Great Books

I always find that the best books I read are those recommended to me by people. I thought I'd start a thread on great books that people have read.

The best book I've read is Surviving The Killing Fields by Haing S Ngor

One book I've recommended/loaned to loads of people without ever hearing a negative comment back is 'Anthropology' by Dan Rhodes, a very witty and clever collection of short stories that can be read in under an hour.

Oh and anything by Kurt Vonnegut :)

a favourite of mine is the catcher in the rye by j.d salinger or shogun by james clavell and a must is mccarthays bar (r.i.p)

anything by don delillo. robert stone is good, best book i read recently was 'cloud atlas' by (i think) david mitchell. bob dylan's 'chronicles' v. good too

I read Holes by Louis Sacher recently. Its a kids book but i really enjoyed it. It was easy reading and made me laugh. Thats good enough for me.

I know a lot of bookworms mightn't like it but The DA Vinci Code is a hell of an adventure.

Well, I've never come across a bad word against The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather, portrays his lead characters in most of his books as avid readers of said tome. That's high praise indeed. :)

:D PP

Iain M. banks. The sc-fi Culture stuff, rather than the Wasp Factory and so on.

Loved Salinger's stuff as a young man. Haven't read it for years, hope it's as good as I remember.
Hi-Fidelity made me laugh out loud. I think Hornby's a good comedy writer.

Comics, though. Frank Miller's Daredevil, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Grant Morrisson's Doom Patrol and Animal Man, all as good as anything in any other medium, really.

Favourite Book of all time is, sadly, still going to be "Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks", by David Whitaker :o .

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Originally Posted by green goblin

Iain M. banks. The sc-fi Culture stuff, rather than the Wasp Factory and so on.

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Haven't met anyone who's into both Iain and Iain M. yet. It's the Iain Banks stuff i would go for but that's just personal taste.

Christmas reads for me (Don't get much chance to get into a good book until i get some free time):

Mr. Nice - Howard Marks
Ryanair (Biog. of Michael O'Leary) - Siobhan Creaton
Iain Banks - Crow Road
Red Mist: Roy Keane and the Football Civil War - A Fan's Notes - Conor O'Callaghan
P.S. I Scored The Bridesmaids - Ross O'Carroll Kelly

should point out that i have a particular interest in biographies and non-fiction in general

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Originally Posted by green goblin

Comics, though. Frank Miller's Daredevil, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Grant Morrisson's Doom Patrol and Animal Man, all as good as anything in any other medium, really.

Favourite Book of all time is, sadly, still going to be "Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks", by David Whitaker :o .

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did you read/like preacher by garth ennis. i was fairly bonked on the head by v for vendetta and watchmen by alan moore. stood up halfway to literature proper as you alluded to; any comic creator that shows a copy of thomas pyncheon's 'gravity's rainbow' on a bookshelf has to be doing something right.

..and i've been itching for some baker/davidson era dr. who lately i must also confess! sad sad sad man

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Originally Posted by Plastic Paddy

Fyodor Dostoevsky.

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nostrovia to that man, his name alone is a good read

No idea about great books.

Currently reading 'The Gate' (Francois Bizot), Biog of frenchman in Cambodia when Khmer Rouge took over.

Recent reads
- Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
- Touching the Void (was then mad into Docu/Drama for ch4 (i wouldn't recommend)
- Bringing the House Down (Ben Mezrich) card counting student scam on casinos (very good).

This is a great thread - I absolutely love a good book, and I'm looking forward to the recommendations. :)

Grahame Greene is one of my favorite writers - such atmosphere and the plots are generally pretty damn good too. The End of the Affair is just fantastic, beats socks off the film (which isn't too bad for the most part), or The Quiet American - a pretty good adaptation, but again, you miss so much with the book.

Philip Roth's The Great American Novel is possibly the best (and funniest) sports realted fictional novel I've read (Baseball being the sport).

Douglas Adams is always a good read if you like Sci Fi and humour

Of the non-fictional, try Greg Palast's Best Democracy that Money Can Buy (tempted to say No Logo, but this was terrifying AND funny), or Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists (the section where he goes to Cameroon with "Big Ian" is priceless alone)

Personal Favourites

Donnie Brasco by Joseph Pistone
American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis (any by this author generally)
Brilliant Orange by David Winner
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (for our younger readers!)
anything by Philip K. Dick!

