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:
- 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.)
- In addition to (or inspite of) #1 the book has to actually be good.
- 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.)
- 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?