if it's Crichton, my favorite is "Sphere" ... if Dostoyevsky, there's no better psychological downward spiral than "Crime and Punishment"

My favorite Crichton is Andromeda Strain.

Others to read:

Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (duh)
Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (from the Jungle Book)
Robert A Heinlein's And He Built a Crooked House
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (aka The Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Edgar Allan Poe (anything)
Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles


And a huge +1 to Leif for Ender!
Runner up because not everyone gets him:
William Shakespeare (most anything but especially Hamlet and Othello)

If you're looking for a good high fantasy saga -- The Belgariad by David Eddings is brilliant.

I'm kind of obsessed with The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy by David Cannadine and have been for a couple of years. It should fill you with a sense of how absurd and out of place the Downton Abbey genre of literature/melodrama really is and might totally upend your view of British social evolution (as it did for me).

while we are talking Hugo I would suggest Les Miserables

haha @YCHTT- read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi as a kid, same for Robinson Crusoe and the Hobbit/LoTR, and Gulliver's Travels(I loved reading)... I will have to look in to some of the other ones people have listed. anybody have an opinion on Game of Thrones?

@gopher -- I read that (D & F of BA) about 5 yrs ago and went through a phase of fascination too ... now it just takes up a big space on the shelf

@YCHTT - absolutely, "Andromeda Strain" is right up there for Crighton

as far as real literature (an I was an English major at William & Mary in addition to a History major), "The House of Sand and Fog" is about the finest drama/tragedy of the last 50 years

@YCHTT.....no extra special vote for the "Chronicles of Hal"? H IV-1, H IV-2 & H V.

@Rancher....I knew a couple of families so like that. And several were Viet Nam ese as well as Iranian.

@Rancher......did the land comparison to Russia leave you with your mouth open?

books

The power of one - Bryce Courtney

The entire Master & Commander series - Patrick O'Brian - and especially as the film (a compilation of several books) actually managed to render a decent portrayal of the books.

Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor

His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman
Superb, Practically anyone can read it, and it has some very interesting things to say on theology and region without ever becoming side tracked

The Day of The Triffids - John Wyndham
modern survival horror has nothing on this, it pretty much created the entire genre

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Most Victorian literature is too dry or too slow, but Dracula still reads really well today. Again, this started a genre, and still works, if not a full horror, which today seems obsessed by trivial matters such as gore

1984 - George Orwell
Anyone with an interest in politics should read this. It's shocking just how possible the world Orwell creates is

The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Hands down my favourite play. Really, Really can't recommend it enough

The Lorax - Dr Seuss
"Business is business! And business must grow, regardless of crummies in tummies, you know."
Honestly, just read it, I don't care if it was intended for younger audiences, it still can make anyone think a little. Plus the art is fantastic, perfectly capturing the mood. (No, the film doesn't count, it comes nowhere near to capturing the mood of the book)

And I really agree with YCHTT, Shakespeare is well worth a read, even if it's hard going sometimes

Incidentally there was a similar forum thread I kicked off early this year, but aimed more at good books that would appeal to the Dip player's need for skilful negotiations with the odd (or more occasional) stab:

http://www.vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?threadID=18706

Lord of the Rings is well worth a read by anyone. And I also recommend Arthur C. Clarke. And of his short stories or main novels (2001 a space odyssey, etc.) Finally, Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is great as well. I bought the complete anthology, and I love it!

Oh, and if you haven't read all of Dan Brown's books (Da Vinci code, Angels and Demons, etc.) they are all worth a read. But if you want even better literature of that sort, read The Name of the Rose, by umberto eco. Great book!

The complete work of H.P. Lovecraft. A masterpiece of horror literature. Don't read it before sleeping.

Dune, by Frank Herbert. It is said it is for science fiction what "The Lord of the ring" is for fantasy.

Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri. The terror of Italian students, however it is a work of great fascinating.

@canaduh - I forgot the Aubrey/Maturin series (Master & Commander, Post Captain, etc.). Excellent reads.

