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I got talking with a mate a few weeks back and we'd both been thinking the same thing, there are plenty of books out thee that you are supposed to have read.
I just finished To Kill A Mockingbird and it was fantastic, so where next?
I'd rather hear what people recommend as must reads rather than trawling through the lists online.
My thoughts were Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions, On The Road
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
For cyclists, I would recommend The Rider by Tim Krabbe. Proper good literature. Not too long either. I'm not a fast reader and struggle unless a book is really good, but this is one of the small few I'd happily read again.
1984 - George Orwell
The Twits - Roald Dahl
The End of Faith - Sam Harris
Flashman - George MacDonald Fraser
At The Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft
1984
The Pickwick papers
Candide
Confessions of an English opium eater
The misfortune of virtue
The ascent of rum doodle
Last 2 good books I read that'd I recommend are, Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky and The Martian, Andy Weir.
I'd Recommend, Wigan Pier or Down and out before 1984 myself.
The count of Monte Christo
The kite runner
Cold comfort farm
Freakonomics
+1 for Down and Out and Wigan pier.
Good Behaviour (Molly Keane)
A Farewell to Arms
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett (RIP) and Neil Gaiman.
Into Thin Air - John Krakauer
Carrying the Fire - Michael Collins
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski (be careful with this one - It's not for you 8) )
Small Gods- Terry Pratchett
oh, forgot one of my proper faves: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The thought gang-Tibor Fischer.
My favourites include:
100 years of solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
World According to Garp - John Irving
On Extended Wings - Diane Akerman. Brilliant account of learning to fly light aircraft. Sounds dull, but fantastic.
Oooh, haven't read Garp in ages! Good call.
A few of the classics from me;
Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding. Glorious.
The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan. Reads as if it's not real, but sadly it was all too real.
The Great Game, by Peter Hopkirk. Another documentary of history that reads like the finest proto-spy novel ever written.
And, Fleming. Yes, go and read the Bond books. They're truly excellent, IMHO.
*Edit - Seadog, see also "Fate is the hunter" by Ernest Gan. *
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Anything by Terry Pratchett or David Gemmell
Two personal favourites.
Angry White Pyjamas - Robert Twigger. He spends a year learning Aikido on the Japanese riot police course, starting from scratch pretty much.
Hokkaido Highway Blues - Will Ferguson. Bloke hitchhikes the length of Japan following the cherry blossom.
It's been a long time since I read Vonnegut but my favourite was Sirens of Titan.
Some of my favourite books are:
Sunset song - Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Young Art & Old Hector / Green Isle of the Great Deep - Neil Gunn
Anathem - Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon is also very good)
Spook Country - William Gibson (his others are good too)
Gravitys rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (took a lot to get get into but once there loved it. Intense!)
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
The Chrysalids - John Wyndam
A confederacy of dunces - John Kennedy Toole.
Just finished-
Trainspotting + Skagboys, Irvine Welsh.
Just avoid the clichéd pride and prejudice
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Definitely Good Omens. My personal favorite.
Also The Brentford Trilogy by Robert Rankin.
Bottersnikes And Gumbles (just for your inner child).
Top books.
The Wasp Factory, and quite a few other Iain Banks books. The Bridge is great, must have read at least once a year since I got it.. Also, if you can do scifi read Player of Games, some will say start with Consider Phlebas which is very good but PoG is bettererererer.
American Tabloid, James Ellroy
Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe
In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick
Oh aye Iain Banks! Crow Road and Espedair Street for me.
+1 for 100 yrs of solitude
This thing of darkness - phenomenal novel about Darwin and captain Fitzroy
Midnight's children
Darkness at noon
East of Eden
Things fall apart
Bottersnikes And Gumbles
Christ that takes me back , chopper.
The Moon's a Balloon - David Niven autobiography.
Spike Milligan's war memoirs (mostly the first 3 though).
Another vote for 'The Right Stuff'
CFH Have you also read 'Foreign Devils on the Silk Road'? Yours for the borrowing also [quick before it gets packed to move!]
Other Ernest Gann books are also worth a read.
Anything by Georgette Heyer or Nevil Shute is worth your time, and The Rubiyat Of Omar Khayyam should be by your bedside for dipping into at all times, as should anything by Saki / HH Munro.
No mention of Patrick Leigh Fermor yet?
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Catch 22 - Joseph Keller
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
These would be on my list
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
and another vote for Catcher in the Rye
Another +1 for "100 years of solitude", totally weird and I have no idea why I like it but I love it.
My current favourite book is "Shantaram"
I must be one of the few people who didn't like "Catch 22" I never really found a voice for it in my head, if you know what I mean.
hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
The Dice Man
a couple off the top of my head
Fair stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Dry by Augusten Boroughs
Writing Home by Alan Bennett
England's Lane by Joseph Connolly
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd
Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada
100 is not enough, just a few from the 80/90s
Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
The Music of Chance by Paul Auster
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - Ken Kesey
The Fight - Norman Mailer
Fight Club - Chuck Palahnuik
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
Empire of the Sun - JG Ballard
(Not Kerouac's On The Road - it's crap)
Some great suggestions but I am astounded that no-one has suggested The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) yet. Perhaps the most perfect book ever written and as for the final page? Perfection.
