What book should I read next?

This one
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Pud.html

I don’t know exactly what kind of subject matter those authors you listed write about, but if you want your mind blown away (and have a strong stomach) I suggest you read just about anything from Chuck Palahniuk (the author of Fight Club, though I admit I have never actually read that one yet). I suggest starting with Haunted to see if you can really handle the subject matter he presents.

Lenny Bruce

Dostoevsky

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova… GREAT read

as well, for non-fiction: I have found Jon Krakauer to be a great author

Nox by Anne Carson, a painstaking thorough look into the work of the classical translator and the grief of losing a brother.

Oh, God, not Malcolm Gladwell, the master of pseudoscience!

The Botany of Desire

A Book of Bees

Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers

Three of my all time favorites

It may sound weird, but i really liked reading the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, very good books, only four but 400 pages each. Another good book by the same author is So Yesterday and Peeps!. All very great books.

It depends, what kinds genres are you interested in? You might try Agatha Christie stuff if you’re interested in mystery. Or the summoning/reckoning/awakening. They’re amazing <
There are also the Immortal series. And Noughts and crosses is hot. As well as Chains, it tends to have a taste of Historical revolution, if you’re interested in that. Hope it was of help! :)

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver

Another is Eat Pray Love but im not sure who the author is and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, I like those too. and i also agree with @Luiveton , it depends on what types of boooks you like, for example, mystery books: The Nancy Drew Series, and for horror books The Vampire High Series, and for old classic series’ Mandy something, not sure the rest.

If you like Malcolm Gladwell you probably would like Jared Diamond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_%28book%29

Based on your Gladwell reference, you may enjoy Career Warfare by David F. D’Alessandro. A very wise book.

Or some of my favorites:
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov – brilliant writing. Commanding writing. Captures passion/obsession/humor unlike any other.
High Fidelity – Nick Hornby – unique and well written.
Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy – a unique Western-horror novel. Wicked and brilliant in equal parts.
Replay – Ken Grimwood – if you liked the movie Groundhog Day, you might like this.
The Lessons of History – Will and Ariel Durant – the ultimate condensed epic.
Understanding Movies (latest edition) – Louis Giannetti – a quintessential reduction of comprehensive movie theory for the everyman.
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk – The movie was life-changing. The book was great.
T.A.Z.: Temporary Autonomous Zone – Hakiem Bey – sophomoric, audacious, tawdry, “Chaffed with obsessions” and “as urgent as the blueness of sky”. My introduction to “poetic terrorism” – informed Fight Club (imho)
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald – just really virtuoso transparent writing – his art of transmitting subtle ideas from the authors mind to a reader’s via text is unparalleled (in my itsy experience).
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway – cliché, but yes, less is more.

Heavy books
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea – Daniel C. Dennett – the most intriguing combo of brilliant mind/writing/importance/approachability I’ve ever experienced. His mind and writing make me gush. His accessible introduction of the ideas (not all original) of: “Library of Babble” , “design space”, “sky hooks”, “memes”, “genetic drift”, “de-evolution”. No one gets the mind firing like Dennett. Alas, it’s a HUGE book; not for the weary.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid – Douglas Hofstadter – dated, but quintessential mind puzzle candy. Huge book.
Roger Ebert: The Great Movies – very good book – artistic and meaningful reviews of top flicks. Only movie review book to ever win a serious award.
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole – a genius flippant sense of humor.

Or peruse these lists for a hit.
http://www.harvard.com/recommended/top100.html
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbomc.html
http://scienceandsociety.net/2008/08/23/top-ten-scifi-books-of-all-time/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Most_Influential_Books_Ever_Written

Contact, by Carl Sagan.

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts

If you like Camus you might like Haruki Murakami.

My personal Murakami favourites are Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, but if you want something more accessible (aka, not as surreal), Norwegian Wood is usually the best place to start.

For some reason the protagonists remind me of each other. I think it has to do with their honesty.

@jaytkay NUUUU!!! Anything but Jared Diamond!

Try Neil Gaiman, just not American Gods, that one’s stupid.

@PacificToast Anything but Jared Diamond!

Why?

@jaytkay I’m reading it for my AP History class and I utter abhor it.

My favorites——-“The Mill on The Floss” by George Eliot and “The Return of the Native” by Thomas Hardy.

Franz Kafka – The Metamorphosis
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Umberto Eco – The Name of The Rose (this is the “lightest” of the books on the list)
Salman Rushdie – Midnight’s Children

@PacificToast Jared Diamond is great! Which one you being force feed?

@cazzie Guns Germs and Steel. It’s horrendous.

@lifeflame, I must respectfully disagree. If I had read Norwegian Wood first, I probably wouldn’t have read Hard-Boiled Wonderland. That was my first Murakami, and my second was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Then I read Norwegian Wood, and I though it was ok as a younger, less mature work, but not as interesting as the first two.

I do like Camus as well. I also thought Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love was something special.

@Jeruba is right when she says that Norwegian Wood is not that representative of Murakami, because his other works tend to be much more wacky and surreal. So if you like surreal, skip Norwegian Wood and go straight to Hard Boiled. But I was thinking of Camus; which is not a surreal novel; and the earnestness of the protagonist (which I sense in Camus) is clearer for me in Norwegian Wood.

If you want to just check Murakami out in terms of style you can read the beginning of “The Wind Up Bird Chronicle” at the bottom of this amazon page here. And if you like it, well- take the plunge with a Murakami of choice. (This opening here is one the best novel openings I’ve ever read; though I have to say with the “Wind Up Bird” the plot spiffles out in the end.)

Above all I would not start with any of the newer Murakamis, such as Kafka or IQ84. For some reason I feel that they really are not as good.

@lifeflame, which novel of Camus are you referring to?

I’m thinking “L’Etranger.”

I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I’m having no luck in seeing a commonality between Murakami and Camus, apart from a literary-intellectual quality that sets them both apart from conventional mainstream authors. Meursault in The Stranger is about as alienated and detached as one can get—you could even argue that he is more detached than one can get—whereas Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood is nothing if not engaged.

I think you’re right in the sense that Meursault is much cooler (in temperature) than Watanabe; but I think at the core, the commitment to honesty and a certain nonchalance—floating along, until events force them to become engaged—are very similar.

I could argue this intellectually, but actually the similarity for me is a feeling. My theatre group did a piece inspired off Norwegian Wood, and a friend of mine is planning to do a play of The Outsider. In both cases, I can see the same actor playing the lead. Just like Cate Blanchett has a huge huge range, there is something quintessentially Cate. She has difficulty, for example, hiding her fierce intelligence (for example, as Sheba in Notes for a Scandal), and always gives a certain grit to her characters. And on this basis, I sense a certain combination of nonchalance, of honesty, of commentary in the characters.

Now whether, of course, someone who likes Elizabeth will like I’m Not There (where she plays a Bob Dylan) is highly disputable and even illogical; but I think, @broase, it boils down to why you like Camus. My gut response is that there is a similar quality with the protagonists, Jeruba doesn’t think so; maybe you can go read the book and tell us if you like it. I hope you do – I enjoy Murakami’s writing a lot!

Read War and Peace: See ya next year, LOL.

Read sydney shelton Books

It you want to think and read a good book I suggest works by William Gibson, Umberto Eco and Neal Stephenson. If you just want a good story without a lot of deeper meaning read Peter F. Hamilton.