Here are a few I thought of during the night:
And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran.
This is a true story.
The author was blinded in an accident as a child.
He developed a sixth sense. He contends that nothing is taken away from us without something to replace it.
He worked for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation, and, because of his uncanny ESP, he was adept at identifying Nazis trying to infiltrate the Resistance.
He was betrayed and sent to a Nazi concentration camp, where fellow inmates at first stole his food etc. but learned to value him more than food because of his sixth sense. He was one of the few to survive (sorry about the spoiler).
Two other terrific books are Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll was a genius and very clever. The metaphors, symbolism, and plays on words are terrific.
Looking Glass is a chess game. Playing it as you read--do this with your spouse, children, and/or friends--adds multiple dimensions.
For example, Alice is a pawn. What she wants most is to be a queen. In the end of the book (sorry about this spoiler), she reaches the other side of the chess board, becomes a queen, checkmates the Red King, and wins the game. Metaphorically, this is the fulfillment of every child's ambition to become an adult, find success, and fulfill her/his dreams.
Alice's conversation with Humpty Dumpty is priceless.
She urges him to climb down from the wall.
He refuses and adds: "The King has promised to send all of his horses and all of his men." How's that for the embodiment of hubris?
As Alice leaves him (sorry--another spoiler) a resounding crash reverberates through the forest--a great metaphor for everything from warning your child: "If you disobey me, you will be sorry; there are things that I can't fix" to warning Americans not to vote for Barack Obama and the Democrat Party to Aristotelian tragedy to the fall of civilizations and the fall of Adam and Eve.
Other great books are the Iliad, the Oddyssey, the Oresteia, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Also The Scarlet Letter, Washington Square, and The Sound and the Fury.
Also Tales of the South Pacific and The Bridges at Toko-ri by James Michener.
Sins of the Fathers: The Atlantic Slave Trade 1441-1807 by James Pope-Hennessy.
Born in Blood by John J. Robinson, about the persecution of the Knights Templars.
Captain from Castile and Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger--terrific books by an inexplicably underrated author.
Man! I love these books!
This sounds really fascinating. Thanks for posting it. I love these threads.
The Sound and the Fury
I think I was one of the only kids in my American Lit class who read all the books and this one was my favorite.
These sound really great. The one by Jacques Lusseyran sounds riveting especially being that it is true. Thank you for sharing all of those with me and everyone here. I’m thinking that I could be reading from now until the end of time with all of these wonderful sounding recommendations!