Gotta say that Birdsong had perhaps the most profound effect on me though – from reading that I have developed a massive interest in the two World Wars and have since read lots of historical accounts, biographies and auto-biographies of people involved in the wars in one way or another. And my interest has also effected my 6 year old girl who likes nothing better than reading about the war (children's encyclopaedias of the wars) as her bedtime book.
Forgot Brighton Rock - Graham Greene.
Read some fantastic books about war, but can't think of them at the mo.
Read some fantastic books about war, but can't think of them at the mo.
Primo Levi - If This Is A Man
All the Anthony Beevor books
Peter White - With The Jocks
Are a few that spring to mind.
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer is an excellent book set in WWII.
Anything by Ian Banks, but Espedaire Street as mentioned earlier is very good.
One recommended on here last year, Child 44 is an excellent read.
Atonement by Ian Mcewan (my 3 favourite authors are all called Ian and all Scottish)
Louis de Bernières
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord
The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman.
Ian M Bainks
Culture stuff
Alistair Reynolds
Revelation Space books
Joe Abercrombie
Blade Itself
George RR MArtin
GOT
Cormac Macarthy
everything of his ive read
Douglas Adams
Hitchikers Guide to The Galaxy
Frank Herbert
Dune
Hunter S thompson
Fear and Loathing
phillip dick
scanner darkly
do androids dream
ubik
Hubert Selby Jnr
Requiem For a Dream
Dan Simmonds
Hyperion saga
illium/olympos
JG ballard
Crash
empire of the sun
Bret Easton Ellis
american psycho
JRR Tokein
LOTR
I am astounded that no-one has suggested The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) yet.
It's on my to do list but put off by The winter of our discontent which I just couldn't get into (unfinished).
Lots of good stuff above. To add:-
'The Blackhouse Trilogy' by Peter May (don't be put off by his Enzo series - these are much better). still a light read, Rankinesque.
And a bit more left field - 'A prayer for Owen Meany' by John Irving
Some bloody fantastic books already mentioned so I can only add one to the list :- The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
Gotta say that Birdsong had perhaps the most profound effect on me though
Hated Birdsong, crappy chick-lit dressed up as something profound. Awful book.
For classics Orwell is great, and Hamlet is a good read too (although obviously not a "book" but rather a play). For non-classics more votes for Good Omens, American Gods, and a lot of Iain M Banks.
For classics Orwell is great
Agreed. I'd add John Wyndham too though he dated a little quicker. Orwell is a bit more timeless in prose style.
Hated Birdsong, crappy chick-lit dressed up as something profound. Awful book.
Hmm not sure I agree, although I focussed on the passages about the fighting underground (which I never knew happened) and it was that that made me want to find out more about the wars.
The screen adaption came across as a chick-flick though, agreed.
Lots of good stuff here. Three that I don't think have been mentioned yet:
Siddharta by Herman Hesse
Dhalgren by Samual R. Delaney
Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller
[i]Dhalgren[/i] is an amazing book - good choice. Amazing to think that it was a bestseller, sold over a million copies. Reckon the publishers would have been happy if it sold ten copies, given the style and subject.
[i]Stars in my pocket like grains of sand[/i] is my favourite Delany book, though. Pretty much the last novel he wrote with a mainstream sort of structure (if not content), his writing moved in a different direction after that.
Hmm not sure I agree, although I focussed on the passages about the fighting underground (which I never knew happened) and it was that that made me want to find out more about the wars.
Thing is I already knew a fair amount about that, and WWI in general - so all the novelty was in the rest of the story. Which was basically a romance novel, fine if you like that kind of thing but I don't.
+1 for Bryce Courtenay- The Power of One
Alasdair Macleod- No Great Mischief
Bukowski- Pulp
Irvine Welsh- Trainspotting
Orwell - Burmese Days
Some great suggestions but I am astounded that no-one has suggested The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) yet. Perhaps the most perfect book ever written and as for the final page? Perfection.
One of the best books I've ever read and I've never forgotten the effect that final page had on me. I was on the number 73 heading in for college, it was all I could do not to read it out to the whole bus. I still wish I had though.
I also loved East Of Eden, I think it the equal of Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row.
As a rule I only read award winners (Booker, Orange, etc) - Currently on Wolf Hall and Bringing up the Bodies by Hillary Mantel. Marvellous if you're into historical novels.
Also - as mentioned previously, anything by the three "Ians" [McEwan, Banks and Rankin].
My favourite book ever - Fugitive Pieces by Canadian poet Anne Michaels.
Worst ever - Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray: overrated drivel!
Also - check out the BBC bookclub, read their current book and listen to the discussion with the author... that's got me into loads of good stuff over the years.
At Swim Two Birds Flann O'Brien
Long Walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela
Junkie William Burroughs
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
Good call that.
I'd add Cannery Row by the same author.
