Books like Candide — picked by fans

As shocking as I felt Kubrick’s film was, I think the book is possibly more startling. Some scenes Kubrick played for laughs are described as violent and sadistic in the novel. If, like me, you are a fan of the film, it’ll fill in some blanks for you. Ever wonder why Alex and his friends drink milk?

The book is written in futuristic teen-speak that did take me a while to get my head around, but this ultimately adds to the strangeness of the insular world these ‘droogs’ inhabit. Though it was first published in 1962, I think this is still a very relevant and unflinching look at the place of violence in society.

This was probably one of the most intense experiences with non-linear storytelling I ever had, and that did something to me I could not have predicted.

In fact, while reading this book, I started to turn the story into something of a philosophical discourse in my head. 

I really like how this book is at the same time utterly insane in parts—and I do say that with the greatest respect, it‘s the good kind of insane—while at the same time, it explores themes of dealing with earth-shattering events on a very individual level.

For me, the icing on the cake is that Kurt Vonnegut manages to even mix in a little history lesson there, because that bombing of the prisoners in Dresden? That did happen. And I didn‘t even learn about it in school—I learned it from this novel!

Propaganda is truth; truth is propaganda. We live in an Orwellian world, the world of “alternative narratives” – blatant untruths that are like a twisted mantra tormenting objectivity until it is beaten into submission.

When I first read 1984, I knew Orwell was not predicting the future but describing the past and the betrayal of a socialist revolution by Stalin. But the hideous truth is that Orwell’s depiction of the "evil Soviet empire" is now the new reality, east and west, where tyranny and authoritarianism distort reality to the point where people feel powerless to oppose.

Resist, and the system will get you. Accept, and you will live a life of a deluded soulless husk. You choose!

This is one of the most powerful religious books I’ve ever read. It’s difficult work, and it took me a couple of days to understand the concept. Buber articulates that you can deal with people either as things or as souls. Many of us unconsciously place people in relation to ourselves as an “it.” But if you see past what a person appears to be, your relation to them becomes “I-Thou” rather than “I-it.”

I read it in my early 20s and am still impacted by how it teaches us to treat people as their inner selves. 

This is a unique and brilliant satirical work about the idea of paradoxical rules that trap people in impossible situations.

It's set during WWII and confuses the reader with circular attempts to convince the protagonist, Yosarian, that he must be sane if he is able to recognize that he is insane. It's less about characters contesting each other and more about them getting stuck in systems of language that deny resolution.

"You have to follow orders."

"But the orders are contradictory."

"Then follow both."

I find that Frankenstein transcends eras by posing critical questions about the ways we develop and use new technology.

I first read a comic-book version in elementary school and have returned to Shelly’s novel over the years because it stimulates my critical thinking about technology, particularly the current rise of AI and our response to it. Frankenstein raises a fundamental ethical question about technology in real life: just because humans can create something, should they actually create it?

For me, the novel also creates the opportunity to explore questions about how we engage technology once we choose to invent it. Dr. Frankenstein abandons his creation, and the creature becomes an angry monster. I ask myself, is this an allegory for our own response to technology?

I liked the concept of man being small and adrift in the darkness of the wide world. This book taught me to see through politics, grandstanding, and the grandiose nonsense of man. Swift is my kind of guy, brutally satirical and profound. This book is really not for children. We see Gulliver travel on many adventures and experience Swift's disappointment as he engages different cultures, small and large, rational and irrational. 

His adventures demolish Gulliver’s sense of humanity to the point that when he is about to be rescued, at first, he rejects the offer like a misanthrope before finally climbing aboard. Swift is very dark here. Why would anyone want to return to the same old life after having their eyes opened?

What’s amazing about this book is that it’s told through recommendation letters written for students and colleagues by the main character, Professor Jason Fitger.

Each letter reveals more and more about his life, his failing romances, his dismal work environment, and his floundering creative efforts. In other words, topics that are completely inappropriate for these types of letters, which makes them all the more hysterical.  

I was on an extended trip to Eastern Europe, back when Eastern Europe was not such a dandy place to visit, and I found myself with nothing to read. In a used bookstore in Prague, I found a tattered paperback, translated into English, of this next pick. It was falling apart, the pages stained by coffee and God knows what else. I bought it anyway.

And over the next few weeks, I was, for the third time, blown away by words on a page, by an author’s imagination. It’s been said that Don Quixote, written around 1600, was the first novel ever written. It may also be the greatest novel ever written. Adventure. Humor. Pathos. Crazy amounts of imagination. The Whole Damn Human Condition.

Make sure to find a first-class translation!

I didn’t know whether to laugh or stage an intervention. This book introduced me to Ignatius J. Reilly, a character so insufferable and absurdly grandiose that I kept turning pages just to see how much worse he could get. I was horrified and hypnotized. I couldn’t look away.

What I love about this book is that it doesn’t ask you to like anyone. It asks you to witness the glorious wreckage of human delusion. It is chaotic, bloated, brilliant, and somehow still moving. Toole gave me a character I wanted to strangle, and a novel I wanted to reread. That kind of friction is rare, and I live for it.