What are your "Must Read" books

[MNDude]

Everyone's opinion, what would be three books that every adult should read?

How about three books every kid should read?

(besides the Bible, since that's a given for most)

[Imnidiot]

Darwin’s Black Box by Behe
Ender’s Game by Card
Protector by Niven

[luckystarmom]

All girls should read Little Women.

I would also add To Kill a Mockingbird to an adult list.

[Future Snake Eater]

The page after page after page of speeches grind you down. Plus, there is some really twisted personal relationships in her writing that indicate she should have gotten some help.

Ah, good, so it wasn't just me.

[Persevero]

To Kill A Mockingbird.

The Hobbit.

Pilgrim’s Progress.

Just to know what great literature can be, to get a feeling for it. Also, generally, you should be a better person for reading each book above.

[skintight buffoonery]

I never saw the appeal of Tolkein. Now Gormenghast, that’s another matter altogether. Everyone should read Peake.

[tommythev]

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

[caww]

I enjoyed:

As a child:

Jayne Erye
Withering Heights
Little Woman

As Adult:

Mere Christianity
The Coming Economic Armageddon
Case for Christ

Fiction:
Screwtape Letters
Ezekiel Option
Left Behind Series

[Bhoy]

Rules and Order — Hayek
Freedom & the Law — Bruno Leoni
The Robot Trilogy — Asimov

kids
Black Beauty
Oliver Twist
The Jungle Books

[jonrick46]

The Second American Revolution by John W. Whitehead.

[patriot preacher]

Other than the Bible:

CHRISTIANITY/THEOLOGICAL:
“Mere Christianity” - C.S. Lewis
“Seeds” - Thomas Merton
“Simply Christian” - N.T. Wright
“Beyond Tragedy” - Reinhold Neibuhr
“Christianity and Liberalism” - Gresham Machen
“A History of Fundamentalism” - Truman Dollar
“The Great Evangelical Disaster” - Francis Schaeffer
“Escape From Reason” - Francis Schaeffer
“God’s Plan for the Ages” - Louis T. Talbot
“Roaring Lambs” - Bob Briner
“The Cost of Discipleship” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Church History in Plan Language” - Bruce Shelley

CONSERVATISM/IDEOLOGICAL:
The Declaration of Independence & The Constitution of the United States
“The Federalist Papers”
“The Anti-Federalists”
“The Rise & Fall of the Confederate Government” (2 Vols) -
Jefferson Davis
“When Free Men Shall Stand” - Senator Jesse Helms
“Treason” - Ann Coulter
“No More Vietnams” - Richard M. Nixon
“Why Not Freedom!” - James & Walter Kennedy
“A Patriots History of the United States” - Larry Schweikart
& Michael Allen
“The Five Thousand Year Leap” - W. Cleon Skousen
“The Confederate Constitution of 1861” - Marshall DeRosa

FICTION/NOVELS:
“The Chronicles of Narnia” - C.S. Lewis (children & Adults)
The “Ashes” Series - William W. Johnstone (Adults)
The “Mitch Rapp” Novels - Vince Flynn (Adults) ALL of them!
The “Scot Harvath” Novels - Brad Thor (Adults) ALL of them!
“Atlas Shrugged” & “The Fountainhead” - Ayn Rand (Adults)
“Wisdom Hunter” - Randall Arthur
“When the Almond Tree Blossoms” - David Aikman
“One Second After” - William Forstchen

......HUNDREDS left out! SO many greats and classics left out! This would keep most people busy for YEARS though....

[umbagi]

(besides the Bible, since that's a given for most)

From the replies, it does not seem so "given"... It certainly should be read, in its entirety, at least once by unbelievers and once a year by Christians.

Beyond that, I believe political "thinkers," including most Freepers, should wade through D.C. Somervell's two-volume abridgment of Arnold Toynbee's 12-volume A Study of History (and maybe a couple of critiques of it, which will send them back to the text for a closer read).

After that (or maybe before it), Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book, and Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (yes, I know about Bloom, but the book should be read anyway).

One more? A good summary book on "worldviews," perhaps Sire's The Universe Next Door or Pearcey's Total Truth, and then maybe Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?

Three? How would one get by on just three books? Maybe the next thread should ask for ten, or fifty, for, you know, the "desert island" or nuclear war scenario. Just don't break your glasses...

[MacMattico]

Federalist Papers
The Scarlet Letter
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Kids:
Green Eggs and Ham (!!!) —little kids, I loved this book!!
Animal Farm
Harry Potter

[Pontiac]

#2 Lucifer's Hammer by Niven & Pournelle

I read it. I enjoyed it. But why would you choose that book as a must read?

[saintgermaine]

Not a must read but suggested reading. The Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchin especially The 12th Planet and Genesis Revisited. That is if you are interested where humans, as we are today came from, but not life as such as this is an altogether different story.

It also may offers an explanation of some of the UFO sightings, as I do believe our “Custodians” or the “Gods of Antiquity” still keep an eye on us for obvious reasons. You may refer to an article which appeared a few days ago on FR……UFO incursions on nuclear sites and if you can’t find it you always can Google it.

[ExGeeEye]

Adult: Atlas Shrugged, Inside the Third Reich, and The GULAG Archipelago.

Kids: The Hobbit, and also

Boys: Robinson Crusoe, Kidnapped

Girls: Heidi, Little Women

Sucked having to limit it to three.

[ExSoldier]

Because I think it's a scenario that could come to pass (not a comet specifically but a generalized long term breakdown of society with little left in the way of large scale generation of power and a loss of infrastructure) and I'd like for folks to start thinking of things THEY can do in advance to prepare to survive. Remember the professor and the books HE squirreled away? I want folks to start thinking: "Wow, if something like that happened for real, what would I do?" I read that book when I was in high school and it really led me into an intense research on the subject. It's one of the reasons I chose Infantry as the military branch of my commission.

[bert]

Wow..... another Will Durant FReeper.

Reading the 11 volumes is a big challenge. The work is my constant reference. I have read most if not all.

For everyone,,,,,,

For an understanding of why things are as they are...
War and Peace.... Leo Tolstoy
Centennial/Chesapeake.....James Mitchner
Winds of War and War and Remembrance....Herman Wouk.

Also for shaping the future....
Atlas Shrugged.....Ann Rand

For Children

The Complete Book of Marvels ....... Richard Halliburton
The Tree in the Trail.... Holling C. Holling
The Flamingo Feather..... Kirk Monroe

[beckysueb]

Correction: That should have been A Patriots History of the United States.

[ballplayer]

“Witness” Whitaker Chambers

[Canedawg]

Liberty and Tyranny is an important book to read (I have a signed copy from the book signing) but Men In Black is not only Levin’s best book, it really explains how we got to this point in American history.