Source
r/books•
Windryder

Five "must reads" from the perspective of a well-read 30 something male.

Frankly, I have looked at the common "top" lists of books. Most of them didn't resonate with me. I may be a simple person for saying this, but an example would be The Great Gatsby. For me, this is the "Citizen Kane" of the novel. The symbolism is very on the nose, and I find the author is far too impressed with their own cleverness. If this resonates with you, by all means, read on, and perhaps enjoy these books. If not, this list likely isn't for you. Enjoyment from, and value of books is subjective.

There are some novels which have stuck with me through the years that are only showing up on the most ecclectic of lists and are snubbed on the top searches. I personally greatly enjoyed these books, and if I were a younger person just going off of what google recommended, I never would've read them and I think that's a shame. I know that your mileage may vary, but here are 5 books that I absolutely recommend to read. Even if it's just fuel for thought.

Shogun by James Clavell.

Dune by Frank Herbert.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (also an author with many interesting other novels if you aren't tied to a genre)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (for a prescient past perspective on 'future' [current] times)

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. I know that liking this book is supposed to be a sign of trash people, and perhaps deep down inside I am. However, Tom is a scamp and a rascal and in today's society of rules and regulations, he is more than a breath of fresh air. He's a re-connection with our roots and a kindling of what brings us joy in life on a primal level.

Edit: The response to this has been roughly what I expected when I made the list. That is the entire reason the list was made in the first place. Not because I wanted criticism, but because that is the typical response to these books. However media has been made about all 5 of them, so clearly SOME people love them, even if it's en-vogue to have the opposite response. That to me just makes a list like this that much more important to post.

Edit #2: You guys are mean :( It's not that I haven't read other acclaimed/popular books, these are just the ones I liked best. It doesn't matter how good its supposed to be, no amount of telling me it's better is going to get me to enjoy reading a book I didn't like, even if my opinion is "wrong". Fucking thought police up in here.

I even had a highly-upvoted commenter criticize me for not having authors who were "of color" and/or "women". Are you kidding me? It's a list of FIVE books. Race/gender of the authors didn't even enter into it until they made it an issue. Anyone who needs to scrutinize the race/gender of an author before they're willing to read a book are the ones who are actually being racist.

Edit #3: I get it, I'm the enemy. Apparently I can't enjoy what I enjoy and recommend books to other people who might have similar tastes. Can't live and let live, my opinion is wrong and must be snuffed out before it infects other people. I don't know what this list represents for the people who have responded, but I'm starting to get an idea.

Posted Jun 14, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC · edited

061
dustystacks•

proclaim itself to be as wide as a lake, but in practice as shallow as a puddle

Not trying to be a dick, but are you sure you know the difference between breadth and depth? Part of the reason I ask is because "well read" tends to imply both breadth and depth, and dropping Tom Jones into your list doesn't really make up for Shogun, Dune, Ender's Game, and Brave New World being the "middle aged gamer who reads" starter pack. Not bad books, but I'd be surprised if you could put any of those into goodreads without getting recommended at least two of the others.

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chortlingabacus•

Indeed, and I'd like to think that OP bless his heart will one day have behind him a breadth of reading that will have him cringing to recall that he once referred to best-sellers as 'eclectic' and 'essential for a well-developed mind'. Not that I delight in the thought of his cringing, just that I hope that he goes on to read a greater variety of books. (It tickles me that for some reason he believes--or quite possibly just professes to believe--that liking Tom Jones might be an indicator of trashiness.)

Possibly we're all being unfair; looking back at OP I'm not sure the poster is writing in his native language & indeed if he didn't read the books in it he deserves great credit. It's great to see someone getting such pleasure from books though it's as well to remember that you can enjoy the hell out of a book without feeling obliged to make grand claims for it.

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WindryderOP•

English is my native language, but I was very, very drunk, and I have a bad habit of posting on reddit while drunk. That's why I was having such a hard time communicating. Basically what happened was I google searched for something like "top must read books" and saw that some of my favorites were missing from all of the most common lists. Dune was on one of them, BNW was on two. The rest of the 8 or so that I checked didn't have any of these on them.

