100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library

[BenG]

From The Art of Manliness website.
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14...-mans-library/

There are the books you read, and then there are the books that change your life. We can all look back on the books that have shaped our perspective on politics, religion, money, and love. Some will even become a source of inspiration for the rest of your life. From a seemingly infinite list of books of anecdotal or literal merit, we have narrowed down the top 100 books that have shaped the lives of individual men while also helping define broader cultural ideas of what it means to be a man.

The books on Amazon's Listmania
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/lis...=cm_pdp_lm_all

[HomeInMyShoes]

Oh, I can't wait to read this list and see what I've actually read.

Slaughterhouse-Five
1984
The Catcher in the Rye
Brave New World
Call of the Wild
Lord of the Flies
The Metamorphosis
Another Roadside Attraction
Ulysses
The Hobbit
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Moby Dick
Frankenstein
Hamlet
Cannery Row
Into Thin Air
The Island of Dr. Moreau
To Kill a Mockingbird
Zen and the Art of Motorcylce Maintenance

19. I'd have to agree with some and not so much for others. Moreau seems like a pretty weak entry, but Cannery Row would be close to the top of my list.

[mahler9]

I'm impressed that Jones's "The Thin Red Line" is on that list. A great, nearly forgotten work.

[Hamlet53]

I've read:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1984 by George Orwell
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Master and Margarita by by Mikhail Bulgakov
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Ulysses by James Joyce
Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
Hamlet by Shakespeare
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Dafoe
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
All Quiet on The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarq
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Bible
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

So 41 out of the 100 I have read. I guess real men love Dostoevsky. Several of these I would never have read if not selected for MR Book Club monthly reads.

[DiapDealer]

I'll admit I was nervous going in, but judging by the large percentage of the books from the list that I've read... I'm happy to report that I am, apparently, quite manly after all. What a relief!

[hard-boiled pat]

no richard stark no care

[jgaiser]

Does owning some of them count?

[SteveEisenberg]

I read the first page of the Wealth of Nations about a week ago, in the Mobileread edition edited by the R. Wood. Sad to say, I'm not sure I'll be reading any further.

Now How to Win Friends and Influence People -- that one I finished. It's a true non-fiction page-turner.

I want to read The Crisis by Winston Churchill, if he means the unabridged World Crisis by Sir Winston S. Churchill. Normally, I don't mind a heavy paper book, but this is multiple really heavy volumes. If Amazon ever sells a digitized version, maybe this will be the second eBook I buy from them (other than price $0.00).

The World Crisis, out of print despite great reviews and historical interest, is a great example of why copyright is too long. When it goes into public domain, I think it will be quickly digitized.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I want to read The Crisis by Winston Churchill, if he means the unabridged World Crisis by Sir Winston S. Churchill.

The Crisis is:

A fictional Civil War era romance between a New England lawyer and a southern belle, written by the “American Churchill” but often mistaken for the British Prime Minister who shared the same name. Out of respect for the American’s work, the British Churchill offered to add his middle initial to any of his own published writings to avoid confusion.

Overall, a surprisingly approachable list.

[rhadin]

I find these must-read-before-you-die-or-win-the-lottery book lists tedious. The only book that belongs on such a list is the Kama Sutra. All else is just bad advice well packaged.

[Hamlet53]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'll admit I was nervous going in, but judging by the large percentage of the books from the list that I've read... I'm happy to report that I am, apparently, quite manly after all. What a relief!

I question the idea of this list being a measure of my manliness anyway. Especially when I think about the likelihood that Issybird probably has read more of the books on the list then I have.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Does owning some of them count?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

I question the idea of this list being a measure of my manliness anyway. Especially when I think about the likelihood that Issybird probably has read more of the books on the list then I have.

This!

But I'll check the list anyway, I love lists.

[GeneS]

Have read most of the fiction; very little of the non-fiction. From the list, I infer that a fascination with all things related to Theodore Roosevelt is a prerequisite for manliness.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by GeneS

Have read most of the fiction; very little of the non-fiction. From the list, I infer that a fascination with all things related to Theodore Roosevelt is a prerequisite for manliness.

The books by Edmund Morris are part of a three volume biography.

I've only read 35.

Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
1984 by George Orwell
The catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss
The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer
Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux
Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean
The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells
The Bible
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane