I don't quite understand why people see reading fiction like research. If you like it, read it, and if you don't like it, then don't. It really is as simple as that. Lists of the "best" books are invariably biased towards influential, famous, and often outdated books. The only use I would get out of them is seeing which books I might want to try (and I doubt that I would end up reading even half of them).
I kind of agree, but I also feel that reading books from the western canon are important. I think that the works which changed the way we write, and look at the world, are particularly important. Consider it a bit more of a philosophical study if you will, but I do think that Harriet Beecher Stowe, Earnest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickenson, and Shakespeare are very important works to read (my little list, though I'm sure others have a lot to add to it). I believe this so much so that I tend to imagine most people have already picked up some part of their work before coming to the moment of saying "what are the top 10 books I should read now before taking the next step."
I don't so much truly consider it "research" as much as an excuse to buy a book.;-) It is, however, very useful to be familiar with relatively recent, successful books in your genre that are comparable to your's. This helps sell you to an agent, who can use that to sell your work to a publisher. It shows you know the market and that you have some understanding that publishing is a business.
IMHO 'On Writing' by Stephen King is a great book for new writers to read. I usually read it when I'm blocked and it always restarts me. I have several of the 'Elements of Fiction Writing' they can help with specific questions. Recently discovered 'The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block and the Creative Brain' by Alice W. Flaherty. It will tell you why you write, rather than how to write. It taught me a lot about myself, nice to find out you're not as weird as you think. As for fiction, there's so much out there and a lot of it is genre writing. I think you might want to read some current writers as well as the many classics previously mentioned in this post.
The Illearth War, and The Power That Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson Jhereg and Dragon by Steven Brust The Chronicles of Amber (two specifically: Nine Princes in Amber and The Guns of Avalon) by Roger Zelazny Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom In the Balance by Harry Turtledove Those are some of the novels I read, re-read, and studied while writing my first novels.
The Completed Works of Edgar Allan Poe Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte To Kill A Mocking Bird- Harper Lee Lisey’s Story- Stephen King The Winter of Our Discontent- John Steinbeck The Historian- Elizabeth Kostova From the Corner of His Eye- Dean Koontz The Hobbit- JR Tolkien Persuasion- Jane Austin The Hunt for Red October- Tom Clancy I’m what you call an “over the board” genre lover. Each grants me enormous writing techniques and ideas.
Neil Gaiman is my favourite author and I often open a page at random from one of his books at random and try to figure out what makes it so good. Of course I just get sucked in and completely forget what I started out to do. I'll probably never crack it.
Fwiw, a few words from a novice: I found that after I had learned a little more about what writing was all about, I read books very differently and got much more out of them. Strange as it may be, I remember very little about all the books I read before I started writing, but I remember all the books I have read since.
After thinking about this the top ten books I suggest (and these are merely the ten best, not all you should read) are as follows: 1 - Metamorphosis by Ovid (Knowledge of the classical world and of all of the stories in this epic can really help and inspire) 2 - Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Better written than most seem to be aware of and a good reminder of why art and truth are important) 3 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (A great novel to learn how to build a strong cohesion between different 'parts' from, and how a character can mature and change over the course of a story) 4 - Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (The perfect novel? This is a masterclass in what the novel can do picked this over Gravity's Rainbow an Ulysses because this is more accessible) 5 - Dubliners by James Joyce (A great collection of short stories, high quality writing of a unique style, and a great thing to learn from in building more complex symbols and themes) 6 - The First Forty-Nine Stories by Ernest Hemingway (same as the last, only this has another unique style it's good to keep in mind while trying your own hand) 7 - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (Amazingly high quality writing, and like Orwell's book it is a warning) 8 - The plays of Sophocles (Greek drama is part of the foundation of western civilization, a knowledge of one of the classical dramatists, especally someone as influential as Sophocles, is almost a must) 9 - The plays of Shakespeare (Yeah, yeah, I know what you are thinking. But people obsess over him for a reason. There are few other writers who understood people as well as Shakespeare. Another almost must.) 10 - The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (I think the best teacher of the budding poet is Dante, but authors could learn a lot from La Comedia and La Vita Nuova, and from poetry in general) I've also picked such different titles because having a knowledge about such different areas as the novel, the short story, the epic, the sonnet, can be nothing but an advantage over those who haven't. That is not a list in order, and I've left so much out just to fit it into just ten books! In truth. that list could be 100 names and there still would be writers criminally left out.
Here are my 10 suggestions. The Brother's Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger Dracula - Bram Stoker The Road - Cormac McCarthy The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 1984 - George Orwell Grimm's Fairy Tales Beowulf King Lear - Shakespeare Maus - Art Spiegelman
Hm... as an avid science fiction reader and wannabe writer, I think these influenced me the most: Dune series - Frank Herbert - The whole series is basically a giant 'how to' into infusing your writing with deeper meaning. Writing some flat text is easy. Making the reader ruminate over it for days afterwards is the challenge. Foundation series - Isaac Asimov - Writing 101. Asimov's writing style is linear and transparent. Easy to learn for beginners. Ender's Game saga - Orson Scott Card - Same as Dune Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - Humour is always welcome. Heechee series - Frederik Pohl - Learn characterization. Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner - Unconventional writing style done right. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury - Dystopian writing at it's best. Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons - Best use of 'story within a story' I've ever seen in sci-fi. It's the Decameron of science fiction. The first book, anyway. The second is notable for time travel done right. The Forever War - Joe Haldeman - Military science fiction at it's best. The Night's Dawn Trilogy - Peter F. Hamilton - Best for learning how to craft fight scenes and space battles. I know some of these are series, not standalone books, but they are, basically, one big story. I couldn't separate them even if I wanted to. Obviously, there are tons more to learn from each book. I've only highlighted the best stuff.
Are we now just listing our favorite books, or are we actually listing books we think might be useful if we're going to write a novel?
Same here. I'm just wondering if, for each of our selections, we should add a line or two stating why we think that particular work would help. I'm sure that most of us haven't read all the works on other people's lists, so it might be useful to know WHY we should read them.
Assuming that the reader has critical reading skills, I feel like pretty much any book will help. Like I said in my last post, I would probably choose books written in the past 60 or so years. I can't think of ten, but there are some books I have in mind. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov because of his lyrical prose. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon because it's a great example of postmodernist writing (I think we're currently on post-postmodernism, but no one knows for sure). Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy because of his descriptive and evocative prose. The poems of Seamus Heaney because reading good poetry is just as important as reading good prose. Underworld by Don Delillo because of its complex structure and historical commentary (US history in particular)
Both. I'll highlight in the morning why I chose them. Too tired now. Too much beer. Edit: modified the original post with the useful things you can glean from them.
A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole (Without a doubt, the best modern comedy, in its original definition) Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut (Everything about this book is worth reading and studying multiple times. Satire at its finest) We by Zamyatin (Archetypical dystopian novel, and it's responsible for a lot of the norms in science fiction that we see today) 1984 by Orwell (The best dystopian novel and an excellent character study. The prose is haunting and beautiful, and the characters are deep) Othello by Shakespeare (It's so hard to narrow it down, but I'd pick this as the Shakespearean tragedy you must read. Any of his plays are fantastic tools to study literary archetypes and plots, not to mention his profound understanding of the human condition) A Midsummer's Night Dream by Shakespeare (What I typed above. Out of all his comedies, this is the one I feel a writer would benefit the most from studying, but that may be because it's my favorite comedy of his) Romeo and Juliet (I fall into the group that believes this play is a comedy and that Shakespeare intended it to be viewed as satire rather than a tragic love story. But it's still a great play to study because it mixes tragic and comedic elements well.) Frankenstein by Shelley (Quintessential Romantic/Gothic novel) Requiem for a Dream by Selby (An excellent twist on the stream-of-consciousness narrative technique. The portrayal of addiction is realistic, and the novel's symbolism and themes are handled well. Selby's commentary on the American Dream and materialism is fresh and raw. Skip The Great Gatsby and read this.) The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway (As a book, I detest it, but there's no denying this book's influence on modern fiction. It's worth studying how many of the stylistic techniques most of us take for granted originated)
I agree with the above posters who wrote that ten novels is nowhere enough -- I'd suggest ten novels a month as you write -- and that any list can only be personal, and that it depends on what genre you want to write. The best answer might be that it doesn't matter, that you can learn a lot even from a bad book. Here are some of my own recommendations: First with the how-to (to get them out of the way): 1. Stephen King: On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft An interesting read covering a lot without falling into technical details or giving you a series of exercises to beget and feed a fear of the white page. 2. Steve Kowit: In the Palm of Your Hand; the poet's portable workshop I believe that prose writers have a lot to learn from poetry. Plenty of exercises in this one, to make you dig into your inner-life, master rhythm and sounds, play with languages, approach revision/rewrite etc. As for the following ones, I am of those who believe in the value of literature and the classics. Here are two recommendations to start with, both written in a contemporary voice: 3. Robert Bagg and James Scully: The Complete Plays of Sophocles, a new translation. 4. Ted Hughes: Tales from Ovid A few excellent contemporary fiction titles: 5. Tea Obreht: The Tiger's Wife 6. Joanne Harris: blueeyedboy 7. Elmore Leonard: Djibouti Classics: 8. John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath 9. Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn 10. Franz Kafka: The Trial
If I had to select only one novel, it would be the whole of Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust.
I have it in a one-volume edition of 2400 pages, in French (my first language). It took me more than half a year to go through. I first came to it 17 years ago, read the first two volumes in French. Five years ago I made it to the first chapters of the first volume in English translations. Last year I started reading it in French from page one and I just could not put it down. And I can't wait to have enough time to repeat the experience again.
As most of you know, I'm am an unabashed strict constructionist. Over the years I studied our own country's history and the fates of people who sold out their freedoms for sandwiches. In that regard, you should read about lifes when that life isn't so suburbian. First, read the book that changed my life, I read it when I was 14 and kept reading it until I wore it out memorizing it. That's Hunter Thompson's book on The Hells Angels. See what life costs when the things you believe in fall out of fashion. One day some politician is going to realize that all of our pretty cell phones and computers run on coal from dynamos and there will be a seven day waiting period on a iPod. The next book is about life we turn a blind eye towards. We know it's all out there, we just pretend it doesn't touch us. Read "Joey the Hitman." Find out why my wife feels so safe. BTW, I'm interested in finding a book that fills in historical gaps from the Kennedy assassination to the Tonkin Gulf incident.
