10 BEST BOOKS

fluff.

dennisn wrote:

Have you tried Stranger in a Strange Land(Heinlein)?

Not read any Heinlein since school type days, not sure why. Might stick it on my to read list though.

pedylan

mercsport wrote:

Well , that was a poor lead from me , as it isn't on the schedule anymore - thought I hadn't heard it for awhile . Seasonal . A programme that I usually hear throughout the drear' days of winter .

The format is simple : the presenter ( Sue McGregor ) and two guests ( celebs' normally ) declare their favourite 'read' - which the others will have read also - and proceed to natter about it . :roll: I enjoy it anyway .

The closest to it currently on tap is 'Bookclub' : http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... iaolu_Guo/ presented by James Naughtie - which means , regardless of content , I reach for the off-switch as quickly as possible - but you may find him digestible . Others do .

Also try "Open Book" presented by Mariella Frostrup. It's on Sunday's R4 at 4pm. Repeated during the week.

A Recent addition had a Will Self guide to JG Ballard (I don't think that's what killed him).

As well as good content it is presented by the woman judged to have one of the sexiest voices in broadcasting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qp6p

mercsport

pedylan wrote:

mercsport wrote:

Well , that was a poor lead from me , as it isn't on the schedule anymore - thought I hadn't heard it for awhile . Seasonal . A programme that I usually hear throughout the drear' days of winter .

The format is simple : the presenter ( Sue McGregor ) and two guests ( celebs' normally ) declare their favourite 'read' - which the others will have read also - and proceed to natter about it . :roll: I enjoy it anyway .

The closest to it currently on tap is 'Bookclub' : http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... iaolu_Guo/ presented by James Naughtie - which means , regardless of content , I reach for the off-switch as quickly as possible - but you may find him digestible . Others do .

Also try "Open Book" presented by Mariella Frostrup. It's on Sunday's R4 at 4pm. Repeated during the week.

A Recent addition had a Will Self guide to JG Ballard (I don't think that's what killed him).

As well as good content it is presented by the woman judged to have one of the sexiest voices in broadcasting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qp6p

Of course ! I forgot that one . Like the afternoon play , it's usually on at the wrong time of day for me . Sometimes I'll catch the tail-end of one of her book programmes .

Mariella's husky tones does it for me too . But the girl I would miss most of all on R4 , should she ever jack it all in , would be Charlotte Green ( news , continuity announcer ) . She's 'got it' in spades . The shipping forecast with Charlotte is a symphony for me .

stevewj

The Chingford Skinhead wrote:

pedylan wrote:

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
.

+1000 Best book I've read by a mile.

Two books I was fortunate to read before they were made into very good films, but very good films that were not a patch on the books...

1 Do androids dream of electronic sheep - Philip K Dick (film: Blade Runner - Ridley Scott)

2 Rum Punch - Elmore Leonard(film: Jackie Brown - Tarintino)

The Yes Minister ? Prime Minister scripts are also great

Wierdly, I bought what I thought was the 'Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep; not knowing the title precisely in a second hand bookshop last year, and reading the above reminded me of it so I got it out last night only to find it is 'The Androids Dream' by John Scalzi and IS about a sheep !!! A very funny book (esp for Sci Fi) and well worth a read.

Rev\'d Gatlin

Ulysses- James Joyce
Mason and Dixon- Thomas Pynchon
Journey to the West- Wu Cheng'en
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
One Thousand and One Nights (Tales of the Arabian Nights)
The Good Solider Svejk- Jaroslav Hasek
Gargantua and Pantagruel- Francois Rabelais
The Trial - Franz Kafka
Siddhartha- Herman Hesse
Child of God- Cormac McCarthy

that'll do for me for now.

passout

A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens
Brighton Rock - G. Greene
Brave New World - A. Huxley
The Crow Road - Ian Banks
Look to Winward (or anything in series) - Ian M. Banks (Sci Fi lovers will like this)
Any Flashman novel (such as Flash for Freedom) by G. McDonald Fraser
The Seige of Krishnapur - JG Farrell
Super Cannes - JG Ballard
Name of the Rose - U. Eco
Catch 22 - Heller


A decent cross section of stuff I've read over the last couple of years. The Flashman series would appeal to alot of people I reckon.

