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Groundbreaking reads
This document lists influential books and authors throughout history starting in 1321 with Dante Alighieri and ending in the 1970s. Some of the notable books mentioned include Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. The document also includes sections on digging deeper into specific topics and putting book knowledge into practice with gardening and home reference books.
Groundbreaking reads
- 1. Groundbreaking Reads: Books& Authors Worth Digging Into
- 2. Authors and TheirBooks
- 3.
- 4. The Autobiography ofBenjamin Franklin 1793
- 5. On the Originof the Species by Charles Darwin 1859
- 6. The Jungle byUpton Sinclair 1906
- 7. Main Street bySinclair Lewis 1920
- 8. The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925
- 9. The Grapes ofWrath by John Steinbeck 1939
- 10. On the Roadby Jack Kerouac 1957
- 11. The Autobiography ofMiss Jane Pitman by Ernest J. Gaines 1971
- 12. Watership Down byRichard Adams 1972
- 13. Carrie by StephenKing 1974
- 14. Sophie’s Choice byWilliam Styron
- 15. The Vampire Lestatby Anne Rice
- 16. Black Cross byGreg Iles
- 18. Richter 10 byArthur C. Clarke
- 23.
- 25.
- 26. Chess For Fun,Chess for Blood
- 27. Silent Spring byRachel Carson 1962
- 28. Zen and theArt of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig 1974
- 29. Roots by AlexHaley 1976
- 30. Vampires, Zombies andMonster Men
- 32. A Dream isa Wish Your Heart Makes
- 39. Putting It Allinto Practice
- 40. The Color Dictionaryof Flowers and Plants for Home and Garden by Roy Hay
- 41. Better Homes andGardens Candy
- 42.
- 43. The Way ThingsWork
Editor's Notes
- #4 Was a catholic, but often was at opposition to the church. Dante’s Inferno has done a great deal to each us about the underworld.
- #5 Arguably the first autobiography.
- #6 On the Origin of the Species. Was popularized first by capitalists and industrialists who saw it as a scientific justification for large industrialization. It was also popularized you liberal clergy who saw the world as getting better and better. Since it’s inception it has become the framework for much of the theory on origins in science.
- #7 Was an expose of the meatpacking industry at the turn of the century. Sinclair had hoped that it was cause revolutionary fervor, but it became a rallying cry for health and safety regulation in the meatpacking and broader food industry.
- #8 Main Street was a surprising bestseller that took a cynical look at small town America. Won the Nobel Prize in 1930. He was praised for is portrayal of strong women in his novels.
- #9 Now another popular movie. It depicts the prosperous life of the Jazz age in Early 1922. It questions the qualities of decadence and the pursuit of unbridled wealth.
- #10 Told the story of the Joad family as they traveled west from Oklahoma to California during the dust bowl.
- #11 Is set in post war America and is based on Kerouac’s own travels. It is considered the great novel of the beat era and depicts life on the backdrop of jazz, poetry and drugs.
- #12 Tells the story of Miss Jane Pitman, who was born a slave on a Mississippi plantation and follows her life through reconstruction into the 20 th century.
- #13 Richard Adams first novel. It is a play off of Virgil’s Aenid. Gave the rabbits their own language and mythology.
- #14 One of Stephen King’s first novels and one of the best selling of all time.
- #15 One of Styron’s best works. Won the National Book Award. Deals with Sophie’s choices before going to the concentration camp.
- #16 Born in New Orleans, raised as an observant Catholic became an atheist. Her vampire novels revitalized the interest in vampires, which is seen today.
- #17 Born in Stuttgart Germany. His father was a physician at the U.S. Embassy clinic. Lives in Mississippi. Black Cross is the oldest book we have by Greg Iles.
- #18 Oates tells the story of a man who seeks to make a male sex slave by rewiring him. He fails time and again and finally begins to enjoy killing for its own sake. Experiments with cannibalism and necrophilia.
- #19 Deals with an major earth quake. Clarke is best known for his space novels and was a consultant to the television networks during the Apollo missons.
- #20 Is a rescue novel featuring Anna Pigeon who confronts her own claustrophobia to crawl into a cavern to help a friend.
- #21 Tells the story of a group of history students who travel back to the 14 th century to rescue their history professor. The novel deals with quantum physics and the concept of the multiverse.
- #22 Won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. It is a narrative fiction novel which takes on the topics of nature, solicitude, meditation and God.
- #23 Turtledove writes alternative history fiction in which he creates an alternative timeline and plays out the possible results of events.
- #24 Laurell K. Hamilton writes two series of stories one in which she is a vampire slayer and consultant to the police and the other in which the main character is Princess of the Faerie and a private investigator.