The "One Book" List
	
Please send all submissions to Paul Phillips (paulp@primus.com.)
Access methods and explanation are at the end of the list. This 
compilation is Copyright 1994, 1995 by Paul Phillips.  Permission is 
granted for electronic redistribution and personal printed copies, 
so long as the list remains intact and no profit is derived from it, 
directly or indirectly.

Note: The list is getting quite large (over 100K now), and I intend
to break it up into more accessible parts.  It's on my TODO list, but 
it's a long TODO list :-)

Last modified: 07/11/95

_84 Charing Cross Road_ by Helene Hanff
  Recommended by Carolyn Gordon <CAROLYN@mail.mac.cc.mo.us>

_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain
  Recommended by Ken Pennington <hfin011@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu>

_The Age of Innocence_ by Edith Wharton
  Recommended by Rose Van Wormer (rose_van_wormer@nymep.nysstf.org)

_The Age of Reason_ by Thomas Paine
  Recommended by Terry J. Foster <foster@tyrell.net>

<A scathing and unanswered indictment on the folly of Christianity, followed 
by a magnificent treatise on the "One True Religion" . . . Deism.>

_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass_ by Lewis Carroll
  Annotated by Martin Gardner
  Recommended by Will Briggs <wbriggs@sirius.uta.edu> 

<Gardner's notes explain a lot of things you might not have known (why 
are hatters mad?), and describe how Carroll's ideas relate to things like 
quantum mechanics.  Also, the song parodies are funnier once you've seen 
the originals.>

_All the Little Animals_ by Walker Hamilton
  Recommended by John Evans <jevans@cais.com>

<This book was read to our 6th-grade English class in 1968 by a teacher 
ahead of his time.  I read it again 20 years later and was still moved.  
It concerns a retarded man who escapes from his step-father into the 
English countryside and takes up with a recluse who buries all of the 
animals killed by on the highway.  Strangely enough, although Hamilton 
died in 1968, I found this in a local library in 1988.>

_All The Pretty Horses_ by Cormac McCarthy
  Recommended by Mike Pingleton <pingleto@ncsa.uiuc.edu>

<A century from now, McCarthy will stand with the likes of Melville and 
Twain.  Wake up to the best kept secret of American fiction in the past 
thirty years.>

_Always Coming Home_ by Ursula Le Guin
  Recommended by Vicki Rosenzweig <vr%acmcr.uucp@murphy.com>

<In this book, Le Guin paints a far-future society that is both plausible and 
livable, and in the process throws some light on our own world. Science 
fiction, though only loosely a novel -- it includes sections of poetry, 
stories separate from the main narrative, and what amounts to cultural 
description on everything from religion to food--but will appeal at least as 
much to people who are not science fiction fans. I've read this book several 
times in the years since it first came out, and part of me has lived in the 
Na Valley ever since I first read it.  If you're willing to change your view 
of the world slightly, but aren't looking for Answers to everything, this one
is well worth your time and attention.>

_American Psycho_ by Bret Easton Ellis
  Recommended by Brent Halliburton <hallib35@grace.wharton.upenn.edu>
  Recommended by Mario van den Ancker <mario@astro.uva.nl>

<Brent: After writing NYT Best Seller Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis was 
dropped by his publishing company, which refused to publish this work.  A
nightmarish description of how modern life can mold and break someone like
an overheated crucible.  Brilliant.  Changed the way I look at people.  Not
for the weak of heart.>

<Mario: After reading it, it certainly gave me food for thought about how 
alienated people can become of each other. and about how well you actually 
know people (or how well people actually know me, for that matter).>

_Angry Candy_ by Harlan Ellison
  Recommended by Jonathan Peterson <Jonathan.Peterson@turner.com>

<Harlan at his angriest, railing at the Gods for the deaths of many of his 
friends and fellow writers in a short period of time has created some of his 
best writing.  I was blown away by Angry Candy when I first read it.  I 
re-read it after my own father's death; the catharsis and insight into death 
and grief it gave me has left me with a debt I can never repay Mr. Ellison.>

_Animal Dreams_ by Barbara Kingsolver
  Recommended by Rebecca Drury <rdrury@nautilus.er.usgs.gov>

<I don't re-read many books anymore.  I've read this one 3 times in 2 years, 
and the author is the only one to whom I've ever written.>

_Anna Karenina_ by Leo "Papa" Tolstoy
  Recommended by Jim McGough <jmcgough@aimnet.com>

<This book achieves the perfect balance between high art -- vivid character
development, delicately interwoven plot-structure, authorial instinct -- and 
good, trashy romance.>

_Another Roadside Attraction_ by Tom Robbins
  Recommended by Nancy Vandermey <vandermeyn@qmlink.ple.af.mil>

<Every one of Tom's novels is wonderful and thought-provoking, books that make
you stop and think.  Choosing a favorite is difficult, so I just picked the
first alphabetically.  Jesus did not rise from the dead, the Popes have kept
his body in a dungeon under the Vatican for 2000 years.  The books are hard
to describe, but sexuality and paganism are common themes.>

_Anthem_ by Ayn Rand
  Recommended by Michael Myers <mmyers@willamette.edu>
  Recommended by Midge Garza <mgarza@sibylline.com>

<Michael: This is a short book about individuality that really helped me when I
needed self confidence.  It has helped me see that the "good" of the many can 
often be the tyrany of the many instead.  In some sense it's plot of much of 
Rand's work in a small, easily digested package.>

<Midge: This one small book illustrates well my political belief in the 
ultimate value of the individual. I keep several copies at all times so that I 
can share with others to help them understand why I feel the individual is 
more important than the masses.>

_Anvil of Stars_ by Greg Bear
  Recommended by John Joseph Barry <cs93jjb@brunel.ac.uk>

_The Armageddon Rag_ by George R. R. Martin
  Recommended by Eric Schulman <eric@astro.lsa.umich.edu>

<I've read this book many times, and each time I find new insights into
life, love, music, politics, and people. It's also a great story.>

_Armor_ by John Steakley
  Recommended by Edward Young <edward.young@telecom.wisc.edu>

<Extremely good science fiction, while exploring the psychology of depression.>

_The Artifact_ by W. Michael Gear
  Recommended by John Brown <jgb@kuentos.guam.net>

<An ancient and powerful artifact is found on an Earth colony world. 
The government sends a ship to investigate and to try to bring this 
thing back. It wreaks all kinds of havoc throughout the book in little 
flashbacks to its own past, which is the history of the Galaxy.>

_Atlas Shrugged_ by Ayn Rand
  Recommended by Scott Kruger <skruger@rax.pppl.gov>
  Recommended by Eric Juteelstad <ericj@csdc02.orl.mmc.com>
  Recommended by Peter Peck <pep@tiac.net>
  Recommended by Joshua E. Randall <joshua.randall@yale.edu>
  Recommended by Al Wong <awong0@sas.upenn.edu>
  Recommended by Jason E. Swihart <swih0001@gold.tc.umn.edu>

<Scott: I personally disagree with most of what Ayn Rand says, but there 
is no mistaking her genius and her very strong mind.>

<Eric: Profound insight into the art of living.>

<Peter: Read this as a teenager and was profoundly introduced to the 
individual vs society argument at an early age.  I am not a libertarian 
but realize that we all must be accountable for our own actions and as 
such must make our own choices and not have society make them for us.>

<Al: It gives us perhaps what is the most important message to the world 
today.  That the Bible had it wrong in saying the meek would inherit the 
earth.  It is the strong to whom the future belongs.  We all should be proud 
of our ability and accomplishments.  Humility is only for those who have 
nothing to be proud about.>

<Jason: Everyone seems to know that something is wrong with society.  Ayn Rand 
is one of the few who identified what it is -- and what is the solution.>

_Battle for the Bible_ by Harold Lindsell
  Recommended by Mike Maish <maish@bldrdoc.gov>

_The Beautiful and the Damned_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Recommended by Alexis Massie <Alexis_Massie@qmgate.wgbh.org>

<I think of it as an alternate reality to _The Great Gatsby_.  What would 
happen if you took Gatsby's passion and Daisy's materialism and put them 
together in an actual relationship?  Would they survive?  It's a stunning and 
painful tale of dellusion and hope from the truest romantic ever to lay pen 
to pad.>

_The Beauty Myth_ by Naomi Wolf
  Recommended by Sarah Stennes <sastennes@vassar.edu>

<Yes, this is a work of feminist literature and yes, this suggestion is coming 
from a Women's Studies major but whether or not you consider yourself a 
feminist and no matter what gender you are, this book must be read.  It tells 
us why we see what we see when we look in the mirror and how modern society 
manages to screw it all up.>

_Beneath the Wheel_ by Herman Hesse
  Recommended by Brian E. Wilson <v061md3j@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>

_The Best of Myles_ by Flann O'Brien
  Recommended by Andrew Wayne <awayne@ps.ucl.ac.uk>

<A truly great book.  A collection of pieces published in the Irish Times 
by Flann O'Brien, under the pseudonym "Myles".  It is witty, intelligent 
and light hearted.  Everyone who claims a sense of humour should read it. 
More enjoyable than being impaled on a sharp stick.>

_The Bible_ 
  Recommended by Michael G. Koopman <koopman@ctc.com>
  Recommended by Bradley E. Young <byoung@spry.com>
  Recommended by Thomas P. Burkes <tburkes@tburkes.doa.state.la.us>
  Recommended by Lee Katchen <lee@crash.cts.com>
  Recommended by Greg Clements <clements@campus.mlc.edu>
  Recommended by Tim Robinson <robinson@ems.psu.edu>
  Recommended by Petie Bigenho <pbigenho@uoi.upmc.edu>
  Recommended by Jannie du Plessis <A70549@generation.eskom.co.za>
  Recommended by Andrea Rohrke <arohrke@ehs.eduhsd.k12.ca.us>

<I am no longer accepting commentary on any mainstream religious text.  See 
the end of the list for details.>

_The Big Orange Splot_ by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
  Recommended by Ada J. Kerman <ajkerman@mailbox.syr.edu>

<This is a book with pictures drawn by the author in magic marker.  If you 
are embarrassed to be seen reading a picture book, think of it as a modern 
parable.  Pinkwater didn't make up his name, either - he got it from his 
father, and shares it with his wife.  Practically everything by him is 
excellent.  Think "zany.">

_Big Sur_ by Jack Kerouac
  Recommended by Mike Vandenberg <mjv@bertha.att.com>

_The Blind Watchmaker_ by Richard Dawkins
  Recommended by Douglas Adams

_Blue Highways_ by William Least Heat-Moon
  Recommended by Loretta Wood <olehs1lb@tyrell.net>

<William Least Heat-Moon's account of his journey around the U.S. expresses 
perfectly the restlessness and sometimes even discontentment with our 
present lives that everyone experiences at least once.  But, Blue Highways 
is not a dark book.  Heat-Moon's inclusion of his conversations with the 
people he meets shows what small-town America is about and sheds light on 
the wonders of everyday life.>

_The Book of Lists_ by David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace
  Recommended by Nep Smith <tsmith@ucs.usc.edu>
 
<It offered a sample of the weirdness and variety of human knowledge and 
achievement while I was at an impressionable age, and also was great to 
read on long car trips, especially out loud to irritate my parents.>

_The Book of Mormon_
  Recommended by Kip Landon <dyelyn@ucs.isu.edu>
  Recommended by Suzanne Houghton <tpk@infonaut.com>
  Recommended by R. Brigham Young II <briggs@moscow.com>

<I am no longer accepting commentary on any mainstream religious text.  See 
the end of the list for details.>

_The Book of the New Sun_ by Gene Wolfe
  Recommended by Mike O'Brien <obrien@antares.aero.org>

<This is the greatest novel of redemption that I have ever read.  It 
is a novel in four volumes.  They are _The Shadow of the Torturer_, _The 
Claw of the Conciliator_, _The Sword of the Lictor_, and _The Citadel 
of the Autarch_.  There is strong stuff in here, and it is hard going.  
Many words are ancient, odd, and obscure (but none are imaginary).  It 
is still the best book I've read in twenty years.>

_The Book of Skulls_ by Robert Silverberg
  Recommended by Eve Phillips (emphil@ocf.berkeley.edu)

<The gripping in-depth psychological analysis of the four main characters in 
the book, who are in search of immortality, was more frightening than any 
horror book I've read.  A must for any SF fan or anyone who appreciates real 
characters.>

_The Bridge Across Forever_ by Richard Bach
  Recommended by Sean Ahern <ahern@llnl.gov>

<This book is for anyone who has ever looked for that one special person 
to make life complete.  An exercise in learning how to love and what Love 
is. Simply a "GOTTA READ" for anyone wanting to find their soulmate, or 
even those who already have.>

_The Bridge of Birds_ by Barry Hugbart
  Recommended by Walter Williams <walter.williams@gsa.gov>

<Li Kao may have small flaw in his character but the book is flawless! Its 
approach to story telling is fresh, funny and occasionally breaks ones heart 
slightly.  Just enough to make an impact.>

_The British Museum is Falling Down_ by David Lodge
  Recommended by Greg Sandell <sandell@epunix.susx.ac.uk>

<Adam Appleby is PhD student working on his thesis at the British Museum
library in the early sixties.  He's only 22, very low on funds, and has
three children.  What's worse, he's a devout Catholic and can't bring
himself to practice birth control.  Now he and his wife fear that another 
child may be on the way.  Against this backdrop is one of the funniest 
comedies I've ever read.>

_The Brothers Karamazov_ by Fyoder Dolstoyevsky
  Recommended by Cyndi Froning <cyndi@astro.as.utexas.edu>
  Recommended by Jake Donham <jaked@well.sf.ca.us>

<Cyndi: Simply the most impressive novel I've ever read.  Any book where I 
have to stop after reading one chapter because there is so much to digest and
consider is a winner with me.>

