10 BEST BOOKS

dennisn

I would be interested in knowing what 10 books people would recommend to a friend who was looking for a "good read", not cycling related. I ask because I sort of steered
a Pro Race forum off track a bit back and got some interesting responses. It got me to wondering about peoples reading habits and what they thought was a really good book to them. So in no particular order here's mine.

I, Claudius - Graves
QBVII - Uris
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - McCullers
Lonesome Dove - McMurtry
Midnights Children - Rushdie
1984 - Orwell
Lolita - Nabokov
Point-Counterpoint - Huxley
Atlas Shrugged - Rand
In Cold Blood - Capote
Women in Love - Lawrence
100 Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera - Garcia Marquez
Nostromo - Conrad
A Prayer for Owen Meany - Irving
Darkness at Noon - Koestler

Sorry about the more than 10. Couldn't figure out which ones to cut.

Dennis Noward

Anonymous

Have a read of my blog - I was raving about a book called 'star of the sea'. Utterly brilliant!

redddraggon

Harry Potter

JLM74

Holes - Louis Sachar

Anonymous

1. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
3. Meditations in Green, Steven Wright.
4. The Wrench, Primo Levi.
5. If This is a Man, Primo Levi.
6. The Rider, Tim Krabbe.
7. Birdsong, Sebastian faulks.
8. The Stand, Stephen King.
9. Lila, Robert Pirsig.
10. a Perfect Spy, John Le Carre.

Enjoyed all of these immensely, these loads more but my brain has shut down. I will now remember books for the next 3 days or so that should have gone in the top ten and I will consequently chastise myself for the omissions.

jimmypippa

I quite liked Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, I think it is a good antidote to Dan Brown in parts..., atlthough I know lots of people who don't like it and prefer The Name of the Rose


The Wasp Factory Ian Banks (he describes his later book, Complicity as like The wasp Factory, but without the relentless cheerfulness and happy ending.

If you like "literary" Science Fiction, I'd recommend Use of Weapons by Ian M Banks (same author as above).

Three Men on a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome are good light reads, and some of th efunniest books I have read... (I have just remembered that the second one is about a cycling holiday in Germany).

Those are ones I can immediately think of that might appeal...

I find that I am tending to read more nonfiction (including narrative histories) nowdays. As a teenager, it was different...

EDIT:

I liked A Prayer For Owen Meaney (and several other books by John Irving)

iainf72

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

Astonishing book. Gripping and fast moving but some amazing observations about life and people's motivations.

bobtbuilder

We need to talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Oil - Upton Sinclair (Filmed as "There will be blood")
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
Anything by James Lee Burke
Lord of the Rings - Tolkein
The Stand - Stephen King

guilliano

The Green Mile: Stephen King
Sleepers: Can't remember the author
Donnie Brascoe: Joseph D Pistone
The Sicillian: Mario Puzo
1984: George Orwell
Anything by Terry Pratchett
The Hitchikers Guide (complete): Douglas Adams
Songs My Mother Taught Me: Marlon Brando
Scar Tissue: Anthony Keidis
The Bourne Identity (and the rest): Robert Ludlum

dennisn

jimmypippa wrote:

I quite liked Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, I think it is a good antidote to Dan Brown in parts..., atlthough I know lots of people who don't like it and prefer The Name of the Rose


The Wasp Factory Ian Banks (he describes his later book, Complicity as like The wasp Factory, but without the relentless cheerfulness and happy ending.

If you like "literary" Science Fiction, I'd recommend Use of Weapons by Ian M Banks (same author as above).

Three Men on a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome are good light reads, and some of th efunniest books I have read... (I have just remembered that the second one is about a cycling holiday in Germany).

Those are ones I can immediately think of that might appeal...

I find that I am tending to read more nonfiction (including narrative histories) nowdays. As a teenager, it was different...

EDIT:

I liked A Prayer For Owen Meaney (and several other books by John Irving)

I liked Foucaults but found it hard to follow at times. Good story though.
John Irving - lots of good stuff.

Dennis Noward

dennisn

dmclite wrote:

1. Red Dragon, Thomas Harris.
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
3. Meditations in Green, Steven Wright.
4. The Wrench, Primo Levi.
5. If This is a Man, Primo Levi.
6. The Rider, Tim Krabbe.
7. Birdsong, Sebastian faulks.
8. The Stand, Stephen King.
9. Lila, Robert Pirsig.
10. a Perfect Spy, John Le Carre.