I thought to myself about what it would be like if I were younger and just starting to read novels, and realized that I wouldn't have been exposed to any of these. Clearly there is a part of the population which loves them, but it's not en-vogue to say/print that publicly. That concept annoyed (still does) me, so thats why my original post came off as snobbishly as it did. I felt defensive before I'd even started to write it.

I've just edited the original post to better communicate what I was trying to say and why I was saying it, but at this point it's doubtful anyone will find and/or read it because of the time that's passed. If I still care about this in a week, I might try to post a sober, better version.

I still expect negative feedback because these are books that are fun for people to hate (basically mirroring my feelings on Gatsby), but at the least I'll be able to enunciate that I want to expose the people who might be interested to a different type of book than they would find, rather than saying "essential for a well-developed mind". I know why that comes off like I'm suggesting these books are like reading Descartes. My thought process at the time was simply that they were fundamentally different in how they tell a story and the problems they present and the experience for the reader and it would be a shame not to be exposed to at least one of them to see if they like it.

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chortlingabacus•

Ah, so drink + indignation. We've most of us been there.

Fair play to you for bothering to explain the OP; because in original one the tone nearly veered into r/Iamverysmart province I'd have expected high dudgeon if anything from you.

I still firmly believe though that the books on your list would be titles any reader would inevitably come across sooner or later. Well, maybe not if she had spent her life on a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming and had never used a computer. And on the net I've seen far more praise than condemnation of the likes of Dune & Shogun.

I'd like to think that it wouldn't take long for anyone to cop on that those 'best of' internet lists are more likely to be 'my favourite' lists & only sometimes take into account the quality of the books on them.

20
ObsidianPalms•

Hell the explanation still veers into it.

"No, you're all NOT getting it. I AM. so this post is needed!"

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WindryderOP•

Yeah reading it the next day I realized it came off that way, so people reacting to my tone I understood. However, even the people reacting to the books were being really negative. Based off of the responses, Dune/Shogun are popularly hated on this sub. I understand people giving me a hard time about Ender's Game, because it really is a light/fun read, but those are my two favorite books. That being said, titles make a difference for who visits a thread, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were people who joined the thread just to give me the finger based off of the title.

I'm sure there are people who really like them, like I did, but even for internet-lists I think you'd have to add parameters to a search for them to start showing up.

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WindryderOP•

being the "middle aged gamer who reads" starter pack

I'd say that's a fair assessment.

11
prairieschooner•

Middle aged gamer who reads...

Bothering everyone else on the train with my giggling.

8
7LeagueBoots•

most ecclectic of lists

Goes on to list 4 of the most well-known novels around most of which are in almost all "top X books to read" list; one of them regular required reading for schools and referenced pretty much daily on reddit and in life, another of them one of the best known science fiction novels ever written and talked about regularly here and in other subreddits, another that's also extremely well known and recently had a mainstream block-buster movie made of it, and the fourth being an immensely well respected work in a larger series all of which had a famous TV series made of them and which are also discussed with some frequency here.

58
ServalSpots:redstar:6•

They're not really on most lists, they're just on practically every list of a certain... type. Pretty much the sort written by 20-something to 30-something year old males living in the US or Canada. Nothing against OP (hell, I fall into that same demographic group) but it really does sound like they've just not found their reading clique.

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7LeagueBoots•

More like 20-60 something, and also in the UK.

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ServalSpots:redstar:6•

This isn't the sort of thing I'd overwhelmingly expect from most 60 year old Scotsmen, for example. But yeah, you can open it up to a wider age and more of the anglosphere without getting much pushback from me. I'd just change my "practically every list" to something like "a shit-ton of lists" and we're good.

11
7LeagueBoots•

That works.

I added the larger age range as I’m well out of my 30s at this point and these are all books that all of my same age friends have read as well as pretty much everyone I know in my parent’s generation, most of whom are in their mid/late-60s and up.

In fact, the largest group I know who hasn’t read the majority of these books are folks in their mid-20s and below.

Gotta remember when these books were published and how old the ‘older folks’ living now were when they were published.

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WindryderOP•

It's funny because that's what I expected to find when I was looking up top "must read" lists online, but those novels were nowhere to be seen on the top results from google. It really surprised me.

I think one of the top 100 lists had Dune somewhere around 60th (the rest didn't have it at all), and two other lists mentioned Brave New World, with one of them having it in the top 10. Most of the rest of them didn't even have that one on there, which is the one of this group I would expect even the snootiest of lists to have.

