Agree with 'Unbearable Lightness of Being', brilliant! A few more: Italo Svevo 'Confessions of Zeno', Flann O'Brien 'At Swim Two Birds'.
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What's the best book you've ever read
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Posted 1 year ago #
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Swiss Family Robinson (when I was ten) it was a great adventure for kids!
Posted 1 year ago # -
[img]http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1859602908.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg [/img]
Posted 1 year ago # -
for impact, 'flowers in the attic' when i was younger
Posted 1 year ago # -
An interesting insight to how an Aspergers child's mind works...
http://www.amazon.com/Curious-Incident-Dog-Night-Time/dp/1400032717
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Posted 1 year ago # -
Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Ahh, you beat me to it. I just reread Road to Wigan Pier which is also very good but the second half is a little bit tedious once the novelty wears off. There are a couple of sections bits about e.g. why poor people consume tea and white bread and about unemployment which could be relevant practically unchanged as retorts to some of the nonsense that gets posted up here. Sadly, in some respects not a lot has changed.Martin Amis - Money - great book. Didn't they/aren't they televising it with the guy out of Spaced?
**** Milan Kundera. Josef Skvorecky if you absolutely have to - Miss Silver's past is a good one. Solzhenitsyn, Inner Circle.
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Posted 1 year ago # -
+2 for American Tabloid, liked cold 6000 as well.
I like Ian Rankin as well, met him once in Gateshead, there's a photo of the back of my head on his website!
Read a couple of Mo Hayder recently, quite enjoyed her style and stories.
Anybody tried Christopher Brookmyre?? worth a read, mans a nutter and writes a good tale.When I was a kid my grandad used to get books from readers digest, so I never really read kids books always ended up reading whatever he was reading. Always made sure I had books around the house when my daughter was younger and she would pick up the bug of reading.
Posted 1 year ago # -
At a push thinking back the book that has had my heart racing and thinking 'oh my god' was a series of books by Stephen DOnaldson "The Gap Series". Certainly not your usual Buck Rogers wins the day type SF.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Despite it being a bit obvious, the Harry Potter books are brilliant.
Another great book is The Time Travellers Wife. Bit depressing though.
Also Noughts & Crosses, and the rest of the trilogy.
And the Forever War.
Don't think I could pick between them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Fiction
Non Fiction
Posted 1 year ago # -
I think the one that made the most memorable impact on me was Stephen King - IT, read when I was about 16, really absorbed by it.
Non fiction - Born to Run, Christopher McDougall. Very well written an a very persuasive for throwing away your running trainers
Posted 1 year ago # -
Funny ol world innit? I threw Glamorama across the room cos it was so crap! Then it's someone elses favourite book ever!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Shakey, Neil Young's Biography, by Jimmy McDonough - I'll be buying that.
Ok, I've got one - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Because it was the first book I bought from our school book club and got me into reading.
Posted 1 year ago # -
can't pin point one - think it depends on when and at what age
from my childhood
wind in the willows - kenneth grahameteens to young adult
anything by George Orwell - I also read quite a lot of political stuff, which won't be a surprise to people who know me.I'm also a big fan of Kerouac. First book my wife bought me was On the Road - read it from cover to cover in one sitting (I was on the dole at the time).
Cormac McCarthy tells a good tale, my favourites in no particular order, Outer Dark, Child of God, Blood Meridian.
Book I really enjoyed a few years ago was 'Stone Junction'by Jim Dodge. I've also just read (i.e. yesterday ) Fup by him which is quite funny.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp)
and Bill Drummond (KLF)
Bad WisdomDrummond and Manning undertake an epic journey to the North Pole to sacrifice an icon of Elvis Presley.
Had a goood old giggle at it I remember.Posted 1 year ago # -
I could do with re-reading 'stone junction'... count your bones until they glow..
On a related topic.. my other half has just excelled herself as the postie has just this very minute delivered me 'reheated cabbage' by Irvine Welsh and 'the man who cycled the world' by Mark Beaumont..
good times
Posted 1 year ago # -
As I am no intellectual, indeed I am probably a bit of a philistine, my favourite books are...
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S ThompsonThe first because it is so twisted and yet compelling. The second because of the sheer OTT madness of it. Andrenochrome??
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yay for white101 the only other person ever to have read christopher brookmyre besides me. Mrs hates it when I read his stuff, normally by the pool on holiday, and I LOL and everyone looks at me
be my enemy, snooker table, pmsl.Best dunno collector collector - tibor fischer, quite ugly one morning - CB, feersum enjinn - ian banks, dunno
Posted 1 year ago # -
Non fiction: Hungry Spirit, Charles Handy.
Fiction: The Power of One, Bryce Courtney.Posted 1 year ago # -
just finished reading David Byrne's Bicycle Daries.
Bit boring in places but otherwise kept me very entertained on thedaily commute.But for a book to be truly enthraling it must lend itself to reading whilst walking and also reading in another room whilst all those around you watch TV and take presedence over w@rk
Posted 1 year ago # -
The "best" books I have read are probably by Steinbeck - beautiful use of langauage.
My favourite series are the Flashman novels by George McDonald Fraser.
Also a fan of Laurie Lee (Cider with Rosie etc.) and Kerouac.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Two stand outs from recent-ish times are Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano. Infinite Jest for sure is in a different street to anything I've read from the last ten or so years. I've only just finished the Savage Detectives and I think it's at a similar level - I need to let it digest a wee bit. If you're into Latin American literature you have to read this book.
Both of these authors are now dead, sadly. DFW hanged himself aged 48, and Bolano died of a liver complaint at 50.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Brighton rock, Graham Greene.
Bloods a Rover, James Ellroy.
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer.non fiction
The Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog. diary excerpts when making strange films in the jungle.
London, Peter Akroyd.Posted 1 year ago # -
I think the one that made the most memorable impact on me was Stephen King - IT,
Indeed, I read and re-read this book to tatters. I ended up replacing my original copy and reading a few more times.
Cryptonomicon is a splendid book as is Snow CRash. Wasp factory is very good too but if I were going to nominate a best book then I'd say Papillon.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Atonement by Ian McEwan there is just something about this book I have read lots of other books on this list (most after Atonement) and nothing has matched it there is something undefinely good about it.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Hairy Maclary cos my kids like to sit and listen to me read it.
But, being somewhat cerebral about it, Perdido Street Station by China Mielville , it struck a chord with me and my travels.
Posted 1 year ago #
Topic Closed
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