Whats your must read?
The Angry Raisins
Richard Benson's The Farm is excellent non-fiction too.
Depends what mood I'm in, but the Stieg Larsson trilogy is great
(well I think so)
Patrick o' Brien,Cormac Mc Carthy,Ian Rankin.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig - it's brilliant on so many levels
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - an excellent page-turner, very few of the film adaptations do it justice
1984 by George Orwell - do I have to say why?
that'll do for starters!
Cormac McCarthy [i]The Crossing[/i] Russell Hoban [i]Riddley Walker[/i] Henry Thoreau [i]Walden[/i] Tolstoy [i]Anna Karenina[/i]
Jonathon Livingston Seagull
The pillars of the earth
Generation Kill - very disturbing and enlightening read.
Freeborn John - a biography of John Lilburne
Happy like murderers, insight into Fred and Rose West by Gordon Burn. Jaw dropping read and only book thats ever made me cry.
Thanks haakon - they're all great books. Zen was such a great book, made me wish I read it whilst still at school... These are exactly the sort of books I want to discover.
Noteeth - might try The Crossing, perhaps?
And I'm thinking - less chilling, and more inspirational.
Any other ideas?
Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy 😀
Lord Iffy Boatrace by a certain Bruce Dickinson of that Iron Maiden
Child 44, Tom Rob Smith
[i]Noteeth - might try The Crossing, perhaps?[/i]
It's the second part of the Border Trilogy (after [i]All the Pretty Horses[/i]), but [i]The Crossing[/i] is easily my favourite (Billy's encounter with a she-wolf haunted me for a long time... ) - along with [i]Suttree[/i] and [i]Blood Meridian[/i].
Spare, sublime prose like no other.
[i]less chilling, and more inspirational[/i]
I recently finished - and [i]loved[/i] - this:
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"A short history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson should be a mandatory read. Excellent.
the ragged trousered philanthropists
the grapes of wrath , cannery row , of mice and men, the pearl ( in fact just about anything by john steinbeck)
the grapes of wrath , cannery row , of mice and men, the pearl ( in fact just about anything by john steinbeck)
Amen to that. Though i like East of Eden best.
If you like the sci-fi/fantasy genere, the Dark Tower series by Stephen King is really spellbinding. It is a series of 7 books that takes you into some pretty dark places in a chronology of a group traveling through a maze of time & parallel existences.
Also Lord of the Rings--even the great 3 part movie couldn't do justice to Tolkein's writing.
Agree with bigeyedbeans and finbar that John Steinbeck is great as well.
Desert Solitaire also great--living in that part of the SW US, I have had the good fortune to hike much of the land Abbey describes (which he does very well).
Spike Milligan's War Memoirs. David Niven's 'The Moons a Balloon'.
And pretty much anything by Iain Banks (with or without the M).
Cormac McCarthy : The Road
Paul Coelho : The Alchemist
David Mitchell : Number9Dream
Jon Krakauer : Into the Wild
love steinbeck....all of them!
Irma Kurtz - "The great american bus ride". Diary of multi-day Greyhound bus rides in the US. Sounds dull but good read.
Still looking out for that Siberian cycling book that was out before xmas.
+1 monkiman
Steinbeck is the greatest writer of all time. IMHO.
Cannery row I must have read ten times.
feet in the clouds by richard askwith. makes me want to run and run and run. amazing book.
Catch 22 - by Joseph Heller. Voted best book of the 20th century by Waterstones customers. They were right! sums up the madness of warfare in a bloody funny way (the films rubbish - don't go there)
And, as already mentioned - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It will genuinely change your life
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Don't know about must read but I recently read a book called agent zig zag that was very good.
shantaram, someone randomly recomended this to me, amazing book, look it up
dan simmonds Ilium ,hyperion
alistair reynolds revelation space
ian m bainks consider phlebas
cormack mcarthy the road, no country for old men
+1 on Red Storm Rising, great stuff 🙂
anything by Neil Gaiman, scary, funny, wonderful books
charles stross: atrocity archives and jennifer morgue
Bill bryson is also a great read. Laugh out loud funny.
James Frey - A Million Little Pieces
Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
The Name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss - first original fantasy book since LOTR
half asleep in frog pyjamas by tom robbins
'dead babies' martin amis or ian banks?
anything by ian banks as long as its not the shitty scifi stuff
money by martin amis
+1 Edward Abbey
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby - how travel should be.
Spike Milligan's war memoirs - all of them.
If this is a man - Primo Levi
Blimey, I read *a lot* and while I've not read most of the titles above, most of the ones I have read I thought were pretty mediocre. It's a funny old world, eh? I'm not going to pick these out as it'll just annoy people but some of the 'classics', really aren't that brilliant IMO. People are different and all that. If I were told I could have one book and one book only for all eternity on a desert island.....
...I'd say kill me now. But in the long run I'd probably go for either Snow Crash or Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Or maybe IT by Stephen King
Sorry, very few of the above are "must reads". Very good books, most of them, a few turkeys in there. But ask yourselves..must read? Really? These threads always turn into "my favourite book(s) that you might not have heard of".
Hmmm, must reads...IMO, only
Everyone should read a Shakespearean tragedy...my choice being Hamlet, but take your pick.
I'm not big on classics, but a Steinbeck should sort you out...Heart of Darkness, perhaps.
I believe everyone should read To Kill A Mockingbird.
+1 on Riddley Walker. Also, Eric Shipton's Six Mountain Travel Books - what an amazing read - hard going occasionally, but that just suits the subject matter.
I need the first book in the first chronicles of thomas covenant, lord fouls bane, if anyone has it to lend/sell?
i read it years ago when i was a nipper, have every other book, just need the first one again, emails in me profile.
Fiction
Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
Life After God - Douglas Coupland
The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières (starts with The War of Don Emmanuele's Nether Parts)
Funny Non-Fiction
Yes Man - Danny Wallace
Non-Funny Non-Fiction
How to be Free - Tom Hodgkinson
Moments of reprieve - Primo Levi
The Journey Home, Abbeys Road, Down the River - Edward Abbey
Into the Wild - Jon Krakaeur
Feeding the rat - Al Alvarez