I also enjoy Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and the more recent 007 novels by Raymond Benson. John Gardner's were pretty good, but more pulp throw away. Colonel Sun by Robert Markham was excellent. Jeffery Deaver's novel was good, but not "Bond" enough. It felt like any other spy thriller and was lacking something that truly made it Bond... I haven't had a chance to read Sebastian Faulks novel yet.

Bond is great. Patavium do you by any chance play call of Cthulhu?

@ butterhead

I suggest ender's game in audio format. The voice-only performance is excellent, and it's a great way to get some extra reading in if you have any sort of commute to work or shuttle/bus to school time that you don't use for much else.

Card himself recommends the audio format as the best format for his works since he started as a playwright.

I second the Aurthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert mentions.

I also can't believe I failed to mention LotR and The Hobbit (and any and all works by J.R.R Tolkien). Twelve demerits and a backhand to the face for me.

Speaking of The Hobbit and Ender's Game though, anybody jazzed up for the movies?

The next series I'm going to try is Edgar Rice Burrows' Barsoom series. Anybody recommend or not?

Diplomat, no, I don't play it. But I found this fantastic series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DsgZ4JXXB8
:D

- Fantasy: Steven Erikson's "The Tale of the Malazan Book of the Fallen" is very good, but rarely read
-History: Churcill's the "History of the English-Speaking Peoples", Runciman's "A History of the Crusades" and the "Sicilian Vespers" and Albert Hourani's "A History of the Arab Peoples" are a must to read, if one is interested in the history of Europe and the Mediterranum. Solzenitin's "GULAG" provides a shocking image about the Soviet Union.
-Military History: Keegan's works concerning the 1st and the 2nd WW are masterful, his "The Mask of Command" is very useful, altought his book about the Iraqi War and the history of intelligence are hardly enjoyable due to the lack of objectivity.
Clausewitz's "On War" is hard to read, but th effort is tenfold rewarded (a Hungarian military historian, Géza Perjés has written very good commentariess to him, but I'm afraid it's only available in Hungarian).
Arthur Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power upon History" is of similar importance, and it is easy to read it.
-Politics: Machiavelli's "The Prince" is short, but really interesting and especially useful for a player of Diplomacy.
Trotsky's books provide the reader with a vast knowledge about the birth of Russian Totalitarianism, and gives very interesting ideas about social mechanisms.
-"other": Stendhal: "Red and Black"
Tolstoy: "War and Peace"
A. Tolstoy (the younger): Golgota: altought written by Stalin's order, his "Golgota" is a very good picture of the Russian Civil War.
Viktor Pelevin: a contemporary Russian writer, his novel and short stories are very good
-Kerouac: "On the Road"
-Walter Bukowski: all of his books are worth to read them
-Kesey: "Sometimes a great notion" and "Sailor Song"
-Zamjatin: "We" one of the ealiest and best anti-utopies
-Burgess: "Mechanical Orange", "Earthly Powers", the Enderby-tetralogy and his autobiography
-Hunter Thompson's books
-Melville: "Moby Dick"
-Thoreau: Walden
-Mccarthy's "Bloody Meridians"
-China Miéville's "THe Scar" and "Iron Council".

Fantasy : Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher
Also Ender's series is good (sci-fi) and Orson Scott Cards two most recent books were really good as well Pathfinder and The Lost Gate (both the first book in forthcoming series; fantasy)

@Evansevern....Let's all remember the most important lesson that Dracula teaches us: Texans are badasses. No one ever seems to remember that Van Helsing does not kill Dracula, Quincy does.

Have to repeat it.....Brave New World is so much better than 1984.

The song of ice and fire!

I can't believe I forgot Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality. Xanth is fun and all, IoI is his best series.

And yes, I am.looking forward to The Hobbit movies (PJ is splitting it in two) as well as Skyfall (the new Bond in November) and Ender's Game next March. The next 12 months have some incredible movies for SciFi / Fantasy fans.

@adalephat If you can sit through Moby Dick's 250 page section on the different types of whales, I'm impressed.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
The Dubliners by James Joyce
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

All great books. Enjoy!

For those with an interest in computer games, lefty politics, moral quandaries:

Complicity - Ian Banks