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Originally Posted by Bluebeard

This is a great thread - I absolutely love a good book, and I'm looking forward to the recommendations. :)

Grahame Greene is one of my favorite writers - such atmosphere and the plots are generally pretty damn good too. The End of the Affair is just fantastic, beats socks off the film (which isn't too bad for the most part), or The Quiet American - a pretty good adaptation, but again, you miss so much with the book.

Philip Roth's The Great American Novel is possibly the best (and funniest) sports realted fictional novel I've read (Baseball being the sport).

Douglas Adams is always a good read if you like Sci Fi and humour

Of the non-fictional, try Greg Palast's Best Democracy that Money Can Buy (tempted to say No Logo, but this was terrifying AND funny), or Jon Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists (the section where he goes to Cameroon with "Big Ian" is priceless alone)

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whoa, dig the taste here. roth is cool, him and delillo are into the baseball it seems. roth just put out a new one about lindbergh the flying nazi sympathizer and an alternate reality u.s. of a. dunno if you've read it but 'infinite jest' by david foster wallace is apparently pretty hilarious and about tennis! PALAST is a great man no one on these shores listens to but should.

always wondered about 'the quiet american' too, had it in my hands pre-chrimbo as a prize for someone.

other rec's:

non-fiction:
eiger dreams, into the wild, into thin air, under the banner of heaven - all by mountain climber/writer john krakauer ('into thin air' his desc. of the '96 everest disasters - great, and f*ckin freaky)

david sedaris' stuff is usually funny

'only a game' - eamonn dunphy, sometimes a dirty word, maybe it'll show up with * * * * through it ;)

fiction:
white noise (not the silly movie with michael keaton), underworld - don delillo, my faackin favorite :D

crying of lot 49 - thomas pyncheon

okay this post is already too long by half.

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Originally Posted by ken foree

whoa, dig the taste here. roth is cool, him and delillo are into the baseball it seems. roth just put out a new one about lindbergh the flying nazi sympathizer and an alternate reality u.s. of a. dunno if you've read it but 'infinite jest' by david foster wallace is apparently pretty hilarious and about tennis!

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Haven't read it but it's on the list, and the DF Wallace has been added now ;)

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Originally Posted by ken foree

always wondered about 'the quiet american' too, had it in my hands pre-chrimbo as a prize for someone.

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Definitely worth a look - good reading and the usual moral cruxes to carry. Strangely the main characters in this are NOT Catholics, though there are one or two towards the background

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Originally Posted by ken foree

crying of lot 49 - thomas pyncheon

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heard a lot about Pynchon, not so big here as in the states, and personally as elusive as Salinger I believe. Is his other stuff worth rating?

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Originally Posted by ken foree

did you read/like preacher by garth ennis. i was fairly bonked on the head by v for vendetta and watchmen by alan moore. stood up halfway to literature proper as you alluded to; any comic creator that shows a copy of thomas pyncheon's 'gravity's rainbow' on a bookshelf has to be doing something right.

..and i've been itching for some baker/davidson era dr. who lately I must also confess! sad sad sad man

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Ennis is a great writer. Very funny, astute bloke. He was great when he was 18, doing Troubled Souls in the eighties with John Macrea, and he's got better since. Although I do struggle with blasphemy, I adored Preacher, nearly injuring myself with laughter several times. V was a cracking read too, but I find Moore's later stuff less rewarding. Didn't really dig The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

New series of Who starts sometime at Easter. More excited about it than I can say.

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Originally Posted by Magoo

Iain Banks - Crow Road

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Is that the same as the TV series they made a few years back ?

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Originally Posted by Roo69

Is that the same as the TV series they made a few years back ?

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The very one. Both TV series and book excellent :cool:

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Originally Posted by Conor74

For horror, HP Lovecraft's 'Shadow Over Innsmouth' is a great collection of stories. Peter Straub's 'Ghost Story' was pretty damn good too.

And for classics, try Antoine de St. Exupery's 'The Little Prince'. A beautiful story.

And for toilet reading, anything by Bill Bryson, almost always enjoyable, great light reading.

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Lovecraft is far FAR too scary :eek: Not grossout horror, far creepier, more unsettling. Saw the film of 'GhostStory' and didn't sleep for days either....

The Little Prince is wonderul. On a par with Wilde's 'Selfish Giant'.