These are my favorite books. They all left a lasting impression; some influenced me strongly, and some are merely very well written.
How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand
The New Solar System - J. Kelly Beatty, Carolyn Collins Petersen, Andrew L. Chaikin
The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
High Stakes, No Prisoners - Charles H. Ferguson
Watchmen - Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
Luba Conquers the World - Gilbert Hernandez
Gödel Escher Bach - Douglas Hofstadter
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Moonshadow - J. M. DeMatteis, Jon Muth
How the Mind Works - Steven Pinker
The Gold Bug Variations - Richard Powers
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Codex Seraphinianus - Luigi Serafini
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - William Shirer
The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe
The Shadow of the Torturer - Gene Wolfe
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories - Gene Wolfe
I liked these books a lot, and would recommend them.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Bastard out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison
The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster
The Cowboy Wally Show - Kyle Baker
Why I Hate Saturn - Kyle Baker
The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
Empire of the Sun - J. G. Ballard
The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks
Forty Stories - Donald Barthelme
Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme
The Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
Games People Play - Eric Berne
Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Labyrinths - Jorge Luis Borges
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Junky - William S. Burroughs
From Hell - Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
The Basketball Diaries - Jim Carroll
Bones of the Moon - Jonathan Carroll
The Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton M. Christensen
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Line by Line - Claire Kehrwald Cook
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction - Jonathan Culler
House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski
The Writing Life - Annie Dillard
Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics - William Dunham
Infinite in All Directions - Freeman Dyson
Disturbing the Universe - Freeman Dyson
Mr. Bunny's Big Cup O' Java - Carlton Egremont III
Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX - Carlton Egremont III
The Neverending Story - Michael Ende
A Street in Marrakech - Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Feynman Lectures on Computation - Richard Feynman
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Theology: A Very Short Introduction - David F. Ford
Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life - David D. Friedman
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System - Paul Fussell
Fables and Reflections - Neil Gaiman
The Doll's House - Neil Gaiman
Preludes and Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman
The Wake - Neil Gaiman
World's End - Neil Gaiman
Because They Wanted To - Mary Gaitskill
Mr. Tompkins in Paperback - George Gamow
The Annotated Alice - Lewis Carroll, Martin Gardner
Cartoon History of the Universe II - Larry Gonick
Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
Blood of Palomar - Gilbert Hernandez
Poison River - Gilbert Hernandez
Flies on the Ceiling - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
Chelo's Burden - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Mario Hernandez
Las Mujeres Perdidas - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
Tears from Heaven - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
House of Raging Women - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
Duck Feet - Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez
Love and Rockets X - Gilbert Hernandez
Chester Square - Jaime Hernandez
Wigwam Bam - Jaime Hernandez
The Death of Speedy - Jaime Hernandez
The Mathematical Experience - Philip J. Davis, Reuben Hersh
Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse
Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - Paul Hoffman
A Very Long Engagement - Sebastien Japrisot
The Dot and the Line - Norton Juster
The Metamorphosis and Other Stories - Franz Kafka
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
A Wind in the Door - Madeline L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeline L'Engle
The Armchair Economist - Steven E. Landsburg
A Wizard of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula K. Le Guin
As She Climbed Across the Table - Jonathan Lethem
Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog - Mark Leyner
V for Vendetta - Alan Moore, David Lloyd
The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
The New Lifetime Reading Plan - Clifton Fadiman, John S. Major
Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Storming the Reality Studio - Larry McCaffrey
Please Kill Me - Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish - Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean
Violent Cases - Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean
The Curve of Binding Energy - John McPhee
Advice to a Young Scientist - P. B. Medawar
The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller
Blue Highways - William Least Heat Moon
Never Cry Wolf - Farley Mowat
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Mountain Bike! - William Nealy
Open Sources - eds. Chris Dibona, Mark Stone, Sam Ockman
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
Selected Stories and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe
Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance - Richard Powers
The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon
The Elements of Moral Philosophy - James Rachels
The Complete Adventures of Curious George - H. A. Ray
The New Hacker's Dictionary - Eric Raymond
Jealousy - Alain Robbe-Grillet
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling
The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks
A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
Zod Wallop - William Browning Spencer
Travels with Charley - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead - Tom Stoppard
The Winner's Curse - Richard H. Thaler
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need - Andrew Tobias
The Fellowship of the Ring - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkien
Sleepwalk and Other Stories - Adrian Tomine
Visual Explanations - Edward Tufte
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte
A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
Marooned in Realtime - Vernor Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky - Vernor Vinge
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Mage: The Hero Discovered - Matt Wagner
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth - Chris Ware
The Double Helix - James Watson
The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder - Lawrence Weschler
Space Child's Mother Goose - Frederick Winsor
Sexing the Cherry - Jeanette Winterson
The Claw of the Conciliator - Gene Wolfe
Caldé of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe
Lake of the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe
Nightside the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe
The Urth of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch - Gene Wolfe
Strange Travelers - Gene Wolfe
Exodus from the Long Sun - Gene Wolfe
The Sword of the Lictor - Gene Wolfe
Plan[e]t Engineering - Gene Wolfe
The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
An Underground Education - Richard Zacks
copyright © 2001 John Regehr