My library
This list will be updated whenever there are at least 20 new additions to and/or removals from my personal book collection. (Last updated on 30 December 2008.)
In case you are wondering, no, I haven't read all the books in my collection yet. If you are thinking of buying a book for me as a gift, please refer to this list to ensure that you don't end up picking a book that I already have.
Please don't be misled by my list of Chinese books - just because I happen to own many books by certain authors doesn't necessarily mean that these particular authors are among my favourites. I bought many of them when I was 13 or 14, and my taste has changed drastically since then.
Not all books I own are recommended reads. Also, unless we know each other very well and unless you prove yourself to be a responsible person, don't even think of asking me to lend you my books.
If you wish to recommend a book or an author whose books you think I've never read or heard of, please leave a comment, telling me why I might be interested in these works/writers, or why you feel they are good. But please do not suggest titles that belong to the following categories:
- Audio booksThanks.
- Childcare/Parenting
- Children's books
- Computer books
- Diet/Nutrition
- Education
- Family/Marriage
- Fantasy
- Horror fiction
- Self-help
- Teenage fiction
- Women's fiction (a.k.a. chick lit)
-
English Books
Fiction:
1. Douglas Adams: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide
2. Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
3. Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works
4. Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
5. Dan Brown: Angels and Demons
6. Dan Brown: Digital Fortress
7. Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code
8. Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason: The Rule of Four
9. Italo Calvino: If On a Winter's Night a Traveller
10. Italo Calvino: Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories
11. Italo Calvino: Our Ancestors
12. Albert Camus: The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom and Selected Essays
13. Truman Capote: In Cold Blood
14. Anton Chekhov: The Kiss
15. J.M. Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians
16. Joseph Conrad: The Heart of Darkness
17. Joseph Conrad: Under Western Eyes
18. Roald Dahl: Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl
19. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince
20. Charles Dickens: Great Expectations
21. Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment
22. Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground; the Grand Inquisitor
23. Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Double and The Gambler
24. Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of Baskervilles
25. Nicholas Evans: The Horse Whisperer
26. Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain
27. Gao Xing Jian: One Man's Bible
28. Arthur Golden: Memoirs of a Geisha
29. William Golding: Lord of the Flies
30. Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
31. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
32. Ernest Hemingway: The First 49 Stories
33. S.E. Hinton: The Outsiders
34. Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner
35. Khaled Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns
36. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
37. John Irving: The Fourth Hand
38. Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
39. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day
40. Kazuo Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans
41. Elfriede Jelinek: Wonderful, Wonderful Times
42. Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis
43. Nikos Kazantzakis: The Last Temptation of Christ
44. Natsuo Kirino: Out
45. Milan Kundera: Farewell Waltz
46. Milan Kundera: Identity
47. Milan Kundera: Slowness
48. Milan Kundera: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
49. Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
50. Kuo Pao Kun: The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole
51. D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers
52. Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude
53. Gabriel García Márquez: News of a Kidnapping
54. Yann Martel: Life of Pi
55. Ian McEwan: Atonement
56. Ian McEwan: Enduring Love
57. Ian McEwan: Saturday
58. Herman Melville: Moby Dick
59. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
60. Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient
61. George Orwell: 1984
62. George Orwell: Animal Farm
63. Orhan Pamuk: My Name is Red
64. Orhan Pamuk: The Black Book
65. Jodi Picoult: My Sister’s Keeper
66. Annie Proulx: Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other Stories
67. Jed Rubenfeld: The Interpretation of Murder
68. José Saramago: Blindness
69. José Saramago: Seeing
70. José Saramago: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
71. José Saramago: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
72. Alice Sebold: The Lovely Bones
73. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
74. Stendhal: The Charterhouse of Parma
75. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
76. Adrian Tan: The Teenage Textbook
77. Adrian Tan: The Teenage Workbook
78. Mildred Taylor: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
79. Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time
80. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
81. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
82. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
83. Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
84. Voltaire: Candide and Other Stories
85. H.G. Wells: The Invisible Man
86. Oscar Wilde: The Happy Prince and Other Stories
87. Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays
88. Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray
89. Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
90. Carlos Ruiz Zafón: The Shadow of the Wind
91. The Holy Bible (New King James Version)
92. The Koran
Non-fiction:
1. Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren: How to Read a Book
2. Philip Ball: Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another
3. Julian Barbour: The End of Time
4. Monroe C. Beardsley (Ed.): European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche
5. Harold Bloom: Where Shall Wisdom be Found?
6. Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything
7. Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island
8. Bill Bryson: Troublesome Words
9. Italo Calvino: The Literature Machine
10. Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays
11. Albert Camus: The Rebel
12. Noam Chomsky: Doctrines and Visions
13. Brian Clegg: Light Years: An Exploration of Mankind's Enduring Fascination with Light
14. Antonio Damasio: Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain
15. Richard Dawkins: The God Delusion
16. Gilles Deleuze: The Logic of Sense
17. Daniel Dennett: Consciousness Explained
18. David Deutsch: The Fabric of Reality
19. John Dewey: Experience as Art
20. Umberto Eco: Five Moral Pieces
21. Umberto Eco: Kant and the Platypus
22. Umberto Eco: Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation
23. Albert Einstein: Relativity
24. Peter Erickson: The Stance of Atlas: The Examination of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand
25. Paul Feyerabend: Against Method
26. Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish
27. Michel Foucault: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences
28. Sigmund Freud: Civilization and Its Discontents
29. Sigmund Freud: Forgetting Things
30. Sigmund Freud: The Essentials of Psycho-analysis
31. Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams
32. Thomas Friedman: Lexus and the Olive Tree
33. Francis Fukuyama: The Posthuman Future
34. J.K. Galbraith: The Economics of Innocent Fraud
35. Malcolm Galdwell: Blink
36. Peter Galison: Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps
37. Bernard Gert: Morality: Its Nature and Justification
38. Brian Greene: The Fabric of the Cosmos
39. Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist
40. Sam Harris: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason
41. Marc Hauser: Moral Minds
42. Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Time
43. William Hazlitt: The Pleasure of Hating
44. Georg Hegel: The Phenomenology of Mind
45. Martin Heidegger: Being and Time
46. Andrea Hinding: Feminism: Opposing Viewpoints
47. Christopher Hitchens: The Portable Atheist
48. John Holbo: Reason and Persuasion
49. Ted Honderich (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
50. David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
51. David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature
52. Derek Humphry: Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying
53. Douglas Hofstadter: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
54. J.S. Hooper: A Quick English Reference
55. Michio Kaku: Parallel Worlds
56. Immanuel Kant: Basic Writings of Kant
57. Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
58. Pierre Klossowski: Nietzsche and the Vicious Cycle
59. Milan Kundera: Testaments Betrayed
60. Jacques Lacan: Écrits: A Selection
61. Imre Lakatos: Proofs and Refutations
62. T.Z. Lavine: From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest
63. Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
64. Carl Jung: On the Nature of the Psyche
65. D.Q. McInerny: Being Logical
66. J.S. Mill: Basic Writings of J.S. Mill: On Liberty, the Subjection of Women, Utilitarianism
67. Michael Moore: Idiot Nation
68. Thomas Nagel: The View from Nowhere
69. Sylvia Nasar: A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash
70. Friedrich Nietzsche: Basic Writings of Nietzsche
71. Friedrich Nietzsche: Portable Nietzsche
72. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science
73. Friedrich Nietzsche: Why I Am So Wise
74. Osho: Sex Matters: From Sex to Superconsciousness
75. Osho: The Tarot of Zen: The Game of Life
76. Steven Pinker: How the Mind Works
77. Steven Pinker: The Blank Slate
78. Ayn Rand: Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Movement
79. Ayn Rand: The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
80. Ayn Rand: The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought
81. Lisa Randall: Warped Passages
82. Martin Rees: Before the Beginning
83. Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh (Eds.): Modern Literary Theory: A Reader
84. Paul Ricoeur: The Conflict of Interpretations
85. Bertrand Russell: Why I Am Not a Christian
86. Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness
87. Jean-Paul Sartre: Essays in Existentialism
88. Alan D. Schrift: Why Nietzsche Still?
89. Simon Singh: Fermat's Last Theorem
90. Benedict de Spinoza: Ethics
91. Norman Swartz: Beyond Experience
92. David Tabachnick and Toivo Koivukoski (Eds.): Globalisation, Technology and Philosophy
93. Nassim Nicholas Taleb: The Black Swan
94. Raymond Tallis: In Defence of Realism
95. Lynne Truss: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
96. Robert Wilks: Key Words II
97. Ludwig Wittgenstein: On Certainty
98. 100 Essays from Time
Poetry:
1. E.E. Cummings: Selected Poems
2. Emily Dickinson: Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
3. D.H. Lawrence: The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence
4. Pablo Neruda: Residence on Earth
5. Rainer Maria Rilke: Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke
中文书籍:
1. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《ABC谋杀案》
2. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《池边的幻影》
3. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《东方快车谋杀案》
4. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《高尔夫球场命案》
5. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《怪钟》
6. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《蓝色列车之谜》
7. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《谋杀启示》
8. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《谋杀在云端》
9. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《三幕悲剧》
10. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《杀人一瞬间》
11. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《史岱尔庄谋杀案》
12. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《十三人的晚宴》
13. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《丝柏的哀歌》
14. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《死无对证》
15. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《万圣节派对》
16. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《危机四伏》
17. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《问大象去吧》
18. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《五只小猪之歌》
19. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《艳阳下的谋杀案》
20. 阿嘉莎●克莉斯蒂:《一,二,缝好鞋扣》
21. 安妮宝贝:《八月未央》
22. 安妮宝贝:《莲花》
23. 冰心:《冰心散文》
24. 蔡小白:《新世纪文学怪读本》
25. 曹雪芹:《红楼梦》
26. 陈丹燕:《鱼和它的自行车》
27. 村上春树:《边境●近境》
28. 村上春树:《挪威的森林》
29. 村上春树:《听风的歌》
30. 村上春树:《寻羊冒险记》
31. 方桂香:《幻灭的天才梦》
32. 方文山:《半岛铁盒》
33. G.卢卡奇:《小说理论》
34. 高行健:《朋友》
35. 韩寒:《三重门》
36. 洪应明:《菜根谭》
37. 胡黎:《似曾相识》
38. 黄浩威、柯思仁:《如果岛国,一个离人》
39. 霍国玲、紫军:《红楼解梦——红楼史诗》
40. 几米:《1.2.3.木头人》
41. 几米:《布瓜的世界》
42. 几米:《地下铁》
43. 几米:《黑白异境》
44. 几米:《蓝石头》
45. 几米:《履历表》
46. 几米:《你们我们他们》
47. 几米:《森林唱游》
48. 几米:《森林里的秘密》
49. 几米:《失乐园——寂寞上场了》
50. 几米:《失乐园——秘密开花了》
51. 几米:《失乐园——魔法失灵了》
52. 几米:《失乐园——奇迹迷路了》
53. 几米:《失乐园——童年下雪了》
54. 几米:《听几米唱歌》
55. 几米:《微笑的鱼》
56. 几米:《我的心中每天开出一朵花》
57. 几米:《我只能为你画一张小卡片》
58. 几米:《向左走●向右走》
59. 几米:《小蝴蝶小披风》
60. 几米:《幸运儿》
61. 几米:《遗失了一只猫》
62. 几米:《又寂寞又美好》
63. 几米:《月亮不见了》
64. 几米:《照相本子》
65. 季旭升(总策划):《这个字你认识吗?》
66. 金庸:《雪山飞狐》
67. K.德福林:《笛卡尔,拜拜!》
68. 卡尔●洛维特:《从黑格尔到尼采》
69. 凯伦●安姆斯特朗:《神的历史》
70. 老舍:《茶馆》
71. 老舍:《老舍散文》
72. 梁文福:《其实我是在和时光恋爱》
73. 梁文福:《散文@文福》
74. 林得楠:《梦见诗》
75. 林幸谦:《历史、女性与性别政治——重读张爱玲》
76. 林语堂:《林语堂散文》
77. 刘梦溪:《红楼梦与百年中国》
78. 龙应台:《野火集》
79. 鲁迅:《鲁迅小说全编》
80. 聂鲁达:《二十首情诗与绝望的歌》
81. P.M.S.哈克:《维根斯坦》
82. 乔治●法莱蒂:《非人》
83. 沈望傅:《郭宝崑传奇的乱想》
84. 沈望傅:《来自旧千禧年的乱想》
85. 史蒂芬●霍金:《时间简史》
86. 苏珊●桑塔格:《旁观他人之痛苦》
87. 泰戈尔:《漂岛集》
88. 陶杰:《绮色风流》
89. 王安忆:《流逝》
90. 王文华:《宝贝,只剩下我和你》
91. 汪曾祺:《汪曾祺主页》
92. 维兰●傅拉瑟:《摄影的哲学思考》
93. 吴庆康:《2359@夜》
94. 吴庆康:《2359@昼》
95. 吴韦才:《吴韦才奇异幻境》
96. 席慕容:《席慕容散文》
97. 杏林子:《行到水穷处》
98. 徐志摩:《我是天空里的一片云——徐志摩诗选》
99. 徐志摩:《徐志摩散文》
100. 易中天:《品三国》
101. 郁达夫:《郁达夫主页》
102. 余华:《活着》
103. 余秋雨:《借我一生》
104. 余秋雨:《秋雨散文》
105. 张爱玲:《红楼梦魇》
106. 张爱玲:《倾城之恋》
107. 张爱玲:《同学少年都不贱》
108. 张爱玲:《张爱玲散文》
109. 张秉真、黄晋凯(主编):《未来主义●超现实主义》
110. 张秉真、黄晋凯、杨恒达(主编):《象征主义●意象派》
111. 张恨水:《啼笑因缘》
112.张小娴:《Channel A》
113.张小娴:《Channel A II ——蝴蝶过期居留》
114.张小娴:《Channel A III ——魔法蛋糕店》
115. 张小娴:《Channel A IV ——我们都是丑小鸭》
116.张小娴:《不如你送我一场春雨》
117. 张小娴:《荷包里的单人床》
118.张小娴:《流波上的舞》
119.张小娴:《面包树出走了》
120. 张小娴:《情人无泪》
121.张小娴:《三个A Cup的女人》
122. 张小娴:《我微笑,是为了你微笑》
123. 张小娴:《雪地里的蜗牛奄列》
124. 张小娴:《永不永不说再见》
125. 张小娴:《在天涯寻觅你》
126. 张秀琴:《阅读大师的智慧》
127. 钟怡雯、陈大为(主编):《天下散文选》
128. 周芬伶:《艳异:张爱玲与中国文学》
129. 左朗●德芬卡尔:《一路上有你》
130. 《流年碎影——第八届新加坡大专文学奖作品集》
131.《名人语录》
132. 《你是我唯一的玫瑰》
133. 《清华小说——也许是爱情》
134. 《阙旅——第六届新加坡大专文学奖作品集》
135. 《宋词三百首》
15 kommentarer:
hey hey.. , ur book 68- Jodi Picoult: My Sister’s Keeper.. izit nice?? i kinda like her books.. just finished reading one.. "harvesting the heart"
and oh.. i wan the teenage workbook.. lend me lend me (gosh i sound like a 13 yr old.. haha)
ok ok.. till i see u then =)
WOOOW. I thought I was the only crazy human who had already read more than a hundred books. I take my hat before you.
Isn't it the only nice vice?
Now that is one impressive list... Where do you keep all them books? I would love to have a collection as big as that, but I just don't have the space or the money.
