Think you're a serious reader? Think you can't find any thing that will grab your soul like Beowulf's grip? Think again - if you haven't read these books, you haven't read.
No
Chance Meetings Books & Odd Bits: HOMEPAGE
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling. The adventures of Harry continue. The best book yet. Also available in Audio tape or CD.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling. An orphan boy discovers on his eleventh birthday that he is a "famous wizard" and leaves his "muggle" (non-wizard) aunt and uncle's home to attend Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A very clever and original story. Also available in Audio tape or CD.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling. The adventures of Harry Potter continue. Harry's second year at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Danger again stalks Harry and the school. Students and cats are being paralyzed, and Harry is hearing voices that no one else can hear. Gilderoy Lockhart is a hilarious character. Also available in Audio tape or CD.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling. Harry's third year at Hogwart's. An insane criminal escapes from the wizard prison, Azkaban, and he's looking for Harry. The Marauder's Map is one of the best chapters yet. Also available in Audio tape or CD.
1. A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. It has the best opening lines this century, and Owen Meany's voice still haunts me, the reader, even after all these years.
2. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. If you thought he only wrote science fiction, you're wrong.
3. Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. The hulking Quoyle unknots his ropes of misery.
4. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (here available from Amazon.uk in a 1 volume paperback edition). Read The Silmarillion. Then reread The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. You'll find you're reading an entirely different story. Also available in 3 volume paperback edition from Amazon.com: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King.
Go
to J.R.R. Tolkien page.
5. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutterson. The Northwest. World War II and Japanese-Americans. A love story and murder trial.
6. Just Another Day in Paradise and Just Enough Light to Kill by A.E. Maxwell. The Fiddler and Fiora books. The sparks between this divorced couple burn everyone. The first book is out of print and not immediately available through Amazon.com, e-mail us at Nelson@sicembears.com and we'll try to find you a copy.
7. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Piggy and Ralph find the dark side of man exists even in children.
8. English Creek by Ivan Doig. The life of 14-year-old Jick in Montana. A masterpiece by one of this century's best.
9. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Said to by the Master to be his favorite "child."
10. The Once and Future King by T.H. White. Some of my best times has been listening to my sister, a medievalist, discuss King Arthur and his legends. This is a good place to dive into the Legend.
Go to The Medievalist Page.
11. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. You must enter the Wardrobe, if only to meet Reepicheep. Also available in paperback.
GO TO Narnia & C.S. Lewis
page.
12. The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James. Who is the Beast?
13. Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The most famous failed law student in Western culture.
14. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney. Definition of Hero: Beowulf does the right thing, even though there's no hope left for eternity.
15. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. (How did you miss this?)
16. Bonfire of the Vanities by Thomas Wolfe I know he wears white suits. Get over it. Great writing is not bound by fashion designers. Read through at least one of the best chapters in thirty years, "The Masque of the Red Death."
17. The Rain in the Trees. by W.S. Merwyn.
18. Crime and Punishment by Fodor Dostoevsky.
19. Peter the Great by Raymond K. Massey.
20. The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban. Don't let the title scare you. It was marketed as a children's book, but it's really for adults. (Available from Amazon.uk)
21. The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. Snitter lives.
22. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow.
23. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. For any one ever caught in red tape. Not recommended reading for bureaucrats.
24. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Who is John Galt? The guy who stops the motor of the world.
25. The Odyssey by Homer. A man who rejects immortality and the love of a goddess to find his home and aged wife on a trip of years and years from a war he was dragged into against his will.
26. Dancing Wu Li Masters: The New Physics.by Gary Zukav. This will scare the step-by-step technical minds.
27. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, Scout, Jem, Dill, and Atticus Finch will live in your head forever after you read this book. Also available in paperback; the movie with Gregory Peck (and Robert Duvall as Boo Radley) is available.
28. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. A detective flat on his back in a hospital works on a historical mystery.
29. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams For you Doctor Who Fans, the plot of this book is similar to The City of Death with Tom Baker as The Doctor - and Douglas Adams has a screen credit on this one.
30. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The themes are many and mighty, but focus on the loneliness of Huck Finn throughout this masterpiece.
31. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Simply the greatest poem in the English Language.
32. Otto and The Silver Hand by Howard Pyle. A medieval tale written by a medieval soul. I read this as a small, small child, and it shocked me - - yet I kept coming back and rereading it.
33. Time and Again by Jack Finney. This is not about time travel - it is time travel.
34. With All Your Mind by Yandall Woodfin. If you think about thoughts at all, and why you think your thoughts, and why your thoughts tend to what is most important, you should read this book. This book is hard to find, but I have a special supplier. Email me at Nelson@Sicembears.com.
35. Penrod by Booth Tarkington. Not recommended for those who are Little Gentlemen. Email us and tell us you want it. We will find it.
36. Don Quixote by Cervantes - You know the windmills might be giants. But don't be fooled - - this is an intense tragedy.
37. The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler.
38. Civilwar Land
39. All Quiet on the Western Front War changes all it touches. So will this book.
40. The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy.
41. A History of the English Speaking Peoples - Winston Churchill. History will find Churchill was the greatest figure of the 20th Century, and this work one of the greatest histories ever written. (Available through Amazon.uk).
42. An Anthropologist On Mars by Oliver Sacks.
43. Sayonara by James Michener. I met James Michener once. He was rummaging through my desk at a newspaper that I once worked. I thought he was some old snoop and treated him as such until advised this was THE AUTHOR. So I told him that I thought Sayonara was by far his best book - - and he looked at me like I had reached in his chest cavity and was holding his heart. Unlike his other works that weight down the world's library shelves, this one is short and bright.
44. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. Although there are gaps, this lays out the landscape of thinking history.
45. The Sunlight in the Garden by Louise Macniece. A poem, short, that would hold you with nets of gold.
46. Phantastes by George McDonald. The book that is more real than the world you read in.
47. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin What are real words?
48. Five Children And It by E. Nesbitt. C.S. Lewis read this as a child. So did I. Light shines from its pages.
49. The Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell. Not many know this book - it's much different than 1984 or Animal Farm.
50. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I read this in the attic of an old house used as a town library when I was a teenager.
51. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells. Not just a "chick book." Four girlhood friends from small-town Louisiana (the Ya-Ya sisterhood) as seen by a "Petite Ya-Ya" (child of a Ya-Ya) as she explores the "divine secrets" (her mother's scrapbook of Ya-Ya-rabelia).
No Chance Meetings Books & Odd Bits:
HOMEPAGE
Great
Reads
News & Odd Bits
Kent
Gilbreath: Renaissance Reader
Waco: Stranger than
Fiction
Narnia & C.S. Lewis
Books on Adoption
The
Medievalist
J.R.R.
Tolkien Reader
Carl Hoover's Media Reads
The Last Homely House: Home & Garden
Reading
Charles'Travel Picks
Prosecutor's Crime Room
Cowart's Conflicts
Cowboys
& Preachers
Nick's
Picks
Great Flicks
The
Local Okie
Steve's Stuff
Fantasy &
Sci-Fi
Brain
Busters
Genealogy
Books
Customer Requests
Films
You'll Love: Great Screenplays -- recommended by Bob Darden
New rooms are always under construction. we can order almost any book for you. Simply email your request to Nelson@sicembears.com. We welcome your suggestions and comments.
No Chance Meetings Books & Odd Bits
Copyright 1998