1.
A Song of Ice and Fire series (favorite characters are Stannis Baratheon and Davos Seaworth)
2.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (trying to write a series sort-of based off of this)
3.
Zhuangzi
4.
Remembrance of Earth's Past series (the series that begins with Liu Cixin's
Three-Body Problem book)
5.
Wheel of Time series
6. The Qur'an (haven't read the hadiths though)
7. The Bible
8.
Star Wars: The High Republic series
9.
Daodejing
10.
Darth Plagueis by James Luceno
Honorary Mentions: Gideon the Ninth (haven't read the other books... yet) and The Southern Reach trilogy.
In terms of short stories:
1. Ambrose Bierce's works
2. Algernon Blackwood's works
3. Lord Dunsany's works
In terms of non-fiction (not sure if religion counts or not so I put it up top in terms of things that
I enjoyed as fiction, but didn't otherwise take seriously in any other way):
1.
Kwame Nkrumah by Yuri Smertin (African history)
2.
The World and Africa by W.E.B. DuBois (more African history from a favorite author of mine)
3.
Lectures of Fascism by Palmiro Togliatti (Marxist individual defining fascism during the 1920s/30s)
4.
The Peasant War in Germany by Friedrich Engels (Marxist history on the Great Peasant War in Germany)
5.
Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy by V.I. Lenin (philosophical rebuttal to anti-scientific views)
6.
Composer and Nation: The Folk Heritage in Music by Sidney Finkelstein (music and what makes music good)
7.
The Civil War in the United States by Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, edit. and intro. by Andrew Zimmerman (lots of interesting Civil War politics that don't get mentioned nowadays)
8.
American Trade Unionism: Principles, Organization, Strategy, Tactics: Selected Writings of William Z. Foster by William Z. Foster (labor history)
9.
Cultural Psychology and Qualitative Methodology: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations by Carl Ratner (psychology)
10.
The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better by Will Storr (author is a right-wing dumbass, but advice checks out)
11.
Fundamental Principles of Marxism: Political Economy & Philosophy by Daniel Rubin (outdated, but good at explaining things)
12.
The Communist Party and the Auto Workers’ Unions by Roger Keeran (more labor history)
13.
Reconstruction: The Battle for Democracy 1865-1876 by James S. Allen, Foreword by Eric Foner (more on Civil War and Reconstruction history)
14.
Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume 1 (would recommend to
@jirou )
15.
White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela by Gerald Horne (even more African history)
In addition:
I've read lots of fanfiction since I was little and recently have an interesting in fanfiction dealing with Stannis Baratheon or Davos Seaworth or both. Favorite one is "Dark Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (Batman x ASOIAF cross-over where Bruce of House Wayne fights evil or whatever)
Again, I love short-stories.
And finally: to be honest, I've read more non-fiction than fiction, but have tried to read more fiction lately, such as the famed Jin Yong's
Condor series.
So, err, yeah, HOPEFULLY you can gauge where my interests lie and everyone here can pitch in and help me figure out what my next read is. I can also read more than one book at a time and I'm withholding finishing the
Condor series for now.