I'm currently reading
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote's famous piece of journalism about some murders in a small Kansas town. I'm not far in, but I've got to say that it is beautifully sparse writing. It is factual, but not cold; detailed, but not dense.
Anyway, I've read some of the books all good, Western, university-educated people should have:
The BibleThe Koran (well, a good part of it)
The Communist Manifesto (bloody hard to get through it was too)
The Prince (The language was tough, but the ideas were bang on the money)
The Road to Serfdom (another hard one, but an incredibly prescient piece of work)
And I've read some important novels too:
The GodfatherThe Lord of the Rings (and
The Silmarillion, which captured my imagination as a teenager)
1984Animal FarmI've had a good crack at a bunch of Shakespeare:
King LearMacbethThe Merchant of Venice(and others, I can't remember which)
I've also done my fair share of trawling through the classics:
The OdysseyThe IliadThe AeneidHistories (and what a crock of shizz it was too! Freaking Herodotus)
Symposium
But I haven't done a lot of reading recently, well, nothing of any great quality.
Here are the books I want to read - basically the author's best stuff. I figure why bother with something he or she wrote that isn't quite as good:
Slaughterhouse-FiveBrave New WorldLove in the Time of CholeraLolitaParadise LostHeart of Darkness
I think I've had a pretty good education, but I also know there is a lot more out there. And I want to better understand the themes and ideals that our society is built on. We don't tend to see big allegorical novels as much anymore... well, not successful ones at least. Movies tend to do it a bit more, with
The Dark Knight (aka "the George Bush apologist film", as
Dr Harry calls it), a prime example.
Anyway, I was inspired by two things: this article about England's poet laureate, who said
teaching major works of English literature was becoming more difficult because students lack enough knowledge of the Bible or classical mythology to appreciate them.
And
In Cold Blood was cheap and I needed something to read on the plane :)
Anyway, suggestions? What else should I read?
