Need suggestions on a good book to read

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Ranger X

Lifer
Mar 18, 2000
11,218
1
0
Perfect book is "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. It's easy to read, and even though it's short, you can analyse it to death. And if you have problems coming up with more material, there are always pictures to guide you towards your flawless research paper. :p :D
 

perry

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2000
4,018
1
0
Animal Farm by George Orwell.. with all the political things going on around now this would be a good one.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFoe.. no, not just a Disney film. Pretty interesting read, but may be a little over 300 pages.

Evelina by Fanny Burney.. a tale of a teenaged girl getting her 'social education' in London during the 1700's. Lots of underlying themes there. It's a series of letters, kinda interesting, kinda not. Just had to read this one for my English class this semester.

Clancy books are good, but somewhat mindless. I did an essay on one in high school. Although I got an A on it, the essay sucked because there wasn't too much behind it. I don't think that Clancy is known for his deep writings.

Catcher in the Rye is a good one, really short.

 

Electric Amish

Elite Member
Oct 11, 1999
23,578
1
0
Hyperspace

This is a cool book about multi-dimensional theory and super-strings.

amish

Ohhh.. Didn't see you wanted to write a paper on it and it needed to be under 300 pages.
 

flood

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 1999
4,213
0
76
ulysses
by nabokov

or anything else by him
lolita is good, by what I hear.
 

Zenmervolt

Elite member
Oct 22, 2000
24,514
44
91
Electric Amish: Hyperspace is indeed a great book, but it can really make your friends think you're wierd (I read it my freshman year of HS).

Pretender: My favorite books for book reports were Voltaire's Candide and Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Both have some interesting symbolism, and both are quite comedic and fun to read.

Aaron Meyer
 

Gatsby

Golden Member
Nov 6, 1999
1,588
0
0
For an english paper.

Animal Farm is a good read.

But if you want something more "fun" try Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

Gatsby
 

Kubla Khan

Senior member
Dec 10, 1999
487
0
76
Here's a few ideas for you from a former english major:

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting-Milan Kundera...deep and a quick read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being-Milan Kundera...a little racy, but good!

The Great Gatsby-Fitzgerald...if you haven't had to read this already, you probably will have to in college for a lib ed english class. Lots of color symbolism.

My Antonia-Willa Cather...sort of like a serious "Little House on the Prairie" type book. Again, lots of symbolism.

A River Runs Through It-Norman Maclean...excellent read, and short.

Any of Vonnegut's earlier stuff is funny, deep, and relatively short.

"On the Road" or "Dharma Bums"-Jack Kerouac. Some people love him, some people hate him.

The Red Badge of Courage-Stephen Crane...classic war story

As others have said...Old Man and the Sea and Catch-22. Tom Wolfe is great, but his novels are rather long. Read "The Right Stuff" someday if you're interested in pilots & astronauts.

The thing is, you should be able to find LOTS of information about any of these books on the web. You may even be able to find the entire books published on the web, which would give you a chance to sample before you commit to anything.

Good luck...and let us know what you decide
 

Triumph

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,031
14
81
i don't think you can pick things like the Communist Manifesto. if you're looking for something you can draw conclusions from, it doesn't help if the premise of the book is to explain things, ala C.M.
 

azazyel

Diamond Member
Oct 6, 2000
5,872
1
81
Karl Marx,

It may be harder, but you can still draw conclusions about what led to the writing of that book. What was the social economic standing of the country of that time. What was happening in the world to make this type of idea feasible. Also, learning how the book finally got published is interesting.