MegaSack DRAW - 6pm Christmas Eve - LIVE on our YouTube Channel
I'm off on me holibags soon and since I intend to spend the week sitting on my ass, drinking beer, smoking cigars and reading I figure I should get some decent reading material.
I'm a fan of John Irving (already ordered Last night in twisted river, and have read all of his others). Any suggestions for fiction that's good? I don't mind some of the Andy McNab type stuff but I do find it a bit quick to read, did one of his novels in a morning last year....
So what's receiving the critical acclaim of the STW massive this year?
G
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. A proper war story.
The tom cain books are good if you like the mcnab stuff.
There's a load of Bourne books about.
If I had to choose one book to recommend it would be Freefall by Tom Reid. Not a typical SAS shooty type book at all.
EDIT: buy the hardback, this is a keeper.
guns germs & steel, jared diamond
human history of the last 13,000 years.... very enlightening & informative read.
Wolf Hall. Nice and long, too.
Have you read Papillon?
What about any Wilbur Smith? With The Sunbird being your best bet.
The Sharpes books are very good.
Slaughterhouse 5 is very good. And what's that one that Vonnegut wrote one about the atomic guy? Ice Nine?
Sebastian Faulks?
The Foresight war.
The years of rice and salt.
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry. Best book ever. Fact.
The Stieg Larsson trilogy are worth a go, all big and fat, easy holibag (LOL'd at this, may have to steal it, and start using it myself) reading.
+1 for Steig Larsson - really enjoying The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Reading and enjoying "White Teeth" at the moment, quite enjoyed "Solar" by Ian McEwan but not up to previous efforts....
Certainly not Statistics and the Evaluation of Evidence for Forensic Scientists by CGG Aitken. It's a right bore...
'One Hundred Years of Solitude' if you haven't read it before (in fact I think it's time I read it again).
p.s. I'm an Irving fan too but haven't read any since Prayer for Owen Meany ..have I missed any really good ones ?
Another vote for Stieg Larssen!
Jane Eyre. Best book ever. Fact.
Why not check out the 40 or so Booker Prize winners.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Very good book.
I'm reading The Black Dahlia by James Elroy, not seen the film (author also wrote LA Confidential), very good.
Talking of Booker Winners, last book I read was The White Tiger, tbh I was a little disappointed, not bad at all but not up there with other Booker Winners (Ian McEwan - Amsterdam, JM Coetzee - Disgrace) that I had read.
Christopher Brookmyres stuff is usually a good page-turner and pretty funny if you're Scottish...
The Sharpes books are very good.
+1. Reading Sharpes Tiger at the moment.
The Road by Cormac Mcarthy
way better than the film, truly engrossing. Though it may be a bit dark and thought provoking for a holiday!
The Grass Arena
Valley of the Assassins
My recent (and ongoing!) favourites;
"Krakatoa, the day the world exploded" by Simon Winchester. Stunning reportage style of the whole event from a geological, political, social, etc view. Brilliant.
"Enigma - The battle for the code" - Hugh Sebag Montefiore. Another great read which goes in to a whole load of detail around the whole Enigma issue of the war. Heavy going and intellectually challenging at times, which is a good thing!
Any of the early Flashman series by George McDonald Fraser. Historical accuracy, rip roaring bonking and amazing displays of cowardice all wrapped up with a few laughs.
Oh, and Jasper Fforde. As mad as a box of frogs, but very funny and clever!
Thanks for all the suggestions, will get busy on Amazon,
Cheese - In response to the booker question. I've tried that in the past and found myself struggling to battle through hundreds of pages of critically congratulated garbage.
Fubar - "Until I find you" was superb, released in 2005 and took me three days to read. Wasn't able to put it down from dawn until sunset. "A widow for a year" was good, but a little short, "A son of the circus" great, although slightly strange in parts. The whole Irving collection to date is winking at me from the shelf just now, not that I'm a slightly obsessive collector or anything..
West Kipper - Not tried of any Chris Brookmyre's stuff yet, am I best starting with the earliest to get used to recurring characters or can I pick up any of them, i.e. are they standalone stories?
Keep the suggestion coming, I'll be looking for books to load onto the iPad when it arrives!
G
+1 for Christpoher Brookmyre.
Sounds like they would be idea for you.
'All Fun and games until some looses an eye' would be a good place to start!
Tom Wolfe is great. Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full are the novels to read (Charlotte Simmons can be skipped), and his non-fiction is awesome too: The Right Stuff, Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, etc.
Veering towards the Irving side I'll suggest,
Roth's Portnoy's complaint or American Pastoral
Don Delillo Undeworld
Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities or (non-fiction) the Right Stuff
Catch 22 as Nonsense suggested
A couple of left field choices..
Arturo Perez Reverte The Dumas Club.
Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
Peter Hoeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow.
Crytonomicon by Neal Stephenson - two interlinked story lines spanning 50 years, cryptology, Japanese gold, the internet and WWII all in one book, yet very easy to keep track of things. One of my all time favourite books, recently had to rebuy it as my original had lost too many pages over the years.
Christopher Brookmyre - All very good. There are two groups:
Quite ugly one morning, Country of the blind, Boiling a frog (Just into the New labour era, lots of political intrigue journalist style stuff)
and
A big boy did it and ran away, The sacred art of stealing and A snowball in hell. (Police/terrorism/ganster themed)
The others are more stand alone. The best ones are, to my mind; Boiling a frog, Quite ugly one morning and Not the end of the world.
+1 for Freefall by Tom Reid. Amazing book about one man's struggle with mental illness. It's worth reading Seven Troop by Andy McNab once you've read Freefall, for another view on Tom Reid.
Tom Reid, real name Charles Bruce, committed suicide by jumping from a light aircraft being flown by his girlfriend without a parachute in 2002. A tragic story given his background. The book ends well before this date, so I'm not giving anything away!
Christopher Brookmyre is good, as is Colin Bateman (or just Bateman now) who is the Northern Irish version of Brookmyre.
Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars
+1
+1 Cryptonomicon
The Diceman - just don't have any dice handy when you're reading it or you'll get sucked in!
Cheese - In response to the booker question. I've tried that in the past and found myself struggling to battle through hundreds of pages of critically congratulated garbage.
hmmm, I've only read three but none have been garbage
Tom Wolfe +1
Flashman +1
Peter Hopkirk - the Great Game;
William Boyd, esp Ordinary Thunderstorms;
John le Carre - esp Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - an all time great book but anything of his really.
Not a fiction book but definately worth reading Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado.
[i]Crytonomicon by Neal Stephenson - two interlinked story lines spanning 50 years, cryptology, Japanese gold, the internet and WWII all in one book, yet very easy to keep track of things. One of my all time favourite books, recently had to rebuy it as my original had lost too many pages over the years.[/i]
I'm reading my copy for the forth time at the moment, love it. Although Snow Crash is also one of my favourites too.
