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The Stranger (L’Étranger) by Albert Camus is an excellent novel. I'm sure many HNers can relate to the main character.

I think the most attractive and memorable short books that spring to mind are:

1. Fear, Thich Nhat Hanh, helps you cope with anything

2. The Stranger, Camus, Nihilism/Stoicism

3. The old man and the sea, Hemmingway

To anyone who hasn't read Camus: I cannot recommend reading The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus enough. They are probably the two most influential books in regard to my outlook on life.

I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.

I just finished reading The Stranger (translated from French by Matthew Ward), and I've already got The Myth of Sisyphus on my Kindle.

I just pray the translation does justice. Matthew did a fantastic job with The Stranger IMO.

The Stranger is a wonderfully annoying book. Well, the book itself isn't annoying its more the character that annoys me... and the light imagery.

Go buy a good novel. Here's some random picks for you:

The road by Cormack McCarthy (a real page turner),
The New York trilogy by Paul Auster,
Corrections by Jonathan Franzen,
The stranger by Albert Camus.

The Stranger by Camus, because it introduced me to the complete lack of objectivism in society, a revelation that explained a lot of things I had experienced in my life. In fact I did read it in my 20's, but it took me years to comprehend it.

Then, every CS textbook I have written, because there was nothing like these when I needed them.

Can you elaborate on how The Stranger influenced your outlook on life?

I ask because the person who recommended it to me saw the protagonist as a hero -- someone inspiring.

I read it as a cautionary tale. It showed me one could be apathetic to a fault in regards to their fate. The only thing he seemed to care about was actively not caring about his or others' lives.

Beautiful book and probably the author's most hopeful. Despite the death and despair everyone in Oran is subject to, the heroic actions and words are unambiguously but unsentimentally those of people that choose to act, not cower, escape, or acquiesce.

To me The Stranger felt like an indictment of the world as arbitrary, with everything that brings. The Plague discovers nobility in defying the arbitrary because we have the power to lessen others' suffering and it is cruel and cowardly not to do so.

I highly recommend the book, I read the Gilbert translation. I wish Matthew Ward had lived to take on La Peste as well.

If you find yourself struggling to parse traditional philosophy, which honestly is likely if you aren't planning on taking a philosophy course I'd suggest reading philosophical novels. Camus's the stranger and Sartre's no exit are great works that are foremost page turners while also demanding considerable thought. I like thus spoke zarathrustra a lot but it will be difficult with no background. If you want to get serious read the greeks. Beyond that it really depends on which area you're interested in. The Stanford encyclopedia is a great resource. I'd stay away from Hegel and Kant at first, although they are incredibly influential. They'll probably turn you away because it's so hard to parse.

Good list. I really recommend these to everyone. they are listed in my order of love to like. Hope you enjoy Conor.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (864)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (159)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (268)
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (337)
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (130)
and last but not least
The Stranger by Albert Camus (this one is short, idk how many pages, but its like 60. and if you read it from an existential point of view, it can have life altering effects.)
Keep in mind, these are my absolute favorites. I don't think you can go wrong with any one of them. =]

this is just fascinating for me since I picked up The Stranger last week and am mesmerized by his writing style. The Plague is now next on my list. I don't want to compare him with others since he very much has a distinct & brilliant style (short crisp and far from pretentious - sentences are clear and appeal to uneducated riffraff like myself - think I have seen this also in Orwell and Hemingway). The feelings and emotions he raises in me are nevertheless similar to those I get when reading Kafka and Dostoevsky. Truly amazing being in this man's head. I only regret not having picked up his work sooner.

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.", Albert Camus, The Stranger

I disagree with most of the comments. I believe the article has great merit, which lies in its conclusion, but most would never make it that far.

For those who'd like the condensed version:

"you are confronted with the one philosophical problem that no book or tradition or teaching can ever know or solve; being you, in your world."

What the article says is that philosophy is not very useful to an individual, which, having failed to gain any relevant insights from raw philosophy myself, I agree with.

However, I would argue that the application of raw philosophy in stories, like Crime and Punishment or The Stranger or Arrival or Romeo and Juliet, is what makes philosophy useful––being able to see it applied in a relatable character's existence, not unlike our own, with the requisite cause and effect chains. Ay, there's the rub.

I have gained great insights from stories that make excellent use of philosophy–through its application. It could be argued that great works of fiction follow from new developments in raw philosophy. Both fiction and philosophy play in the space of universal truths.

I'm reading The Stranger and finding it very relevant to our times. It's a depressingly boring read, but it gives an accurate insight into the way most young people are experiencing life. Worth a read if for nothing else than to identify which of your attitudes are too eerily similar to the main character's. Also highly recommend The Trial for similar reasons.

Siddhartha is great--if you like Hesse I would also recommend that you check out "Steppenwolf" (same author), and if that also appeals to you, then "The Stranger" by Camus

"The fall" and "The stranger" from Albert Camus, arguably the most accessible cornerstones of Existential philosophy, and they really make you think about your position in this world and as a person. The play "no exit" by Sartre is also very interesting, and works well as the audio version by Partially Examined Life (a philosophy podcast).

The Plague's opening is very prosaic, since that's sort of the voice and the point, that even extraordinary events are meaningless except in the importance we attach to them personally.