<Jake: It is simultaneously comic, tear-jerking, moral, spiritual, insightful, 
and mysterious. It is both hard to read and hard to put down, and it bears 
rereading like few other books.>

_The Canterbury Tales_ by Geoffrey Chaucer
  Recommended by Judith Stuart <jstuart@epas.utoronto.ca>

<I laughed; I cried; stories for everywhere, everyone, everywhen.>

_A Canticle for Leibowitz_ by Walter Miller, Jr.
  Recommended by Mark E. Davidson <davidson@pdsc.com>

<I've read this book many times and it never fails to affect me.  It's 
view of mankind is rather dark, but it inspires me for some reason.>

_Carlito's Way_ by Edwin Torres
  Recommended by Kurosh Meshkat <kuroshm@ifi.uio.no>

<In this day and age a little humanity goes a long way, especially on the 
street.  The writing is straight from the heart, something we can never have 
enough of.>

_The Cat in the Hat_ by Dr. Seuss
  Recommended by Rob Schaaf <schaaf@mech01.me.QueensU.CA>

<If there is anything this world needs, it is the pure whimsy of 
the classic Dr. Seuss.>

_Catch 22_ by Joseph Heller
  Recommended by Michael J. Stern <stern@panix.com>

<This is the Great American Novel. It's funny and sad and extremely political. 
Just brilliant.>

_Catcher in the Rye_ by J.D. Salinger
  Recommended by Wim Oosterhof <moneyman@hacktic.nl>
  Recommended by Douglas Hofstadter
  Recommended by Markus A. Laine <watcher@coos.dartmouth.edu>

<Markus: I hadn't read much before this novel.  I have read considerable more
since, perhaps hoping to find more of Holden Caulfield out there.  Good way to 
release angst, better way to return to written roots.>

_Cat's Cradle_ by Kurt Vonnegut
  Recommended by Travis A. Finucane <andrew@ecst.csuchico.edu>
  Recommended by Russ Northrup <r-northrup@cecer.army.mil>

<Travis: Vonnegut is a fine writer, and has churned out some fine books. As 
is the case with many authors, his books tend to meld after having read a 
multitude of them.

_Cat's Cradle_, however stands out. Not because it deals with a theme 
other than Vonnegut's patented "coming of chaos" genre; nor because it 
has particularly striking characters; merely because it helped me through
a turbulent formative era.>

<Russ: This book is excellent science fiction set today (more or less).  The 
book revolves around a substance, ICE-9, which is a crystaline form of water 
and is stable at room temperature.  Place this potentially absolute weapon in 
a tiny carribean nation, throw in the complications of an island messiah and 
his evil opposite, and it makes a very entertaining book which goes beyond 
simple scifi.>

_The Cat's Eye_ by Margaret Atwood
  Recommended by Mike Hooning <hooning@corp.cirrus.com>

<I bought it expecting science fiction, (the cover of the paperback edition I 
bought had a spacy picture of a being floating above a bridge).  What I got 
instead was a brilliant evocation of a girl growing up in 1950's Ontario, as 
recalled by the middle-aged, feminist artist that she grew into.  The 
description of life in the '50's was uncanny, and the characterizations were 
brilliant.  I have become an addict of Ms. Atwood's writing, and am always
saddended when I leave one of her worlds behind.>

_The Celestine Prophecy_ by James Redfield
  Recommended by Cheryl L. Boyd <clb5q@dayhoff.med.virginia.edu>
  Recommended by Suzi Gardner <SKGARD00@ukpr.uky.edu>

<Cheryl: I really wish all the world could read The Celestine Prophecy.  
The writing is nothing unusual, the plot interesting but not spell binding 
but clearly just a vehicle for the ideas.  But the ideas are very positive 
and I guess the focus on solutions rather than problems is a concept I 
support strongly.  The world he envisions would be a very compelling and 
exciting place.  Makes me wonder..if we all read the book, could we make 
it happen.>

<Suzi: It was an engrossing book--great pace, fascinating storyline, 
and I found myself understanding the events that were occuring and 
following the meaning of the book as best I could.  Currently, we keep 
it in the fiction section of the bookstore I work at...but I have a 
difficult time believing that is could be a work of fiction.  It just 
seemed to real to me.  And so simple and workable.>

_The Character of Physical Law_ by Richard Feynman
  Recommended by Herman Miller <hmiller@ea.com>

<This book is at the same time a sample of one of the finest thinkers of 
the century (he won a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics) 
and an introduction to physics directed at a non-technical audience.  
Feynman's presentation is refreshingly different and enjoyable to read 
even if you are already familiar with the subject.  It is a relatively 
short book, yet it still manages to cover a lot of scientific ground.>

_Childhood's End_ by Arthur C. Clarke
  Recommended by Jill Huntley <jhuntley@infinet.com>

_Chop Wood, Carry Water_ by Rick Fields
  Recommended by Doug Nelson <c603905@showme.missouri.edu>

<Not a work of fiction, not a how-to manual.  A cross-belief system look at
finding spirituality in everyday life.  Before I read this, I wondered why 
anyone would *want* spirituality in everyday life.  Now I can't understand 
how anyone can avoid it.  If the one list was limited to fiction, I'd have a 
completely different type of suggestion, but this book is a 'one list' of its 
own.  Unlike many of the other contributions to this list, I stumbled onto 
this as an adult.  I've read it cover to cover, and still occasionally open 
it at random and read a page or two, just to remind myself of the importance 
of EVERYTHING.  Many of the other contributions listed here are included, as 
well as a great many others.  Kind of a cross between a yellow pages and an 
encyclopedia of sacredness.  I've read more entertaining books, but this is 
the one that changed my life from the day I bought it.>

_The Chosen_ by Chaim Potok
  Recommended by Jacob Vaccaro <jvaccaro@haverford.edu>

<I found it to be touching and humane without being drippily sentimental.
It was an unadulterated joy to read.>

_Circle of Friends_ by Maeve Binchy
  Recommended by Kelly Bree Medley <kmedley@gladstone.uoregon.edu>

<This book made me look at life, love and friendship in a whole new light.  
It is a heartwarming story about a group of friends and thier trials and 
tribualtions throughout thier lives.  By the end of the book, you will feel 
like you have known them your whole life.  You will laugh and cry and never 
want it to end.  I suggest reading this book and then giving it to your best 
friend.>

_Collected Stories_ by Tennessee Williams
  Recommended by Steve Hammer <shammer@use.com>

<Marvel at the economy of langugage, at the depths of human understanding
and the sheer storytelling skill of Mr. Wiliams.  These stories are unjustly
ignored - I consider them among the finest short stories in the English
language.>

_The Coming Plague_ by Laurie Garrett
  Recommended by Donald Kaiser <Donald.Kaiser@roche.com>

<It is a chilling account of how we (humans) have brought the world to a point 
where the microbes could soon wipe out all of us.  Stephen King (in "The Stand)
was more right than I think he might have realised.  This is a bit heavy from 
the standpoint of the science involved, but if you can stick it out through 
discussion of transposons and the like, the message is clear, "It won't take 
The Bomb to return the world to the cockroaches.">

_The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll_
  Recommended by Brant Boucher <ar434@freenet.carleton.ca>

<This book does not include all of the author's minor works, but only 
those which were illustrated by the author or artists chosen by the 
author. For me, "The Hunting of the Snark" is an obsession. "Bruno 
and Sylvie" includes a discussion of relativity worthy of Einstein, 
and a time machine, several years before H.G. Wells published his 
"Time Machine". You've got to see the illustrations to these works. 
They are as much masterpieces as the works. Lewis Carroll was the best 
literary parodist, and the best author of fantasy and logical speculation. 
These books can take you from the Nursery to the Grave. Even Economists 
love Lewis Carroll.>

_The Complete Works of Robert Burns_
  Recommended by Lynn Messing <messing@tiger.asel.udel.edu>

_The Complete Works of Shakespeare_
  Recommended by Larry Hammer <ahammer@hinet.medlib.arizona.edu>

<It has been trite for over two centuries to call Shakespeare the greatest 
writer in the English language, but that doesn't make it any less true.  No 
one else has written with this power, this perception into humanity, and this 
much sheer entertainment.>

_A Confederacy of Dunces_ by John Kennedy Toole
  Recommended by Ken Kleinman <ken@hsph.harvard.edu>

<This is a deep investigation of how one's perceptions of the world may
be totally off.  It is also incredibly funny, often painful, and will
generate some small sense of humility in the most bloated egotist.  In
addition to these other fine qualities, it has the added bonus of being
in the tradition of regional narratives and of having a somewhat inspiring 
tale of how it was published.  A tremendous and under-recognized classic.>

_Conflict of Visions_ by Thomas Sowell
  Recommended by Ben Gilberti <wisdom@powergrid.electriciti.com>

<Provides deep insight into the origin and nature of current political 
dynamics.>

_The Copyright Handbook: How to Protect and Use Written Works_ 
  by Stephen Fishman
  Recommended by Leland Knapp <mattice@ix.netcom.com>

<As a layman with a reasonably competent reading ability, I found the book 
extremely infomative, easy to read and easy to understand with explanations in 
non-legalese.  It is well stocked with practical examples.  A must for the 
writer and researcher.>

_Cosmic Trigger_ by Robert Anton Wilson
  Recommended by Bill Macintosh <macinwi@ffhsj.com> 

_Crossing to Safety_ by Wallace Stegner
  Recommended by Neil Litt <NeilLitt@aol.com>

<The title comes from a poem by Robert Frost ("I could give all to time--
except/What I myself have held. But why declare/The things forbidden that 
while the Customs slept/I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There/And 
what I would not part with I have kept"). I wept at the end of the 
penultimate chapter and again at the end. It is a beautiful novel about 
love and friendship, of making order out of chaos.  Stegner must have been 
near 80 when he wrote this book. He dedicates it to M.P.S. (his wife) "for 
more than half a century of love and friendship, and to the friends we 
were both blessed by," which is a capsule of the entire book. For all the 
hardships in their lives, the integrity and decency of the people in this 
novel shine through. It is an inspiration, written with elegant simplicity 
and clear thinking.>

_Cryptozoic!_ by Brian Aldiss
  Recommended by Martin H. Booda <booda@navo.navy.mil>

<A mindbending book from an author who is himself a professional mental 
chiropractor.  Get ready for some radical concepts about time travel, such 
as: why it's actually mind travel; why a near-scizophrenic artist engages 
in it to become a Precambrian hit man; and why you're going in the wrong 
direction anyway.  Take nothing for granted.  Reread until you get it, then 
reread again.>

_The Crystal Cave_ by Mary Stewart
  Recommended by James Vincett <james.vincett@ualberta.ca>

_Dahlgren_ by Samuel P. Delaney
  Recommended by Bob Crispen <revbob@hera.hv.boeing.com>

<Delaney's long (my God, long!) deeply disturbing dream of the decaying
city.  Its literary pretensions (what is the protagonist's name?  is
Bellona Harlem?  is this literally a dream?) whose kin become the
substance of Delaney's later work are here overwhelmed by the reality
of place and character, and so _Dahlgren_ succeeds in getting hold of
the imagination and the mind.  There is no "what a clever boy am I"
that spoils so much experimental writing, only integrity.  Delaney's
masterpiece, and what _Dangerous Visions_ might have spawned if they'd
been reading Dostoevsky instead of Joyce.>

_Damage_ by Josephine Hart
  Recommended by Larry Hires <MJPE85A@prodigy.com>

<I bought this book on the first day it appeared in the book stores and is my 
only First Edition bought on the first day.  I read it cover to cover as soon 
as I bought it.  It is the best book I have ever encountered that addresses 
the subject of the damage that out-of-control libidos can do.  The book was 
hypnotic.>

_Days Between Stations_ by Steve Erickson
  Recommended by Rob Sider <bd496@scn.org>

<Changed my life, you know what I mean, and I think it's changed everyone 
else's, too.>

_Death Be Not Proud_ by John Gunther
  Recommended by Natasha Brown <nbrown@cogsci.ucsd.edu>

_Deathbird Stories_ by Harlan Ellison
  Recommended by John David Regehr <jregehr@ksu.ksu.edu>

<A collection of powerful stories about possible gods; this book contains 
(imo) much of Ellison's best work.>

_Demian_ by Herman Hesse
  Recommended by Eric Mumpower <nocturne@mit.edu>

_Democracy_ by Joan Didion
  Recommended by Dan Alldredge <dana@uvsg.com>

<Didion doesn't waste one word in this moving and dead-on exploration of 
characters caught in the  geopolitical quicksand of 20th century America.  
Her prose is lean and fierce and always entertaining. One of our very best 
writers.>

_The Design of Everyday Things_ by Donald A. Norman
  Recommended by Bryce Jasmer <bryce_jasmer@next.com>

<This is the book that really opened my eyes about product design issues.  I 
have really started to notice the design of the world around me, and how 
horrible and unusable it really is. Why is it that you have to send a fax face 
down where the phone number you are trying to send the fax to isn't visible? 
Read this book and you too will ask the right questions about a product's 
design and you will be more aware of the products that you design.>

_The Dharma Bums_ by Jack Kerouac
  Recommended by Benjamin John Walter <ben@tsunami.demon.co.uk>

<This is one of the few books I've ever read that has changed the way I think 
and feel about life and where I'd like to be.  It made me long to just get out 
there and experience life, whether hiking, climbing a mountain, or just simply 
existing.>

_The Dispossessed_ by Ursula K. Le Guin
  Recommended by Elizabeth M. Reid <emr@exxilon.xx.rmit.edu.au>
  Recommended by Andras Salmon <andras@is.co.za>
  Recommended by W.H. Bonney <whb@tiac.net>

<Elizabeth: I first read _The Dispossessed_ when I was 12, and have 
reread it at least once a year in the 12 years since then.  This book 
helped to define my political, social and interpersonal attitudes.  It 
offers an ultimately optimistic, but by no means idealised, picture of 
humanity through a depiction of the protagonist's political, spiritual 
and interplanetary journey.>

<Andras: This book has strongly shaped my outlook on life, and is always
a joy to reread.>

<W.H.: If nothing else, read it for an idea of how science progresses.  The
workings of the mind of a great, if fictional, scientist.  His mathematical
discovery of the flexibility of time changed the course of history in a number 
of LeGuin's later books.  But more than that, *GOD* it's a good read.  In 
LeGuin's words: at the center of all good novels is not an idea, but a person.
And Shevek is a person you will never, ever, ever forget.  LeGuin noted that 
even her most uncomprehending critics, somewhere, in the course of their 
review, almost always mentioned Shevek by name.