Your list has just reminded me, I was gonna compile a list of books I want to read over the summer. I read too many modern humour fiction books, so I really want to broaden my horizons and read more of the classics, and more non-fictions books on history, philosophy etc.
I'll recommend some of my favourite authors. I suggest Terry Pratchett, who I'm sure you've heard of. His fantasy satire spans over thirty books. Also, if you want to read something different, then I'd recommend Jasper Fforde, the leading author in metafiction and an excellent satirist.
I'll have to check out some of the books you've read.
raindrops_jx: I personally think Jodi Picoult's books are among the better ones in contemporary literature. Not terribly fantastic, but definitely above average. I'd recommend My Sister's Keeper though. That's the only book written by her I've read, but from what I've heard, it's considered her best work. Her more recent books like The Humpback Whale and Harvesting the Heart are not very critically recognised though, I think. Anyway I'll lend you The Teenage Workbook when we meet up. My copy is extremely torn and tattered - in fact it was given to my brothers by a neighbour almost 2 decades ago, and it was then given to me.
The Usual Stuff: Don't be too impressed yet - I haven't read all the books in my personal library. I've given quite a number of them away already. And you're absolutely right - it is the only nice vice, and I don't feel guilty about it. :D
Jingo: Believe it or not, I don't have a single bookshelf at home. My books are all over the place. I usually scrimp and save so that I can splurge on books. My obsession with books has driven my mother to the brink of insane anger so now I'm trying my best to curb my spending. My house is very small, so accommodation is a problem for me as well.
Recommendations by Dean, who knows everything in the world.
Fiction
The Poems of Robert Herrick. My edition is from Henry Frowde, 1903, but the volume was first published in 1648.
Why read Herrick? Located between Shakespeare and the other writers of the high Renaissance, and those of the period spanning between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Herrick was a Church of England parson living in the countryside. He sympathised with the King in the Wars. His lovely little poems are emblematic of late-stage Renaissance thought and make a good counter-piece to the poems of Milton, who was his exact contemporary (but staunchly on the other side in the Wars).
Non-fiction
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. It's readily available at most good bookstores as well as online (AbeBooks etc.).
Why read Mailer? The success of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966), also a non-fiction novel (or creative non-fiction, literary journalism, whatever you prefer), was a spur to Mailer.
Gary Mark Gilmore was the first felon to be executed in a decade and the case had a very high profile. The book runs to over 1100 pages but is gripping throughout.
u shld start a library. lol
NICE!! Congrats! :) I should update my list...and maybe we could exchange a book or two?
PS. You disappeared from Facebook.
:(
Try Lord of the Flies by William Golding...
Anonymous: I LOVE THAT BOOK! I've read it actually. :) I'm planning to buy it soon! Haha. Great minds think alike!
one hundred years of solitude, gabriel garcia marquez
mybad, i mean love in the time of cholera by the same author. i didnt notice one hundred years was already on your list
I am surprised that you disparage completely horror!
For me, Lovecraft and Poe are excellent magicians when it comes to driving the reader to hold his/her breath. The suspense is tight as an elastic in the prior moment to be broken.
Albeit Lovecraft for me is more oustanding. His cosmic horror and reprresentation of the unknown is magnific! For starters I recommend you to check this story, it may change your mind:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space
Here a paragraph from one of his stories:
"That Crawford Tillinghast should ever have studied science and philosophy was a mistake. These things should be left to the frigid and impersonal investigator, for they offer two equally tragic alternatives to the man of feeling and action; despair if he fail in his quest, and terrors unutterable and unimaginable if he succeed."
Neil Gaiman! Because I've most of the books you've listed, and he's one of my favourite author.
@Anon: Hey! Nice to know that someone is still reading this despite the very slow updates. I actually used to own a few books by Gaiman, but I didn't enjoy them, so I ended up selling them to a friend instead. I find him quite overrated... Maybe you can tell me what you like about him -- I may end up feeling motivated to revisit his books. :)
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