Hello everyone.

I'm looking for two books I read ~35 years ago, and can't remember the titles.

The first one was fantasy. It was about someone (two men I believe) from the present who get transported to a medevil/fantasy type setting. He has an M1 rifle with him. They fight an evil villan (a wizard), I think. They walk around a lake. The barrel of the M1 gets bent (it gets stuck under helmet when he shoots it). I thought the author first name was Terry (I checked Terry Goodkind and Terry brooks, quickly, and nothing stood out). How's that for a memory. :)

The second book was required reading in high school, a literature course. I think it was about Siddhartha as a young man? I think it had "Sand" or "Pebble" in the title?

Also, I'm going to read some Jane Austen. Do people highly recommend reading in (published) order. I wanted to start with something I hadn't seen before, so I was going to start with Pride and Prejudice.

Thanks,
John

I bet the second one is Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse.

i can't help you with the books you can't remember, but i thought i would mention that Pride and Prejudice is absolutely brilliant, i laugh all the way through it. definitely a good place to start with Austen.

I would definitely second starting with Pride and Prejudice - brilliant book!

I bet the second one is Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse.
Could be. Some parts of the review at Amazon sound right, but other parts don't.

Thanks for the help.

I would definitely second starting with Pride and Prejudice - brilliant book!

Thirded. Suggestion: buy the "Penguin Enhanced eBook" edition of it. I know that you can download it free (uploaded by me), but the Penguin edition has superb notes which really bring the book to life. It's the perfect example of what can be done with an eBook.

Well we've got Hemann Hesse's Siddhartha in our book upload section. So you can read it for free.
Here's a link to the Sony Reader version:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15286