Recommend your favourite books folks!!
Need a collection of books to last me a year away, have been bought a kindle so trying to fill it up ready to leave in a few weeks.
Currently reading Game of Thrones so have the next book ready. Also like good thrillers, autobigraphies and books about world war 1/2...
The Wasp Factory
Perfume
The Autumn of the Patriarch
Matterhorn
The force by Don Winslow
Anything by jeff vandermeer
Also like good thrillers, autobigraphies and books about world war 1/2...
Operation Mincemeat. Fits almost all of the above. A thriller, that's also sort of a biography and about WWII.
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Zigzag, by the same author, is also excellent.
CaptainFlashheart. Downloaded. Thanks!!
Sapiens
The Wasp Factory Ian Banks
Are you Experienced William Sutcliffe
Vive La Revolution Mark Steele
The Dark Tower
Ready Player One by Ernest Kline is an excellent read - Spielberg is making the film at the moment
If you've not read them then Kill Your Friends and the Second Coming by John Niven are darkly hilarious
His Bloody Project by Graham Macrae Burnett
A Sheperds Life, James Rebanks. Brilliant book on the Lake District and farming.
Anything by Michael Mutchinson, Faster is the pick but The Hour is also damn fine and I'm currently getting through Re:Cyclist which is good so far.
The Big Short by Michael Lewis.
Pretty much anything by Irvine Walsh.
The Martian, Andy Weir, the film is very average, the book is outstanding.
Touching The Void, Joe Simpson.
The Secret Race, Tyler Hamilton.
+1 for anuthing by Michael Hutchinson - he did a book about sailing which is great, too.
Recently read No Empty Chairs, fantastic book about the air war in WW1.
If your liking Game of Thrones try Patrick Rothfuss' Kingslayer Chronicles.
If you like Game of Thrones then try Joe Abercrombies books.
For a thriller then James Ellroy is excellent, the LA quartet are superb. And I'd add American Tabloid to that list.
Autobiography then Chuck Yeagers is really good and at the same time I'd recommend The Right Stuff by Tom Wolff. Also Ranulph Fiennes Mad Bad and Dangerous to know.
WW1 and 2, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5 is superb and I've just finished Ken Follets first two books of his Century trilogy which take in WW1 and WW2.
btw where are you going to that you need to download a years worth of books!
If you like Game of Thrones then try Joe Abercrombies books.
For a thriller then James Ellroy is excellent, the LA quartet are superb. And I'd add American Tabloid to that list.
Autobiography then Chuck Yeagers is really good and at the same time I'd recommend The Right Stuff by Tom Wolff. Also Ranulph Fiennes Mad Bad and Dangerous to know.
WW1 and 2, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5 is superb and I've just finished Ken Follets first two books of his Century trilogy which take in WW1 and WW2.
btw where are you going to that you need to download a years worth of books!
If you like Game of Thrones then try Joe Abercrombies books.
For a thriller then James Ellroy is excellent, the LA quartet are superb. And I'd add American Tabloid to that list.
Autobiography then Chuck Yeagers is really good and at the same time I'd recommend The Right Stuff by Tom Wolff. Also Ranulph Fiennes Mad Bad and Dangerous to know.
WW1 and 2, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5 is superb and I've just finished Ken Follets first two books of his Century trilogy which take in WW1 and WW2.
btw where are you going to that you need to download a years worth of books!
Currently reading Operation MINCEMEAT. Well recommended.
Also, for wartime aviation stuff try 'Wings on my Sleeve', 'First Light', and 'Enemy Coast Ahead'.
Currently reading Operation MINCEMEAT. Well recommended.
Also, for wartime aviation stuff try 'Wings on my Sleeve', 'First Light', and 'Enemy Coast Ahead'.
MacIntyre, Rothfuss and Abercrombie as all recommended above
also add Wodehouse (Jeeves & Wooster, Blandings etc), and MC Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books for some lighter reading
Robin Hobb for fantasy
John Connolly for crime with fantasy undertones
Jim butcher's Dresden files for fantasy / crime crossover
Chris Simms for Manchester based crime drama (book 6 of the DI Spicer series currently free on kindle this weekend)
Stephen Booth for Peak District crime drama
After my suggesting those to my dad, he now recommends Robin Roughley. Not yet had the chance to read any.
