Job Discussion Forums

[zeke0606]

There was a thread about different authors on this KSA forum some time ago. And quite a few posters added their two cents worth to it - so the list of favored authors and titles was quite long. I saved that long list of authors and their 'better' book titles - I put it is such a save place that I have no idea where I saved it and have probably lost it.

Anyone remember that post? And more importantly, can you aim me in the right direction to find it again? Most of the authors I knew and have read, but some were new to me and sounded like a good read.

Zeke

[veiledsentiments]

Did you mean this one from the General ME branch?

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=62018

I referred people in that one to a great thread that was running on the Lonely Planet site... don't know if the link still works or not as they have been working on the system over there lately.

I do recall that there was a thread on general reading... did it get pulled?

VS

[zeke0606]

Hi VS -

Unfortunately that isn't the one. The one that I have been searching for actually had a long list of authors and their better book titles. And a bit of conversation before and after, That listing had about 70 or so author's names and all the books were in English. These were great reading books and not about the Middle East.

Thank you very much for your time and effort. Are you preparing to go south again this winter?

Zeke

[veiledsentiments]

I've been down here for a month... it has been down to minus 20+ with lots of blizzards back home.

As I think about it, Johnslat was on that thread... perhaps you could try searching his posts?

VS

[zeke0606]

VS -

Searching johnslat's posts is a great idea and I thought of that. He was a contributor, but not the OP. I cannot remember the title of the OP either. Maybe as this post rides into the sunset - others may see it and respond..... maybe even johnslat himself?!?!?!?

We are just now getting to sub-zero temperatures and a little snow. It is very late though, we should have had 3 meters of snow by 1 December. The weather folks here say that we will never have another 'deep freeze' winter again in Russia. My friends in Green Bay are in deep snow and cold and have been there for a week or so.

Is your 'odd' neighbor still there?

Zeke

[johnslat]

Dear zeke0606,

Was this it?

The worst part about even trying to make a list like this is that I know I'm going to leave SO many good books off it.

The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer

The Way by Loa tzu

Histories by Herodotus

The Plays of Aristophanes,

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

The Works of Aristotle and Plato

The New Testament

The Lives of Great Greeks and Romans by Plutarch

The Writings of Epicurus

The Annals by Tacitus

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Confessions by St. Augustine

A Thousand and One Nights

The Poems of Rumi

In Praise of Folly by Erasmus

The Divine Comedy by Dante

The Prince by Machiavelli

Essays by Montaigne

Pensees by Blaise

Pascal Ethics by Baruch Spinoza

Candide by Voltaire

Don Quixote by Cervantes Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais

The Poetry of John Donne

The Works of Shakespeare



Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

The Poetry of William Blake

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Faust by Goethe

The Human Comedy by Balzac

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard

Civil Disobedience and Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau

The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Brooks Adams

The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Red and the Black and The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal

The Poetry of Emily D i c kinson

The Poetry of Walt Whitman

Thus Spake Zarathustra by Nietzsche

Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Moby D i c k by Herman Melville

The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Father Brown Stories and Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

The Poetry of W.B. Yeats

The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud

Magister Ludi and Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

The Poetry of Rainer Marie Rilke

Psychological Types by Carl Jung

The Poetry of W.H. Auden I and Thou by Martin Buber Canto



General by Pablo Neruda Syntactic Structures by Noah Chomsky

The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Creatures that Were Once Men by Maxim Gorky

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz

Fictions and Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

MaN's Fate by Andre Malraux

The Golden Bough by James Frazer

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The American Language by H. L. Mencken

The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner

The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Sound and the Fury and Light in August by William Faulkner

Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West The Long Good-bye by Raymond Chandler The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather At Swim Two Birds by Flann O'Brien The Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee Motivation and Personality by Abraham Maslow The Once and Future King by T.H. White The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger Native Son by Richard Wright Judgment and Reasoning in the Child by Piaget The Plays of Samuel Beckett To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers The Phenomenon of Man by Teilhard de Chardin Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman Brave New World by Aldous Huxley I, Claudius by Robert Graves Seize the Day, The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog by Saul Bellow Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer Set This House on Fire and Sophie's Choice by William Stryon The Lord of the Flies by William Golding Slaughterhouse Five and Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Portney's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater by Phillip Roth The Fixer and The Tenants by Bernard Malamud Watership Down by Richard Adams Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow The History Man by David Lodge Killer Angels by Michael Shaara The World According to Garp and The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving The Proper Study of Mankind by Isaiah Berlin Creation and Lincoln by Gore Vidal Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie The Magus by John Fowles The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams The Double Helix by James Watson Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Dubliners and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Plague and The Stranger by Albert Camus ( well, anything by him, really ) The Trial and The Castle by Franz Kafka Cosmicomics and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino Lord Jim and The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Lolita and Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov 1984 and Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell The Heart of the Matter and A Burnt-out Case by Graham Greene Actually, anything by all these writers ( fiction or non-fiction ) is first-rate. Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Catch-22 by Joseph Heller Handling Sin by Michael Malone A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Anything by Walker Percy Ditto by Flannery O'Conner Underworld by Don DeLillo ( or, again, anything by him ) Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon Anything by Richard Russo ( especially, "Nobody's Fool and Empire Falls

I'm afraid it''s mostly a "Western canon", but here are a few Eastern additions:
The Book of Five Rings, The Art of Tea, The Art of War, The Rig Veda, The Bhagavad Gita, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (Paul Reps), and Robert Hass' translation of the haiku of Basho, Buson and Issa.

