Favorite books

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Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:31 am

I have a book going at all times and can't think of a favorite.

My favorite authors are John Grisham and Nora Roberts. Cool

419Eater is my life Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 266

The Five People You Meet in Heaven Mitch Albom
Tuesdays with Morrie Mitch Albom
Simple but beautiful

Anything by Seamus Heany

and...I have had a copy of 'The Folk of the Faraway tree' by Enid Blyton on my shelf for the past 30? years...
First book I remember reading Smile

Elite Baiter Joined: 01 May 2006 Posts: 1693

All his books are so funny but this was the first i read
Riotous Assembly = Tom Sharpe

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 689

All you Sci-Fi fans ... and not one mention of Larry Niven and of all his novels I'd probably pick Ringworld as being totally outstanding but then there's "Inconstant Moon" (short story made into TV film) and anything to do witth "known space" and "moties" and .... Laughing

Did someone just mention a star mangled spanner? Cool

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:22 am

Illusions by Richard Bach.

Anything by Douglas Adams

The Hanibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris, like most books made into films has far more detail, in your head you can still cast Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster, and the ending is better.

That said, most of what I read is non-fiction.

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:56 pm

My all-time favourite stand-out read is Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. It eclipses absolutely everything else.

Other highlights:

Peter F Hamilton, esp the Mindstar & Nights Dawn series.
Iain M Banks - the Culture Novels
Richard Morgan - the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy
Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space novels
William Gibson - the cyberpunk novels

That'll do for now.

If you are a fan of hard sci-fi then I stongly reccomend these books to you!

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

create wrote:

Anything by Seamus Heany

He got a lot of grief for getting the Booker prize for a mere translation. But try to read any other translation and then read his. He has translated the same sentences and not messed them about at all, but whereas the other translations are dry and dusty, his is an easy read. Pure genius.

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:51 pm

I'd like to recommend the "Temeraire" novels by Naomi Novik which I've just finished reading.

Think Napoleonic wars... now add an air force of intelligent dragons Smile

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

It's hard to pick a favorite. I'm a fan of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series (favorites being Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead) but my favorite writing by him is his short stories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps_in_a_Mirror. I also like Robert Heinlein. I think he was brilliant and definitely ahead of his time, although he's a bit of a pervert.

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:55 pm

Ima Baeder wrote:

I also like Robert Heinlein. I think he was brilliant and definitely ahead of his time, although he's a bit of a pervert.

True. I always feel a little dirty after reading one of his books.

Someone mentioned the legendary Douglas Adams. I'd forgotten about him. I've actually got H2G2 in the original radio series, all 5 (6? if you include the Salmon of Doubt) books, 1980's TV series & the last film. How the hell could I forget all that lot?

Larry Niven - I've never read any of his solo works, but one of my all time favourites is Niven & Pournelle's 'Footfall'.

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:00 pm

If I had to pick my favourites (nothing too deep, you'll note!):

Tom Sharpe - Blott on the Landscape
PTerry - Soul Music (it's where I got my user name from..!)
Stephen King - It (I've read most of his works though)
Tom Clancy - Red Storm Rising - though all of his stuff is excellent - I can recommend Rainbow Six
George Orwell - Animal Farm & 1984 - 1984 is a bit of a struggle at times and is a thoroughly depressing view of an authoritarian future.
Clive Cussler - Any, really (although his early stuff isn't worth it). I find the plots quite clever although the central characters and the authors obsession with describing what they are wearing are usually irritating!
Douglas Adams - H2G2 'Nuff said.
James Herbert - The Fog - and no, it's not that film with dead pirates and Jamie Lee Curtis! Very Happy

Harry Harrison - Stainless Steel Rat series

Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:12 pm

Terry P, Douglas Adams, Paulo Coehlo, Asimov, Heinlen, Rankin, Larry Niven, Stainless Steel Rat, Deathworld Harry Harrison, Kate Atkinson When will there be good times, Carl Sagan Comet, Stephen Hawking, Bill Bryson, Gary North, Lew Rockwell, Stephen King (but not a real fan), Steinbeck (Travels with Charlie is really good), a few of the Russians, mostly hangovers from school, Tolstoy Dostyievsky, etc, Charles Dickens, Spike Milligan, Jeremy Clarkson,

Actually, if it is words printed in a book form I'll read it. Some make it onto the book shelf, the rest make it back to the book exchange.

Edit: Almost forgot Richard Brautigan RIP, and his daughter Iolanthe Brautigans book, You can't catch death

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 1:07 am

Mark Helprin has written some of the most beautiful books, "A WInters Tale", "Memoir in Ant Proof Case" and... the best book I have ever read, "A Soldier of the Great War". The first seven pages of that book are wonderful, and the rest is wonderful, too.

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 2:40 am

Quote:

The current one I'm reading and enjoying is Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S Thompson. Quite a lot of belly laughs, urghs and many reminders of why I find some aspects of politics so interesting.

Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's was an interesting read as well. It reminded me all too well of how much I'd actually forgotten about the 1980's...

