Religion and sex, those two thematic steadfasts. But they are intertwined here with a dystopian vision which sees all women stripped of their liberty. A good book to read alongside the previous.

This book's greatness is twofold: you get not only some timeless screeds from the great Doctor of Journalism and advent of Gonzo, but also an exceptionally intriguing firsthand look at the internals of the modern political universe.

Few have achieved with the English language what Nabokov has. His tour of an elegantly deranged pedophile's head is saturated with hauntingly beautiful prose. Sentence after sentence leaves you wondering "how did he come up with that?"

The man behind "The Metamorphosis," in his least-known novel, lets imagination run wild as Kafkaesque themes follow the protagonist's wanderings in a country the author himself had never visited.

One of Shakespeare's tragedies that resonates just as easily today, it treats heated subjects such as interracial marriage, trust, and vengeance, and sees two lovers manipulated against each other. Perhaps the most famous treatment of a purely evil character in all literature.

Not quite your everyday philosophy, Emerson treats a great number of subjects carefully and thoughtfully, guaranteed to leave you appreciative of the world and your capacity to live and strive in it.

Beneath this narrative of overarching conspiracies lie, in the recollections of one man, a biography and a treatise on Western relations with third-world countries of equal intrigue.

Written with the same delicate simplicity of all the great religious texts, Gibran packs an incredible amount of wisdom, interspersed with gorgeous dreamlike drawings, into an astoudingly few pages.

Devastating, yet somehow poignant. Camus, writing in response to the horrors of World War II, takes us to a simple village devastated by a relentless plague, and tells of the men who banded together to serve their city in its darkest, most helpless months.

Film noir itself owes much to this classic, equally renowned for its imaginative descriptions, fast action, constantly twisting plot, and intriguing character studies.

If you read just one book on this list, pick "GEB." Hofstadter unifies, with delightful, witty prose, almost every topic imaginable in this brilliant study of consciousness itself.

What careful examination of the nature of war integrates space aliens and bizarre semi-time travel? Vonnegut's, of course, which shows how all the stages of one man's life are affected by war.

Drug use is Huxley's controversial means for this first-person study of the mind and consciousness, which yields simultaneously intriguing and absurd results. Don't try this at home, ladies and gents.

So close does Selby get us to these character that we can nearly feel the blood in their veins, an effect that only augments the tragedy of their fall - and reminds us of the vulnerability inherent to every human soul.

Sowell does a terrific job presenting the intuitive foundation of economics in unthreatening language. You'll greatly appreciate this social science which encompasses much more than just money.

A strange and funny play treating themes of storytelling, motion, helplessness, and death via the two "nobodies" from "Hamlet" whose deaths, if you think about it, were quite gratuitous and random.

Shermer, an agnostic, offers a fair, scientific analysis of religion, not as a "virus" or "plague" on mankind but as a fundamental facet of the human experience. A worthy read for those of any faith.

Beautifully painted characters, richly layered themes and allegories, and a bold critique of religious fundamentalism form the basis of this extraordinarily captivating novel, an absolute must-read.

Kennedy offers, through series of short, personalized, and often poignant biographies spanning American history, a look at the "diamonds in the rough" of the United States political life.

Wiesel's combination of drama and history takes on the religious consequences of worldly evil. We see how, where theodicy falls short, both man's capacity for art, and his responsibility to his fellow men, must take up the sword instead.