Nothing in the original post mentions “recreational reading.” What does that mean? How mamy poly-sybolic words need a book have to no longer be recretional? Secondly, this thread is rife with laudatory comments about the various books people recomend. Why am I not entitled to do the same? As to the “taboo” nature of the books, I didn’t know that Horeb or Mavo haTalmud are taboo. BTW is the Feldheim translation of the Mavo HaTalmud, the edition lacking an acknowledgemnt of its true author, also taboo? I seem to recall alot of guys in yeshiva reading it. Now please pay attention. I’m writing this very slowly so even you will understand. I was making fun of that Rosh Yeshiva. It seems Sidney Sheldon was ok with him, but the Rav Zt”l was not. Talk about “krumkeit” and “skewed versions of religion.” I don’t so much care that he opposed me reading The Halachik Man, but then what gives with not caaring about Sidney Sheldon? Then again my roommate wore a hat and I didn’t, so I guess the Rosh’s tacit approval of the book made reading it ok as it was “under rabbinic supervision.”
While we’re on the topc of important Jewish books. No serious library should be without the Hertz Chumash. It is the single greatest English language refutation of the documentray hypothesis written for a layman. It’s a shame no one has undertaken to update it in light of developments in Bible study since its publication; especially since JPS now buys into much of the secular scholarship. But I guess “dah ma shetashiv” is one those incipient “krumkeits”