And that, of course, meant that the book was a success.  Please read it.
It is just such a pleasure.  True journey is return.>

_The Dispossessed Majority_ by Wilmot Robertson
  Recommended by Blago Simeonov <blago@io.org>

_Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ by Philip K. Dick
  Recommended by Gary Frederick Baker <gfbaker@lava.net>

<This is the book that the movie "Blade Runner" was based on but is 
substantially different in tone and meaning.  A terrific story about
what defines human, non-human, and religious behavior.>

_Doctor Rat_  by William Kotzwinkle
  Recommended by Darin Burleigh <burleigh@tcg.anl.gov>

<The animals of the world gather for a meeting of universal consciousness.
The title character is a lab rat driven mad by abusive experiments.  This is 
no 'Velveteen Rabbit'.>

_Does It Matter?_ by Alan Watts
  Recommended by Joe Germuska <j-germuska@nwu.edu>

_Don Quixote_ by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  Recommended by Christian Lipski <cxl@theborg.sunquest.com>

_The Door Into Summer_ by Robert Heinlein
  Recommended by Scott Johnston <johnstos@gunet.georgetown.edu>

_The Dreams of Red Chamber_ by Shei-Ching Tsao
  Recommended by Jya-Jang Tsai <jjtsai@lucifer.cs.waikato.ac.nz>

<For those who have never heard of it, this classic novel is a saga about an
aristocratic family in Ching dynasty (of China).  It story evolves around their
daily life (which covers more than five hundred members in the extended family,
including servants).  The discussions of poetry, painting, music, architecture,
medicine, cooking, craft, festivals are seamlessly blended in the storyline.  
The author utilized many particular aspects of a language (Mandarin), and wrote
a dialog which vividly reflected each character's personality and status in the
hierarchy.  It is a book that offers entertainment as well as a window into a 
culture from that country's past.>

_The Drifters_ by James Michener
  Recommended by Floyd David <floyd@adpo1.iaea.or.at>

<At 21 I was destined to a life chained to a desk and already thinking about 
my retirement! Then I read James Michener's "The Drifters" which inspired 
me to leave England, spend 2 years on a cruise liner and hitch hike from 
England to South Africa. i.e. it changed my life.  It is the story of 5 young 
kids who, from various parts of the world are seeking the meaning of life, 
meet in Spain and discover the beauties and pains of life.  I thoroughly 
recommend this gem to any person who has come to a crossroads in their life.>

_Dubliners_ by James Joyce
  Recommended by Jim Leckband <J.A.Leckband@qmw.ac.uk>

<When I read your post, I thought of how I could decide to pick one book. 
My decision was to decide by mentally looking at my bookcase and thinking 
which book would I take out and just by holding it would recreate the 
feeling I had when I first read it. There are a few that are like that, 
but Dubliners won. The final story "The Dead" gives me goosebumps now just
thinking about it.>

_Dune_ by Frank Herbert
  Recommended by Jon Lemke <jtl10@columbia.edu>

_Effective Cycling_ by John Forester
  Recommended by Steve Lusky

<This book is the definitive book for bicycling on roads.  It has
singularly been subject to endless discussions on rec.bicycle.soc.
The principles it espouses are time tested by many around the world.
It is the foundation for the only national program on bicycle education.
If you drive on roads, knowing the material in this book will help you
be a better driver, both of motor vehicles and bicycles.>

_The Eight_ by Katherin Neville
  Recommended by Lilli Cox <lacox@darkwing.uoregon.edu>

<An intricate story about an ancient chess set which holds an extraordinary 
power if all pieces are brought together.  The power is mysterious till the 
end.  I can only say: read this.  It's the best-- not fluff in any sense... 
a real mind-bender.>

_Empire as a Way of Life_ by William Appleman Williams
  Recommended by Jessica Maloney <jessmatt@slip.net>

<The superstructure of American History.>

_Endangered Species: The East Anglian Commuter_ by Robert Pilgrim
  Recommended by Malcolm Dunn <medunn@helix.net>

<Anyone who has spent any time on British Rail, or indeed, just commuting, 
will identify immediately with the dry wit of Pilgrim's booklet (it's by no 
means a large tome). Try to find it if you can - all proceeds go to the
WWF (UK). Oddly enough, though they sold it to me in 1988, they have since 
steadfastly refused to believe they ever distributed it! Keep trying - they
may reprint... "Boilers, invented to keep things warm, freeze. That is why 
there is no coffee on the days when the heating fails. This only happens in 
winter. In summer, when it may be wet but warm, the heating is encouraged and 
blazes away like mad. "It is the switch," I was told.  "Switch it off," I 
suggested. "I can't; it's electric," he replied. At once, I understood.">

_Ender's Game_ by Orson Scott Card
  Recommended by Analisa Marie Norris <amn@owlnet.rice.edu>
  Recommended by Chris Lawyer <gt7219a@prism.gatech.edu>

<Analisa: The author does an incredible job of addressing moral issues that 
will confront our society as we become more technologically advanced.  Great 
science fiction in the middle of a riveting plot with big issues that make
you think.>

<Chris: It is a neat tale of a little boy forced to go through pressures that 
would crush the average person in a little while.  Ender is destined to save 
the world from aliens, yet he is only six at the onset of the book.  And 
through it all, he succeds, but he gets burned out by the process.  Truly a 
fascinating book.>

_English Creek_ by Ivan Doig
  Recommended by Janice Vega <jvega@albany.edu>

<It's the first book in a trilogy.  The writing is so beautiful I found myself
rereading sentences and paragraphs not because of confusion, but because of the
sheer power and imagery in them.>

_Essais_ by Michel de Montaigne (translated by J.M. Cohen)
  Recommended by Hugh Malcolm <hm@libserver.canberra.edu.au>

<This is the book that introduced the word into French and "essay" into 
the English language. It is also the most deeply introspective and personal 
study of individual psychology between Marcus Aurelius and Freud (goes 
beyond Aurelius).  One fears that the ever accelerating change of our age 
may obliterate the memory of some of the most mature thought of our entire 
cultural history.>

_Ethan Frome_ by Edith Wharton
  Recommended by Michael Wojcik <mwojcik@lynx.dac.neu.edu>

_Eva Luna_ by Isabel Allende
  Recommended by Jean Armour Polly <jpolly@nysernet.org>

<It is about a woman who inhales colors, smells, and sounds from her 
native South American life, and breathes out stories which are latter-day 
myths and legends. This book is a field guide to passion, truth, and 
justice.  What else is there.>

_The Examined Life: Philosophical Investigations_ by Robert Nozick
  Recommended by Larry Deaton <ldeaton%ers.bitnet@vtbit.cc.vt.edu>

<Other books perhaps mean more to me, but none that I have read in recent 
years has made me think as deeply as this one.  Nozick's theme here is simple 
(and this alone sets this book off from most of his other works which tend to
be brilliant but difficult reading) and stated clearly in his introduction:  
"I want to think about living and what is important in life."  This leads him 
to ask the following kind of questions: "Why isn't happiness the only thing 
that matters? What would immortality be like and what would be its point?  
Should inherited wealth be passed on through many generations? ... What is 
especially valuable in the way romantic love alters a person? What is wisdom 
and why do philosophers love it so?"   He then attempts to answer each of these
questions and others in individual chapters.  I doubt that many people will 
agree with all of Nozick's answers, but I think that anyone who reads this 
book will both enjoy his musings and end up with considerably more knowledge 
and yes ... with even a little more wisdom.  And that makes it a very rare 
and worthwhile book.>

_Fahrenheit 451_ by Ray Bradbury
  Recommended by Tatsuya Murase <tots@ugcs.caltech.edu>

<A book about a world where books are illegal, it gives people a glimpse 
into a future few wish to live out but are always in danger of stepping 
closer towards.>

_Family Pictures_ by Sue Miller
  Recommended by Erika Grams <erika@email.unc.edu>

<A wonderful, emotionally powerful story about how one family copes with an 
autistic son over several decades, told from the point of view of the daughter 
who was born after the diagnosis of the autistic son (Randall) was made.  She 
is a photographer and discovers how pictures tell and explain her family's 
story.  Sue Miller is simply the best novelist in the United States today IMHO.>

_The Farthest Shore_ by Ursula K. Le Guin
  Recommended by Saul Epstein

<I tend to consider all four of Ursula K. Le Guin's EarthSea novels 
as a unit, and all equally profound etc. But if I had to choose one of 
the four it would be _The Farthest Shore_, the third one.>

_Fathers and Sons_ by Ivan Turgenev
  Recommended by Peter Hultgren <peter.t.hultgren@uwrf.edu>

<Anyone who's gone to college will recognize Bazarov.  Short, emotionally 
and intellectually stimulating.>

_Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ by Hunter S. Thompson
  Recommended by Peter J Bereolos <bereolos@ecn.purdue.edu>

_Finite and Infinite Games_ by James P. Carse
  Recommended by David W. True <dwtrue@geosims.iii.net>

<I read this just as I was becoming enlightened about a lot of issues (early, 
mid-twenties), and I find the core of the book very useful in sorting out 
competing agendas in business and everyday life.  Especially important are 
the differentiation between power vs. strength as well as that for education 
vs. training.>

_The Floating Opera_ by John Barth
  Recommended by Peter Hawkinson <phawk@teleport.com>

<The unexamined life isn't worth living, and every reasoning being must one
day make a conscious decision either to commit suicide or deliberately live
for *something*.>

_Flowers for Algernon_ by Daniel Keyes
  Recommended by David Ondrejko <vondraco@telerama.lm.com>
  Recommended by Hazel Kohler <hazel.kohler@bbc.co.uk>

<David: Diary of the world's first man to be made a genius by modern 
medicine.  Chronicles his rise from an IQ of 68 to that of a true genius, 
and what happens when he finds that the change is not permanent.  Shows 
exactly how fragile our intelligence is, and can give a clue to what 
Alzheimer's patients' experience is like.>

<Hazel: The first person narrative is superbly handled throughout, and the 
final line brings tears to my eyes every time I read it.  On its publication, 
it won every award going - if you haven't read it, do so.>

_Focaults Pendulum_ by Umberto Eco
  Recommended by Markus Freericks <mfx@cs.tu-berlin.de>

<This book is ripe with intellectual jokes on historical, linguistical,
political and theolical issues.  If you are a religious or "new age" person,
it might yet make a good sceptic out of you, too.  A second or third reading
is really necessary, because the introduction of hundreds of names and
themes can become quite confusing.>

_Fool on the Hill_ by Matt Ruff
  Recommended by Kady O'Malley <kady@magi.com>

<This is a wonderful, weird, profound, nonsensical, delightful, and rereadable 
book.  When I read it the first time I stayed up till dawn to finish it, and 
when I did finally come to the end, I burst into tears.  But good tears.  It 
will appeal to anyone who wonders about the story behind the Story.  It has 
magic, sex, love, drugs, redemption, cool parties, paper dragons, talking 
animals, sprites, immortal beings, Fools and kites. What more could you want?>

_The Fountainhead_ by Ayn Rand
  Recommended by Colleen Mary Kehoe <colleen@cc.gatech.edu>
  Recommended by Sara Ewing <sewing@Phoenix.kent.edu>
  Recommended by Nicole Cooper <ncooper@usenet.com>

<Colleen: I recommend this book not as an advertisement for Rand's philosophy, 
but mainly as an absolutely gripping novel.  Although I don't always agree with 
her philosophy, this book led me to identify and evaluate my beliefs that 
underly the way I live my life.>

<Sara: Anyone who has read it will understand.>

_Franny and Zooey_, by J. D. Salinger
  Recommended by Alyson-Kathleen Riley <calypso@pandora.micro.umn.edu>

<In this little book I found the secret of living life courageously, with
honesty and integrity.  It's beautiful and masterfully-constructed.>

_Gallipoli_ by Robert Rhodes James
  Recommended by Dwight Hunter <hunter@cstcc.cc.tn.us>

_The Gathering Storm_ by Bruce Catton
  Recommended by Carlos Byars <carlos.byars@chron.com>

<Modern scholarship and new sources have altered the understanding of a few, 
mostly minor, points. But no other Civil War writer had Catton's breadth and 
depth of understanding and his beautiful writing style.>

_Geek Love_ by Katherine Dunn
  Recommended by Tim Anderson <tima@wv.MENTORG.COM>

<The story is of a traveling family of carnival side-show freaks.  The children
were "designed" by their parents: Mom intentionally ingested toxic chemicals to
produce deformities.  A disturbing and ugly book in many respects, it is 
difficult to keep reading, but impossible to stop.  It is skillfully written, 
the imagery is vivid and, much of the time, highly unpleasant.  It's not a 
book you'll easily forget, although you'll probably try.  It will make you 
think about what it means to be a family.>

_Generation X_ by Douglas Coupland
  Recommended by Eric Iverson <iverson@crl.nmsu.edu>

<As a 28 year old who had just suffered his own "mid-20's breakdown" 
(see the book) it gave me words for things I didn't know had
words and made me realize that others were going through the same things
I was going through.  It was sort of my "On the Road."  No book before or
since has validated my life in quite the same way.>

