionary. vars. eds. Before I could afford an unabridged, I couldn't get enough of it. I wore the covers off several.
War and Peace. I've read it about a dozen times including at least four times in Russian. Everytime I read it I see a different point of view within the book from which to approach the story. Truly amazingly writing.
Don Quixote When I read it in high school, it was the first really long book I'd read without being forced to. I was impressed that something written so long ago, could seem so fresh. Even though it's pretty much an anti-fantasy, I think it's still one of the best fantasies ever.
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek. A hilarious anti-war novel from just after WWI. Probably the first great book I was able to introduce my high school teachers to instead of the other way around. The old bawdlerized translation I had in high schoool was actually funnier than the more complete one I've bought more recently.
Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the Greek; Greek titlte Captain Michalis. I read a number of books by Kazantzakis late in high school to impress a Greek girlfriend of mine. It was the first glimpse I had into a truly different culture from the western european one I knew about before. Also the first glimpse at a culture repressed by a foreign power. Of several books on the same theme by Kazantzakis, I think Freedom or Death is probably the best written.
The Riverworld Series by Philip J Farmer. not the most impressive sci-fi, but certainly some of the most imaginative.
On Borrowed Time by Leonard Mosley. A history of the events leading up to the beginning of World War II. A good reminder that wishful thinking simply can't replace action when it's needed.
August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Maybe the best Russian novel of the Twentieth Century. As with Gogol (Dead Souls) and Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov) before him. Solzenitsyn hasn't been able to complete the earth shattering cycle of stories he intended. But like the others it's probably good enough to stand the test of time as a single volume.
Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck.