Best book you've read...

As hard as it is pick the best book you've ever read.

Of mice and men for me.

Hmm.

I think I might have a couple.

First: 'The Lord of the Rings' read it when I was 12, and it just made a big impression on me, I literally fell in love with it.

Second: '1984' by Orwell. That book is just, well it's just genius.

I'm currently reading On The Road, which is likely to end up somewhere up near the top.

Otherwise, it's probably To Kill a Mockingbird

The Indian In The Cupboard

For shear imaginative brilliance.

sodhat wrote:I'm currently reading On The Road, which is likely to end up somewhere up near the top.

Otherwise, it's probably To Kill a Mockingbird

That's actually my Top 2 Sodhat

On The Road top - awesome book

I have never read, and ashamedly confess, I've never heard of 'On The Road'. Who's the author?

It's an excellent read so far, ED, I left a big old gap between reading half one and half two, so I'll probably go back through it once I'm finished.

It's by Jack Kerouac, rugbydreamer. I recommend it, it's a very good read.

You will have heard of it by the end of the year, as I believe the film is in production. Can't really see it translating to be honest though. I found the pace of the book quite odd, and that's one of the things I really liked about it - but I don't think that lends itself to film-making.

rugbydreamer wrote:I have never read, and ashamedly confess, I've never heard of 'On The Road'. Who's the author?

Jack Kerouac. He was one of the influential "beat" generation writers along with Alan Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Off The Road by Carolyn Cassidy is a great companion biography to it as well.

As for one of the best books I've read I'd go for the diaries of Joe Orton. Just fantastic. He really captured "swinging sixties" London as he wrote, was very honest about life (which could've put him in prison at the time), some great observations and very witty.

cheers guys, will be keeping an eye out for it now

I'd say my top 2 are:

Joseph Heller - Catch-22 and Dean Koontz - Intensity.

Honourable mentions go to The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie and Popcorn by Ben Elton.

Fatherland - Robert Harris.

I can't say that I have a favourite book.

But here's some that I enjoyed:

1) The God of small things - Arundhati Roy. Amazingly well written. Some purple prose but beautiful delicate characters and just fantastic use of literary devices. Powerful and emotional. Won the Booker prize in '97.

2) Human Traces - Sebastian Faulks. A fictional account of the early beginnings of Psychiatry. Explores the themes of insanity, neuropsychiatry and essentially what it is to be human.

3) War and Peace - Epic tale bursting with vivid characters set in the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars and the French revolution.

4) The Journey of Ibn Battuta. Don't remember the author but it was basically a guy who wrote down Battuta's orated recollections of his 25 year long journey through Africa, Europe, the ME, and Asia. Fascinating read, albeit a little dry at times. Battuta travelled further than Marco Polo, a contemporary of his. I think there is a translation available in English.

5) The Lord of the Rings - just love it.

6) The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan. Epic fantasy, 14 volumes now iirc (each is approx 6-700 pages long ) The final volume is due out later this year I think.

7) Roots - Alex Haley. Awesome account of an African man's capture, enslavement and transportation to the Americas and the subsequent story of 400 years of his progeny. Really powerful and poignant. The book 'Queen' traces his mother's side of the family and is also a fantastic read.

8) The Cairo Trilogy - Nagieb Mahfouz. A fictional story of three generations of a Cairene family. I think he won the Nobel prize for this one. I lived in Egypt for two years so this one resonates with me quite strongly.

Good mentions for To kill a Mocking bird, and Of mice and men.



emancipator

I used to enjoy Dean Koontz as a child, especially like 'Phantoms' - scared the beejees outta me, only used to read it when my dad was in the house . Catch 22 is good too.

Despite all the good/great books i have read.
My favorite is still

THE HOBBIT.

tigerrobins - GREAT shout. That's in my top 10, for sure.

I just bought "the dice man" yesterday which is a old "classic" (apparently!).

Anyone read it and is it any good?

Adam D wrote:I just bought "the dice man" yesterday which is a old "classic" (apparently!).

Anyone read it and is it any good?

Brilliant book. Got it at home.

Friday Night Lights, The Fab Five by Mitch Albom or the Last Godfathers by John Follian

Daggie Dog Foot by Dick King Smith.

A Monza classico!

niner wrote:Friday Night Lights, The Fab Five by Mitch Albom or the Last Godfathers by John Follian

Did Friday Night lights (the program) come from the book?

Adam D wrote:I just bought "the dice man" yesterday which is a old "classic" (apparently!).

Anyone read it and is it any good?

Excellent book, very dark in places but well worth the read.

Is that the one where your man lives by rolling Dice?

yeah it did, ive just started watching on sky atlantic too, pretty good

Adam D wrote:I just bought "the dice man" yesterday which is a old "classic" (apparently!).

Anyone read it and is it any good?