_Gift From the Sea_ by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  Recommended by Karen McComas <mccomas@muvms6.mu.wvnet.edu>

<Several years ago I attended a retreat and was invited to share some of 
my experiences (life).  After returning home, I received this book in the 
mail from someone who had heard me.  There is a passage in the book (page 
23) that, to this day, takes my breath away.  How could Lindbergh, in 1955,
the year of my birth, write my thoughts?>

_The Ginger Man_ by J.P. Donleavy
  Recommended by Frank Clover <clovf@ruby.ils.unc.edu>

_Godel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter
  Recommended by Paul Phillips <paulp@primus.com>
  Recommended by Raphael Quinet <quinet@montefiore.ulg.ac.be>

_The Gold Bug Variations_ by Richard Powers
  Recommended by David Ramger <davidr@vnet.net>

<I could, and probably will, read this book over and over again...  
Powers writes like no one else, using language that only he could 
possibly weave into an interesting and beautifully written story of 
love and loss.>

_Gone With the Wind_ by Margaret Mitchell
  Recommended by Bruce Holt (holtbru@auducadm.duc.auburn.edu)

<I find myself thinking of the HATE that went on during that time between The 
North and The South.  Being a Southerner and living here makes me wonder what 
my life would have been like should I have lived back then.  To Southerners, 
the agony of LOSS.  Everything you were brought up knowing is GONE FOREVER.  
The loved ones among family and the many friends that are GONE FOREVER.  The 
utter loss for LIVING it seems with NO HOPE.  Also, after the war, the living 
for necessity with no luxury at all.  Making your own clothes, feeding the 
family, the garden to be done, etc.  All of this day after day... with almost 
NO FREE TIME.  It is something that I think none of us now could ENDURE!!!>

_Good Omens_ by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  Recommended by Jeff Lee <shipbrk@gate.net>

<In the US, it's by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, for some reason presumably
known only to book publishers.>

_The Grapes of Wrath_ by John Steinbeck
  Recommended by Priscilla Balch <priscilla.balch@nycps.nycenet.edu>

_Gravity's Rainbow_ by Thomas Pynchon
  Recommended by George Casler <gcasler@unix5.nysed.gov>
  Recommended by Matt McClintock <matma@mcs.com>
  Recommended by Matthew Wise <wise@hsri.org>

<George: While this is no doubt a very difficult book to read, the various 
points of view taken by the suspectedly-multiple Pynchon provide an engagingly 
expansive look at post-dubya-dubya-too life and culture.  Not to mention his 
contribution to post-modern and hypertextual literature.>

<Matt M.: A tremendously funny and convoluted novel I've read over and over 
again.  Complex enough to seem new each time I read it, and engaging enough to 
make it hard to put down.>

<Matt W.: Took me 3 years to finish reading it the first time out, but I 
carried that chunky, weathered paperback with me everywhere I went.  Now I 
reread it every 6 months or so and always find something different.  So much 
information, so many interconnections - if hypermedia did not exist this book 
would have forced it into being.>

_Great Expectations_ by Charles Dickens
  Recommended by Andrew Rae <A.Rae@mailbox.uq.oz.au>

<How does one have one's life influenced by an apolitical work of 
fiction? I think it's more the particular copy, and the circumstances 
under which I was given it... I the book still counts as the one with the 
greatest influence on me, though.>

_The Great Gatsby_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Recommended by Peter Simon <simonp@morgan.com>

<Simply the greatest love story ever written.  Am I being too romantic? But 
for a description of strong love against all odds, this book reigns supreme.>

_Green Mansions_ by W.H. Hudson
  Recommended by Edwin Posey <posey@ecn.purdue.edu>

<An extended dream, or vision - psychedlic in the best sense - romanticism 
exemplified, by perhaps one of the most evocative writers of the English 
language in the early part of the century.>

_Grendel_ by John Gardner 
  Recommended by Dan Davie <ddavie@ewu.edu>

<This beautifully crafted gem explores the interlocked relationships of
creator/creation, art/consciousness, artist/consumer in the framework of the
Beowulf legend.  Told in the first person by the monster Grendel, it is both
realistic and fantastic.  Easy to read, impossible to forget, like all of
Gardner's books.  By the late American author, not the English mystery writer.>

_Guards Guards_ by Terry Pratchet
  Recommended by Mark Adamson <Chv3@Heaton.unn.ac.uk>

<Terry has written a great deal Of Fantastic Book in his Discworld series (12 
or 14 I think) but this is a truly excellent example and one that will lead 
any reader to others in the series.>

_The Gulag Archipelago_ by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  Recommended by Rob Crawford <robc@harvarda.harvard.edu>

<I found it a splendid introduction to 20th century totalitarianism 
and its impact on vividly portrayed individuals.  Though I am not 
very religious, Solzhenitzn's conversion, a climax of the 3rd volume, 
I think, is deeply moving.>

_Hamlet_ by William Shakespeare
  Recommended by Steve Green <sgreen@well.com>

<Food for four centuries of thought.  The heart and soul of English 
literature.>

_The Handmaid's Tale_ by Margaret Atwood
  Recommended by Kim Corpening <corpening_kim/furman@furman.edu>

<It's a terrific sci-fi novel concerning the absurdities of government, etc.
Enjoyable reading, yet very thought provoking.>

_The Heart Aroused_ by David Whyte
  Recommended by Jason Schwager <jason@nbn.com>

<I listen to lots of authors in book stores.  David Whyte is the only one 
I've seen and heard who so effortlessly held a packed house way overtime on 
the leading edges of our seats.  Every once in a while a person or a work 
is so seminal it heralds a shift.  R. Buckminster Fuller did this for design.  
Miles Davis did it for jazz.  David Whyte is doing it for the intersection 
of the soul and American business.  He NEVER once read from his book.  Instead,
to illustrate the points he wanted to make he reeled out ideas and poems (his 
own and others) from memory one after another with such veracity they seemed 
to arise spontaneously from one archetypal soul into a world premier for our 
ears and thence back into us to do their transformational work.   He didn't 
just recite. He spoke and verbally delivered poetry, with an uncommon timing, 
emphasis, and rhythm using the English language more like John Coletrane's 
tenor sax turning and soaring through space, making me hear old lines as if I 
had been deaf before.  If this is what a working Irish poet does, let's have 
more of them!

I came away with a deeply renewed sense of my own journey and the personal
necessity for me to bring my soul's passions fully into the World and my
professional life.>

_A Hero with a Thousand Faces_ by Joseph Campbell
  Recommended by Don Stadius <stadius@lclark.edu>

_A History Of American Law_ by Lawrence M. Friedman
  Recommended by Robert K. Marvin <rmarvin@GMU.EDU>
  
<This book explains how we arrived at our current legal system.  It also 
provides insights to how law has helped make-up and change the face of 
American society.>

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams
  Recommended by Peggy S. Ramert <psramert@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
  Recommended by David Adelman <adelmand@awod.com>
  Recommended by Dan Engstrom <csede@ste.chalmers.se>

<Peggy: I have always taken life so very seriously that this was prescribed 
to me by a physician a few years ago!  He was in essence telling me to 
lighten up and just enjoy my life!  Up till then, I thought life was to be 
endured, not enjoyed!  Enjoyment was a new concept!  Anyway, I highly 
recommend it as light reading and I hope you enjoy it if you have not 
already done so!>

<David: A funny satire of modern society.>

<Dan: I envy those who get to read it for the first time; wondering what on 
earth they are reading, getting to know Marvin the paranoid android, learning 
the meaning of life (which incidentally is 42) and generally having a peculiar 
time of it.  Who wrote the worst poetry in the Galaxy?>

_The House of the Spirits_ by Isabel Allende
  Recommended by Sylvia Chong <schong@leland.stanford.edu>

<Very sprawling story, at times grotesque, at times depressing, very
humorous in general.>

_Howards End_ by E.M. Forster
  Recommended by Mark Taranto <mtaranto@panix.com>

_Hyperion_ by Dan Simmons
  Recommended by Leo Krabbendam <kdl@mh.nl>

<It is simply the best SF book I've ever read (and I have read a *lot*),
but this book really has got everything : A complicated plot, strange 
worlds, amazing technology, depth of characters, well-thought-out society, 
mystery, ...  you name it, it's there.  By the way, the author is an 
amazing writer. He's published several books in different genres, and they 
ALL are amazingly good.  Heavily recommended!>

_I Was a Stranger_ by General Sir John Hackett
  Recommended by Leonard Pratt <budpratt@hk.net>

<The interesting thing about this book, to me, is that the author also 
wrote "The Third World War," a horrific example of nuke-think during the 
days of the Cold War.  Yet the same man was able to produce the first book, 
which I think is one of the warmest examples of human courage under terrible
danger that I have ever read.  Simply, it is the auto-biography of a
British officer captured during the Battle of Arnheim during WWII, and his
life with the courageous people of the Dutch underground until he could
make his way back to British lines.  He does not write his own story, but
rather the story of the simple and courageous people who protected him. 
Everyone in his book is someone I would like to have met, and whose 
courage in adversity I would be honored to emulate.>

_If On A Winter's Night A Traveller_ by Italo Calvino
  Recommended by Robert Lee <rglee@bu.edu>

_The Iliad_ by Homer
  Recommended by Henrique Fleming <fleming@snfma1.if.usp.br>

<It is a pity it's been written about 3000 years ago: this scares many 
readers off.  Yet, besides being the mother of all action books, its 
poetry has no peer.  I still shiver at the sound of the brass arch of 
Phoibus.  The Fitzgerald translation is wonderful.>

_The Illuminatus! Trilogy_ by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
  Recommended by Petter Karlstrom <cl2pkarl@cling.gu.se>

<Fact disguised as fiction.  Gods disguised as people.  Global destruction to
save the earth.  Out-front conspiracy.  Secrets man wasn't meant to know. 
Anarchism as a state of mind.  Everything in this book is a bloody lie.>

_Illusions_ by Richard Bach
  Recommended by Doug Ehrmantraut <ehrmantraut@wsu.edu>

<A small, deeply moving and unsettling book about individual potential,
responsibility, and the nature of reality.  A reference book for the soul.>

_Invisible Cities_ by Italo Calvino
  Recommended by Fernan Dominguez <doming@ix.netcom.com>

<_Invisible Cities_ has to be one of the most brilliant books ever to be 
categorized as "magical-realist fiction".  The premise for the book is a series
of imaginary discussions between Kublai Kahn and Marco Polo, where Marco Polo 
describes to Kahn the cities of his great empire.  I cannot begin to describe 
the profound beauty of this book. Calvino's writing is mesmorizing.  For a 
period of time, I selfishly kept quiet about this book as it became such an 
important component of my being.  But I've realized it's too magnificent a work
to keep it away from others.  I will say it again- I've read many books, but 
when I think beauty in literature, I think _Invisible Cities_.>

_Island_ by Aldous Huxley
  Recommended by Dirk van Deun <hw41652@is1.bfu.vub.ac.be>

<A book about the destruction of Utopia by the modern world.  Brave New World 
was a clever book, but this is a _moving_ book.>

_Johnny Got His Gun_, by Dalton Trumbo
  Recommended by Rob Reid <reid@astro.utoronto.ca>

<Written in 1938, it's about an American G.I. wounded in W.W. I.  So severely 
wounded that his legs were amputated, his arms were amputated, his eyes 
blinded, and his ears deafened.  He lived though, a nearly disembodied brain 
almost completely cut off from the rest of the universe.  Trumbo intended to 
write a powerful antiwar novel, and he succeeded.  Metallica based their song 
"One" on it, and used it as argument for euthanasia.  I disagree, and found 
that it captivated me with questions about the true nature of life and 
humanity, and what really matters.>

_Kalki_ by Gore Vidal
  Recommended by Jochen Friedolin Rick <gt4510b@prism.gatech.edu>

<The reason I like this book is that it teaches and entertains at the same 
time and most people haven't been exposed to the style of Gore Vidal.>

_Kerewin_ by Keri Hulme
  Recommended by Lut Verstappen <lutv@nic.inbe.net>

<Fascinating book about conflicting worlds of adults and children, men and 
women, western and Maori cultures, and about making choices, taking 
responsibilities and enjoying them.>

_To Kill a Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee
  Recommended by Shayle Shagam <SSHAGAM%ERS.BITNET@VTBIT.CC.VT.EDU>
  Recommended by Beth Matheson <bmatheson@quarry.com>

<Shayle: A simple story of moral values.  Not a bad guide to raising 
children either.>

<Beth: Every time I read this book I learn something new to guide me through 
my life.  I named my son Atticus because I believed it to be a name he could 
be proud of.  A name to teach him to respect all who share this universe.>

_King Rat_ by James Clavell
  Recommended by Kirk Pearson <kdpears@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com>

<If you think your life is bad, try being a WWII American POW in a Japanese
prison camp.>

_Lady Susan_ by Jane Austen
  Recommended by Tre Hellman <tre@quake.net>

<Simply because it's hysterically funny.  Worth reading again and again (it's 
very short) whenever you need to brighten your day.>

_The Left Hand of Darkness_ by Ursula K. Le Guin
  Recommended by Jason Noble <jnoble@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>

_Les Miserables_ by Victor Hugo
  Recommended by Richard Chu <richu@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu>
  Recommended by Abby Goutal <ang@mv.mv.com>
  Recommended by Charles E. Carroll <ccarroll@students.wisc.edu>

<Abby: This is such an incredible rich and splendid story that after a dozen 
readings (and it is a formidable book!) I still haven't tapped into all that 
it has to offer for the soul and the mind.  It is a beautiful book, in that the
story and the characters are beautifully drawn and shown and *felt*.  Hugo has 
immense empathy for the human race and in each of his characters I find a facet
of myself, be it innocence, courage, love, or cruelty, or intolerance.  It is a
book about mankind and about God; in that order.  One caveat for readers: do 
not read an abridged edition, but skip over the chapters that are irrelevant to
the story; you can come back to them later.  Trust me, it makes sense :) I 
first read an abridged version and missed so much of the story, even though I
also missed the boring digressions!>

