Alright here it is. I honestly have no idea what I’m doing with this since I have barely read anything since middle school (maybe a book or two a year). My contributions will primarily be manga. If I need to add a genre or period let me know. This series will eventually be canonized into the sidebar as a definitive recommendation list of all things C/Lit.
Future threads:
Periods: Pre-1800, 1800s, 1900-50, 1951-99, 2000-20, 2021
Genres: Children’s, Comedy, Coming of age, Folklore, Historical, LGBT, BIPOC Related, Philosophy, Pop Culture, Religious, Thriller, Western, Young Adult, Action, Adventure, Survival, Crime, Mystery, Fantasy, Romance, Horror, Graphic Novel, Biography, Travel, Historical, Propaganda, Philosophy, Political Theory, Poetry, Plays, Manga, Speculative Fiction, Sports, and Miscellaneous
The 2001 Space Odyssey series is pretty good (and the only sci-fi I’ve read that I can remember off the top of my head).
Yeah. It’s actually the first book in a 4 books series (2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001), but they only made 2001 and 2010 into movies lol.
Ursula Le Guin’s works. Specifically The Dispossed and The Left Hand of Darkness.
I’ll try to add The Dispossessed as a suggestion for the next round of the !anarchism@hexbear.net reading group. I’ve seen it mentioned a couple of times on here and in other Socialist circles.
Call me basic, but I still love 1984. Still the definitive dystopia for me, especially since I wasn’t forced to read in highschool as some sort of Anti-Communist curriculum.
The Akira manga is also probably the best manga that will ever be penned. The movie pales in comparison to the sheer scope of this behemoth.
I still love 1984
I second this. It’s not nearly as profound as it seemed back when I was a teenager, but it’s still a good story that’s undoubtedly influenced lots of later works.
edit:
CW:SA
Orwell was a rapist snitch though
Here’s the best article about his former lover’s memoir. She didn’t explicitly state it in the book, but posthumously gave her cousin access to her correspondences, and they found proof of it in her collection of letters to Orwell and others.
Dune Trilogy and Le Guin are usually what I recommend
Call me basic, but I second Dune. Successfully writing tension with third person omniscient perspectives is an incredible feat in my mind. That way when the reveals come together, you can see how every part plays into it. Children of Dune’s big reveal was especially great for me, a moment where the reveal is both out of the blue and perfectly makes sense.