Great thread! I am very much a latecomer but have spent a few hours devouring the thread and frantically writing down suggestions.
In the end my favourites were all picked. I'd like to re-affirm the choices of the Dune Series (my favourite fiction series), The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, The Sarantine Mosaic by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin, Robert Heinlein's Sci-Fi, anything by Nietzsche (who was very much ahead of his time in his thoughts on a variety of subjects and IMO bar none the best writer out of all the philosophers I've read). Beyond Good and Evil was a solid Nietzsche choice but I'd probably recommend The Gay Science even more highly.
I guess the only surprising thing to me is that no one picked an Ursula Le Guin sci-fi book. The Disposessed, The Lathe of Heaven and the Left Hand of Darkness are all outstanding stories by her.
All Men are Mortal was an interesting novel by Simone de Beauvoir, I guess thats the only other suggestion off the top of my head.
|