Enjoyed all of these immensely, these loads more but my brain has shut down. I will now remember books for the next 3 days or so that should have gone in the top ten and I will consequently chastise myself for the omissions.

Wow, how could I miss "To Kill a......" on my list.
The Stand was good but I'm not a Steve fan.
Le Carre's books just don't do it for me. Now I have read ALL of Ian Flemings work many, many years ago.

Dennis Noward

dennisn

iainf72 wrote:

Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts

Astonishing book. Gripping and fast moving but some amazing observations about life and people's motivations.

Hmmmmm, sounds very interesting(read about it on the authors web site).
I may have to give it a shot. I was sort of fascinated by Rushdie's "Midnights Children",
which is set largely in Bombay(fiction).

Dennis Noward

blu3cat

how about in no particular order

American Pyscho - Bret Easton Ellis
Foucalts Pendulum - Umberto Eco
The Brand new monty python Bok - Monty Python
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - robert m pirsig
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The book of Bunny Suicides - Andy Riley
Lord of the Flies - william golding
hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - douglas adams
neuromancer - william gibson
lord of the ring - jrr tolkein

guilliano

Can I add A Handmaid's Tale? Not sure of the author

And Interview With A Vampire: Anne Rice

Just too many books really

finchy

In no particular order:

Dracula - Stoker
1984 - Orwell
A History of Danish Dreams, The Woman and the Ape, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg
Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
Germinal - Zola
Day of the Triffids - Wyndham
From Russia with Love - Fleming
Brave New World - Huxley
Crito - Plato
Frankenstein - Shelley

dennisn

guilliano wrote:

Can I add A Handmaid's Tale? Not sure of the author

And Interview With A Vampire: Anne Rice

Just too many books really

+1 on "Handmaids..."

Dennis Noward

markos1963

Flashman-Goerge McDonald Fraser
Sharpe-Bernard Cornwall
Rendevouz With Rama-Arthur C Clarke
I Robot-Issac Asimov
Notes From A Small Island-Bill Bryson
1984-George Orwell
Silence Of The Lambs-Thomas Harris
Wind In The Willows-Kenneth Grahame
Jungle Books-Rudyard Kipling
Penthouse June 1980

dennisn

markos1963 wrote:

Rendevouz With Rama-Arthur C Clarke

Penthouse June 1980

"Rendevouz...." was really good.
Nice touch with the "Penthouse". Got a good laugh out of it.

Dennis Noward

Crapaud

It kind of depends what you mean by "good read", but these are all entertaining if not very high-brow.

In no particular order:

Bridge of Birds - Barry Hughart
Eon - Greg Bear
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Diaspora - Greg Egan
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
The Futurological Congress - Stanisław Lem
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

I'm a bit of a sci-fi head. :oops:

dennisn

Crapaud wrote:

It kind of depends what you mean by "good read", but these are all entertaining if not very high-brow.

In no particular order:

Bridge of Birds - Barry Hughart
Eon - Greg Bear
2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett
Diaspora - Greg Egan
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
The Futurological Congress - Stanisław Lem
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

I'm a bit of a sci-fi head. :oops:

Pretty sure I've read everything by Ray Bradbury(I think). Always liked him.

Dennis Noward

SpinningJenny

Hmm, at 5am I'm not sure if I can come up with 10 but let me see:

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks

A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

North & South - Elizabeth Gaskell

SS-GB - Len Deighton

Pompeii - Robert Harris

The Ghost - Robert Harris

'48 - James Herbert

War & Peace - Tolstoy

Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela

OK - so 10 it is!

popette

ok, here goes:

A prayer for Owen Meany
Catch 22
War and Peace
Jane Eyre
Life of Pi
Pillars of the Earth
Sophie's World
A Suitable Boy
The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns

Guilliano is right - so many books......

guilliano

Anything by Bill Bryson is also worth a read.......

afx237vi

After a bit of a think, I've come up with:

1984 - Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Dracula - Bram Stoker
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
Maribou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh
Cujo - Stephen King
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
The Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Oh, and anything by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie. My guilty pleasures include rubbish detective fiction (and some non-rubbish detective fiction by Dennis Lehane, who is actually a pretty good author).

Last book I read was Empire of the Sun, which I began literally one day before JG Ballard pegged it. I'm sure it was just a weird coincidence, but just to make sure the next book I'm going to read is George W's autobiography.

brookter

Agree with many of the choices so far, but three I've not seen mentioned and which never seem to get mentioned anymore, are IMHO definitely worth a read:

Quincunx - Charles Palliser. Difficult to describe: it's basically a Victorian thriller - the story of a young boy caught up in a legal battle within an aristocratic family in early Victorian times. It's written very convincingly in the style of a Victorian novel, but with the sort of tricks that a modern novelist might use. You can ignore that if you want to though - the story itself and the period detail is enough...

