If you want thing with thematic and philo stuff Tom Robbins provides a lot. I highly recommend Skinny Legs and All, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, and Still Life From Woodpecker. His style is unique to say the least.

If you are looking for things more along the lines of 1984, The Disspossessed by Ursula LeGuin, and The Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood are both awesome.

Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
Nectar in a Sieve - Kamala Markandaya
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Stranger - Camus

Any halfway decent literature is going to meet your criteria.

If you're looking for a thematic book (no characters, only the author and the reader) and philosophical stuff, you can pick up most philosophy texts and experience that. From Aristotle to Zubiri, most if not all have that kind of layout. Descartes First Meditations is one of the more favorable texts to start with. You basically start from the ground up and move on from there.

Sophie's world by Jostein Gaarder published in 1991. It is "A substantive and understandable review from the Pre-Socratic Greeks through Jean-Paul Sartre"

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera published in 1984. Not a very light reading with the Existential angst of the 80's.

Candide by Voltaire in 1759.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It is a historical novel that contains discussions on politcal power, truth, life, death, justice, goodness. I highly recommend this novel.

For a good book written for teens/young adults and that is easier to read than some of the older texts, I'd suggest any book by Stephen Law. I started out with Philosophy Rocks! and it gives a pretty good overview of some philosophical ideas, including Plato's the cave and the question can you jump in the same river twice? It shows both sides pretty well and then leaves you to decide for yourself what you think. I've probably read it three or four times, and it's really good to get you thinking.

The Animal Farm (also George Orwell)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxluy) (1984, but more realistic to todays world)
Perfume the story of a murderer (All about wickedness and obsession)

Anyhow look around in a bookshop or Amazon for books that speak to you. You can't judge a book by it's cover, but it often helped me pick the right books, once you've got a set of books it's easier to determine what you like next based on similar writers (Amazon recommendations are nice too. from time to time).

Forgot about these ones......Farenheit 451 is good too.....

I'm currently reading Bob Dylan and Philosophy by Peter Vernezze and Carl Porter. Very insightfull look at the philophical meaning in raised by dylan's poetry and lyrics.

Why not trying the bible. Its an astrotheological piece of writing made about people worshiping the sun.

Yeah there's a lot of things about the bible you could say. But I will probably not read too deeply into the Bible.

Anybody got a good book on Marxist theory?

I have to ask, have you read the Bible? Because I have, and what the text lacks is sun worship. I've seen arguments wherein people suggest that the Bible implies sun worship following the ancient Egyptian cult, but these arguments do not account for the history of the text's development. Those arguments, that I have seen anyway, are comparable to conspiracy theories about world government.



Regardless of your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, the Bible is one of the most influential texts available to mankind. People should read the Bible just as people should read Homer.



You could start with Marx. The Communist Manifesto can be found online for free.