Book Recommendations?

We the Living by Ayn Rand - I think, as literature rather than philosophy, it's her best book.

Confessions of a Yakuza, A Life in Japan's Underworld by Junichi Saga - fictional biography of a gangster in Japan in the early 1900's.

Alongside Night by J. Niel Schulman - a classic libertarian sci-fi. Written 30 years ago. Movie next year.

Riotous Assembly by Tom Sharpe - written in 1971. Lampoons South African apartheid, and the police who enforced it. Very very funny.

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain - I love when Huck concludes "All right then, I'll GO to hell." The rest of the book is the setting for that jewel.

Bonobo Handshake: A Memoir of Love and Adventure in the Congo by Vanessa Woods - new and non-fiction but it should be a classic

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - recent sci fi, but it will be a classic. Teenagers rewire x-boxes into an underground Internet to overthrow tyrannical military rule in modern San Francisco (imposed in over-reacton to terrorism).

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (Also a movie)

Handling Sin by Michael Malone - very funny. written about 1985. Uptight southerner sent on a quest by his liberal father. Hilarious encounters include humiliation for the KKK.

Hawaii by James Michener

The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe - a book of memoirs by Swedish physician Axel Munthe (October 31, 1857–February 11, 1949) first published in 1929 . .it was a best-seller in numerous languages - it's set mostly on the island of Capri.

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton - non-fiction, takes place in 1800s, fascinating.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett - novel about a medieval English stone mason working on a cathedral

Kim by Rudyard Kipling - English orphan boy in 19th-century India learns to be a spy

Lydia Bailey by Kenneth Roberts - historical fiction

Passport to the Orient, the Continuing Story of Elke and her life in Japan during the 1950s by Elke Neumann Taylor - Kindle book

Since you like Hamlet, please check out my Hamlet website at http://www.thyorisons.com/

Especially these short essays

The Honey of His Music Vows - http://www.thyorisons.com/#Music_Vows

The Rebirth of Hamlet - http://www.thyorisons.com/#Rebirth

Hamlet in a Nutshell - Hamlet Is an Anti-War Play - http://www.thyorisons.com/#Nutshell

Classic and light seems to almost be a contradiction.

Some people might find a lot of classics to be relaxing, light reading, but not most of us.

If you are looking for something that has been around for quite a while, is still found to be good, but is lighter, I would suggest:

The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (You have to read some stuff that is pretty weak to get the good stuff, but the good stuff is amongst the best.)

The Count of Monte Cristo (The unabridged version is EXCELLENT. People know the story, but the full novel is worth ever second.)

The Three Musketeers (And the sequels) Still great historical fiction

Dracula: Nobody has ever come close to this one as far as building a genuine sense of dread.

The Executioner's Song: Norman Mailer

Tom Jones: Still quite a great romp through 18th century England.

I selected books that are primarily in public domain and should be cheap or free for eReaders. If not, they are popular enough that they should be in your library.

technology FICTION all and sundry ignores sci-fi yet in actual actuality that some books are practically 0.5 philosophy. study Stranger in a unusual Land by utilising Robert A. Heinlein, Prey by utilising Michael Crichton, and 2001: an area Odyssey or Rendevous With Rama by utilising Arthur C. Clarke. Plus, I agree that Agatha Christie is a could-study. After Shakespeare and the Bible, she has bought the main style of books international ever. Her superb are and then there have been None, The homicide of Roger Ackroyd, homicide on the Orient show

I would recommend the following:

Game of Thrones(new great series that was made into HBO series which isn't nearly as good as the books)

Catcher in the Rye

Vampire Hunter D book series

The Last Samurai

1. Ulysses by James Joyce

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by

Harper

Lee

4. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

5. The Color Purple by Alice

Walker

6. War and Peace by Leo

Tolstoy

7. Gone With The Wind by

Margaret Mitchell

8. One Hundred Years Of

Solitude

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

9. Crime and Punishment by

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

10. I Lucifer by Duncan Glen

11. The Fountainhead by Ayn

Rand

12. Tell The Wolves I am Home

by

Carol Rifka Brunt

13. A Farewell to Arms by

Ernest

Hemingway

14. For Whom The Bell Toll by

Earnest Hemingway

15. The Catcher In The Rye by

JD

Salinger

16. The Great Gatsby by F Scott

Fitzgerald

17. The Poisonwood Bible bx

Barbara Kingsolver

18. 1984 by George Orwell

19. All Quiet On The Western

Front by Erich Maria Remarque

20. The Virgin Suicides by

Jeffrey

Eugenides

21. I Claudius by Robert Graves

22. Eat Pray And Love by

Elizabeth Gilbert

23. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

24. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

25. The Sound And The Fury by

William Faulkner

26. Brave New World by

Aldous Huxley

27. The Grapes of Wrath by

John Steinbeck

28. The Good Earth by Pearl S

Buck

29. On The Road by Jack

Kerouac

30. Anna Karenina by Leo

Tolstoy

31. Things Fall Apart by Chinua

Achebe

32. Animal Farm by George

Orwell

33. The Shadow Of The Wind

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

34. A Tale Of Two Cities by

Charles Dickens

35. Midnight's Children by

Salman Rushdie

36. Ben Hur by Lew Wallace

37. The French Lieutenant's

Woman by John Fowles

38. The Brother Karamazov by

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

39. Where Angels Fear To

Tread by EM Forster

40. A Wrinkle In Time by

Madeleine L'engle

41. Schindler's List by Thomas

Keneally

42. The Plague by Albert

Camus

43. Dog Years by Gunter Grass

44. Watership Down by

Richard Adams

45. The Pillers of The Earth by

Ken Follett

46. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

47. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

48. Lonesome Dove by Larry Mcmurty

49. Dune by Frank Herbert

50. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

anything by jane austen or charles dickens.