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I have just spent the last 90 mins trying to choose a book to read!
I don’t often read books but I think I should rather than browsing on my phone until midnight which is ironically what I’m doing right now.
I don’t mind the genre. Just needs to be interesting.
If you were stranded on a deserted island and could only take 3 books (that you have already read) - what would they be?
something I hadn't read i would take
Fave books are:
the Algebraist - Iain M Banks
Ringworld - larry Niven
The Forsaken army Heinrich Gerlach
Manyt more than 3 but thats a modern SF book, A golden Era SF book and a unusual war story
Dunno. Can't think but one of them would be
Iain banks - The wasp factory.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Think that covers all eventualities
Gormenghast - Mervin Peake
Iain M Banks...but I can't choose!
Watchmen - Alan Moore (or maybe From Hell)
Hmmm. Could be a different 3 tomorrow but right now let's go with
Ken Macleod: The Star Fraction
Jeff Noon: Vurt
Ehhhh maybe The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.
Bugger, too late to get this into my edit for listening to whilst reading the above
The Black Dog : Conspiracy Tapes RMX
They were very prescient.
The Deptford Trilogy by Roberson Davies.
The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy.
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.
Bit cheeky putting in 2 trilogies but they are available in 1 volume!
Like others above I'd probably choose something different if asked again tomorrow.
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman.
The Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov.
Great North Road - Peter Hamilton.
Dunno. Can’t think but one of them would be
Iain banks – The wasp factory
There are good books that I wouldn't want to be stranded on a desert island with. I think the Wasp Factory falls into that category!
A brave new world: Aldous Huxley
Weaveworld: Clive Barker
Of mice and men: John Steinbeck
Brave New World
1984
Hyperion
I truth, those are the first three I could think of from my favourites. There are many, many more excellent books out there (t.ex Fahrenheit 451, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, most Pratchett) and life is generally too short to read them all.
I should read more. I miss reading.
Impossible task (not to recommend books, but to choose only three)
My best shot:
The Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu (Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)
The Reality Bubble by Ziya Tong*
Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes (Translated by Edith Grossman)
*Received as a surprise Xmas present, so far entirely fascinating and I want to finish it!
The Wire. If you're not familiar, the series was based on the book. The book was an account from a journalist who spent several years following around Baltimore homicide. It's is deeply grim, sometimes hilarious and occasionally very moving.
Birdsong. Utterly harrowing, but brilliant.
The Shining.
Raft-making for dummies.
101 things to do on a desert island.
How to make friends and influence people with boats.
and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
A Scots Quair
Not sure - Lord of the Rings would keep me going!
The land lay still by James Robertson;
Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy;
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James - haven't read it yet, something needs to be a surprise!
Three for the countryside:
English Pastoral
The Book of Trespass
Hidden Histories
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Mine will change on a fairly regular basis but...
Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari - a history of humankind, fascinating and jam-packed with interesting anecdotes.
Walking In Circles, by Todd Wassel - Westerner walks a 750 Japanese pilgrim trail, much insight into Japanese culture and lots of funny incidents.
The Dambusters, by Paul Brickhill - the best war story ever told.
For a desert island I'd choose stuff that could stand a re-read!
#1 Something massive, deep, and complicated. A book you need to read twice just to have an outline understanding of what is going on, and many times over to really feel like you have it pieced together. Few books are in this class but Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun is one.
#2 Poetry. Profound meditations but from the simpler direction of verse, poems are usually short but contain a lifetime of re-reading and re-interpretation as you get older. Whatever you like - very personal choice (I'd pick a collection from Yeats probably).
#3 Roger's profanisaurus. Needs no introduction - foundation text for any serious library. Even one with just three books in it.
Nigella's naked Coconut cookbook
Kylie's naked SAS survival guide.
Charlize Theron's guide to naked canoe construction
Ready Player One - Ernest Kline
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
King Rat - China Mieville
This list will change on a regular basis as the mood takes me.
Blimey, that's hard.
