3 ms·

Need a serious reader be voracious or omnivorous? I can think of a short list of books that would collectively qualify a reader as serious.

andai 9y ago
I'd like to see that list, please!
- randcraw 9y ago
  A good start toward finding great books is past Pulitzer winners, and the works of literary Nobelists. The Modern Library has composed a list of the 100 greatest nonfiction and 100 greatest fiction books. The NY Times annually posts a list of 100 notable books.
  - ashark 9y ago
    Beware the version of the Modern Library list that was voted on by the public. That was before people realized that any such vote would be carpet-bombed by Randroids and Scientologists, which is exactly what happened. Here's a good "list of lists" for great books: http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html I've generally used a subtractive approach Bloom's massive "Western Canon" list for generating my own to-read list, cross referencing with other lists to determine what to cut, with supplementation from areas it does not and does not claim to cover (the East, which damn is it a lot of work to find good sources for Eastern works in English translation, science, history, et c.)
- pklausler 9y ago
  OK. I'll define this as "10 books that I'd recommend to my 40-years-younger self to prioritize", and leave aside the problem that 2 or 3 of these would not yet have been published. The Iliad Shakespeare The Life of Johnson Federalist Papers Pride and Prejudice Ulysses The Waste Land The Selfish Gene The Making of the Atomic Bomb Infinite Jest
  - pklausler 9y ago
    12 hours later and I still want to put Herodotus in there but can't pick one to replace with him. Sigh.
randcraw 9y ago
No, but voracious reading is a lifestyle where book reading is central. That's increasingly rare in a hyperconnected world increasingly attuned to a brownian cacophony of messages and tweets. I think serious reading correlates with serious thinking, else there'd be no social outlet for all those curiosities and passions. The OP associates voracious reading with professional writing, where one practice reinforces and drives the other -- a rhythm of life that unsurprisingly seems to thrive mostly among urban writers for periodicals. I've heard that many (most?) novelists are also profound book readers, but often do so from more rural settings. Yet I often wonder where such folks find social sustenance comparable to the urbanite reader/writer. Or maybe they've just learned to live a solitary life of the mind.

andai 9y ago

I'd like to see that list, please!

randcraw 9y ago
A good start toward finding great books is past Pulitzer winners, and the works of literary Nobelists. The Modern Library has composed a list of the 100 greatest nonfiction and 100 greatest fiction books. The NY Times annually posts a list of 100 notable books.
- ashark 9y ago
  Beware the version of the Modern Library list that was voted on by the public. That was before people realized that any such vote would be carpet-bombed by Randroids and Scientologists, which is exactly what happened. Here's a good "list of lists" for great books: http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/greatbks.html I've generally used a subtractive approach Bloom's massive "Western Canon" list for generating my own to-read list, cross referencing with other lists to determine what to cut, with supplementation from areas it does not and does not claim to cover (the East, which damn is it a lot of work to find good sources for Eastern works in English translation, science, history, et c.)
pklausler 9y ago
OK. I'll define this as "10 books that I'd recommend to my 40-years-younger self to prioritize", and leave aside the problem that 2 or 3 of these would not yet have been published. The Iliad Shakespeare The Life of Johnson Federalist Papers Pride and Prejudice Ulysses The Waste Land The Selfish Gene The Making of the Atomic Bomb Infinite Jest
- pklausler 9y ago
  12 hours later and I still want to put Herodotus in there but can't pick one to replace with him. Sigh.

randcraw 9y ago

No, but voracious reading is a lifestyle where book reading is central. That's increasingly rare in a hyperconnected world increasingly attuned to a brownian cacophony of messages and tweets. I think serious reading correlates with serious thinking, else there'd be no social outlet for all those curiosities and passions. The OP associates voracious reading with professional writing, where one practice reinforces and drives the other -- a rhythm of life that unsurprisingly seems to thrive mostly among urban writers for periodicals. I've heard that many (most?) novelists are also profound book readers, but often do so from more rural settings. Yet I often wonder where such folks find social sustenance comparable to the urbanite reader/writer. Or maybe they've just learned to live a solitary life of the mind.