Also The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera (Czech Author)
Any of the Flashman books - raunchy, funny, historically enlightening adventures of a cad and a charlatan through all the key events of the British Empire 1840-1905 (incl Charge of the Light Brigade, Indian Mutiny, Afghan Wars, Sikh Wars, Slave Trade, Zulu War, Little Big Horn, Opium Wars with China and more..). Flashman even manages to best Sherlock Holmes
Adventures of Brigadier Gerrard - Arthur Conan Doyle. Not as famous as his other creation, but very funny books about a Napoleonic officer in the French army
Also The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
And any of the Rumpole books by John Mortimer
there's a great app/website for just this called [url= http://www.goodreads.com/ ]goodreads[/url]. You can rate books you've read and it'll throw back suggestions. Reader reviews are worth a browse and there are also book lists. i.e top 100 books of various decades, best 100 books based in SE Asia etc etc. Worth a look for plenty of ideas.
plus one for the grapes of wrath , i am half way through it and gob smacked at how relavent it is in todays dog eat dog world of rampant capatalism.
Railway man - so much better than the film.
Irvine welsh books - reading them all is better than reading g a few (helps if you understand the Leith tongue 😉 )
Hated Birdsong, crappy chick-lit dressed up as something profound. Awful book.
+1 utter sh*te
Plenty of good stuff above but also:
Karl Marx by Francis Wheen
Alan Turing: Enigma by Andrew Hodges
Coming Up for Air by Orwell
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
Decline and Fall / Scoop / Vile Bodies all by Evelyn Waugh
6 Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman
Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson
The Secret Race by Tyler Hamilton
When Genius Failed (the Rise and Fall of LTCM) by Roger Lowenstein (bit specialist this one, but good if you like business / finance type stuff)
Oh and the entire Aubrey Maturin series.
The Fruit Palace - Charles Nicholl.
Hated Birdsong, crappy chick-lit dressed up as something profound. Awful book.
+1 utter sh*te
Yep, I'll add another +1. Terrible book.
At the risk of getting flamed, I really liked most of the Harry Potter books - the first two or three are a bit, well, kid's books, but it gets darker and far more involved as it goes along, I think they're a great series. Tried Rowling's The Casual Vacancy too, and that was ace.
As someone with an interest in cycling, you owe it to yourself to read The Hour and Faster, both by Michael Hutchinson - laugh-out-loud funny and more useful information and trivia than you could shake a stick at.
The Road - Cormack McCarthy
Lots of the above, and:
Chickenhawk - Robert Mason
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
"Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K Jerome
"Riotous Assembly" and "Indecent Exposure" as a pair, by Tom Sharpe, and follow up with "Vintage Stuff"
The "Flashman" series by George MacDonald Fraser
And Winston S Churchill "My Early Life"
Two i haven't seen mentioned yet:
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Catch22 - Joseph Heller
Trainspotting - Irvin Welsh
Indecent Exposure/Riotous Assembly - Tom Sharpe
Wilt - Sharpe again
Stig of the dump.
Anything by Nevil Shute, In the Wet is great.
Anything by HW Tilman.
An ordinary soldier by Doug Beatle.
War and Piece/ Anna Kerenina by the good Count Tolstoy
Everyone should read at least one of them. They are without doubt the two finest pieces of literature ever put on paper. Do yourself a favour and give them a go.
A few of my favourite that haven't been mentioned...
Fear and loathing in las Vegas
A clockwork orange
Brave new world
Good point 🙂
A Clockwork Orange is my favourite ever read.
Anything, just anything by Wodehouse, Conan Doyle, Seamus Heaney or Joseph Wambaugh.
Anything by Hemingway.
The short stories to start, then Fiesta.
The Young Lions - Irwin Shaw.
Jake Arnott - He Kills Coppers.
The Villian - Jim Perrin's biography of Don Whillans.
Les Mis.
The White Spider.
Jupiter's Travels.
As I walked out one midsummer morning.
Collected MR James.
Most of Ted Hughes.
Houseman - A Shropshire Lad.
Les Fleures Du Mal - Baudelaire.
Any Milligan.
Idle thoughts of an Idle fellow - JKJ.
Anything by Banks, but nothing will ever compare to the first time you read 'The Wasp Factory'.
🙂
Hmm, Clockwork Orange was good but not amazing. It doesn't rate that highly for me. And Catch 22 - yeah, good. But has anyone read any of his other shite? Something Happened is particularly awful.
Has American Psycho been mentioned, great book.
The Book of Splendour by Frances Sherwood.
I could not put it down, I felt immersed in 17th century Prague, smells, sounds, sights, facts and fiction skilfully interwoven, rich like really good chocolate.
Agree on Joseph Heller - Catch 22 is wonderful, but Something Happened is just good.
Er, huge Jane Austin fan btw.
P&P is just superb - the characters are so obviously real.
Her honesty is very refreshing too.
A Clockwork Orange is a perfect study of humanity in just over 100 pages.
cracking lists here, have we reached 100 yet? take it were going for a top 500? 😀
I'd add,
war of the worlds
day of the triffids
long walk to freedom
shogun. james clavell