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Old 12-23-2004, 06:18 PM   #1 (permalink)
franzelneekburm
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Location: Boston
Help Needed: The Pretentious Reader Starter Kit

Ok, help me out here, as a Christmas gift I am compiling The Pretentious Reader Starter Kit and need suggestions for books to include. (In addition to books, the kit contains various accessories of the pretentious reader: Starbucks gift card, flash cards with ostentatious vocabulary, etc. Suggestions for other accoutrements would also be appreciated.)

The criteria for inclusion are:
  1. The book has to have a popular perception of being pretentious and/or cerebral. (But must be widely recognizable, too pretentious also would not work.)
  2. In addition to (or inspite of) #1 the book has to actually be good.
  3. The book has to be relatively small and not imposing, this is a starter kit after all. (So: Demian, not The Glass Bead Game; The Crying of Lot 49, not Gravity's Rainbow, etc. And this definitely means Proust is out of the question.)
  4. In addition to English, original works in Russian, Spanish and French are also acceptable.

This is what I have so far:
  • Italo Calvino: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.
  • Umberto Eco: A few essays, his fiction doesn't pass criterion #3, unfortunately.
  • Herman Hesse: Demian, or possibly Siddhartha.
  • Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
  • Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49.
  • Patrick Süskind: Perfume. (Not sure if this one passes #1, it's just such a good book, though.)

What else should go on this list?
franzelneekburm is offline  
 

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