Non-fic, try Tony Hawks (round ireland with a fridge, one hit wonder, piano in the pyrenees), and Tim Moore (The cyclist who went out in the cold, French revolutions, Gironimo, Do Not Pass Go - the latter is non-cycling, it's about the monopoly board)
To add to the excellent Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zig Zag and First Light I'd add Bomber by Len Deighton. It starts all a bit boys own, I didn't think I'd carry on but I'm very glad I did. It's fiction but the way it deals with both the story of those in the air and those under the falling bombs makes for a very worthwhile read.
Ooo! The Dambusters by Paul Brickhill is just superb - have Enemy Coast Ahead but never been able to finish it. Brickhill's The Great Escape is also magnificent.
Justin Kronins post apocalyptic trilogy:
The Passage
The Twelve
The City of Mirrors
...is simply, utterly, brilliant.
And I've got to mention Alistair Humphries "Thunder & Sunshine" & "Moods of future joys" as the best cycle touring books ever.
Josef M. Bauer' "As far as my feet will carry me" is an epic tale.
"The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz is also excellent.
John Buchan's novels are quite entertaining, for a kind of thriller, some are set around World War I. eg The 39 Steps.
They are now out of copyright, so you can download the ebooks for free from Project Gutenberg.
I really enjoyed Ben Aaronovitch- Rivers of london, Moon over soho etc. They are about wizard policemen which sounds rubbish but they're not.
Iain Banks - the Business
Christopher Moore - Lamb, the gospel according to Biff etc. Haven't read a book of his that I didn't enjoy
Need a collection of books to last me a year away,
I thought most prisons had libraries?
Ben Macintyre has a knack for uncovering interesting war-time stories, as Flashy et al have mentioned above. I'm going to add 'A Foreign Field' to the list. A true story of love and betrayal in the Great War.
Battle of the Atlantic by Jonathan Dimbleby (gripping account)
Operation Mincemeat
Abercrombies first law trilogy is very good and if you like that sort of thing Mark Lawrence has two trilogies broken empire first and the red queens war both of which were very good. If you want one series to do you for most of the year the rift was saga by Feist is really good and possibly my favourite.
Fighter Pilot by Paul Richey is a superb personal account of the Battle of France in the air.
The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann is IMO the best aviation memoir of WW2. Fantastic air battle accounts and captures the mental exhaustion and fear of the increasingly dominant flak at the end of the war.
Edit: agree ref First Light by Geoff Wellum as recommended above.
Justin Kronins post apocalyptic trilogy:
The Passage
The Twelve
The City of Mirrors
...is simply, utterly, brilliant.
Just ordered the first two for kindle at 99p each...worth a punt at that price.
Power of the Dog and Cartel by Don Winslow.
Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Richard Morgan if you like sci-fi.
Steel Remains trilogy by Richard Morgan if tough like Game of Thrones.
The secret history by Donna Tartt
Engelby by Sebastian Faulks
The hero of ages by Brandon Sanderson
In Europe by Geert Mak is a book about the 20th century, mainly concentrating on the wars. Easy to dip in and out of and absolutely brilliant.
World War Z nothing to do with the film of the same name. Covers Zombies, how civilization might act under such circumstances and how we would restart the planet after such an event.
Anything by Stuart McBride for crime novels
Fire in the night by Stephen McGinty (Piper Alpha story)
That near death thing by Rick Broadent (IoM tt book but very good)
Leviathan and The music of chance by Paul Auster
Gary Disher does some good Australian crime novels if you like that genre as does Peter Temple
A spy among friends by Ben Macintyre (again!) details the blunt spy scandal very well and is a good read like the others by him already mentioned
Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto, he wrote series one of True detective
Older school but great thrillers based around the wars, pretty much anything by Alistair Maclean or Hammond Innes.
I enjoy reading Peter May, especially his Isle of Lewis trilogy and his stand alone novels.
I Claudius by Robert Graves.
Everything by George Orwell.
If you like Game of Thrones then try Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It's Chinese and the translation to go for is the Moss Roberts. Intrigue and skullduggery that make GoT look like Noddy Goes Shopping
[url= https://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Nothing-Coming-Jimmy-Lerner/dp/055216271X ]You Got Nothing Coming[/url]
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson is the best book I've read for a while.
Great replies everyone, thanks!!
We're going travelling for 12 months so will get plenty of reading time. Fortunately not to prison...
Another vote for Ben Macintyre. Just finished reading this.
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Really, really, incredible stuff, although very sobering looking at the roll call at the end of the book.