<Charles: A great story of love, forgiveness, and mercy.  I agree with 
everything Abby said about it, with one exception: get the unabridged version,
and read every word.  The digressions are incredibly well-written and 
interesting, and you shouldn't miss out on them.>

_Lila_ by Robert Pirsig
  Recommended by Todd Greenspan <todd.greenspan@ucop.edu>

<Pirsig reveals to the world how different from all of us he really is, but 
in the process, the reader will find him/herself examining much that is taken 
for granted about our own modern American culture.>

_Listening to Prozac_ by Peter Kramer
  Recommended by Mark Wright <wrig0025@gold.tc.umn.edu>

<The book is worth the hype, although few of the reviewers seem to
understand that Kramer wanted to say.  A very thoughful consideration
of culture, personality, medical ethics and the philosophy of the
mind.  Kramer discusses in a very readable style the consequences of
our increasing ability to engineer personality.>

_Little, Big_ by John Crowley
  Recommended by Michael L. Medlin <al@iris.claremont.edu>

_The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  Recommended by Ray Moore <raymoore@indirect.com>
  Recommended by Scott Ruthfield <scottr@lanl.gov>

<Ray: The prose, the characters, the Tale all combine to create the most 
palpable sense of Wonder that I have ever experienced.>

<Scott: This so-called "childrens" book is an amazing tale of life and personal 
growth, longing and sadness, glee and loneliness.  It has forever changed the 
way I view the world and my place in it, and the way I interact with others.  I
read it at least monthly and carry it whenever I travel -- and meet people who 
do the same.  The Little Prince makes me happy, thoughtful, and wistful.  It 
can do the same for you.>

_L'oeuvre au noir_ by Marguerite Yourcenar
  Recommended by Gjalt de Jong <dejong@imec.be>

<It is maybe not THE book, but this book meant for me the real beginning 
of, as you phrased it in your in your posting "have helped to shape our 
thoughts".>

_Lonesome Dove_ by Larry McMurtry
  Recommended by Dennis Kneale <dkneale@pipeline.com>
 
<This book almost changed my life. Has a wonderful cast of characters who
are lovingly portrayed; I hated saying goodbye to them when it ended. The
story got across what that American pioneer spirit was really all about --
and why it still lives inside all of us.>

_Look Homeward, Angel _by Thomas Wolfe
  Recommended by Erika L. Peterson <epeterso@sybase.com>

<This is a quiet book about a person who is. Most of all, it is American.>

_Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen_ by H. Beam Piper
  Recommended by Ian MacPhedran <macphed@dvinci.usask.ca>

_Lord Of Light_ by Roger Zelazny
  Recommended by Greg Barron <cowboy@hubcap.clemson.edu>

<This is one of the countless books my older brother recommended to me
when I was in junior high.  It stands out as the single most enjoyable
novel I have *ever* read.  His books in the Amber series are great, but
this is a masterpiece of imagery and characterization.  A Hugo Award 
winner.  An amazing blend of science fiction, theology, politics, love
and warfare.  The story takes place many years after the death of Earth.
A small group of survivors colonize a planet and eventually master their
science, giving themselves immortality in the process.  Over centuries,
they populate the planet and deny the inhabitants access to their high
technology, choosing instead to rule their descendants as the gods of the
Hindu pantheon.  One god sets out to fight the heavenly establishment and
free humanity from "divine" control.  Moving and entertaining, it's my
favorite book to re-read.>

_Lord of the Rings_ by J.R.R. Tolkien
  Recommended by Bjorn Fridgier Bjornsson <bjornfr@rhi.hi.is>
  Recommended by Michael Sieber <gandalf@misiwi.ping.de>
  Recommended by Spencer Marks <spencer@world.std.com>
  Recommended by John Minadeo <jminadeo@cybercon.com>

<Michael: It might not be something special for most of us, but for me 
it's exactly that. I read for the first time when I was 15, And since
then I am reading it again and again. It's great for your fantasies and 
it needs a lot of imagination. It's great and a whole world in itself.>

<John: This book calls forth feelings from all ends of the spectrum.  As you 
read the characters become friends to you, you'll worry about what will happen,
you grieve when they fall.  Superbly written and no one, I mean NO ONE writes 
a battle like J.R.R. Tolkien.  Even a casual reader can not help but long for 
days of old when Kings sat upon thrones and commanded greatness and a Wizard 
is a powerful friend, or a terrible enemy.>

_Love in the Time of Cholera_ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  Recommended by Ken Olsen <kmolsen@asdi.saic.com>
  Recommended by Douglas Stanley <dgstan@teleport.com>

<Douglas: If you enjoy falling in love (must of us do.)>

_Love Medicine_ by Louise ErdricH
  Recommended by Tommy L. Hutchinson <thutchin@sunbird.usd.edu>

_The Loved One_ by Evelyn Waugh
  Recommended by Christopher Tiffany <tiffany@ils.nwu.edu>
  Recommended by John Carlson <CaptGrimes@AOL.com>

<Christopher: This thin little novella is one of my all time favorites.  Dark 
comedy at it's darkest.  Although written in 1948, Waugh's trenchant portrait 
of Hollywood is as acurate and as funny as ever.  And what could be more fun 
than a love story between an English poet and an American mortuary cosmetition?>

<John: This Swiftian satire on the burial customs of Southern California is 
Waugh at his best.  This slim 1948 volume still has much to say about the 
California lifestyle and obsessions that have influenced my life (native Los 
Angelino here!!)

The book reveals, in all its empty enormity, the Californian conception of
death and the elaborate effort made by those who worship comfort, beauty and
life to euphemize that stark object which is of all the most iff-favored and
unreassuring.  In its attitude to death, and to death's stand in, failure,
Waugh exposes a materialistic society at its weakest spot.

There are many versions of the Loved One available.  The best is the first UK
edition (Chapman and Hall 1948) with illustrations by Stuart Boyle.>

_Lucifer's Hammer_ by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
  Recommended by Christopher Palma <cpalma@astro.psu.edu>

_The Machinery of Freedom_ by David Friedman
  Recommended by Scott Banister <banister@uiuc.edu>

<Friedman makes a compelling case that anarcho-capitalism is a very 
worthwile social goal which would maximize human happiness while preserving 
human freedom.>

_Madame Bovary_ by Gustave Flaubert
  Recommended by Pierre Chandless <pierre@tin-fish.dircon.co.uk>

_Magister Ludi_ by Herman Hesse
  Recommended by Grady Ward <grady@netcom.com>
  Recommended by Brie Sansotta <brie.sansotta@gsa.gov>

_The Magus_ by John Fowles
  Recommended by Gavin Inglis <krynoid@tardis.ed.ac.uk>

<Fowles experiments with "self-conscious" fiction, most famously in "The 
French Lieutenant's Woman", but it often falls flat. In this book he succeeds 
by toning his personal voice down and instead concentrates on the story which 
twists and howls endlessly.>

_The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon_ by Tom Spanbauer
  Recommended by Harry Hunkele <hhunkele@hearst.com>

<A Native American coming of age tale.  Spiritual, sexy and fun.>

_Man Without Qualities_ by Robert Musil
  Recommended by Jack Cargill <jusf90a@prodigy.com>

<A book of ideas -- it's fiction, but the plot is not important.  It is a
dismantling and questioning of human character -- all those qualities which
go into our sense of self-identity, including both operative and professed
values, notions of beautiful and ugly, moral concepts, understandings,
beliefs, etc.  It is not about a man literally without qualities, but one
who sees insufficient grounds for continuing to mimic some of our ancestors' 
qualities.  Many insights into the illusions and pretensions of life.>

_Maneaters of Kumaon_ by Jim Corbett
  Recommended by Bill Melton <melton@rintintin.colorado.edu>

<Maneaters of Kumaon is the story of Corbett's travels through India 
killing maneating tigers in the early 20th century.  His knowledge and 
respect for the jungles of India make this one unforgettable.>

_Man's Search for Meaning_ by Viktor Frankl
  Recommended by Maryanne Ward

<Frankl was held in a nazi concentration camp and emerged with the
philosophy that one can find meaning in suffering. This is not a glib
Pollyanna book. The message that was so meaningful to me when I first
read it and sustains me today is that you may not be able to control
what happens to you, but you can control your attitude. When you read
it, you will look at things in a new light.>

_Maturana & Varela, The Tree of Knowledge_ by Shambhala
  Recommended by David Warren <davwar@netcom.com>

_Maus 1 and 2_ by Art Speigelman
  Recommended by Lisa Nyman <lisa.nyman@census.gov>

_The Mechanism of Mind_ by Edward de Bono
  Recommended by Dr. Richard Botting <dick@blaze.csci.csusb.edu>

<Derives some practical conclusions from a fairly standard model of how the 
brain works.  Argues that the brain has certain ways of handling data and that
by practicing some simple "lateral" procedures you can become better at solving
problems etc...  Easy to read but has some interesting implications.>

_Mefisto in Onyx_ by Harlan Ellison
  Recommended by Josh Kuritzky <ac388@freenet.buffalo.edu>

_Memories, Dreams and Reflections_ by Carl Jung
  Recommended by Julius Lester <lester@judnea.umass.edu>

_Memory of Fire: Genesis_ by Edwardo Galeano
  Recommended by Anna Sunshine Ison <asison01@msuacad.morehead-st.edu>

<This is actually the first book of a trilogy but I have absolute confidence 
that once you begin this you won't be able to stop at the year 1700.  It's a
history of the Americas the way that you Dream it should be told... in bits and
pieces that make you believe you're hearing it from a beautiful storytelling
relative or reading it on a pine-bark scroll.  The first bit is made up of
indigenous mythology that makes you want to run out into the woods and be a
tree frog girl or sing to the turtles, the second is a history told in bits 
and pieces that help you understand the western hemisphere Far more than if
you read it in a dry thesis.  It makes you laugh and dance and cringe and put
your hands over your eyes at times and you understand Completely why Latin 
America is the mother of magical realism and why people like Galeano are the
storytellers they are.>

_A Mencken Chrestomathy_ by H.L. Mencken
  Recommended by Jim Parinella <parinell@mit.edu>

<He was right on on so many different subjects, commenting on politicians, 
religion, sociology, even boxing.  He had such a way with words and such 
contempt for the typical idiotic American.  Much of what he wrote still rings 
true today, 50 or 80 years later.  Not for the thin-skinned.>

_The Milagro Beanfield War_ by John Nichols
  Recommended by John Godfrey <jgodfrey@nas.edu>

<This is a deeply involving novel with fascinating, well-developed 
characters, both major and minor, male and female, Anglo and Hispanic.  
The story is exciting and also hilarious.  Skip the movie--this is a meaty, 
enjoyable, and unforgettable book.>

_The Mists of Avalon_ by Marion Zimmer Bradely
  Recommended by Ellie Cutler <ellie@ora.com>
  Recommended by Mary Henry <mhenry@crawdad.csd.sgi.com>

<Mary: As close as I have come to a personal theology.>

_Moby Dick_ by Herman Mellville. 
  Recommended by Russ Jones <rjones@southwind.net>

<I was an English major many years ago, and I read and analyzed this book many 
times, and roundly hated it.  But then I picked it up again a few years back 
and found that it was a hell of a whaling story.  Did you know there's a whale 
in it?>

_The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ by Robert Heinlein
  Recommended by John Tynes <rev@fungusaur.wizards.com>

<I read this book every year for several years in junior high/high school. 
It opened my eyes to both the possibilities of fiction writing, and to 
the vitality and lifeforce of politics, democracy, and radicalization.>

_The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide_ by Douglas Adams
  Recommended by Glenn R. Kurtzrock <grk2237@is2.nyu.edu>

<This omnibus edition includes the first four books of the Hitchhiker's 
trilogy (yes, trilogy!) plus a previously unpublished short story at the end, 
and a special foreword by Douglas Adams.  Adams is better than any drug you 
can think of to cheer you up (and he's more addictive, too!) Definite 
recommendation to lift anyone's spirits.  I've read a LOT of books, but his 
are not only funnier than any I've ever seen, but they're funny in such a 
different way that no one has been able to duplicate.  Please read this book!>

_Mort_ by Terry Pratchett
  Recommended by NJ Morford <N.J.Morford-94@student.lut.ac.uk>

<Extremely, silly, extremely funny, and he's got a load more where that 
came from.>

_Mutant Message Downunder_ by Marlo Morgan
  Recommended by Roger Clark Williams <williams@moose.uvm.edu>

_The Myth of Sisyphus_ by Albert Camus
  Recommended by Michael McCoy <mmccoy@crs.loc.gov>

_Mythago Wood_ by Robert Holstock
  Recommended by Ken Hill <khill@husky1.stmarys.ca>

<A celebration of story telling.>

_Naked Lunch_ by William S. Burroughs
  Recommended by Eric Rose <erose@ecrc.de>

<One of the most important post-WWII novels, William S. Burroughs deals with 
life in the post-nuclear age, a world of rampant bureaucracy and limitation of 
individual freedoms, fanatical fringe groups, bizarre cults and raging 
diseases.  Drug addiction and sex are used as metaphors of control and 
manipulation.  The book consists of a shifting montage of scenes and images, 
devoid of plot, using repetition of characters and phrases to achieve 
consistency.  First published in France in 1959, the book was banned in the 
U.S. until the 1960's.>

_Neuromancer_ by William Gibson
  Recommended by Josh Brassard <jobf92@hamp.hampshire.edu>

<THE cyberpunk (whatever that means) novel, it is also one of the best SF 
books out there.  I've read it four times, and I'm still finding stuff.  
Gibson is just cool, and this is his masterwork.>