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

NickTheCop wrote:

White Fang - Jack London

"The Sea Wolf" by London is one of my favorites of all time, as is Moby Dick (Melville). Stories that include tall ships on the high seas hold a special place in my heart.

Here is my favorite passage from The Sea Wolf.

Quote:

'Then what is it worth to you? Another man's life, I mean. Come, now, what is it worth?'

The value of life? How could I put a tangible value upon it? Somehow I, who have always had expression, lacked expression when with Wolf Larsen. I have since determined that a part of it was due to the man's personality, but that the greater part was due to his totally different outlook. Unlike other materialists I had met, and with whom I had something in common to start on, I had nothing in common with him. Perhaps, also, it was the elemental simplicity of his mind that baffled me. He drove so directly to the core of the matter, divesting a question always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water with no footing under me. Value of life? How could I answer the question on the spur of the moment? The sacredness of life I had accepted as axiomatic. That it was intrinsically valuable was a truism I had never questioned. But when he challenged the truism I was speechless.

'We were talking about this yesterday,' he said. 'I held that life was a ferment, a yeasty something which devoured life that it might live, and that living was merely successful piggishness. Why, if there is anything in supply and demand, life is the cheapest thing in the world. There is only so much water, so much earth, so much air; but the life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents. Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.

Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eat life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.' 'You have read Darwin,' I said. 'But you read him misunderstandingly when you conclude that the struggle for existence sanctions your wanton destruction of life.'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'You know you only mean that in relation to human life, for of the flesh and the fowl and the fish you destroy as much as I or any other man. And human life is in no wise different, though you feel it is and think that you reason why it is. Why should I be parsimonious with this life which is cheap and without value? There are more sailors than there are ships on the sea for them, more workers than there are factories or machines for them. Why, you who live on the land know that you house your poor people in the slums of cities and loose famine and pestilence upon them, and that there still remain more poor people, dying for want of a crust of bread and a bit of meat (which is life destroyed), than you know what to do with. Have you ever seen the London dockers fighting like wild beasts for a chance to work?'

He started for the companion-stairs, but turned his head for a final word. 'Do you know, the only value life has is what life puts upon itself; and it is of course overestimated, since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favor. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself, yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead, he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don't you see? And what have you to say?'

'That you are at least consistent,' was all I could say, and I went on washing the dishes.

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 689

Ima Baeder wrote:

Said of Robert Heinlein "although he's a bit of a pervert."

... totally understated there!

imike wrote:

Niven & Pournelle's 'Footfall'.

I never did get the picture of little elephants in hang gliders out of my head Razz

Posted: Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:16 pm

couldn't possibly pick a book but off the top of my head authors

E.E.Doc Smith
James Herbert
Peter Pook
Robert Rankin
Terry Pratchett
Tom Sharpe
Douglas Adams

Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:00 am

Nothing too heavy for me - I like my other-worldliness with a dash of humour:

Pratchett's Discworld series, particularly "Thud", "Night Watch" and "Going Postal"
Agree with the OP, "Good Omens" is genius
Some Robert Rankin, some Tom Holt, and HG2G of course

I've also recently started reading graphic novels:
Watchmen - brilliant
V for Vendetta
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series
(all by Alan Moore, all waay better than the films)
And in a slightly different vein, I've just finished Jeff Smith's "Bone" - an epic.

Next up - I really want to read Gaiman's "Sandman", and "Y:The Last Man" looks good. Going by this thread, it seems I might enjoy Tom Sharpe, so I'll add him to my list.

Has anyone read Trudi Canavan's Black Magician triology? If so, do you recommend it?

Cougar

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 8:10 am

I'm currently enjoying a book called: 'Is it just me or is everything s**t?' It's very funny.

A while back I got a cartridge for the nintendo ds that has 100 classics on it (Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, etc...) and I'm working my way through that. I'm up to The Pickwick Papers so far.

Elite Baiter Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 1043

Pretty much all my favourite authors have been listed. It seems baiters have good taste.

I'm not sure if they've been listed, but I'll add Jeffery Deaver, Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series, and maybe some Garth Nix.

The one's I think have been listed, but are worthy of repeating:
PTerry
Dumas - especially The Count of Monte Cristo. It's probably my favourite book.
Steven King
Douglas Adams
Harry Harrison
Orson Scott Card
Mitch Albom

Actually, there are too many to list. I always have a least one book on the go, usually two.

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:58 am

War and Peace, by what's his name. I read it once as a teenager and identified with the kids growing up; I read it again as an adult and identified with the adults making their way in the world. I'm afraid to read it again, as I'll probably identify with the Czar.

Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. Most under-rated book of all time. Complex (dual narrator) and rewarding.

Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 1:59 am

BTW, serious readers should check out

www.bookmooch.com

to get and give free copies of all these books we love!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 09 Sep 2009 Posts: 44

Firestarter -Stephen King
IT - Stephen King (The only book ever to give me nightmares)

Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:32 am

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Nothing Like It In the World Stephen E. Ambrose
Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose
Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose
Life on the Mississippi Mark Twain
Roughing It Mark Twain

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2009 8:34 am

The River God. Wilbur Smith with a final twist. One of the better books I've read.