Essential Books every Gentleman Should Have?

[Paisley]

The Oxford English Dictionary might also be available online through your library's web site.

 

[John in Covina]

A collection of John Steinbeck would be good.
Also some type of bartender's guide.
A good cookbook.
Luther's Small & Large Catechism.

 

[DBLIII]

I don't know, but I do know that I silently judge people based on their bookshelves.

P.S. [brag] My wife and I both have BAs in English. Our combined library totals around 1000 volumes (including full version of the OED).

Hopefully, I would be judged well. I don't know how many volumes, but well over 125 feet of shelving........ Bachelor of Journalism is my bragging deal (not quite sure that's something to brag about, as Journalists tend to be such jerks )

All that said, my most read book is the Bible.

 

[John in Covina]

fftopic:
I don't have as many books as I once did. If you move frequently books and magazines get to be a real drag. I have sold some and donated some to the local library to clear out that which I was not enamored with. Nearly all of my paperback books have disappeared for various reasons. I have about 8 books waiting to be read, and have 3 I am in the middle of right now.

 

[Story]

In addition to some of the others named here,

William Goldman's THE PRINCESS BRIDE

Rudyard Kipling's THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

George Orwell's 1984

Mark Twain's TOM SAWYER

 

[John Boyer]

In the perfect world scenario, I would include the Harvard Classic's. A 51 volume anthology of classics compiled by Charles W. Eliot. However, this would be five feet of books for this set alone--two feet over our goal.

Three books in my own library I would hate to be without, include: 1) Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, 2) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and 3) the Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. John

 

[carebear]

Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples

How Things Work Vol. I-IV

The Abolition of Man by Lewis

A solid Dictionary and Thesaurus


After those I'd start measuring shelf inches and comparing various published editions widths.

 

[ortega76]

A decent dictionary and thesaurus

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

The Collected Works of Dashiell Hammett

Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

The Cyberspace Trilogy by William Gibson

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn by Mark Twain

 

[VintageRed]

A good start would be the Oxford english dictionary.

Not that I'm of the male persuasion, but....

A man after my own heart. I can't exist without a dictionary. I LOVE words.


And I've seen The Dangerous Book for Boys and loved the concept. I wanted to get it for my son, but I think he might still be too small and devilish to own it properly at 6. lol

Great thread. I also judge people on their bookshelves. It sounds terribly self important, but I love to read so much and am always fascinated by what others consider worthy enough to hold onto and display. Oh, and those books better look read, or I'm thinking you're a total poser.

~D.

 

[Edward]

I would add The Great Gatsby, perhaps the finest novel in the English language. I also feel that Lord of the Rings deserves more recognition as a literary classic beyond genre fiction, and rather less of the contempt that much literary snobbery doles out to it!

If I really was that limited for shelf space, I'd also go looking for an eBook reader. I much prefer 'real' books, myself, but as a way of saving space and building up a great reference library of classics, it would be grand. Or is that cheating?

 

[carebear]

Cheating.

But clever. =)

 

[Miss 1929]

A decent dictionary and thesaurus

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

The Collected Works of Dashiell Hammett

Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, Or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

The Cyberspace Trilogy by William Gibson

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn by Mark Twain

I haven't read Snow Crash or The Diamond Age yet, but loved Cryptonomicom and also the Quicksilver trilogy... I wouldn't quite put Stephenson up there on the same plane as Twain, though!

I would also say a good one considering the present company, "The Esquire Guide to Men's Fashion" circa 1940. An awesome book, if you can find an older copy, they are soo sought-after that they get snatched up.

 

[jayem]

The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway

Oh, how I loathe that book!
We had to read it in my Lit class and I just wanted to fall asleep at every page. Same with any Dickens book. What a snore...!

Did anybody say Catcher In The Rye yet? How can you survive adolescence without it? And lets not forget any Neg. Utopian books such as Brave New World or 1984 to remind us of what we should never become.

 

[ortega76]

I haven't read Snow Crash or The Diamond Age yet, but loved Cryptonomicom and also the Quicksilver trilogy... I wouldn't quite put Stephenson up there on the same plane as Twain, though!

No, but I would want some "fun" reading to go with the heady stuff.

 

[ortega76]

Oh, how I loathe that book!
We had to read it in my Lit class and I just wanted to fall asleep at every page. Same with any Dickens book. What a snore...!

Did anybody say Catcher In The Rye yet? How can you survive adolescence without it? And lets not forget any Neg. Utopian books such as Brave New World or 1984 to remind us of what we should never become.

I loved The Old Man and the Sea, but my favorite Hemingway piece is a tie- For Whom the Bell Tolls or The Old Man and the Sea.

Catcher in the Rye WAS an oversight.

 

[John in Covina]

Eminently Suitable by G. Bruce Boyer

 

[Viola]

Man, going by this list, I read mostly trash. At least I have many, many times 36" of bookshelves! (36" of Stephen King...36" of Larry McMurtry... my pulp section that runs heavily to Chandler, Hammett, and Runyon and so on... maybe I shouldn't use this as a defense... lol )

I have some Shakespeare, some Kipling, and some Twain I would not want to be without. I cannot in all honesty say I would cram a dictionary into only thirty-six inches of space, no matter how admirable its inclusion would be. I think I would, however, make room for at least one and possibly two Bibles, my own and a King James Version for cultural literacy and reference. Fortunately both come in pretty small sizes.

 

[DerMann]

As vintage68 said, The Aeneid.

The amount of effort and skill that went into writing that magnificent epic is mind blowing.

The Fitzgerald translation is the best I've seen.

However, you still have some shelf space left. Fill it with the life works of PG Wodehouse, you will not be disappointed.

 

[filfoster]

Books for the Gentleman

I have no idea. If I were in solitary, I'd want the Durants' History of Civilization series; It seems that for a gentleman's library, the shelf should be quite empty. Reading was for drones.
Do you think Lord Chesterfield's son read any of those famous letters?
"Gentlemen" passed through school without the burden of learning, didn't they? Think Jeeves and Wooster.

 

[John Boyer]

As vintage68 said, The Aeneid.

The amount of effort and skill that went into writing that magnificent epic is mind blowing.

DerMann has offered an excellent choice, The Aeneid. Epic poetry, while very difficult to read, is also extremely difficult to write. Obviously, this is why there are so very few-great-epic poems. An epic poem I would add is Oberon by Christopher Martin Weiland as translated by John Quincy Adams. John