Chuck Palahniuk (Something/anything by him)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Marathon Man - William Golding (I haven't read it for decades, but always considered it a fave)
Will take a while to narrow it down to 3, but first on my list would be a complete Hitchhikers Guide, all 5 books in the trilogy of 4
Espidair Street -- Ian Banks
A Prayer for Owen Meany -- John Irving
The Sea,the Sea -- Iris Murdoch
Will take a while to narrow it down to 3, but first on my list would be a complete Hitchhikers Guide, all 5 books in the trilogy of 4
Technically (and debatably), six.
H2G2 was my first thought also.
Electric Brae by Andrew Greig - the absolute best novel you may never heard of. He's a Scottish poet with a lovely feel for language. His modern take on The 39 Steps - The Return of John McNab - is my go to, feel-good light read for dark days. His two mountaineering books are also ace.
The Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving.
All sort of Iain Banks stuff, maybe Complicity rather than the Wasp Factory.
Plus a shedload of mountaineering books
Electric Brae by Andrew Greig – the absolute best novel you may never heard of.
I love Andrew Greig but EB is my least favourite of his books. It just never quite rang true, perhaps because I know the world he was writing about quite well, perhaps because it was his first and he was just getting into his stride. Fair Helen and When They Lay Bare I really like but I think his non-fiction is actually his best work. At the Loch of the Green Corrie is really good, I even went and visited it in the summer.
Different answer in 10 minutes no doubt but 1st thought ...
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Breakfast of Champions
Sprout Mask Replica
those 3 are the 1st books I read by their respective authors and led me to read pretty much everything they wrote.
Probably
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Combined works of John Buchan ( cheating with this)
Cryptonomicon
Snow Crash
And either Soul Music or Pyramids by Pratchett.
The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
Weaveworld - Clive Barker
If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
The Deptford Trilogy by Roberson Davies.
I Claudias - Robert Graves
And if I was going to have a non fiction book then Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Having said that there are many more books that I hold in high esteem and could replace these three depending on mood. I've just read Dune for the first time and I reckon that deserves another read already...
Can I have a fourth book? Please.
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Tough choices, but based on the books I've probably re-read the most...
The Stand - Stephen King
The Crow Road - Iain Banks (but maybe Complicity...)
French Revolutions - Tim Moore
But really, I couldn't narrow it to just three!
#3 Roger’s profanisaurus. Needs no introduction – foundation text for any serious library. Even one with just three books in it.
This +1
Watership Down. Been reading it at regular intervals since the 70s, and always get something new from it. The adventure story starring rabbits I read as a kid has grown into biting social and environmental commentary as I've aged.
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham. Again, reread many times since a kid, and it made me realise the unquestioning narrative you absorb from your elders as a kid may not be the right one. Simple, powerful prose.
Wild Swans, Jung Chang. The terrible history of modern China seen through the eyes of one family. Even if it's not entirely true, as some critics have suggested, there is a deeper truth in it.
Echoing an above book, I really enjoyed 1984
Pretty impossible to narrow down to three. Today it would be:
James Lee Burke - One of the Robicheaux books, not sure which.
James Clavel - Shogun
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Translation of Homers Iliad and Odyssey
Something by Jasper Ffordw or Joe Abercrombie
The Deptford Trilogy by Roberson Davies.
Ooh, someone else choosing this, he's not much read in this country I don't think. It was a toss up between this and the Cornish Trilogy. I think the middle book of the Cornish is his best work but Deptford is better overall. Some really well developed characters in both.
3 of my current favourite ones
The book thief. - Germany second world war about a young girl sent to live with a foster family.
Birds with wings. - Turk/Greek collapse of ottoman empire, about a small village and the impact of the war.
Acid for the children - flea from RHCP memoirs. Good fun to read.
Conrad - heart of Darkness is good.
Also:
Down and out in London and Paris by George Orwell is just sublime
The Spy who came in from the Cold by John Le Carre is great to read more than once.
Anything Jeffrey Archer is good if you don't like reading
A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess.
The Complete Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle.
The Complete Short Stories. Hemingway.