Let's consider, for a moment, the personal home library. I'm wondering what everyone's thoughts are concerning what books need or ought to be in everyone's (or most people's) personal collection. Say a new adult with enough money has just moved into his or her own domicile and doesn't own any books for some irrelevant reason. It's time to start building his/her collection. Where should (s)he start?
I'm not really looking so much for "I believe one should get these books, as they're my favorite author's best"; obviously science fiction fans will buy works to suit their tastes, as will fantasy fans, historical fiction fans, and so on. Nor am I looking for "I believe one should get this book, as it's one of the few that really tells the truth about X", because again, one will naturally buy works aligned with one's political or religious persuasions and eschew works which are not. Although obviously, nobody will stop anyone making such recommendations here if they want to.
I'm more looking for ideas on books whose practical, historical, or cultural significance makes or ought to make them ubiquitous - they belong on every mindful book-owner's shelf, regardless of one's usual genre or sociopolitical tastes.
Note that "western" in the thread title refers to "the West" or western culture (i.e. Europe/Americas), rather than the literary genre known as "western". And obviously this does not exclude books written by eastern authors.
Assume someone completely open to buying both dead tree versions and electronic books, and feel free to specify why a particular book choice would be better as either one or the other (although I'm not so interested rehashing the over-all "printed versus electronic" argument about books in general for an umpteenth time).
For instance, merely to start things off - every home library should probably have a dictionary. Feel free to debate exactly which version and why. Kindles for instance ship with The New Oxford English Dictionary standard I believe - acceptable choice? Is there a better one?
I'm not really looking so much for "I believe one should get these books, as they're my favorite author's best"; obviously science fiction fans will buy works to suit their tastes, as will fantasy fans, historical fiction fans, and so on. Nor am I looking for "I believe one should get this book, as it's one of the few that really tells the truth about X", because again, one will naturally buy works aligned with one's political or religious persuasions and eschew works which are not. Although obviously, nobody will stop anyone making such recommendations here if they want to.
I'm more looking for ideas on books whose practical, historical, or cultural significance makes or ought to make them ubiquitous - they belong on every mindful book-owner's shelf, regardless of one's usual genre or sociopolitical tastes.
Note that "western" in the thread title refers to "the West" or western culture (i.e. Europe/Americas), rather than the literary genre known as "western". And obviously this does not exclude books written by eastern authors.
Assume someone completely open to buying both dead tree versions and electronic books, and feel free to specify why a particular book choice would be better as either one or the other (although I'm not so interested rehashing the over-all "printed versus electronic" argument about books in general for an umpteenth time).
For instance, merely to start things off - every home library should probably have a dictionary. Feel free to debate exactly which version and why. Kindles for instance ship with The New Oxford English Dictionary standard I believe - acceptable choice? Is there a better one?
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