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mrmattyf•

I totally wasn’t expecting such typical books from a person so well read.

51
WindryderOP•

You would think that, but it turns out they're not typical at all for top lists. Not these days. Have a look at the top google results for must-read books. These books aren't to be found on any of them, with the exception of Brave New World. There are people like myself who really like these books, and as another person said, there has been a lot of media made based off of them.

Based on the feedback here, I wouldn't be surprised that lists with these books on them wouldn't be published. These are clearly seen to be "popular and shallow", with the exception of BNW, which still made most lists. The entire reason I posted this list here is because these are books that I loved and clearly many other people loved, but they've been shunned from any list popular enough to show up at the top of a google search.

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mrmattyf•

I love Gatsby. Just wasn’t expecting this list.

1
pfunest•

I came in with the lowest expectations and you have convinced me I'm more of an optimist than I thought.

43
WindryderOP•

Funny. Is it awesome trolling around insulting people on the internet?

-10
pfunest•

Unfortunately not when it’s this easy, no

24
liquidpebbles•

dude you made a post that almost reads like satire out of r/bookscirclejerk, and expect we don't troll you? cmon

19
ServalSpots:redstar:6•

Lists like this always make me wonder something. What five books have you read that you'd say are furthest from the ones on your list? I know it's a vague question, but that seems fair as a counterpoint to a general "must read" type list.

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TottoriJPN:bluestar:204•

It's a very good question though, I'll definitely think about that when I'm recommending books to people.

7
WindryderOP•

Furthest as in the ones I least enjoyed or are most dissimilar? For example I quite enjoyed books like The Bean Trees or Of Mice and Men which are quite dissimilar from the list but I still liked. For books I least enjoyed AND were on the opposite end of the spectrum, we're looking at things like Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby.

I guess if we were to generalize, I personally would avoid books about high society. I find in those books the plot tends to revolve around character flaws, lack of honesty, and lack of insight from the characters. That might be some people's cup of tea but it's not mine.

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mylastnameandanumber:redstar:25•

felt preachy and filled with their own self-importance

24
ObsidianPalms•

Reads like an AP Summer Lit reading from 10 years ago. Also not a single writer of color? Not a single woman?

How well-read are you, OP?

18
timory•

You don't understand, we needed another must-read list from a 30-something white man!

15
WindryderOP•

Also not a single writer of color? Not a single woman?

What does that matter? Why would I need to care about the racial background of an author?

I'm not reading books with a race agenda, I just either enjoy a book or I don't. Don't assume that I'm excluding books based on the background of the author, especially when there are only 5 books here. The racial background/gender of the writer didn't even occur to me until you brought it up.

0†
ObsidianPalms•

This comment proves my point so soundly that it barely merits a reply.

Still reads like an AP lit summer reading from lime 10 years ago.

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timory•

My mouth actually went :o reading that. The edit is even worse:

Anyone who needs to scrutinize the race/gender of an author before they're willing to read a book are the ones who are actually being racist.

I'm not even sure how to react to that. Is he being purposely obtuse? Is he trolling?

5
scupdoodleydoo•

He's a r/mensrights user...

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

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[deleted]•

[removed]

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pithyretortGuns, Germs, and Steel•

My perspective as a 30-something is that there's no such thing as a "must read" once you graduate from school and that the great thing about growing older is realizing how much less important what google recommends is than exploring and learning your own personal taste. That said, a real breath of fresh air is reading books by people with different life experience, both than me and than each other. Branch out, bro.

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ObsidianPalms•

Pretty much this. Which is why I can't just recommend people books. I always try and ask people what they're into or curious about before I recommend a list.

3
LauraBoBaura•

It's strange because I don't have a problem with your list, but I do have a problem with your description/understanding of Great Gatsby. I don't think it was ever claiming to have some grand plot. For me, Great Gatsby was character-driven. As to the problems being "trivial"— you clearly enjoy books with larger scope or more adventure (based on your list), but that doesn't mean that a book is bad for being individually-focused.

The problems in Gatsby are heavily present in our society and always will be. Tom is an explosive racist; Daisy is indecisive, dramatic, and materialistic; our narrator Nick is a wallflower who never stands up to anyone and idolizes his friend, and Gatsby cannot stop living in the past.