Ulverton - Adam Thorpe Series of short stories set around and English village - each story is set hundreds of years apart and is written in a style appropriate to the time. Some of the early stories can be a challenge to read, but the effort is definitely worth it.

Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban Set in a post-nuclear catastrophe world when society has disintegrated, it's written in an English that has also changed a lot... The first sentence gives a flavour:

"On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen."

[Old git mode] The book first came out in the 80s - but looking at that sentence now, it looks remarkably like some of the comments today on the Guardian blogs page, so the author was ahead of his time, even if he got the bit about the nuclear holocaust wrong (so far)... [/Old Git mode]

Anyway, as you can see, I like books that play with language - but I promise you these three are all brilliant stories as well.

Regards

David

nasahapley

I recently read The Count of Monte Cristo which is possibly my favourite ever (I often think that straight after finishing a book, but I really really think it is). War and Peace runs it a very close second though. It's a shame, but I think a lot of people are put off classics such as those because they're (a) old, and (b) very long, but they're both really engrossing and readable (much more so than The Lord of the Rings, which the world and his mother seems to have read!)

Glad to see Len Deighton getting a mention too, I think Winter is his best, and I really like the Game/Set/Match, Hook/Line/Sinker and Faith/Hope/Charity trilogies. Someone else mentioned Iain M Banks too; Excession is a brilliant book set on a staggering scale, and Against a Dark Background is also one of my favourites.

nasahapley

Ooh and Dennis being American has reminded me of a few more -

One flew over the Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kesey,
Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, and
Homicide by David Simon - non fiction that one - basically a year in the life of the Baltimore homicide department, written by the bloke who went on to create The Wire (aka the best TV show ever, bar none).

dennisn

afx237vi wrote:

After a bit of a think, I've come up with:

1984 - Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Dracula - Bram Stoker
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
Maribou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh
Cujo - Stephen King
The Day of the Locust - Nathanael West
The Lord of the Flies - William Golding

Oh, and anything by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie. My guilty pleasures include rubbish detective fiction (and some non-rubbish detective fiction by Dennis Lehane, who is actually a pretty good author).

Last book I read was Empire of the Sun, which I began literally one day before JG Ballard pegged it. I'm sure it was just a weird coincidence, but just to make sure the next book I'm going to read is George W's autobiography.

After finally reading "Catcher...." a few years ago I've got to admit that it just didn't "do it"
for me. Really liked "...... Flies".

Dennis Noward

dennisn

popette wrote:

ok, here goes:

A prayer for Owen Meany
Catch 22
War and Peace
Jane Eyre
Life of Pi
Pillars of the Earth
Sophie's World
A Suitable Boy
The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns

Guilliano is right - so many books......

Could not get through "Catch 22", although I made a valiant effort. "War & Peace" had
way to many people in it and they all had hard to remember Russian names :oops: :oops: .

Dennis Noward

BeaconRuth

dennisn wrote:

popette wrote:

ok, here goes:

A prayer for Owen Meany
Catch 22
War and Peace
Jane Eyre
Life of Pi
Pillars of the Earth
Sophie's World
A Suitable Boy
The Kite Runner & A Thousand Splendid Suns

Guilliano is right - so many books......

Could not get through "Catch 22", although I made a valiant effort. "War & Peace" had
way to many people in it and they all had hard to remember Russian names :oops: :oops: .

Me too - I struggled my way through "Catch 22" and didn't enjoy it one little bit but I hate not finishing a book once I've started. This is a great thread as I often wonder what to read and wish I knew what was good.

Not very high-brow, but "The Day of the Jackal" by Frederick Forsyth was one of the most gripping books I've read.

Anyone for Trollope or Austen?

Ruth

ps "Lord of the Flies" was one of my O' Level English literature set works (that dates me), which rather spoils a book I think!

proto

Almost certainly these are not my 'absolute' ten favourite books, I'll have thought of some different ones tomorrow, but I've enjoyed enormously the following:

The Border Trilogy - Cormac McCarthy
Fatherland - Robert Harris
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
'Everything Rebus' - Ian Rankin
The Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
Enduring Love - Ian McEwan
The Wasp Factory Ian Banks
Never Let Me Go - Kasio Ishiguro
A Singular Man - J P Donleavy