_The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing_ by Charlie Papazian
  Recommended by Bob Campbell <rsc@flower.hao.ucar.edu>

<It will open your eyes to just how easy it is to brew really good beer.>

_The Next Whole Earth Catalog_ edited by Stewart Brand
  Recommended by Richard Joly <ricjoly@telegraph.com>

_Nineteen Eighty-Four_ by George Orwell
  Recommended by Steven Jablonoski <sliptdsk@ypn.com>

<This book changed my view of the world and made me the paranoid cynic I am 
today.  A story of a man's struggle to preserve his unique identity in a 
political environment hell-bent on homogenizing the population through facist 
means.  No one living in the modern world should go without reading this 
prophetic 1949 classic.  Big Brother _is_ watching you.>

_Of Human Bondage_ by Somerset Maugham
  Recommended by Tisa M. Houck <houck@cstcc.cc.tn.us>
  Recommended by Dolly A. Winger <winger@sendit.nodak.edu>

<Tisa: I would recommend Somerset Maughmam"s _Of Human Bondage_ for its 
ability to elicit an emotional response from readers as young as I was 
when I first read it.>

_On the Road_ by Jack Kerouac
  Recommended by Julie Purcell <julie.purcell@forum.saic.com>

<This book gave me the first step in realizing what was important to me,
material goods or "spiritual" [shiver] happiness.  The simple pleasures 
of walking along familiar streets and a hipflask half-full of opportunities 
was enough for Jack... and led me to question what I called success or 
contentment. Truly the first step in my discovery of what it would take to 
be truly happy as an adult.>

_One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  Recommended by Estrella Forster <forstere@dfssmtp.nadc.navy.mil>
  Recommended by David George <d.r.w.george@dundee.ac.uk>

<Estrella: Best only if read in original language (spanish).  Beautiful 
writing, will experience all emotions.  THE BEST.>

<David: Fantastical, urbane, funny and sad.  It is the sort of book you can 
lose yourself in whether you are an irritating thirteen year old (as I was 
when I read it first) or a wise witty and wonderful forty one year old (as 
I am now).>

_One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ by Ken Kesey
  Recommended by Richard Grassy <rgrassy@halibut.fhcrc.org>

<Incredible story of fighting the system.>

_Operators and Things_ by Barbara O'Brien
  Recommended by Jorn Barger <jorn@mcs.com>

<The tale of a woman's stress-induced schizoid break, this book conveys
brilliantly the utter *weirdness* that lies outside consensus reality.>

_The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_
  by Julian Jaynes
  Recommended by John Watson <jkwatson@holmes.astro.nwu.edu>

<This book made me completely reevalute my world-view.  Any book that can 
do that, I would heartily recommend, and this one is a doozy.  I can't 
evaluate the science (I'm a physicist, not an anthropologist, and I don't know 
Greek or Sumerian), but if his science is good, his theory is amazing.  It's 
non-fiction, and very easy to read, despite the heady title.>

_Origin of Species_ by Charles Darwin
  Recommended by Mike Whiten <climate@globalx.net>

<It was, of course, one of the critical texts in the development of human 
thought, but my fascination comes from the sublime passion that underlies his 
dissertation.  I think of it as *the* model of scientific expression and 
communication.>

_The Other Side Of Deception_ by Victor Ostrovski
  Recommended by Maarten Fornerod <maarten.fornerod@stjude.org>

<Highly credible report of crimes of the Israeli secret service, written by
an ex-mossad agent, who must be in eminent danger at this moment.  Banned in 
Israel.  The description of the ruthless and terrorist nature of the mossad 
fully destroys its heroic image.  The book further shows the manipulation of 
the public opinion in Western countries, and is therefore a warning never to 
believe the official version of affairs.>

_Out of the Crisis_ by W. Edwards Deming
  Recommended by Bob Wilmes <bwilmes@primenet.com>

<Dr. Deming passed away in December 1993.  He spent his life trying to teach
the foundations for a productive future for America. The is the finest book 
ever written on competition.>

_The Outsiders_ by S.E. Hinton
  Recommended by Niels Rasmussen <niranr@inet.uni-c.dk>

_Pacific Edge_ by Kim Stanley Robinson
  Recommended by Mike Clark <mjclark@primenet.com>

_Parable of the Sower_ by Octavia E. Butler
  Recommended by Heather Thomas <hthomas@herbie.unl.edu>

_The Pathfinder_ by James Fenimore Cooper
  Recommended by Timothy LaPara <tlapara@sibelius.helios.nd.edu>

<I am an environmentalist that happens to agree with a lot of
Cooper's philosphy about nature.  Plus, it is a good story.>

_Perfume_ by Patrick Suskind
  Recommended by John J. Soares <afn21498@freenet.ufl.edu>

<It was originally written in German, and the English translation doesn't seem 
to really affect the book.  As a side note, it was the inspiration for the 
song "Scentless Apprentice" by Nirvana.  Either way, it's a fantastic book 
with a wonderful story, and an impressive first effort from the author.>

_The Phantom Tollbooth_ by Norton Juster
  Recommended by Mark Brandsgard <mbrands@legis.ia.gov>
  Recommended by R.E. Baker-Self <R.E.Baker-Self@durham.ac.uk>
  Recommended by Ronald J. Kimball <Ronald.J.Kimball@dartmouth.edu)
  Recommended by Ron Echeverri (rone@netcom.com)

<Mark: This novel is one I read in sixth grade, but it holds universal 
truths.  The characters, setting, and language are remnicent of Alice in 
Wonderland; however, it surpasses even Alice in insight into humanity.  
I request that anyone who reads this paragraph reads the story.  It is worth 
the hour sitting and it is unforgettable.>

<R.E.: For an explanation of why reading in particular, and learning in 
general, nothing matches it for charm, wit, and sheer enjoyability.>

<Ronald: A classic children's book which is fun for anyone to read.  Clever 
and profound, with lots of fun characters and strange adventures.>

<Ron: It's one of those books that you read when you're a child, but 
cannot possibly get all the double meanings until you read it again when 
you're older.>

_Phases of Gravity_ by Dan Simmons
  Recommended by Frank Sewald <tensai@interaccess.com>

<While Dan Simmons is mainly known for his Hyperion series and some of his 
horror writing, this book really struck a chord within me.  It makes some very 
strong statements on religion, society, and death.  Perhaps even a little 
insight into the meaning of life.>

_Pigs in Heaven_ by Barbara Kingsolver
  Recommended by Chuck Thompson <chuck_thompson@mentorg.com>
 
<Wonderful, moving novel.>

_The Popol Vuh_, translated by Dennis Tedlock
  Recommended by N.A.F. McNelly <nmcnelly@acs.bu.edu>

<The Mayan version of how and why we came to be - the world seen from a very 
different and compelling point of view.>

_The Power of One_ by Bryce Courtney
  Recommended by Tony Hinde <hindet@ozemail.com.au>

<Bryce is an Australian who was born and raised in South Africa.  This novel
is a captivating look at South Africa and it's people through the eyes of a 
courageous young boy.>

_Practical Ethics_ by Peter Singer
  Recommended by Dan Lizarralde <danl@sable.whoi.edu>

<A particularly clear exposition of what ethical thinking is and of how a well 
founded ethical framework may enhance the experience of life.  I have found 
that even the most thoughtful people tend to become confused about ethical 
issues because they are not aware that they lack a foundation, or basis, for 
their ethical thinking.  This book suggests a utilitarian-type ethical basis, 
but, more importantly, provides insight on how to form an ethical framework of 
one's own and how such a framework may be applied to the ethical issues
confronting us in everyday life.>

_A Prayer for Owen Meany_ by John Irving
  Recommended by Arnold Jonk <jonk@fwi.uva.nl>
  Recommended by Brian Cimmet <skittles@kiwi.con.wesleyan.edu>
  Recommended by Nancy Wolfe Kotary <nkotary@crminc.com>

<Arnold: Like the author said: "How is it possible not to like reading books: 
you get offered a complete view of the world for only a few dollars". (or 
something like that).  This books provides the most comprehensive and 
beautiful view of a beautiful world i ever read.>

<Brian: This is simply the most thrilling story, while at the same time, has 
the most perfect structure a book could have.  Nothing is left unexplained. 
I have never felt so satisfied after completing a book.>

<Nancy: I love this book so much that I carry it around everywhere and read 
random selections when I have time to kill.  It is more than just a good read; 
it is a moving, humorous and philosophical novel.  Being a non-writer, I can't 
put into words how wonderful this book is: read it and find out if you agree.>

_This Present Darkness_ by Frank Peretti
  Recommended by Nate Bohlmann <njb@res.eng.uiowa.edu>

<This book _will_ change the way you look at the world.  Written in what I
call reality fiction, the struggle between good and evil has never been 
brought more clearly into focus.>

_The Prince of Tides_ by Pat Conroy
  Recommended by Ann Kingman <clumber@aol.com>

<Forget the movie ever existed, it had almost nothing to do with the book.  
This is truly one of the most beautifully-written, moving, and 
thought-provoking books I have ever read.>

_Principia Discordia_ by Greg Hill
  Available via WWW at <URL:http://www.willamette.edu:80/webdev/principia/>
  Recommended by Adam Morris <st4017@hades.dcs.napier.ac.uk>
  Recommended by David Wagner <dwagner@efn.org>

<Adam: Is it a spoof on religious texts, is it all just a joke, is it a 
serious book pretending to be a joke.  Only you can decide.  Personally I 
laughed, I was glad I could, because what it says about all of us is not 
always pleasant.>

<David: There is more to this book than can really be explained or recognized.
Or maybe there isn't.  There aren't many books that allow you (encourage you?)
to look deeply into them and choose whether or not to be enlightened or laugh.
Yes, it's somewhat trendy, but it's also worthwhile reading and quite 
entertaining.>

_Prometheus Rising_ by Robert Anton Wilson
  Recommended by Grace Harris <ambrose@io.org>

<A funny, subversive book that might change how you think of "reality".>

_The Prophet_ by Kahlil Gibran
  Recommended by Susan Jack <sejack@aol.com>

<Although published in 1923, I think it speaks to us more today than ever.  
To me it is the story of life, a code of conduct, a dream for mankind.  
I resonate to the images; I am drawn to the songs of the heart; I am healed 
with the majesty and invocation.  Gibran's speeches by Almustafa breathe 
into the recesses of my soul.>

_Psychotic Reactions and Carburator Dung_ by Lester Bangs
  Recommended by Jonathan M. Gladstone <zippy@mit.edu>

<A collection of works by the greatest rock critic to ever live (and die).>

_The Queen of the Damned_ by Anne Rice
  Recommended by Jeffrey Walenciak 
  (Jeffrey=M=Walenciak%ELEC%FPD@bfmailer.bf.umich.edu)

_Rendevouz with Rama_ by Arthur C. Clarke
  Recommended by Ilkka Salminen <csilsa@uta.fi>

<In this book aliens are truly alien.>

_Republic_ by Plato
  Recommended by Mathew Lu <mt-lu@uchicago.edu>

<I feel that for any person in Western civilization to be truly educated
he/she must read and study this book. This work provides the foundation for 
so much of Western Philosophy and thought, that one cannot truly even attempt 
to study either without spending time with this work.>

_Requiem for a Dream_ by Hubert Selby, Jr.
  Recommended by Felix M Salmon <913513sa@udcf.gla.ac.uk>

<Rates in ugliness alongside The Naked Lunch, but actually means something, 
too.  One of the most important and least well-known books of the latter half
of the 20th century.  Much better than the better-known Last Exit To Brooklyn.>

_Riddley Walker_ by Russell Hoban
  Recommended by Rod Myers <rmyers@scuacc.scu.edu>

<This book deserves a much greater audience than it seems to have found.
It's set in post-apocalyptic England centuries after nuclear holocaust
has sent "civilization" back to hunting and foraging for food and trying
to figure out the mysteries of the past.  It's a coming-of-age story about
a boy and also about civilization.  An original and profound novel, very
challenging since it's written in a future (quite poetic) dialect.>

_The Rise and Fall of the Third Leg_ by Jon Longhi
  Recommended by Jennifer Joseph <manicd@sirius.com>
 
<Longhi brilliantly portrays lifestyles of the young and inept in an inimitable
and wonderful way.  Unpretentious and laugh-out-loud funny.  A gem.>

_The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_ by William Shirer
  Recommended by Ray Keeler <rmk4@acpub.duke.edu>

<Truth is stranger than fiction, and this 1300 page behemoth contains more 
drama and intrigue, and more moving humanity, than any novel could hope to 
approach; and it all happened.  The study of history, as the Roman historian 
Livy said, provides us with the most supreme examples of both virtue and vice 
and their consequences.>

_A River Runs Through It_ by Norman MacLean
  Recommended by J. Patrick Fitzsimmons <pfitzsim@reach.com>

<"and in the end, all things merge into one and a river runs through it.
yet i am haunted by waters."  

his little gem is as poetic and artful as the best work of t.s.  eliot.  
and yet (unlike eliot) it is accessible, understandable, possessed of all 
the immediacy and life-changing force of any *real* spiritual experience.  
death, life, growth, love and the role infinity might play in our present 
incarnation are all handled gracefully by maclean's angelic turns of phrase.

while reading maclean, the world's forgotten orderliness -- its natural 
cadence -- is remembered by the reader, as pure and simple as the childhood 
in which we each last sensed/knew/felt it.  but this time, through maclean's 
narrative, the reader hears whispers of wisdom as well as jaw-slacking 
wonder in the timeless water-words swirling beneath his montana riverbeds.>

_The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ translated by Edward Fitzgerald
  Recommended by Maris Vanks <vanks@HFRD.DSTO.GOV.AU>

<Even though E.F. took liberties with the translation, I think it's a 
great piece of work that shows humans still have basically the same 
concerns no matter what period of history we're looking at, and that 
life is a fleeting thing that you have no control over, but that you 
still need to make the most of and enjoy regardless.>