Crapaud

passout wrote:

... Look to Winward (or anything in series) - Ian M. Banks (Sci Fi lovers will like this) ...

I've read a couple of his books and thought they were trash!

The first was Player of Games and I've been told that it wasn't a good one to start with. So I read another - can't remember the title, but it featured a recurring gnashing teeth thingy - and it was dross too.

I can't understand why he's so popular. I must be missing something. :?

passout

I really like the scope of his work - highly imaginative - but it don't think that it will be remebered in 100 years time. I also like the 'culture' novels as they are clearly about contemporary Western society - I though it was quite clever myself. It's good holiday read and I think that they are page tuners. You can't read classics all the time - you need something lighter now an again.

Anyone else like the Flashman novels?

pedylan

passout wrote:

I really like the scope of his work - highly imaginative - but it don't think that it will be remebered in 100 years time. I also like the 'culture' novels as they are clearly about contemporary Western society - I though it was quite clever myself. It's good holiday read and I think that they are page tuners. You can't read classics all the time - you need something lighter now an again.

Anyone else like the Flashman novels?

Read everything by Ian Banks, started with the Wasp Factory which I thought was brilliant - top 10 material. However, couldn't get anywhere with his sci fi, tried one (Phlebus?) couldn't finish it.

Flashman - couldn't agree more, read them all in my teens, great adventure and highly comic. Apparently they were believed as historical memoirs in some quarters. The sort of folk who write to Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street i imagine...............

Recently reread General Danced at Dawn by MacDonald Fraser - really funny.

Agree - sometimes reading is just pure entertainmernt!

Crapaud

pedylan wrote:

... Agree - sometimes reading is just pure entertainmernt!

I don't know what the difference is, but reading can really draw me in in a way that TV / cinema rarely does; I can really lose myself in a good book. It's a form of magic as far as I'm concerned.

passout

pedylan wrote:

passout wrote:

I really like the scope of his work - highly imaginative - but it don't think that it will be remebered in 100 years time. I also like the 'culture' novels as they are clearly about contemporary Western society - I though it was quite clever myself. It's good holiday read and I think that they are page tuners. You can't read classics all the time - you need something lighter now an again.

Anyone else like the Flashman novels?

Read everything by Ian Banks, started with the Wasp Factory which I thought was brilliant - top 10 material. However, couldn't get anywhere with his sci fi, tried one (Phlebus?) couldn't finish it.

Flashman - couldn't agree more, read them all in my teens, great adventure and highly comic. Apparently they were believed as historical memoirs in some quarters. The sort of folk who write to Sherlock Holmes at Baker Street i imagine...............

Recently reread General Danced at Dawn by MacDonald Fraser - really funny.

Agree - sometimes reading is just pure entertainmernt!

The Pirates by McDonald Frase is worth a go too - less historical than his other stuff.

Agree with above too - reading draws you in. I think because you provide the images maybe??? Hard to say.

guilliano

Any Terry Pratchett book is worth a read.

I'm about to start reading "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsch...... wish me luck!


I found LOTR such hard going I couldn't get into it. May have to give it another go at some point

pedylan

guilliano wrote:

Any Terry Pratchett book is worth a read.

I'm about to start reading "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsch...... wish me luck!


I found LOTR such hard going I couldn't get into it. May have to give it another go at some point

Good luck with train spotting. The book has one advantage over the film, it actually gives you a chance to work out why its title is trainspotting. The film misses the reference out[- or it went over my head.

