Let's hope that the worrying trend of diminishing interest doesn't continue in this thread 
Here are the selected books, please vote for one of them by posting it's name in this thread. Please, only vote if you plan on participating in the book club thing.
Platform by Michel Houellebecq
A rather bleak love story about an emotionally empty man whose main - only? - interest is sex, this books features an excellent critique of modern society, western sexuality and the economic and cultural dichotomy between the western world and third world countries. Very controversial because of the sexual content and the way Islam is portrayed (Houellebecq actually got sued for insulting Islam).
The Plague by Albert Camus
An absolute masterpiece by a Nobel prize winning author, this story about a city which is struck by the plague is one of the main landmarks of French existentialism. It explores themes such as freedom, responsibility, human relations, death, love and religion, as well as the human condition as a whole.
Blindness by Jose Saramago.
- A disturbing story about an inexplicable plague of blindness striking a society and how those who are not yet effected deal with those who are and how those who are blinded and quarantined get along. Blindness is very intense and very interesting.
Positively Fifth Street by James McManus.
- A narrative by a reporter sent to Las Vegas by Harpers Magazine to cover the 2000 World Series of Poker and the trial of Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish, accused of murdering (in a very twisted way) Ted Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe Casino. This story has weird sex, violence, gambling, buried silver bullion and more.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- The story of Yossarian, soldier in a World War II bomber group, and his superiors, inferiors and peers, every last one of whom is crazy as a loon.
Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The story of a group of rabbits who strike out on a grand adventure.
The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick et al.
A book about social engineering and the security holes it can create.
Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
A surreal coming-of-age tale.
Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
In this, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay his taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican War. The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and how one is in morally good standing as long as they "get off another man's back"; so you don't have to physically fight the government, but you must not support it or have it support you (if you are against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience.
Wicked by Gregory MaGuire
A book which at first glance appears to be a simple Wizard of Oz story and is in reality a complex discussion of the deepest meanings of life.
Atlas Shrugged
Amazon: With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, "Who is John Galt?", Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers.
Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.
* Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides:
"In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all."
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
"Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as of his own slaves."
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
"Traveling from India to New England and back again, the stories in this extraordinary debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture"
Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men is a novel by John Steinbeck written in 1937 which tells the story of George and Lennie, two of many men displaced by the Great Depression. Lennie is a large man with the mind of a child, and George is a small man with a quick wit. The title of the story refers to a line in "To a Mouse" by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
Here are the selected books, please vote for one of them by posting it's name in this thread. Please, only vote if you plan on participating in the book club thing.
Platform by Michel Houellebecq
A rather bleak love story about an emotionally empty man whose main - only? - interest is sex, this books features an excellent critique of modern society, western sexuality and the economic and cultural dichotomy between the western world and third world countries. Very controversial because of the sexual content and the way Islam is portrayed (Houellebecq actually got sued for insulting Islam).
The Plague by Albert Camus
An absolute masterpiece by a Nobel prize winning author, this story about a city which is struck by the plague is one of the main landmarks of French existentialism. It explores themes such as freedom, responsibility, human relations, death, love and religion, as well as the human condition as a whole.
Blindness by Jose Saramago.
- A disturbing story about an inexplicable plague of blindness striking a society and how those who are not yet effected deal with those who are and how those who are blinded and quarantined get along. Blindness is very intense and very interesting.
Positively Fifth Street by James McManus.
- A narrative by a reporter sent to Las Vegas by Harpers Magazine to cover the 2000 World Series of Poker and the trial of Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish, accused of murdering (in a very twisted way) Ted Binion, owner of Binion's Horseshoe Casino. This story has weird sex, violence, gambling, buried silver bullion and more.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
- The story of Yossarian, soldier in a World War II bomber group, and his superiors, inferiors and peers, every last one of whom is crazy as a loon.
Watership Down by Richard Adams
- The story of a group of rabbits who strike out on a grand adventure.
The Art of Deception - Kevin Mitnick et al.
A book about social engineering and the security holes it can create.
Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
A surreal coming-of-age tale.
Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
In this, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay his taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican War. The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and how one is in morally good standing as long as they "get off another man's back"; so you don't have to physically fight the government, but you must not support it or have it support you (if you are against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience.
Wicked by Gregory MaGuire
A book which at first glance appears to be a simple Wizard of Oz story and is in reality a complex discussion of the deepest meanings of life.
Atlas Shrugged
Amazon: With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, "Who is John Galt?", Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers.
Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.
* Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides:
"In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them--along with Callie's failure to develop--leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all."
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
"Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as of his own slaves."
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
"Traveling from India to New England and back again, the stories in this extraordinary debut collection unerringly chart the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture"
Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men is a novel by John Steinbeck written in 1937 which tells the story of George and Lennie, two of many men displaced by the Great Depression. Lennie is a large man with the mind of a child, and George is a small man with a quick wit. The title of the story refers to a line in "To a Mouse" by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.
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