Favourite books

[Mister Joy]

It occured to me that we've had threads for people's favourite music and films but not literature. So, I thought I'd oblige... partly for that reason and partly because I've run out of good reading material, so I could do with some suggestions.

[Asmodean]

My absolute and uncontested nr. one is The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

I also enjoyed Dan Brown's Angesl and Demons, Digital Fortress and Da Vinci Code.

There are plenty more books that I like, many of which are scientific in nature but those I named I place above others.

[Mister Joy]

The Wheel of Time is a series that I've often thought about reading but thus far I haven't got around to it.

I read the Da Vinci Code (just like everyone else who reads, obviously because of the controversy it stirred up) which I thought was good. I didn't like Dan Brown's conspiracy theorist attitude about it though. It's fabulous as a piece of fiction but Brown's insistence that the stuff in his book was true got on my nerves a little. Which is a shame because the book is pretty good and I think my knowing that the author is taking himself so seriously has tarnished my ability to enjoy it a little.

Have you read Philip K. Dick's sci-fi A Scanner Darkly? That book is absolutely drenched with conspiracy and paranoia. They made a movie adaptation starring Keanu Reeves a couple of years ago but it was a little disappointing, I thought.

[Asmodean]

Have you read Philip K. Dick's sci-fi A Scanner Darkly? That book is absolutely drenched with conspiracy and paranoia. They made a movie adaptation starring Keanu Reeves a couple of years ago but it was a little disappointing, I thought.

I'll look into it. Drenched with conspiracy and paranoia is my kind of night-table stuff  

[Salladin]

Anything by Stephen King, I especially like the books he wrote under the name Richard Bachman.  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein is another good one.  If you're into science fiction look for R.A. Salvatore, I really like him.  Chuck Palahniuk has some pretty good/different books.

[Will]

Top 10? It's like Sophie's Choice. I might come back and edit this later, but here it is:

10 Hamlet, Shakespeare (I know it's a play, but it's magnificent)
9 Wladen Two, Skinner
8 Crime and Punishment, Dotoyevsky
7 Non-Violent Resistence, Gandhi
6 The Count of Monte Christo, Alexandre Dumas
5 Dune, Frank Herbert (the greatest science fiction novel of all time)
4 Don Quiote de la Mancha, Ceravantes Saavedra
3 Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche
2 War and Peace, Tolstoy (this will take up your entire life for months, be warned)
1 The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway (the book is simply sublime)

[Asmodean]

2 War and Peace, Tolstoy (this will take up your entire life for months, be warned)

No kidding! Mine is in ONE tome. The thing is enough to build three houses out of. But it's a great work of litterature. I'm working on it in its native language too. Makes me sort of proud, that

[Will]

No kidding! Mine is in ONE tome. The thing is enough to build three houses out of. But it's a great work of litterature. I'm working on it in its native language too. Makes me sort of proud, that

I'd get mine in one tome, but my book case is made of wood, not steel.

You're seriously reading it in the original Russian?! And a little French?! Dude. That's incredible.

[MariaEvri]

well heres my top 10, not in any particular order
- It, stephen king. This was an "accidental" read. My brother bought it and somehow I ended up reading it instead. It is now one of my favourites
2 - The god delusion - richard dawkins
3. This book will save yor life - a. m Homes This book has no action/bad guys/etc bu for some reason I cant stop reading it
4. The safety of object - a.m homes
5. 1984 - george orwell
6. I AM legend - Richard matheson  I havent seen the movie, but from the few scenes I seen, the book is much much better
7. I, Robot- isaac asimov
8. The bicentnnial man - isaac asimov
9. Eaters of the dead - mihael crichton
10. A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson.

[MariaEvri]

shame on me, I forgot the "hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, a trilogy of four" by douglas adams

[Mister Joy]

10 Hamlet, Shakespeare (I know it's a play, but it's magnificent)

It is. It's particularly enjoyable, I find, because it's inaccessible to stupid people. Much of it goes over their heads, especially the humour. The grave diggers: "Who's grave's this, sirrah?" "Mine, sir," is a good bit. At that point you can look around the theatre at people's faces - half will be confused, the other half will be smiling.

Unfortunately though, I've only seen one fantastic production of Hamlet and several bloody awful ones. It seems that with Shakespeare, directors want to get their grubby hands on his work so that they can contaminate it with their own ZaNy and 'artistic' modern ideas... which usually ends up ruining everything by being monumentally stupid. There are rare occasional where it works out to be pretty interesting but they're slowly becoming extinct, I fear. The daftest one I've seen was in Romeo and Juliet, where all of the fighting had been replaced with elaborate tap dancing. They'd dance around the stage for a bit, glaring at each other from afar, and eventually the 'loser' would suddenly and inexplicably drop dead, seemingly of a cardiac arrest, the dancing would cease and the dialogue would resume. Not only did it look stupid, part of what makes Romeo & Juliet so fun is that the audience gets see a load of dramatic sword fights on stage... & it's pretty obvious that Shakespeare had this in mind when he wrote it, too.

