They may not be fun to read but some religious books are a must read. The Bible and Quran are the two big ones to read personally but it depends on where you live. They help you understand the mindsets of many people and help you out with a lot of books since many books are inspired by religion. For instance C.S. Lewis has many christian themes in his work. Reading both helps you understand an integral part of around half of the worlds population.

28. Inferno by Dante Alighieri

An epic poem written while Dante was exiled from his home city due to political reasons. It's a long, intense read, but it gave rise to a lot of the popular tropes and imagery that many people have about the Christian Heaven and Hell. Also known for having many of Dante's political enemies suffering painful fates in his vision of Hell.

New guy! I know that name. ;)

I remember part of the description of Hell in my lit class. That was certainly memorable.

Will get to updating this thread in just a moment.

29. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Both a short story and a novel, Flowers for Algernon is a piece of science fiction with a focus on treatment of mental disabilities.

Algernon is a rat on whom a medical process is used to exponentially increase his intelligence. A janitor of below-average IQ, Charlie Gordon, is the first human test subject. After initial success, both begin to exceed the "acceptable" realm of intelligence - becoming unable to associate with their peers, and unintentionally earning much resentment for their genius.

To say much more is a spoiler, but the story is heartbreaking.

The writer, Daniel Keyes, was a writer who was pushed towards the medical field by his family. He wound up teaching English to special needs children at one point, and some asked if they could work their way out of the program and into regular classes.

I highly recommend this book.

I read it when I was young. I still think about it sometimes.

Flowers For Algernon is one of the most haunting stories I read as a kid >.>

I cried so hard in class when I read it.

<.< That's somewhat the point...to me, it is a very close story.

As a note, jaguarlyra, if you want the Koran in this list, you need to give a review of it, and number it on the list. :)

30. The Quran Is the final revelation to man according to Islam. The book is filled with stories of Prophets,information on God, the afterlife, as well as rules on how to live.

Thread has been updated! Yes, after much time, but here it remains and here do I.

31. At The Mountains of Madness H.P. Lovecraft

My first foray into Lovecraft (I read in part so I could find out what "Lovecraftian" actually was, instead of just assuming. Next up, "Kafkaesque.") and so far my favourite. It's a novella, narrated after the fact by an educated individual (I notice that with Lovecrafts narrators quite frequently. They are often educated, practical, and usually people considered reliable, rather than people everyone else could call insane or weird) and it's hard to say much about it without giving anything away, save that the title pretty much covers the plot: An antarctic expedition that finds it's way to an unknown mountain range.

The writing feels a little dated, which can be expected for it's age, but it holds up well. I'm currently working my way through the rest of Lovecraft's material.

I noted At the Mountains of Madness in a bookstore in University as part of The Modern Library Classics selection, a series of books that I found has some interesting titles. It's where I read "We" and "Oscar Wilde's "De Profundis."

I enjoy Lovecraft in part. I have been going through a collection of his horror. Lovecraft tends to feel like Verne's "dry" scientific exploration adventures meet Poe's Romantic criticism explored by the horrific and insane deconstruction that stylized Romantic Gothic works.
I like dated writing styles, and the narrators sort of really give that Victor Frankenstein feel.

I like the dated writing too. It's like reading something from another world and language.

32.? The Inheritor by Marion Zimmer Bradley
It's set in the 1960s in San Fransisco. This was the first book I read and came away from that actually made me think about aspects of life I never had before. I really love her writing style too, Bradley completely convinces you that you could go to the character's house and the books she has her characters read are all real and can be found on Amazon so you can read those too! It's the first book in a series but it also stands alone just fine. It's just a story and can be read that way but if you get into it like I did, you might step away and want to become a parapsychologist, I did! The main character is a typical woman who rejects the paranormal and ends up moving into a house that is supposedly haunted. It delves into theories on what cause the paranormal activity and gives some fun insight into fake mediums and what is and isn't real but doesn't give too much away and there's tons of room to just sit back and think about this book.


TLDR; it's a book about a woman who moves into a "haunted" house and is super awesome. Go read it.

I liked some of her space stories when I read 'em.

Mists of Avalon was my first but this other series is better I think!!

I admit I'm not sure what you're describing, Lawtan. I haven't read much of Verne or Poe, and "Romantic" to me refers to 19th century literature, along with some characteristic aesthetics. What deconstruction are you referring to? I usually hear that term going along with Modern or Post-Modern.

I would't really relate what I've seen of Lovecraft's narrators with Victor so far, but perhaps that because they seem less afflicted with emotion than he was. He did seem to have a fragile sort of constitution with his near fainting all the time.

Annoyingly, my Lovecraft anthology is a cheap web-made copy and is riddled with errors, so I'm not always sure whether something is archaic word choice or bad editing.