It's brilliant. Read it years ago and really enjoyed it.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson first got me into science fantasy back in 1977.

I tried Tolkien but gave up. Have enjoyed the films though.

For me it’s “The Alchemist”. I read it a few months back and I guess it was worth a reading as I needed some quick motivation in life at that time.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.

A story set in WW1 and written from the perspective of the Germans, although it is much more an exploration of the effects of warfare (especially the absurd slaughter that was trench warfare) on the soldiers than any attempt to make war appear heroic or like a major adventure.

King Bearwalker. Its a Norwegian book about a boy that goes back in time and learns all about time in the time of Viking warriors. Excellent read.

Cari, I read some of Joe Orton's diaries when I was at university. Brave of him to have been so honest in those days, and so sad that such a gifted playwright died so young and in such a way.

It's almost impossible to choose just one book, but seeing as I have to, I'll say Don Quixote by Cervantes. There's such wisdom in there but it's laugh-out-loud funny in places too. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are such great characters. I'll admit here that when I finished the book, I kissed the cover of it.

To Kill A Mockingbird
The Grapes Of Wrath
The Hotel New Hampshire

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite.

Catching Fire, the 2nd book of the hunger games trilogy, admittidly only just read it a week or so ago but loved it as i read it shortly after having watched the first film.

THe City and the City by Mieville

or Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment is a great novel. Raskolnikov is such a fascinating protagonist.

The Master and Margarita (Bulgakov) is certainly one of my faves. Pretty much impossible to pick a 'best' though.

Diary of a Nobody (Grossmith and Grossmith) and Imajica (Clive Barker) are also up there.

Ooh, the Man in his High Castle. Or the Sandman in it's wonderful entirety. Or Death in the time of cholera.

I'll need to pick up To Kill A Mockingbird as people on here (and my fiance) recommend it highly.

One of my all time favourites is Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - classic.

The Sleeper Awakes by HG Wells is a great vision of the future.

Other than that - IT by Stephen King, On the Road, LA Confidential and The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy and the George RR Martin saga - A Song of Ice and Fire (Games of Thrones) - though I've only read the 1st 2, are great.

Ohh forgot to say if you like Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy and cruime noir, then you should try Aberystwyth Mon Amoir and the Louie Knight series by Malcolm Price, classic noir set in a fictional Aberystwyth run by the hoods (druids).

A few other books I've read and loved:

Germinal by Emile Zola
Slaughterhouse-5 by Kurt Vonnegut
The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:A few other books I've read and loved:
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

I gotta say it wasn't what I'd hoped for...

Did you read that in a joke book?

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:Did you read that in a joke book?

No it was on Loaded Weapon (Charlie Sheen says it)!

Not novels but-

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown
&
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Are all absolutely brilliant reads

Ohh if you want to expand your mind literally as well as figuatively - then Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley is a great if weird read about human beings need to transcend (either via religion, incredible sights, feets inducing great adrenaline or in Huxleys case - and many tribes and races before him) - through hallucinogenic drugs, ie acid. Or to expand politically then Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent and Hemogony or Surival or Naomi Klein's No Logo are great.

Personally I usualyl prefer settling down with a good Roald Dahl or Alan Moore (if only I had his beard!)

I read The Doors of Perception years ago - the main bit I remember is his account of taking mescaline (I think is was mescaline) and he writes about seeing what Adam saw, 'the miracle, minute by minute, of naked existence' (or words to that effect).

Hegemony or Survival is a good read, too.

When I was younger, I loved The BFG. All those giant with different names - they were so much cooler than the BFG himself! Then you have snozzcumbers and frobscottle, it's a great story.

Big fan of Aldous Huxley, my favorite being 'eyeless in gaza'. I'm going to make myself sound stupid here, but I find myself having to re-read passages in his books to appreciate what he's driving at. I wouldn't say Huxley is an easy read, but he sure is stimulating. Also, enjoyed 'point counter point' by Huxley. Those victorians sure were a hoot

I've only read Brave New World, thought it was very good. How similar is Eyeless in Gaza?

Completely different CJ. Brave new world is almost sci fi in that it was a commentary on what he thought the future would be like, some of it spookily accurate. There's other books of his like BNW, such as ape and essence that explore common humanity themes in un-real scenarios. But some of his books like eyeless in gaza, chrome yellow, point counter point etc are more commentaries of Victorian life and explore interesting underlying themes like war/pacifism, art, upper class society, drugs, human insecurities, etc, but in realistic scenarios. I thoroughly enjoy all his books, but sometimes I struggle to keep up because, I'll be honest, maybe I'm dumber than the average book reader in 1930

I found Crome Yellow and Antic Hay to have some similarities with Wodehouse and Saki as Huxley observed social manners and class systems.

He could be very funny as well as darkly dystopian.