I enjoyed it and read his other stuff. Filth is an imaginative read - some first person passages are from the tapeworm inhabiting a corrupt cop's digestive system :shock:

finchy

I can't believe I forgot to mention "Fateless" by Imre Kertesz. It won him a nobel prize.

passout

Not an Irvine Welsh fan. Only got half way through Filth.

bobtbuilder

Haunted, Fight club, or anything else by Chuck Palahniuk.

agnello

Don Quixote - Migule De Cervantes
Old Man and The Sea - Hemingway
Instance of the finger post - Ian Pears
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Quantity theory of insanity - Will Self (short stories)
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
London Fields - Martin Amis
English Passengers - Matthew Kneale

Few that spring to mind. The first one is about the size of 3 books.

markwalker

+ 1 for the old man and the sea, all time number 1 book. and its only a short story too.

4 principal characters
an old man
a young boy
a fish
the sea
not much else and totally engrossing.

crap film though

LazyBoycp

Really hated The Dice Man and didn't finish it. Not sure why I disliked it so much, maybe because his life was becoming so disordered and I can't stand that sort of thing. Anyway, not really a top 10, but 10 that I have enjoyed...

1. Fup - Jim Dodge. Quite a bizarre short novel (117 pages) that I managed to read today in less than the time it took to get the bus to and from work. Very funny in parts.
2. Anything by Jasper Fforde.
3. Carl Hiaasen books.
4. The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear - Walter Moers (and the others he's written).
5. Cooking with Fernet Branca - James Hamilton-Paterson (and Amazing Disgrace). These are absolutely brilliantly funny.
6. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
7. Eating Mammals - John Barlow
8. Gould's Book of Fish - Richard Flanagan
9. The Secret History - Dona Tartt
10. Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell

dennisn

agnello wrote:

Don Quixote - Migule De Cervantes
Old Man and The Sea - Hemingway
Instance of the finger post - Ian Pears
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Quantity theory of insanity - Will Self (short stories)
Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
London Fields - Martin Amis
English Passengers - Matthew Kneale

Few that spring to mind. The first one is about the size of 3 books.

+1 for "Don......" and "Confederacy...."

Dennis Noward

jimmypippa

markwalker wrote:

+ 1 for the old man and the sea, all time number 1 book. and its only a short story too.

4 principal characters
an old man
a young boy
a fish
the sea
not much else and totally engrossing.

crap film though

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is one of my favourite books.

Not exactly cheerful though.

dennisn

Have any of you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? Reason I ask is that, strangely
enough, we were having a debate, of sorts, on this novel in the pro race section.
Most people seemed to think that the ideas expressed in the book were , shall we say,
unacceptable or worse. I'm not one way or another about the philosophy but was wondering if anyone else was like me and just enjoyed the book / story?

Dennis Noward

disquieting_museeuws

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen & Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles both changed my life in one way or another.

Good to see Conrad's Nostromo acknowledged, an astonishingly good novel.

passout

jimmypippa wrote:

markwalker wrote:

+ 1 for the old man and the sea, all time number 1 book. and its only a short story too.

4 principal characters
an old man
a young boy
a fish
the sea
not much else and totally engrossing.

crap film though

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is one of my favourite books.

Not exactly cheerful though.

Yes, I forgot about Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls is great. A Farewell to Arms is the most moving novel he wrote in my opinion- it's one of those I can re-read time after time. Great but 'chicks' don't seem to rate him as much though!

Ayone read Mishima? I think he wrote one called 'the sailor who fell out of love with the sea'. I read it years ago when I lived in Japan. If you like Hemmingway you'll probably appreciate his sparse writing style - great story, pretty twisted. There is some great Japanese fiction out there.

markwalker

passout wrote:

jimmypippa wrote:

markwalker wrote:

+ 1 for the old man and the sea, all time number 1 book. and its only a short story too.

4 principal characters
an old man
a young boy
a fish
the sea
not much else and totally engrossing.

crap film though

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" is one of my favourite books.

Not exactly cheerful though.

Yes, I forgot about Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls is great. A Farewell to Arms is the most moving novel he wrote in my opinion- it's one of those I can re-read time after time. Great but 'chicks' don't seem to rate him as much though!