With Hamlet's character, I think directors often miss out on the whole 'comic character in a tragic role' thing. They don't see that he's an intellectual bloke who's been given a decidedly unintellectual responsibility that he can't quite cope with, so he starts a war with his own nature almost. So they end up doing a bit of editing to simplify him, ie cutting out all the bits where he's funny or antagonistic, or just altering them slightly to destroy the effect.

I imagine that they look at it and think "Hang on, Shakespeare must have made a mistake here. It's almost as though he's trying to have Hamlet make us laugh with his dry wit & cynicism... and even get us to look upon him as a being a bit of a bastard at times... pffft, that can't be right! Sorry, what? Conveying his frustration and depression in a human and 3-dimensional way? Nonsense! There's room for only one emotion at a time in our heads and we're supposed to feel sorry for him consistently. That's what Shakespeare MEANT to do, he just did it wrong. I've a better way: if we give him a sideways fringe, a pair of tight jeans, some black lipstick and rename him 'Ham' then that'll make our audience truly open their hearts to him. That's what's fashionable now, right?"

Bleeergharg, give me someone to hit!

well heres my top 10, not in any particular order
- It, stephen king. This was an "accidental" read. My brother bought it and somehow I ended up reading it instead. It is now one of my favourites
2 - The god delusion - richard dawkins
3. This book will save yor life - a. m Homes This book has no action/bad guys/etc bu for some reason I cant stop reading it
4. The safety of object - a.m homes
5. 1984 - george orwell
6. I AM legend - Richard matheson I havent seen the movie, but from the few scenes I seen, the book is much much better
7. I, Robot- isaac asimov
8. The bicentnnial man - isaac asimov
9. Eaters of the dead - mihael crichton
10. A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson.

I still haven't read The God Delusion. Having said that, do I really need to..?

Anything by Stephen King, I especially like the books he wrote under the name Richard Bachman. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein is another good one. If you're into science fiction look for R.A. Salvatore, I really like him. Chuck Palahniuk has some pretty good/different books.

Chuck Palahniuk is terrific.  I've not heard of R. A. Salvatore but I'll definitely give him a look.

[nikkixsugar]

Rarely do I read classic literature, but I do read now and then.

Fiction:

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris
The Bible, by Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, et al (I am a confessed Horror-Comedy Fan. Leviticus is sooo hilarious! Deuteronomy is very gory though. I love it but feel bad for the REAL fans of that novel. )

Non-Fiction:

Most everything by Friedrich Nietzsche, but particularly Beyond Good and Evil, and the Antichrist. While I don't completely agree with Nietzsche, I'd say for the most part I "get" him. Any other Nietzscheans/Nietzscheists out there?

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
Everything and anything by Charles Darwin.

[LARA]

Tao of Pooh- Benjamin Hoff  (funny and cool)
Hitchhikers Guide Triology- Douglas Adams (the best four book trilogy ever)
The short stories of Flannery O'Conner (depressed, weird and Southern)
Notes from Underground- Fyodor Dostoevsky  (awesome)
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath  (Craziness and being female)
Siddhartha & The Glassbead Game-Herman Hesse (Hesse is just brilliant)
A Clockwork Orange-William Burgess (better than the Kubrick film and so creative with language once you get the lingo)
Rosencrantz & Gildenstern are Dead-Tom Stoppard (a total trip, a play really but I guess I can include it)
Slaughterhouse 5-Kurt Vonnegut (Insanity, War and mental Isolation)
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit-Jeanette Winterson (Just a great book with a good perspective on religion)
Moby Dick-Herman Melville (obsession, insanity and a great big whale!  Queequeg kicks ass!)
Flowers for Algernon-Daniel Keyes (from the depths of stupidity to the heights of genius)
A Brave New World- Aldous Huxley (cloning and societal weirdness)
Nineteen Eighty-Four-Orwell (the scary reality of social and government order)

[nikkixsugar]

I still haven't read The God Delusion. Having said that, do I really need to..?

YES. just....YES! it's a MUST READ for every Homo sapien. NO!.....for everyone in the Homo genus! (I could swear I've come across some Homo erectuses in my time...hahaha)

[susangail]

Anything by Stephen King, I especially like the books he wrote under the name Richard Bachman.

I love the ones under Bachman! I just finished reading The Long Walk for the second time. Great book. Stephen King rules my world.


Some of my other favorites (in no particular order):

No Country For Old Men -Cormac McCarthy (The movie is great as well)
The Road -Cormac McCarthy
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass -Lewis Carroll
Brave New World -Aldous Huxley
Candide -Voltaire
The Lottery -Shirley Jackson
Angels and Demons -Dan Brown
Of Mice and Men -John Steinbeck
Grave Matters -Mark Harris (non-fiction about the funeral director's job and the whole basic funeral process, I'm a future mortuary science student   )
Go and Come Back -Joan Abelove (great esp if you like anthropology)

I'm currently reading Huck Finn and I hope to soon read The God Delusion.