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Must read Book
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Posted 2 years ago #
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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 amisPosted 2 years ago # -
+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.
Posted 2 years ago # -
If this is a man - Primo Levi
Posted 2 years ago # -
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
Posted 2 years ago # -
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.
Posted 2 years ago # -
+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.
Posted 2 years ago # -
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.
Posted 2 years ago # -
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 WallaceNon-Funny Non-Fiction
How to be Free - Tom HodgkinsonPosted 2 years ago # -
Moments of reprieve - Primo Levi
The Journey Home, Abbeys Road, Down the River - Edward Abbey
Into the Wild - Jon Krakaeur
Feeding the rat - Al AlvarezPosted 2 years ago # -
I'd put the following as Must Reads
Catch 22
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Watchmen (yeah ok so its not a typical book)
Its not about the bike
Touching the Void
Three men in a boat (not in the same league as the others but a personal favourite)Posted 2 years ago # -
Albert Camus--The Outsider.Existentialism at its best
Posted 2 years ago # -
The Outsider - last book I read which was very good
My must read is almost certainly "If This Is A Man/The Truce" by Primo Levi. Read only once, but the most powerful book I've ever read, and one that you really should read before your last breath.
Posted 2 years ago # -
for an oz flavor.
Hell West and crooked - tom Cole
a fortunate life - a b facey
The goldfields journal by cannibal jack 1851-1853
Posted 2 years ago # -
I recently read "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens.
It wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be.
That's my coat by the door thanks-Posted 2 years ago # -
Maybe not must read, but a favourite of mine - Shogun by James Clavells.
Posted 2 years ago # -
KT1973, I wouldn't worry about it, I find Dickens interminably boring. Willing to accept it's me though, not him...
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Stalingrad by anthony beevor, incredible true story of the battle that turned the course of WWII.
Dickens! Boring, What?Posted 2 years ago # -
It's a very long list of books that made a lasting impression / I can read repeatedly but off the top of my head they'd include:
"If not now, when?" Primo Levi.
"Crime & Punishment" Dostoevsky.
"Love in the Time of Cholera" Gabriel García Márquez
"Catch 22" Joseph Heller
"The Metamorphosis" Franz Kafka
"Germinal" Zola
"Midnight's Children" Salman RushdieAnd then maybe I'd say that the Rabbit books by Updike are worth a read, The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner was also memorable. As others have mentioned though, it's very difficult to argue that any book is a 'must read'; interpretations are so subjective - where, when and why you're reading a book I reckon is important, I still can't get on with Austin and Elliot having being forced to trawl through them during college for example.
I guess the Koran and the Bible might fall into the category of 'must read' though not necessarily for literary reasons...
Favourite book of all time? Either the Iliad or The Decameron.
Posted 2 years ago # -
totally out there, i would suggest trying Sophocles or Euripidies, maybe Plato, they aren't always the easiest read but what you learn is that in 2,500 years nothing has really changed. Our lives for all our progress are as petty as they have always been. You also learn how few stories there are. If you are willing to read something a little odder try Gilgamesh. It is where stories began.
Posted 2 years ago # -
God Remained Outside....by Genevieve de Gaulle Anthonioz (De Gaulle's niece). An inspirational book on her survival from Ravensbruck concentration camp.Only 40 pages long and small enough to fit in your pocket you will not want to put it down once you start....I defy you not to read it at least twice (IMO).
Posted 2 years ago # -
Earth Abides by Gearge Stewart
Swine flu ?
Earth Abides, a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Berkeley English professor George R. Stewart, tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood (Ish) Williams, Emma, and the community they founded. The survivors live off the remains of the old world, while learning to adapt to the new. Along the way they are forced to make tough decisions and choose what kind of civilization they will rebuild.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Everyone should read a Shakespearean tragedy...
Why? I can see that for his time he's peerless and his work has had immeasurable influence on those who've followed, but personally I'd struggle to sit and read one.
Surprised anyone would choose Stephen King as an 'only book'. Good writing but do you re-read them finding something new??
Posted 2 years ago # -
Just finished 'First Light' by Geoffrey Wellum, his experiences of being a 19 year old Spitfire pilot in WW2.
Inspiring stuff and makes me realise how feckless I was aged 19 in comparison!THe other must reads in our house at the moment are 'The Happy Waving Game', 'See The Pretty Flowers' and all the other In The Night Garden books. And 'That's not my fairy' is fairly popular too.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Bill Tilman's sailing/mountaineering books are very good. make you want to get out there in a small boat.
Anything by Bruce Chatwin especially In Patagonia.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Fair point deadlydarcy.
Must reads then:
still most fo the Steinbeck cannon
lord of the flies
catch 22
cathcer in the rye
to kill a mockingbird
1984I notice when listing them that these are all 20th century classics and I've read alot of others but if I could only read these books again I think I could cope.
you can keep shakespeare.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Lister, lol.
Don't forget the very hungry caterpillar and the tiger who came to tea. These are literally MUST reads in our house at the moment.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Most often read book would be Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
Best as opossed to most enjoyed was Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence. The paralels between then and now is amazing.
Catcher in the Rye and As I walked out one morning my favourites.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Glue by Irvine Welsh was a good one.
Couldn't put it down in factPosted 2 years ago # -
Dickens boring? Dickens was the daddy. Later stuff is gripping: Great Expectations, Bleak House, David Copperfield. They were serialised weekly or monthly so he had to include regular cliffhangers: doof doof moments.
Must-read books for me would include On Liberty and Utilitarianism by JS Mill. And Leviathan by Hobbes.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Irvine Welsh - Marabou Stork Nightmares
Posted 2 years ago # -
I'm not big on classics, but a Steinbeck should sort you out...Heart of Darkness, perhaps.
Obviously not big on Steinbeck either, that's by Joseph Conrad
Have you read The Secret Agent?I'm encouraged to see so much mention of Steinbeck here, as he's my favourite author. Here are the first lines of Cannery Row:
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men" and he would have meant the same thing.
Who wouldn't want to read about that?
The must read Steinbeck is East of Eden in my opinion. It seems to combine the technical brilliance of The Grapes of Wrath and the humanity and characters of Cannery Row. The character of Sam Hamilton, Steinbecks grandfather, is simply marvellous.
I would also recommend One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It describes a single day spent in the Gulag system of Stalinist Russia. The author was imprisoned for many years by Stalin, giving a special credence to the writing. Far from being depressing, I found the book to be a truly uplifting story about man's innovative skills and will to survive
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I also think Brave New World is well worth a read, horribly prophetic, I prefer it to 1984.
Steinbeck is just brilliant in every way it's great to know he is so popular.
If this is a man, I can't see how it couldn't be top of the list of "must reads" a truly remarkable book and essential reading.
Posted 2 years ago # -
steinbecktrackworld?
Posted 2 years ago # -
The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
I've read a few of his books. It's impossible to argue with the guy.
Posted 2 years ago #
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