Regards,
John

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

John, don't forget "Curious George"!

NCTBA

[zeke0606]

John ------

I am astounded! You did not type this list just for me, did you? I want to thank you so very much! I was an English Lit major at university -- so you know that we did not get many of the more popular authors of the day. That is why I liked that listing of titles - all modern writers.
Do you remember that thread a few months ago that went off topic and every poster wrote about the English language novels and authors that they liked and could recommend to others? I saved that one and lost it!

John, let me thank you very much once again! I cannot think of a better holiday gift! And we now have a book store that specializes in foreign (read that - English and American authors) books of much better production quality than the Russian books with similar titles.

Zeke

[johnslat]

Dear zeke606,
Fortunately I had occasion to look up that list before, and I saved it then in My Documents. I'm very happy I was able to provide it to you.
Although I named only one or two books for many of the authors, most of them wrote a number of others as well. And I've never been disappointed by any work written by any author on that list. While I did put my personal picks for their best stuff, everything, for example, that Waugh, Burgess or any of the other authors mentioned, wrote is a treat.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS,
John

[redeyes]

Wow, that's an utterly amazing list of books there -- Were many of those books freely available to buy in Saudi, or did you stock up on holiday trips?

Now I can see what some teachers do with all the non drinking, non carousing hours in tee total Saudi -- and pretty impressive it is too.

I am also susrpised at how many of 'em I have read too over the years -- From your list, I think that I particularly enjoyed the Lao Tzu,Aurelius and Rumi texts -- I like the Stoic approach, with a holisitc outlook from Rumi.

Just a quick question John -- Wahabbi students I taught fairly recently ( not in Saudi ) had an outright hostile,totaly rejectionist view of writers like Hafiz, Rumi, Khayyam etc -- presumably because they were Shia and/or Sufi? I suppose that would also be a general view of them in Saudi? What's your view? ( Needless to say, Iranians I taught typically immediately went misty eyed at the very mention of them )

[redeyes]

PS,

John, would any of those books be on the "not allowed in Saudi" list? I am thinking in particular of the Polytheist texts on your list. Or, is it more a case of, ( as some other posters have mentioned ) as long as there aren't any blatantly "offensive" images on display in your books ( the naked female form, religious imagery such as crosses, Icons, stars of david, pics of booze, drugs etc ) , then they mostly go unnoticed?

(On a second point -- perhaps we could revive the thread and find out what people are currently reading -- Mine would be Tacitus, and Peter Ackroyd's books)

[007]

[johnslat]

Dear redeyes,
I can't give a 100% guarantee about bringing ANY books into Saudi Arabia, but unless you have the very unlikely misfortune to run into a real zealot at customs, I'd say you could bring in any book on that list.
I brought many of them through customs myself and had others shipped to me in an "M-bag" which I'd mail off in June and usually get in late September or early October. I never had any problems. I bought very few books in Saudi, but you can get an awful lot of paperbacks in an "M-bag."
As I've mentioned before, when you can buy what has to be one of the lewdest, most violent books I've ever encountered ("American Psycho" - maybe they think it's a biography of Dubya) at Jarir Bookstore in Riyadh, it's hard to see what would get you in trouble (although "The Satanic Verses" by Rushdie might, I suppose.)
At customs it's pictures they seem to be mainly interested in, and I very much doubt many customs people are well-versed in English/American Lit.

As for Rumi Hafiz, etc., well, most Saudis (as most of the rest of the world) likely aren't even familiar with their works. I did know some Saudis who were as enthusiastic about Rumi, especially, as I am. But I'm sure the "fundamentalists", the literate ones, that is (probably a small minority in that grouping) consider Rumi and the others as heretics and/or apostates.
Regards,
John

[redeyes]

Thanks John for your info re. Saudi and books. That's a very erudite book list you have there.

007 , Yes, I think you make very fair points on those authors. However, I knew some very conservative Iranians, one of them a very strict, austere Imam, who assured me the "wine and inebriation" references in Persian poetry were "purely a metaphor" and "certainly shouldn't be taken literally."

They seemed to be making the case that the "drunken" references were simply imagery/metaphor for feelings of divine rapture, no more. ( perhaps in the same way that in very early European and Middle Estern Christian literature , we often see what look like direct references to romantic love in descriptions of holy men's rapture )

Regarding Khayyam -- I am not sure I find the Iranian Imam's "metaphorical perspective" to be an altogether convincing explanation.

Points taken 007. Khayyam ( as you say ) seems pretty much a heretical ( even aetheist) character.

Woudn't you say though, that poets such as Hafiz and Rumi were not so obviously on shaky ground theologically as Khayyam?

But then again, they were all Shia, and ( possibly,apparently ) Sufi....

[johnslat]

Dear redeyes,
Rumi was definitely Sufi. But one can be a Sunni Sufi or a Shia Sufi. Regarding the "drunkenness", well, Christians often claim a similar metaphoric interpretation for the "Song of Solomon"

"Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.
Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.
Thy two br*easts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.
Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.
Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.
Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard,"

See, it not REALLY about romantic and sexual love. Nope, it's about the love of Christ for his Church.

Well, maybe. But you know, as Freud reportedly once said when he was asked if his ever-present cigar was a phallic symbol:

"Sometimes, my boy, a cigar is only a cigar."

Regards,
John