Modern books that you wish we could record.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 11th, 2006, 1:13 am

What books do you wish were out of copyright, that you would love to take a part in reading?

For me, it's Zenna Henderson's "People" stories. Not actually one of my favourite books for reading (I go to Terry Pratchett for my pleasure), but the gentle loving flow of them is like a caress.

Rev. Steve · Post by **Rev. Steve** » February 11th, 2006, 1:26 am

Enders Game...

The Great Gatsby

1984 of course...

The Da Vinci code ? though I have never read it, I am enamored with the idea for professional reasons)

Fahrenheit 451 would seem like a natural

Harmful to Minors

The 7 principles to making marriage work - Gottman

The complete works of David Sedaris

Ditto Sarah Vowel

Break it Down by Lydia Davis

Mere Christianity

Dietrich Bonhoffer?s Letters and Papers From Prison

And that is just off the top of my head... in 2 minutes time

Gesine · Post by **Gesine** » February 11th, 2006, 5:12 am

Anything by Jorge Luis Borges
The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, and V by Thomas Pynchon
The Tidewater Tales and other books by John Barth
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino
Pinocchio in Venice by Robert Coover (to go with the current Pinocchio recording!)
All but the last Kazuo Ishiguro
Anything by Ian McEwan
Five Boys by Mick Jackson
Some of the excellent popular history books that have come out recently - Elizabeth by Starkey springs to mind, or there was a good one about the Medici
The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper for CL
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Some of the modern philosophers

I could go on and on and on and on...

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » February 11th, 2006, 7:21 am

Ooo, fun. Here's my list off the top of my head:

East of Eden by Steinbeck
The Prince of Tides by Conroy
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
for that matter, everything by Louise Erdrich!
Lord of the Rings
Life of Pi
A Prayer for Owen Meany by Irving
Gone with the Wind by Mitchell
LOTS of poems

I'm sure I'll think of more later, those are just the top of my list.

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » February 11th, 2006, 9:33 am

Of all the modern books I've read, the one I think most likely to endure and become "literature" is Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists Of Avalon. A look at the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the women of the tale, this book is simply magical and positively rings with "truth". It has utterly spoiled me for ANY other telling of the tale; for me this will always be "the way it really was."

Oddly enough, my ex has read it onto tape for the WUSF Radio Reading Service. It fills 55 1-hour tapes.

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » February 11th, 2006, 10:03 am

Rev. Steve wrote:Enders Game...

Oh yeah. Orson Scott Card. He had a writing community set up on America Online back when their membership was less than 500K in size. I was involved in that and it was great fun.

I like your reading list, Reverend. I think we have some similar tastes in literature. Not to mention Roughing It-- I used to smuggle copies of that into Salt Lake City for some friends back in the late 80's (before Amazon.com!).

raouf · Post by **raouf** » February 11th, 2006, 10:18 am

Great topic, also off the top of my mind,

History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant
Study of History by Arnold Toynbee
From Dawn to Decadence by Jacques Barzun
All mysteries by Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Dorothy Sayers or Dick Francis
Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
On Photography by Susan Sontag
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
The Way of Transformation by Karlfried Graf von Durkheim

Fox in the Stars · February 11th, 2006, 10:29 am

I'll second Fahrenheit 451, Harmful to Minors, and also Gone with the Wind (although it in a more nyah nyah spirit, I admit... ^_^; )

I'll be the first to jump on the stereotype and say Harry Potter. (Once I get my alternate 5-7 written, *that's* what I'd really like to record... ^_^; )

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

No Contest by Alfie Kohn

A more modern translation of the Tao Te Ching

Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism by John Shelby Spong

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » February 11th, 2006, 10:33 am

Oh, I forgot Mists of Avalon, a truly beautiful work. Another one I thought lf later: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

raouf · Post by **raouf** » February 11th, 2006, 10:35 am

Fox in the Stars wrote: A more modern translation of the Tao Te Ching

Which translations of the Tao Te Ching speak to you?
I like to read a couple of translations side-by-side to get the gist of the work.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » February 11th, 2006, 11:32 am

LibraryLady wrote:Oh, I forgot Mists of Avalon, a truly beautiful work. Another one I thought lf later: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I'm actually reading 100 Years of Solitude right now ... in PAPER! ... so, I'll definitely second that one... also anything by:

Sheri Tepper
Ursula Le Guin
Connie Willis
Peter Noon
Neal Stephenson
William Gibson

kri · Post by **kri** » February 11th, 2006, 2:46 pm

OK, so it's not that modern but any Tolkien. Also, one of my favorites is Dune by Frank Herbert....but none of the other crap that he wrote.

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » February 11th, 2006, 2:50 pm

I'm definitely at the soft fiction end of the spectrum. Still thinking only of books that I think would be good to read aloud ... I, too, loved Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series ... wonderfully poetic and emotional.

Diana Wynne Jones' first two Chrestomanci books (I think): Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona.

Alan Garner's Wierdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath (not least because of a wonderfully claustrophobic description of a crawl through ancient underground caves.

Tom Holt's earlier books: Flying Dutch, Who's Afraid of Beowulf ... for fun.

Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster trilogy ... beautiful, emotional, cataclysmic.

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » February 11th, 2006, 3:59 pm

A couple of months ago, I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. (This had nothing to do with the movie release.)

I am probably going to read it for release into the Private Domain (i.e. my grandson).

Fox in the Stars · February 11th, 2006, 4:09 pm

Re: the Tao Te Ching, I have Stephen Mitchell's translation and like it very much.