_A Scanner Darkly_ Philip K. Dick
  Recommended by <hcking@acssun.pstcc.cc.tn.us>

<Every one, at some time or another, must deal with reality being stripped
away from them, to find themselfs lost in a strange world. For some of us, it 
happens all too often. For others of us, it warps our minds forever (for good, 
or ill). Phil Dick spent most of his life in these... spaces. If you'd like to 
understand what this is like, what your friends suffer, read this book.  It 
also has a Christan edge.  No it is not a sermon.  See Christanity from one of 
it's truest seekers [PKD].  The title is from I Corinthians 13:12 where we're 
told all we see is a shadow of the true.>

_Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy_ by Robert Anton Wilson
  Recommended by Ron Blum (rblum@s.psych.uiuc.edu)

<Very funny book.  An understanding of quantum physics is not necessary, 
but it makes the book even more fun to read.  Watch out for the Thomas 
Pynchon reference.>

_Searching For Caleb_ by Anne Tyler
  Recommended by Janice Powers <pinhead@interlog.com>

<Anne Tyler understands the family dynamic better than anybody.  This story
about a family that can't seem to get away from each other is something I'm
sure anyone who comes from a large family can relate to.  In fact I highly
recommend anything Ms. Tyler has written.>

_Shared Minds_ by Michael Schrage
  Recommended by Mike Lean <m.lean@qut.edu.au>

_The Sheep Look Up_ by John Bruner
  Recommended by Lynn Salmon <salmon@eql.caltech.edu>

_The Sheltering Sky_ by Paul Bowles
  Recommended by Kim Ong <kimong@delphi.com>

<It has been a formative book for me.  I first read it when I was 16, and I 
remembered being helplessly drawn to the power in that book.  The sense of 
foreboding and that wasting darkness that can exist just somewhere between 
ourselves is too strong to be shaken away simply.  I think that effect has more 
or less subsided now, but it had deep influences on my present appreciation of 
my reading materials.  I don`t think I would have enjoyed most to today's 
Postmodernist Literature from the likes of Kundera and Pynchon without coming
across this book.  It has somehow remained to be a "Nietzsche" to me.>

_Shikasta_ by Doris Lessing
  Recommended by Eric Lichtenstein <ericl@sonic.net>

_Shogun_ by James Clavell
  Recommended by Amy Beth Rosewater <rosewate@ucsub.colorado.edu>

<This is truly a book you can't put down.  If you saw the mini-series and 
are doubtful, set aside your doubts and read it.  You won't be disappointed.>

_A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush_ by Eric Newby
  Recommended by Gino del Rosario <gdelrosa@lynx.dac.neu.edu>

<A great lighthearted travel book.  It deals with the Eric Newby's trip 
to the Nuristan mountains in Afghanistan.  For those Sundays when you just 
want to stay in bed (all of them.)>

_Siddhartha_ by Herman Hesse
  Recommended by Andy Howard <andy.howard@abacus.org>

_Silence_ by John Cage
  Recommended by David Miller <dpmiller@world.std.com>

_Silverlock_ by John Myers Myers
  Recommended by Daniel Lauer <lauer@enif.astro.indiana.edu>

<Silverlock is the adventure taken by everyone who loves literature.  The 
quest to know, create in and belong to the commonwealth of letters.>

_Skinny Legs and All_ by Tom Robbins
  Recommended by Angela <jedi13@med1.vitro.com>

<The story is based on the controversy of a Jew an an Arab opening a 
restaurant in New York City.  The central conflict is portrayed through 
many different walks of life, including inanimate objects.  As usual, 
Robbins's writing is rich with allusions and descriptions.  If you've 
never read Tom Robbins, it's an excellent introduction.>

_Slan_ by A. E. Van Vogt
  Recommedned by Dale Hess (hess@gdesystems.com)

<A story of persecution of superior beings among humans, and what it took for 
them to survive.  As a gifted teenager in a small town, this helped me to 
survive, and taught me the value of discretion and silence.  It also taught me 
to face envy from the less-capable, and deal with it.  Most computer types 
could probably relate to this even today.>

_Slaughterhouse-Five_ by Kurt Vonnegut
  Recommended by Bill Munze <wtmunze@mailbox.syr.edu>

<This should be required reading for everyone alive.>

_Snow Crash_ by Neal Stephenson
  Recommended by Andres Magnusson <andres@centrum.is>

<While extremely funny and entertaining it is also thought-provoking and gives 
the reader some clue of how 'The Net' might evolve into being an alternative 
universe. (Of course some of us are already halfway there.)>

_The Snow Leopard_ by Peter Mathiessen
  Recommended by Peter Colapinto <peterc@whistler.net>

<If you have travelled or will travel in the Himalayas this is a magical
book about the power of physical nature.>

_A Soldier of the Great War_ by Mark Helprin
  Recommended by Tom Maki <71165.642@compuserve.com>

<An old man recalls an adventurous life of love, pain, endurance, and devotion 
to beauty (which he has sometimes found in the most unexpected places.)  Like 
all of Helprin's work,  I found this book to be exquisitely written, with the
capacity to awaken the senses and stir the spirit.>

_Something Wicked This Way Comes_ by Ray Bradbury
  Recommended by Mark Clamen <clamen@epas.utoronto.ca>

_Sometimes a Great Notion_ by Ken Kesey
  Recommended by Andy Latto <andyl@harlequin.com>

<The great thing for me about a novel is seeing the world from the perspective 
of someone else.  Events of the novel are seen from the perspective of two 
main characters; this book has taught me more than anything else how different 
our external and internal landscapes can be from each other, and has shaped 
how I see the world and other people.>

_The Sound and the Fury_ by William Faulkner
  Recommended by Doug Hill <doogie@world.std.com>

<Faulkner's study of the downfall of the rich southern aristocratic 
Compson family beautifully expenflies the pains through which the South 
struggled to enter the twentieth century.>

_Space Viking_ by H. Beam Piper
  Recommended by Mark Hughes <hughe881@uidaho.edu>

<It's hard for me to pick any one of Piper's works, but this one covers
vengeance, religion, politics, freedom, and whatever it is that makes humans
different from two-legged animals.  Almost everything I know about morality 
is from Piper.>

_Speaker for the Dead_ by Orson Scott Card
  Recommended by Len Trigg <trigg@cs.waikato.ac.nz>

_The Stand_ by Stephen King
  Recommended by Bill Calhoun <bcalhoun@pixi.com>

<Ultimate book on good against evil. Have read it three times and discover 
something new each time.>

_Steppenwolf_ by Herman Hesse
  Recommended by Tom Manshreck <shreck@geoworks.com>

<I don't think anyone should read this book until they're ready, and by ready 
I mean having gone through and come back from a major crisis.  Otherwise, it 
might not make much sense. It offers a great deal of wisdom into how our 
desires define us and breaks from the good vs. evil mindset of most "meaning 
of life" philosophies.  It offers us a way to find ourselves.>

_Steps_ by Jerzy Kosinski
  Recommended by Guy Maor <gmaor@npc.ece.utexas.edu>

_The Stone Dogs_ by S.M. Stirling
  Recommended by Jeff Waggoner <j-waggoner@helios.district86.k12.il.us>

<_The_ best alternate universe story I've ever read, this is really the third 
volume of a trilogy but stands fine on its own.  You will either love it or 
hate it.>

_The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Recommended by Kelly M Tomlinson <tomlinso@badlands.NoDak.edu>

<Scott Fitzgerald was a true genius.>

_Stranger in a Strange Land_ by Robert Heinlein
  Recommended by Robert Hathaway <rhathaway@delphi.com>
  Recommended by TaMarra <c573403@showme.missouri.edu>

<Robert: This book influenced most of my beliefs about man and god.>

<TaMarra: This book revisits Christian martyrdom with a sci-fi twist.  It 
provides interesting insight on the subjects of comedy/tragedy, love, 
cannibalism, the sculptures of Rodin -- not to mention humanity in general. 
And who would have thought a martian/human named Michael St. Valentine would 
have impacted my life so dramatically? I plan to name my first son after Jubal 
Hershaw (a major character who revels in the tragic beauty of Rodin's Little 
Mermaid and Fallen Caryatid).>

_The Stress of Her Regard_ by Tim Powers
  Recommended by Stan Hamnett <SHamnett@aol.com>

<I've loved all of Powers' novels and it was difficult to make a choice, 
but this is the one book that I've most enjoyed out of all the books I've 
read in the past five years.  I'm something of a sucker for the British 
Romantic poets, especially where the backstory for the writing of  
_Frankenstein_ is concerned (i.e. Percy Shelley and Lord Byron and their 
respective families and hangers on get together for a summer; one night 
they attempt to outdo each other with ghost stories, with Mary Shelley   
the winner).  I love the movies _Gothic_ and _Haunted Summer_, which both   
deal with this scenario, but I loved this book even more.  The whole   
Romantic ideal is treated in epic scope throughout the book -- John Keats   
even makes an appearance -- as is the idea of the poetic muse.  A more   
tragic, beautiful, funny, life-affirming book I cannot think of.>

_The Suburban Book of the Dead: Armageddon 3, The Remake_ by Robert Rankin
  Recommended by Stuart Haigh <skh20@hermes.cam.ac.uk>

<If you're into books featuring time-travelling Sprouts called Barry, 
Elvis the Everliving, and Rex Mundi,(A little hint there for you Latin 
Scholars), Then this is probably the book for you!>

If not, you'll probably thing it's dead weird!>

_Swan's Song_ by Robert R. McCammon
  Recommended by Robert Yunk <elmo@cts.com>

<Classic end of the world as we know it, good vs. evil novel.  Yet, it is a 
story about hope.  Some very moving chapters.  I can't think of another book 
that I have read that brought tears to my eyes.>

_The Tao of Pooh_ by Benjamin Hoff
  Recommended by Keith Ludeman <keithl@computek.net>

_The Tao Te Ching_ by Lao Tzu
  Recommended by Tom Kunesh <tpkunesh@chattanooga.net>

<A religious text for atheists, agnostics and other non-theists.  After 
reading Sherlock Holmes and beginning my lifelong inquest into human reason 
and meaning, I realized that my childhood belief in the deity of Jesus was 
socially prescribed at best, and irrational at worst.  When I joined the 
USNavy, and being allowed to only take in one book - which had to be a 
religious text, I kept the _Dao deh jing_ with me.>

_The Temple of My Familiar_  by Alice Walker
  Recommended by Denise Schwahn <ds690565@bcm.tmc.edu>

<Gripping, vibrant with scenes and lives and stories that are a part of us 
all.  Inspires me to celebrate my best and struggle honestly with my worst.  
Sexless, genderful, ten thousand years more than _The Color Purple_.>

_The Third Policeman_ by Flann O'Brian
  Recommended by Dave Rogers <dave.rogers@bt-sys.bt.co.uk>

<To describe, recommend or even categorise this book would be futile, and 
might even interfere with the reader's enjoyment of it.  Let me simply say 
that it is both funny and subtly terrifying, and has clouded my view of 
reality ever since I first read it.>

_A Thousand Acres_ by Jane Smiley
  Recommended by Linda Samuel <eainet@us.net>

<A modern-day version of King Lear, Smiley parallels life on an Iowa farm to 
Shakespear's world of Lear.  Smiley is one of those writers who can put into 
words thoughts and feelings that I could never descibe myself.  Her work 
brings the reader into Ginny's world and into the depths of her mind.>

_The Tidewater Tales: A Novel_ by John Barth
  Recommended by Dan Ray <rayd@stolaf.edu>

<Barth is a postmodern writer, working in a system that is almost sixty years
old and has not yet been very well defined.  He is one of my favorite writers, 
his novels are always simultaneously entertaining and intriguing.  _The 
Tidewater Tales_ is a sort of celebration of the posibilities of life in spite 
of all of the reasons _not_ to celebrate life.  This is one of the only books 
that made me sad the the characters aren't real; they're that well painted.>

_Tigana_ by Guy Gavriel Kay
  Recommended by Aaron Humphrey <aaron@amisk.cs.ualberta.ca>

<This is a big thick fantasy book, almost unique these days in being a 
standalone.  It has its flaws, but overall I think it's the best fantasy 
book I've ever read.>

_Time's Arrow_ by Martin Amis
  Recommended by Ludo Vangilbergen <Ludo.Vangilbergen@ccl.kuleuven.ac.be>

<It's the story of a nazi war criminal, told backwards. At the start
it's just funny, but gradually, as we move to the period where the main
character is a doctor at a concentration camp, the backward descriptions
are not funny anymore. Consider only that the extinction of the Jews is
described a life creation!
 
For me the book was philisophically-linguistically very important as it
raised an important question about the relationship between language and
time/reality. Is language referring to reality or is it just a means to
CREATE reality?