Ayone read Mishima? I think he wrote one called 'the sailor who fell out of love with the sea'. I read it years ago when I lived in Japan. If you like Hemmingway you'll probably appreciate his sparse writing style - great story, pretty twisted. There is some great Japanese fiction out there.

i think ill give for whom the bell tolls a go this weekeknd then. Full report to follow. Unless its really morbid in which case i wont get through it.

agnello

dennisn wrote:

Have any of you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? Reason I ask is that, strangely
enough, we were having a debate, of sorts, on this novel in the pro race section.
Most people seemed to think that the ideas expressed in the book were , shall we say,
unacceptable or worse. I'm not one way or another about the philosophy but was wondering if anyone else was like me and just enjoyed the book / story?

Dennis Noward

The Fountainhead by the same is very good. About an architect who seems to be loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright. I read this when I was around 19

Since then I recall seeing an episode of the Simpsons where Ayn Rand was characterised as a fascist (perhaps what you are alluding to above?). This perplexed me as I didn't realise she was notable enough to warrant any kind of charicature. I don't remember that coming across in the Fountainhead. Very philosophical and a compelling read, it was, for a young design student.

dennisn

agnello wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Have any of you read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? Reason I ask is that, strangely
enough, we were having a debate, of sorts, on this novel in the pro race section.
Most people seemed to think that the ideas expressed in the book were , shall we say,
unacceptable or worse. I'm not one way or another about the philosophy but was wondering if anyone else was like me and just enjoyed the book / story?

Dennis Noward

The Fountainhead by the same is very good. About an architect who seems to be loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright. I read this when I was around 19

Since then I recall seeing an episode of the Simpsons where Ayn Rand was characterised as a fascist (perhaps what you are alluding to above?). This perplexed me as I didn't realise she was notable enough to warrant any kind of charicature. I don't remember that coming across in the Fountainhead. Very philosophical and a compelling read, it was, for a young design student.

Atlas...... is more of the same philosophy(and then some) as ......Fountainhead. Literally twice the book. Huge read.

Dennis Noward

jimmypippa

Just rereading Three Men on the Bummel

Does this situation sound familiar?

He said: “I wish you had thought to pick up the lamp. I should like to have found out what was the cause of its going off like that.”

I said: “There was not time to pick up the lamp. I calculate it would have taken two hours to have collected it. As to its ‘going off,’ the mere fact of its being advertised as the safest lamp ever invented would of itself, to anyone but you, have suggested accident. Then there was that electric lamp,” I continued.

“Well, that really did give a fine light,” he replied; “you said so yourself.”

I said: “It gave a brilliant light in the King’s Road, Brighton, and frightened a horse. The moment we got into the dark beyond Kemp Town it went out, and you were summoned for riding without a light. You may remember that on sunny afternoons you used to ride about with that lamp shining for all it was worth. When lighting-up time came it was naturally tired, and wanted a rest.”

“It was a bit irritating, that lamp,” he murmured; “I remember it.”

I said: “It irritated me; it must have been worse for you. Then there are saddles,” I went on—I wished to get this lesson home to him. “Can you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have not tried?”

He said: “It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found.”

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Edit: the narrator's utter lack of self-awareness is hilarious.

Three Men on a Boat is also brilliant

dennisn

Not being all that familiar with Islam, I need someone to explain to me why there was
a million dollar "bounty" on Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses? Was it the general tone of the book toward Islam or was there a specific instance(or two) that didn't set well
with the people who decide these things? I can see how the general "tone" might set off
a few people(or maybe bunches). Just curious.

Dennis Noward

simon johnson

Germinal - Zola
Confederacy of Dunces - JK Toole
Epitaph of a Small Winner- M. de Assis
Magic Mountain - T. Mann
Blindness - Saramago (steer well clear of the film adaptation!!)
Gulliver's Travels - Swift
Life and Opinions of T.Shandy Gentlemen - L. Sterne
Error of Judgement- PH Johnson
Nausea - JP Sartre
Flatland - Abbott

Non-fiction-

A Bio of the Universe- J.Gribbin
Language, Truth and Logic - AJ Ayer
Russell's Hist of Western Philosophy
Rubicon - Holland
Confession's - Rousseau
Death in Brazil - P. Robb
The Whole Shebang - Ferris
Rest is Noise - Ross