Specifically (in order of want):
Any good mythology book, especially Norse or Celtic.
Any good book on Buddhism.
Good political books from any viewpoint (I already have a list including Marx, Hobbes, Paine, and Michael Moore :p).
A good dark fantasy book.
Any book on any religion INCLUDING atheism (The Bible and The Koran and such are obvious and need not be listed :p).
Hell- just a good book (I’m especially interested in the Arthurian legends and such, if that is of any help). 
It’s not really about Punk Rock or Monster Movies, that’s in the title because the author was in a punk rock band back in the 80s and also worked on the Japanese show Ultraman. He devotes one or two chapters to talking about those things. Other than that, this is a really good book about Buddhism. A warning, though: when he says ‘hardcore’ in the title, he means it, and his view of life could be very depressing to some.
As far as those political books by Marx, Hobbes, and Paine… they’re going to be excruciatingly boring I had to read some stuff by Paine and Locke last year and it wasn’t fun… any kind of philosophy or political book written before 1900 tends to be really hard to understand even if you go sentence by sentence slowly. I know that I would never understand those books by myself unless I had a teacher and supplemental material.
Zen Sci-fi: Neuromancer by William Gibson.
And The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall are [i]the best[/] Arthur series in existence. Fact.
Tao of Pooh
Kaleidoscope Century (sci-fi)
Originally posted by Pierson
[b]Zen Sci-fi: Neuromancer by William Gibson./B]
Also in the same vein is Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.
Excellent book. Silverwing is the tale of a young bat named Shade who goes against the tyrannical rule of the owls (who have opressed the bats for many years because they remained neutral during a great war centuries ago) and the beasts of the forest, and ends up a fugitive on the run from the owl armies. It’s very cool and very dark-themed; hardly a children’s book.
Uh… Bulfinch’s Mythology? That’s a pretty biggie right there.
Watership Down. It’s not completely a political book, but it’s sorta in the vein of Animal Farm. It’s not as punch-you-in-the-face obvious, but it does seem like an extended metaphor comparing democracy, socialism/communism/whatever you want to call it, and an authoritarian military state. Plus it’s a good read.
The Gospel According to the Simpsons, maybe. I’m sure atheist beliefs are mentioned there somewhere. Plus it involves the Simpsons.
The Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. LeGuin. I haven’t read any of the Earthsea books after those three, but I highly recommend the trilogy. It’s a fantasy book ripe with Daoist beliefs and whatnot. The first one also has such a strong Jungian Shadow allusion it’s not even funny.
I did not say that atheism WAS a religion. However, when writing a book about atheism, it is impossible not to mention religion.
And I really don’t care what religion it is, I want to read about it. I’ve been sitting on my ass on the computer all this time when I could actually… you know… learn something about ANYTHING.
Search for Dalai Lama’s books. He has books on self-help too, so don’t just buy any book you see from him without looking at what it’s about first.
The Book of Religions, by Josten Gaarder. Asides the most known religions, it has a chapter on the non-religious philosophies Materialism, Humanism and Comunism, and another one on new age esoteric religions.
I’m reading <U>East of Eden</U> by John Steinbeck right now and that’s a pretty good book. I’m only about 150 pages through the book right now, so I can only speak for that much, but it’s a very interesting book so far. It’s not a book openly questioning any religion, but one could argue it does a good job of indirectly questioning whether one can truely follow the standards set by Christianity through its “retelling of Genesis”. If you haven’t already read it for one of your High School classes, it’s a good pick.
1 - The Odyssey
3 - Al Franken “Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them”
5 - The Torah
6 - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a good story.(dont know if it qualifies as Arthurian)
Originally posted by Cybercompost
3. Good political books from any viewpoint (I already have a list including Marx, Hobbes, Paine, and Michael Moore :p).
3: History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides - About the role of power in international relations; the contrast between justice and expediency, and deciding which is better at a given time; and many other things relevant to politics.
4. A good dark fantasy book.
4: The later Wheel of Time books become fairly dark, and they’re still quality reading.
6. Hell- just a good book (I’m especially interested in the Arthurian legends and such, if that is of any help).
6: If you’re at all interested in Japan, you might like the Tale of Genji.
Xwing1056
Dark fantasy - Stephen King’s <i>Dark Tower</i> series, starting with <i>The Gunslinger</i>.
You could probably download the Dark Tower books(and a lot of other Stephen King books) off of Kazaa. Of course, a lot of people don’t like reading off of the computer…
<u>Well of Darkness</u> by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (I’m sure you know them from Dragonlance and/or The Immortals) (sequels are <u>Guardians of the Lost</u> and <u>Journey into the Void</u>; The Sovereign Stone triology)
<u>The Summer Tree</u> by Guy Gavriel Kay (sequels are <u>The Wandering Fire</u> and <u>The Darkest Road</u>; Fionavar Tapestry series) (actually incorporates British legends into a modernish-fantasy thing. More addictive than Lord of the Rings in my opinion, if not as detailed.)
Choke by Chuck Palhniuk
Originally posted by Megaman984
1. Uh… Bulfinch’s Mythology? That’s a pretty biggie right there.
That’s a very good read.
It’s pretty original, and I think it kicks ass.