Apart from that, the book is a very appropriate answer to any revisionist.>

_To the Lighthouse_ by Virginia Woolf
  Recommended by Mary Tyler Knowles <mknowles@k12.ucs.umass.edu>

<Woolf's treatment of the woman as artist in every sense: as creating 
and uniting the family as wife and mother and as visual artist who can 
connnect time past, present, and future. Woolf's style--her ability to 
capture and recreate time passing as well as her ability to be 
simultaneously objective and subjective was the most amazing tour de 
force I ever experienced.>

_Tonio Kroeger_ by Thomas Mann
  Recommended by Paul F. Burton <paul@dis.strath.ac.uk>

<This made quite an impact when I read it in my late teens, even though it
was a set book for the German literature course I was studying!  It raised
and answered a lot of questions I didn't realise were concerning me.  It is
also a superb example of the novelist's craft: like antique furniture, you
can see the joints, but that adds to the impact, it doesn't detract.>

_Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog_ by Mark Leyner
  Recommended by Nancy Winston <nwinston@wv.MENTORG.COM>

_Trainspotting_ by Irvine Welch
  Recommended by Slapp Graham <slappg@lfgms.logica.com>

<Not about writing down engine numbers at all!  This is the story of a group 
of friends (and enemies) from Edinburgh struggling with booze, drugs, sex, 
AIDS, and life in the 90's.  This is grimmer, more 'depraved' AND funnier than 
Martin Amis will ever be.  Like James Kelman it is written in the Scottish 
vernacular and all the better for it too!>

_Travels_ by Michael Crighton
  Recommended by Drew Kurth <32000HK3@macnet.cpa.texas.gov>

<Before he set his goals for the top of the bestseller list, Crighton wrote
this insightful, inttrospective look at life and his place in it.>

_Travels with Charley_ by John Steinbeck
  Recommended by Dan Gregor <dgregor@hampshire.edu>

<One of the classic works of the American road-trip genre along with Jack 
Kerouac's _On the Road_ and William Least Heat Moon's _Blue Highways_, I 
think this is Steinbeck's finest work, and one of the most vivid, colorful, 
fantastic, inspiring books ever written. Steinbeck is a magician with words, 
and with just a few can transport you to what, when and where he is writing. 
This book has served as an inspirational manual for two cross-country road 
trips, and helped me to see things like I never had before. His descriptions 
of places are those of a native, one who knows and feels and believes the 
sense of the place. I have always wanted to extend my road trips to encompass 
Europe, but with the aid of this book and the way it made me look at America, 
I have realized there is still far too much of the United States to see for 
me to branch out yet. 

I'll end with a quotation from the book that I treasure: "A journey is a 
person in itself, no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and 
coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take 
a trip; a trip takes us.">

_A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ by Betty Smith
  Recommended by Mary Fairchild <mfairchi@ssf4.jsc.nasa.gov>

<This is the story of a young girl growing up in the poor Irish section of 
Brooklyn, New York, right around WWI. It is beautifully written, funny as well 
as touching.  I first read it as a young teen, and have re-read it almost every
year since.  There is much wisdom in looking at the world through the eyes of 
this one poor child with indomitable spirit.  The characters will live in you 
forever.  All four of Betty Smith's novels are terrific to read, especially if 
you are an Irish Catholic (or you know one!)>

_Trinity_ by Leon Uris
  Recommended by Brian Loftus <brianl@tiac.net>

<A fascinating historical novel of the plight of the Catholics in Northern 
Ireland.   A strong story of human pain, suffering, endurance and triumph 
which also reveals that the Jews were not the only people persecuted in 
history.  Leon Uris is by all estimations, one of the greatest storytellers 
ever.>

_Trout Fishing in America_ by Richard Brautigan
  Recommended by Luke McCormick <lmccormick@cisco.com>

<It's not about fishing, or America.  It's not a novel, or a collection
of short stories, or poems.  It's about everything and nothing, and
it comes in short, disconnected chapters that makes it the greatest
book ever for reading on the can.>

_True Names_ by Vernor Vinge
  Recommended by Ed Costello <ed.costello@quickmail.llnl.gov>

_Tuva or Bust_ by Ralph Leighton
  Recommended by Tatiana Divens <tatiana@well.sf.ca.us>

<Hilarious, heartbreaking book about the late physist Richard Feynman and his 
attempt to get to the totally unknown country of Tanna Tuva.  Got me out of a 
black hole, this book.  Changed my life.  Not to worry - no numbers, and the 
physics is hilariously easy to understand.>

_Uh-oh_ by Robert Fulghum
  Recommended by Kevin Brooks <brooks@media.mit.edu>

<I like Fulghum's books because he is an excellent observer of life.
But he doesn't just observe, he also incorporates what he sees into
the fabric of his own life.  Then he seems to stand back and comment on
the new emergent patterns.  This is influential for me because it
helps me see my own emergent patterns of life.>

_Ulysses_ by James Joyce
  Recommended by Chamy Cooper

_The Unlimited Dream Company_ by J.G. Ballard
  Recommended by Kimberly Ann McCoid <mccoid@gladstone.uoregon.edu>

_Voyage au bout de la nuit_ by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
  English title: _Journey to the End of the Night_
  Recommended by Francois Demers <francoisdemers@gate.pshift.com>
  Recommended by Benoit Mason <maison@tele.ucl.ac.be>

<Francois: The narrative is quite dark, existentialism cubed.  The style is 
what makes reading it such an experience.  Celine is Joyce and Faulkner 
combined.  Worth learning French for :-) >

_Voyage from Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan
  Recommended by Godfrey van der Linden <gvdl@next.com>

<The society around which the action occurs defines my picture of a  
Technological Utopia.  The books explores one possibility in a society with 
limitless resources when it interacts with a limited society.  I only hope 
that we will travel down a similar path one  day.  James Hogan gets his 
science pretty well believable but his characterisation sucks, still 
very readable.>

_Waiting for Godot_ by Samuel Beckett
  Recommended by Kevin Osborn <kosborn@netcom.com>

<Strange and highly symbolic. This is absurdity at its best.>

_Walden_ by Henry David Thoreau
  Recommended by Jamie Blustein

_Walking on Glass_ by Iain Banks
  Recommended by Pete Rodgers <pjr@dcs.bbk.ac.uk>

<The best British writer of the 80s.  His books are well written, funny, and 
deeply sick.  In 'Walking on Glass' he describes three interconnecting stories 
where amusing and horrifying things happen.  One is that of a highly paranoid 
science fiction fan in London; another is a tale of a Scottish student in love 
with a distant, beautiful girl; and the last is of two people stranded in a 
tower on a desolate planet, who have to play bizarre board games to escape.>

_War and Peace_ by Leo Tolstoy
  Recommended by Elsie Pettit <pettit@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>

_Watership Down_ by Richard Adams
  Recommended by Brandi Weed <brandi@knowledge.com>

<Just a really good, really charming adventure story, making a whole new 
world out of one that's right here in your backyard, so to speak.  Adams 
did a wonderful job of building up rabbit culture and mythology and making 
it all fit.>

_Way of the Peaceful Warrior_ by Dan Millman
  Recommended by Josh Polterock <joshuap@sdsc.edu>
  Recommended by Troy King <troyk@infi.net>

<Troy: I've given a dozen copies of this book to friends over the years. 
It's easy to read and the story provides some very important insight into 
being human.>

_Welcome to Hell_ by Jan Arriens
  Recommended by Mandy Hampson <Mandy@hampsons.demon.co.uk>

<It will change the way you look at the world, it is incredibly moving and 
inspiring - not depressing, as you might expect from the title! I can't 
recommend it highly enough.>

_West With the Night_ by Beryl Markham
  Recommended by Paula Eeds <Paula.Eeds@ucop.edu>

<This is an autobiography of Beryl's life growing up in East Africa in the
early 1900's.  It describes her as a child playing with the Murani natives
and her adult life as a trainer and breeder of race horses and later working
and travelling as an aviator.   I absolute LOVE this book!  It is a book of
beauty, humor and wisdom.   It just takes my breath away!>

_A Whale for the Killing_ by Farley Mowat
  Recommended by Mike Fleice <Mike.Fleice@Corp.Sun.COM>

<Riveting account by a great author.>

_When Gravity Fails_ by George Alec Effinger
  Recommended by Todd McGillivray <fastjack@mi.net>

<The first good cyberpunk novel where the main character has to deal with real 
life subjects, like drug abuse and his drinking habits, and once you get to 
the third book, taking care of a woman who's husband was killed.  It's 
cyberpunk in a Muslim setting, and that itself makes it wonderful.>

_White Light_ by Rudy Rucker
  Recommended by Paul Bickmore <P.K.Bickmore@soton.ac.uk>

<The story is quite the most bizzare tale you're ever likely to come across
(it makes Alice in Wonderland look like a day out in Yarmouth).  It seems to
be a biography of himself, as a mathematics lecturer who sets out to discover 
the true nature of infinity. And meets some very odd characters on the way. 
It's a very original method of teaching some pretty slippery concepts of our 
Universe in a very eye-opening and fascinating way.>

_White Noise_ by Don DeLillo
  Recommended by Ted Askew <askew@pacificrim.net>

_Who Has Seen the Wind_ by W.O. Mitchel
  Recommended by John De Genova <DEGENOVJ@i8e.istc.ca>

<It is a book about growing up and coming to terms with adult life.  It 
deals with the simple pleasures of life and deals with issues that are 
really important in a soft, easy manner.  It gives the reader a feeling 
for Canadian character and silent toughness.>

_The Wind in the Willows_ by Kenneth Graham
  Recommended by Christopher Olsen <colsen@engr.mun.ca>

<Because it is more than a book - its a philosophy, a way of life - and 
more of a pleasure with every read.>

_Without Remorse_ by Tom Clancy
  Recommended by Matt Carter <mcarter@enterprise.powerup.com.au>

<It is a brilliantly depicted fiction novel about a man who is torn between 
his love for his country and a love for a girl (who by the way is killed). 
He then is asked by the US goverment to return to active service yet at 
the same time he wants to avenge her killers.  He goes on to be discovered 
as the murderer of her murderers and becomes the man known as Mr. Clark 
who features throughout all of Tom Clancy's other novels.>

_The Woman Warrior_ by Maxine Hong Kingston
  Recommended by Jackie Cunningham <jackie@combinet.com>

_A Wrinkle in Time_ by Madeline L'Engle
  Recommended by Jeannine Klein <jmek@flammulated.owlnet.rice.edu>

<Its strongest claim to fame is that it is both thought-provoking and 
faith-inspiring (a real, non-sectarian faith) for those who have lost their 
faith/find their faith endangered/never had and don't necessarily want any 
faith.  It was, for me and many others, a child's delightful introduction 
to -real- science fiction (not just shoot-em-up on another planet).  I first 
read this book when I was 10 (at the suggestion of a nun in a Catholic school, 
of all people!!) and have been re-reading it (and its sequels) ever since.>

_Writings of Baha'u'llah_ by Baha'u'llah
  Recommended by Mark Richardson Knox <Mark.Richardson.Knox@um.cc.umich.edu>

<It may seem obvious for a follower of a religion to recommend their 
favorite holy book, and so perhaps in that light I am being shallow
or unthoughtful in my entry.  However, to no other book can I attribute
such a life transforming organization of English words as I can the above
title.  Baha'u'llah enjoins upon His followers to "immerse [them]selves
in the ocean of My words;" and that advice I offer forward to whosoever, 
Baha'i or not, encounters this short testimony to the immensity of the 
small volume of writings in English of the One Who proclaims Himself to be, 
in part, none other than a return of Jesus Chirst and the Promised One 
of all faiths.>

_Wuthering Heights_ by Charlotte Bronte
  Recommended by James Powell <J.Powell@cs.ucl.ac.uk>

<Such a powerful book - written by a woman in isolation.>

_Yertle the Turtle_ by Dr. Seuss
  Recommended by Dan Brown <brown@vmedia.com>

<I think its appeal comes from the powerful message delivered in such simple 
terms.  It brings the complex issue of liberty into focus.>

_The Young Visiters_ by Daisy Ashford
  Recommended by Jim Ward <jfw@radix.net>

<It is a charming, romantic, masterpiece written by a nine year old girl.>

_Your Money or Your Life_ by Joe Dominguiez and Vicki Robin.
  Recommended by Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>

<Great way to figure out what's *really* important to you, and tells
you how to get to the point where you can do it>

_Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ by Robert Pirsig
  Recommended by Mark Nowak <nowak@comm.mot.com>
  Recommended by Ted Ashton <ashted@saturn.wwc.edu>
  Recommended by S. C. King <S.C.King@dcs.hull.ac.uk>

<Mark: Thought-provoking, insightful, educational, uplifting, touching 
and deep.  It's the story of a man's search for meaning and personal 
growth and what happened along the way.>

<Ted: It is a book which deals directly with one of the primary problems 
of our day -- the lack of caring.  _Zen_ has been for me a great 
encouragement and a book I have shared with my closest friends.>

<S.C.: Not deep into Buddist practice and not very factual about motorcycle 
maintainance.   An excellent book.>

_Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind_ by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
  Recommended by Jo Rourke <jorourke@emerald.tufts.edu>

<This is a blueprint for Zen meditation practice.  It says the right thing 
whether you've never meditated or meditated for 50 years.>


** End of list **

Current access methods:

    WWW: http://www.primus.com/staff/paulp/one-book.txt
    FTP: ftp://ftp.primus.com/pub/one-book/one-book.txt

What is the "One Book" list?

  My proposal is this: one book.  I would like for each of you to
decide on a single book that you would most like for the world to read,
and mail me the author and title.  The book that, for you, was the
most influential, or thought-provoking, or enjoyable, or moving, or
philosophically powerful, or deep in some sense you cannot properly
define, or any other criteria you wish to set.
 
  I will maintain a list of books, and place your name and email address
next to the book you recommend, as well as any commentary you would like
to include on why you chose this book above all others as the one you
would most like others to read.  Please be sure to include the book's
author and title.
 
  I know that for many of us, it is difficult to choose between the
hundreds of books that have helped to shape our thoughts.  I ask that
everyone limit themselves to one book keep this from becoming an 
unmanageably large collection.
 
  Looking forward to hearing from each of you.

Regards,

 -Paul Phillips (paulp@primus.com)


** Why I compile this list **

  I do this because it fascinates me and I enjoy it very much.  However,
realize that I hold *full* control over its contents.  Many people have
written me to complain that I do not include commentary on the Bible; most
of these people pointed out unhappily that I did include commentary on the
Book of Mormon.  I was accused of a variety of nefarious motives.  In fact,
the only motivating factor was the relative length.  There were a dozen or
so lines on the Book of Mormon, and pages upon pages on the Bible.

  I have now removed all commentary on mainstream religious texts.  This
decision is not up for appeal.