The Ace1983 wrote:People should read the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. A lot of people can't get past the fantasy/nerdy part of it, but there is so much more. It's heavy satire, a great laugh and there has seldom been a better author of characterisation. Only Pratchett could make The Grim Reaper into a comedic masterpiece.
I also recommend Auldus Huxley's The Primacy Of Perception if you want to know what Mescalin can do to you. Every other drug is covered by Hunter S. Thompson's brilliant Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. If you haven't read that, you haven't lived. Just don't try to recreate it.
If you like your poetry or if you want to get into it, you should check out The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens and the Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara. Anything by Benjamin Zephaniah is top notch, and of course there is no better laugh than Roger McGough.
As a student of philosophy, I think the world would be a much better place if everyone read Bertrand Russell's Let The People Think and Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. And if you can get past the first couple of chapters Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time is a cracker, though I recommend using an Introduction text with it.
Other than that, its just the classics. Milton, Orwell, Rushdie, Salinger, Kerouac,...etc...etc. But if you like getting spooked out, try Algernon Blackwood's Ancient Sorceries And Other Weird Stories. I've been able to handle Horror flicks since I was a little kid, but one of these short stories will have you sleeping with the lights on.
The important thing is that people read. Not enough people pick up a book these days. There can be nothing quite like a great story, and you can lose yourself for an hour inside your own head. There is so much information and knowledge inside each book and they don't get the respect that they deserve. If people turned off the TV or the computer for an hour everyday and read, this country would be a much better place.
Holy cr.ap.
can i just say, welcome to the thread The Ace1983.
Terry Pratchett rocks.
Had a few drinks, so i won't comment on the rest of your reccomendations (yet*) except to say that i agree with you, when you say not enough people read.
*edit
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