The opening of The Stranger is much more grabby and also revealing for the narration. It has also presented something of a challenge for translators. I like Matthew Ward's "Maman died today." It's accurate, and neatly shows that infantile quality that Meursault's internal narration has.

It's funny how religious folks always go for the body horror. There's no existentialism here; no Kafka's "The Trial", Camus' "The Stranger", nor Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" to force us to contend with each other and our cold vast empty universe. (Indeed, reading each of these three authors today, we are forced to grapple with their sexism, racism, and theology, because like all humans they were deeply bigoted and hateful.)

And Camus' The Stranger led to an increase in shooting Arabs on the beach because of a sunny day.

If we judge media by what perceived affect it will have on society, we are in dire straights indeed.

> And Camus' The Stranger led to an increase in shooting Arabs on the beach because of a sunny day.

Except that it didn't?

I have the kindle reader on my iphone, and was looking for some Camus to read on it. Unfortunately, the only books available to kindle having anything to do with Camus are books and essays about Camus, not actual Camus books (you cannot, for example, purchase The Stranger for your kindle).

In fact, the two books I have bought for my kindle app I've ended up not reading at all.

Even if the kindle dropped to the sweet spot price point, I probably wouldn't get one. And I'm probably not the only one. Wasn't there an episode of Star Trek where books were portrayed as an oddity: collectors items, status symbols?

Once e-readers and books are inexpensive enough, it will be more expensive to purchase a hard copy. And thus, they will turn into status symbols - I doubt the market for them will disappear, just change. Sort of like how owning a horse now is (somewhat) considered a status symbol.

It is very easy to ruin a book even with manual translation. E.g. Albert Camus's The Stranger was first translated by some old English guy who brought in significant cultural aspects to the book that didn't exist in the french. Google translate is nice enough for the quick grokking of post but it is nowhere close to even the badness of manual.

Not to start a flame war over book choice but forcing kids to read the Bible, Homer's Iliad, and Shakespeare are probably what is causing such marked disinterest in the first place. There are so many interesting and valuable works of writing, fiction and non-fiction, that can captivate and entertain modern children that aren't unapproachable tomes translated from ancient, dead languages, or written in Iambic Pentameter.

One of the first plays I read that actually interested me in Theater was Waiting for Godot. Reading The Stranger in high school exposed me to so many new and complex ideas. Even extremely recent books like "Something that May Shock and Discredit You" by Daniel M. Lavery or "Trick Mirror" by Jia Tolentino are fascinating works of the modern American Canon. I'm not Polish but I'm sure there are equally relevant works in Polish.

If you think kids just prefer to watch a "movie based on a book" maybe stop making them read boring books that truly lack lots of meaningful relevance to their lives today.

And seriously, stop making kids read The Bible as a literary lesson. Nothing made me dis-engage in school like being told "I know you're Jewish and this feels like proselytizing, but I promise, this is purely a lesson in literature, nothing more". That is proven to be a lie when King James's edition is selected over an English translation of the Torah, and when no other non-Christian religious texts are selected for literary evaluation...

The Plague is Camus' most novel-ish book and least philosophical. There is philosophy there (should a doctor resist an inevitable plague?) but there is also a lot of metaphor (many read it as an allegory for nazi-sympathizing france) and even just classic character development. This is very different from The Stranger, which spends like 1/3 of its words on a philosophical conversation, or something like Myth of Sisyphus, which doesn't even attempt to be a story.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Stranger by Camus

Getting into a habit of exercise is the obvious answer. A less conventional advice that has sometimes worked for me is to totally embrace the feeling of being somber, and binge on some of the classic sort of miserable apathetic existentialist books. Things like Albert Camus' The Stranger, Sartre's Nausia, Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. Sometimes after I have read those works, after I have stopped trying to ignore the feeling and just went all in for a few days, do I even get bored with being miserable and then start to look for other emotions to experience, and usually they're a lot happier in flavour. Obviously this advice could also exacerbate the problem, so try it at your own risk.

The Stranger - Albert Camus

I think you are mistaken. At least from my reading of The Stranger I remember Camus stating suicide is a cowardly act. Wikipedia[1] states Camus viewed suicide as a rejection of freedom. Also the myth of sisyphus doesn't have much to do with suicide does it? I may be mistaken. I thought it was more of an analogy to the condition of man, not so much a suggestion to commit suicide to avoid it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_suicide#Absurdis...

I listen to books during commutes and errands, and give them a letter grade when I'm done. I read a lot of different genres as I believe there's value in all genres (and mediums too).

These are some of the books I've given an "A" over the last few years, roughly grouped by genre:

Nonfiction:

- A Short History of Nearly Everything

- Fabric of the Cosmos

- Dataclysm

- The Righteous Mind

- Merchants of Doubt

- Dead Wake

- Man's Search for Meaning

- Evicted

- The New Jim Crow

- Night

Sci-fi:

- We

- The Sirens of Titan

- Hyperion

- Stories of Your Life

- Frankenstein

- The Day of the Triffids

- Childhood's End

Fantasy:

- The Stormlight Archives

- The First Law Trilogy

- The Lord of the Rings

Literature:

- The Stranger

- Dubliners

- Things I've Learned from Dying

- The Things They Carried

- Cloud Atlas

- Stoner

- Pillars of the Earth