What are the best pieces of Literature?

[huntergatherer]

the Great Gatsby is another good one

[JohnIII]

I didn't enjoy To Kill a Mockingbird all that much. The character of Atticus Finch felt far too perfect, especially in comparison to some of the rest of the characters, that it didn't sit well with me.

On the other had, Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse) is excellent. Just don't judge it on the first few pages.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Why would I want to read the Cliff Notes then?

Don Quixote just seemed kinda like a Les Miserable type novel... where this guy just goes around all over the place and does wierd stuff .

[Imran Siddiqui]

On the other had, Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse) is excellent. Just don't judge it on the first few pages.

Second that... It gets really wierd too, cool stuff .

[JohnIII]

The ending...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Why would I want to read the Cliff Notes then?

Same amount of intellectual content but less typing.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, but I want to read a Classic piece of Literature for enjoyment, not because I have to get through them all .

[Ecthy]

LOTR is not a good piece of literature at all. It's a cool story, exciting and all, but literature-wise, the book isn't that bright, not written by a professional author anyway. I'm not saying it sucks, but many fans of it tend to glorify it in any way they can, even when they have no idea what they're talking about.

And good literature isn't all about a good story, nice language and all. For example, Tolkien was a bit superficial in character design to me, you hardly get an idea about Boromir, for example.
After all I would say LOTR is just about OK in that regard, despite being pretty cool in many others

Merle does some cool writing, but none of you reads Merle anyway, as observed long before.

[Peacemaker]

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio is a great book if you like humor and sex

[Boris Godunov]

Re: What are the best pieces of Literature?

Best: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Couldn't agree more.

Worst: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Didn't find it that bad. I don't know what the true worst would be, but my rogues gallery includes:

Moby D!ck
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Sound and the Fury
Pilgrim's Progress (Good lord this is so boring)

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
To Kill A Mockingbird IS great.

Amen. Easily in my top 10 of all time.

[Aeson]

Les Miserables.

I think you'd like Don Quixote, it has almost the same depth of character and emotion, though somewhat of a polar opposite in mood. One of the few books that ever made me laugh out loud while I was reading it, and it happened often. Still, I had the feeling I was missing out on a lot of the jokes because I wasn't familiar with the Authors/Works that Cervantes was obviously making fun of.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, I was thinking of getting it for that reason.

[Boris Godunov]

It would be interesting to compare the character of Don Quixote with Inspector Javert. Very similar on some levels, but a few little twists and you go from icon of idealism to frightening archetype of obsession.

[Aeson]

And actually I just made this poll to see which books I should pick up from the library to read this summer.

My brother keeps telling me to read The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas. I keep forgetting.

Good ones:

Voltaire. Candide was already mentioned, get a compilation of it and some of the shorter stories. Even Candide can be read in just a couple hours or so.

Edgar Allen Poe. "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" and "The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq." are both hillarious, especially read out loud. Or maybe I'm just weird... most of his stories are pretty good.

War and Peace - Tolstoy. Takes a couple hundred pages to really get into though. Good for a lot of hours of reading after that.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanence - Robert M. Pirsig. If you like philosophical works it's great.

Catch-22 - Joseph L. Heller. I'm not sure if it counts as 'Good Literature', but it's funny!