The symbolism may be too "on the nose" for you, and I get that. But the issues aren't trivial and the characters being over-dramatic at the plot is intentional and, seemed to me anyway, to be highlighting some of their flaws. Is this novel about the end of humanity or some grandiose sprawling adventure? No. It is a small scope look into very human and personal attributes that swallow our characters whole. And that to me works, oftentimes, better than grandiose stories— because that life is so very realistic compared to some of the works on your list.

Anyway, your list is okay. I don't know that I'd put any of them on mine (haven't read the Tom one or Shogun). My list would for sure have East of Eden and Heart of Darkness. The rest is up for debate. Maybe the Overstory or the Hobbit would sneak in there. Dunno.

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WindryderOP•

Thank you for your well reasoned response. Take my upvote.

For what it's worth, I also enjoyed East of Eden. I haven't read Heart of Darkness. The Hobbit I enjoyed, in many ways more than Lord of the Rings, but for a light-ish fantasy read I'd put something more like Watership Down ahead of it if I were to make an extended list.

1
ivehaditwithyourkind•

Orson Scott Card? Are you sure you're 30?

15
WindryderOP•

Some of his books get really interesting. For instance Xenocide had some great concepts about how alien biology could work.

0
ivehaditwithyourkind•

Look, I don't want to insult you but when you lay down the claim that you are well-read and the works you cite are … those books … well, you simply look like a sheltered 30-year-old. There is nothing wrong with that. I have a nephew who is incredibly smart but he can't get a job and lives in my sister's basement. I love talking with him. I always learn something. If that's you, cool. If that's not you, also cool. But what's suspect is calling yourself "well read" and citing those books as evidence. Here's a suggestion. Take the year of your birth and google the best sellers from that year. Read a few of them. Jump ahead ten years when you started school and do the same thing. Follow this pattern. Non-fiction and fiction. Spend a little time Googling the authors of the books that made an impression on you. Do this for a couple of years. This is how you become "well-read." And for god's sake, Card writes for teenagers. You're 30 years old now. Challenge yourself a little more. Sheesh.

33
WindryderOP•

Ender's Game is definitely for teenagers, but his later books are not. Xenocide definitely isn't for teens, so I don't think it's fair to pigeonhole a writer based on his most popular book.

-1
5thChamber•

an example would be The Great Gatsby. For me, this is the "Citizen Kane" of the novel. I found the problems presented to be trivial, the symbolism to be on the nose

The problems in Gatsby are meant to be seem trivial and superflous to the reader, it is a critique of the upper class around this period after all. That doesn't mean you have to like it, but your phrasing seemed to imply that you felt this wasn't the authors intention at all

and the overall plot to proclaim itself to be as wide as a lake, but in practice as shallow as a puddle

What do you mean by "proclaim itself"?

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WindryderOP•

I mean, you're right, it doesn't proclaim itself in that way, technically speaking. What I meant was that while reading, it felt like the author was trying too hard to seem clever. Like they wrote the entire novel with a smirk on their face.

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timory•

Your edit makes no sense to me. You recommended some of the most popular novels of our modern age. You aren't getting a negative response because the books are bad. You're getting negative responses because of your lack of self-awareness.

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InTheStars16•

Tastes are subjective, but I more or less hated every single one of the novels you consider must reads.

9
WindryderOP•

That's fine, that's your perogative. If you haven't read any of the books on this list, you probably shouldn't bother because you won't like that either. Likewise, your must reads list would probably come off as a must avoids list for me as well.

3
InTheStars16•

Yeah, clearly we have different tastes. (I actually really like the Great Gatsby, so that's further data supporting your view that I wouldn't like the books on your list). The only one on your list that I haven't read is Tom Jones. I actually kind of want to read it to see if our tastes are totally incompatible. You mentioned above that you enjoyed East of Eden, and that novel would probably be on my top five list.

3
pithyretortGuns, Germs, and Steel•

Based on your reaction to the conversation here, both in the edits and the comments, I'm seriously questioning your claim to be over 30. You must live in quite the bubble.

