What's your favorite book that has serious themes or conclusions (ie, about politics, society).

the shell house by Linda Newbury.... its about finding yourself and a young man discovering he's gay but it goes between two times, the present and during ww1 in Britain. amazing book, everyone should read it

Evidently, this topic did not draw a big crowd, but I certainly believe it is important to some of us. As a literature major, I could name quite a few, but my personal favorites are Robert Penn Warren's "All the Kings' Men," and anything by John Steinbeck. Also, I am not into the Russian writers, and yes, I literally am reading "War and Peace"! It is terrific -- sort of like a soap opera, really, though I am sure Tolstoy never meant for it to be. Not difficult to read at all, as some of the French writers are.

Hope I am encouraging you to keep thinking along these lines.

i like chronicles of narnia but it dosent have alout of politics in it

1984, That George Orwell is a genius, I love the romance, politics and psycology about it.

Chronicles of Narnia, I believe is by C. S. Lewis, and if you look carefully, you may find some hidden messages. But I have not read it.

George Orwell was the forerunner of our contemporary political pundits, and yes, very important.

Who else, guys/girls? I'll bet we can come up with more, don't you?

Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas Hofstader)
Only the best philosophy book ever written.

Black Holes and Time Warps (Kip S. Thorne, foreword by Stephen Hawking)
Drier than a camel's fart, but fascinating nonetheless.

True Hallucinations (Terence McKenna)
This one gets my award for trippiest volume ever. Carlos Castaneda, eat your heart out!

Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations
Makes you think. Not quite as much fun as his pornopoetry, though.

...and anything by the late great Stephen Jay Gould

The problem I have with CS Lewis, he copied alot f his friend, JRR Tolkien. In A horse and his boy, a major city is described and painted to look EXACTLY like Minus Tiruth of Gondor in Return Of The King.

Does that really qualify as a "serious" book though?

C.S Lewis' work has a lot of religious allusions that make it pretty serious (and I admit, serious is a rather broad term- technically the Internet is serious business). I've only read The Magician's Nephew (which chronologically comes before The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe), but even with that small sample there is obviously some underlying statements about God, faith, and power.

Yes, Tolkien and Lewis have very similar works- they both belonged to the Oxford club Inklings and probably had a great deal of exchange; it probably made both of their works ultimately better.