5
WindryderOP•

Because I'm not caving to the pressure? It doesn't matter how "wrong" it is in yours, or anyone else's eyes, it's not going to change what I like or don't like. I'm not going to fake that just to please people online.

0
pithyretortGuns, Germs, and Steel•

No, because you are so defensive and making it seem like you are being personally attacked when people are just expressing their opinion. Your assumption here is a great example of what makes me question your age. No one is trying to pressure you to change what you like, just pointing out that it isn't as unique as you are making it out to be.

Maybe there is somewhere on the internet that needs to hear the gospel of Dune as a must read but a simple search will show you that around here these books are quite popular so your defensiveness is even more surprising. You're preaching to the choir and comparing it to being physically attacked.

5
WindryderOP•

You think I'm overreacting? I had a commenter imply I'm racist/sexist because they looked at the backgrounds of the authors. That IS a personal attack, as many most of the other comments have been. You yourself are calling me immature and ignorant.

Your assumption here is a great example of what makes me question your age.

You must live in quite the bubble.

Two personal attacks in two comments. If you're not seeing that in your comments or in the comments from other people, you're not looking at this through a fair lens. So far there have been a grand total of two people who have disagreed with my list without resorting to ad hominem. I have zero problem with people not liking my list, I do have a problem with people who are incapable of still acting with civility in their response.

If someone can't communicate that they dislike something without resorting to personal attacks, I'm going to give the content of their post less consideration than I would've otherwise.

0
timory•

It's truly shocking how much you miss the point of all the critiques, but I think especially the race/sex one. It's about how sheltered you are and how you don't put a premium on inclusivity, NOT insinuating that you're racist/sexist. Your response (that you don't consider race/sex when reading a book) further highlights how privileged and sheltered you are, that you don't ever feel the need to consider any other viewpoints and don't bother seeking out viewpoints of authors who come from a background different to your own, or even just a story written from a perspective different from your own. No, fantasy doesn't really cut it.

There's nothing wrong with the books you are reading. THere's something wrong with being on that high horse you're on and refusing to learn from the people trying to teach you about the world. You are sheltered and behave like a small child.

4
pithyretortGuns, Germs, and Steel•

That's not what a personal attack or incivility is. You are really proving my point here, and you aren't going to get significant pushback on the list itself because those are very popular books (see my previous comments). The pushback is on your attitude that this is some sort of fresh perspective compared to other must-read lists (or in my case, the concept of must read lists in general)

3
TottoriJPN:bluestar:204•

In the past week or so there have been two threads on r/books about books which readers dislike, and Dune featured prominently in both of them. I'd never heard of the book before joining the subreddit but most feedback I've seen about it seems to be really quite negative.

3
mylastnameandanumber:redstar:25•

Just do a search of the sub for "Dune" and you'll find all the love (and a lot more of the hate). It must be one of the top 5 most-discussed books here.

6
TottoriJPN:bluestar:204•

Sort by controversial!

1
WindryderOP•

That's fine. Science Fiction isn't for everyone. The book is one of imagination, strife, conflict, and tactics. If someone prefers non-fiction books, or if they are all about hard sci-fi more like Rendezvous with Rama, then I could easily see them disliking Dune. However, I'm not those people and this is my list, and for me personally I'd put Dune as #1. I don't know what that makes me as far as those people who hate it are concerned. Perhaps I shouldn't be worried about their opinion because our tastes are clearly so different that we wouldn't get along regardless.

-4
liquidpebbles•

The book is one of imagination, strife, conflict, and tactics

plenty of books like that, most people probably dislike it because of what it lacks than what it has...

15
Rune_Sten•

Dune is one of my favorite books and one I do think can and should be read at an age around 30, late 20s. It's quite heavy on philosophy, history, ethics of choice and destiny and such things, which at least for me began weighing in around that age.

I read Shogun as a teenager, but I think I'll read it again now as an adult. Thanks for reminding me. I do remember it as fairly easy to read and understand, even as a teenager, but I'm sure there are layers for the adult reader as well.

Brave New World, I guess, is extremely relevant today. If you can't recognize yourself in it, then you're either too young and immature, or probably living in an isolated rural location.

0†
WindryderOP•

Thanks for not basically trying to knife me to death with words like most of the rest of the comments.

0
AudioxDope•

Enders game is probably one of the best books I’ve read

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