I realise it's a bit like movies and changes all the time but give it a shot. Here's 5 for a start:
1) Weaveworld by Clive Barker
The man can do no wrong. His imagiantion is beyond anything I can even get close to. This book is about love and a magic carpet which houses an alternate reality/world of fantastical creatures. It has a great hero (everyman type) and some truely despicable bad guys.
2) Real Cooking by Nigel Slater
Ok, slightly weird 'cause it's a cookbook. It's more than that though. It throws the idea that cooking is an art form out the window and he talks about food with such passion that you can't help but be impressed. It is not just recipies but also advice on how to get the best of ingrediants and how to use them in a simple but incredibly effective way to cook yourself something good to eat. If you like food at all then you should try it out.
3) Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers by Grant Naylor
The only book I've ever finished and turned staight back to the start and read again. It makes me cry with laughter. The central idea is that Lister, the last human alive, is trapped on a deep space mining ship with Rimmer, a neurotic hologram of his dead bunkmate who he hated, The Cat, a feline sapien evoloved from Listers pet cat Frankenstein, Kryten, a slightly mad mechanoid who is actually saner than the others and Holly the ships computer who has an IQ of 6000 but has gone senile and has to use the Junior Encyclopaedia of Space to navigate. Lister wants to get back to Earth. Thats it.
4) Shogun by James Clavell
It's almost like reading a sci-fi or fantasy novel to begin with. The behaviour of the natives in this strange land is presented as so alien at the beginning that you get a real sense that John Blackthorn may as well be on the moon. That shifts through the book and as he learns more so do you. By the end it is clearly the Europeans who seem the more barbaric. It's a wonderful story and a fascinating insight.
5) Dune by Frank Herbert
It's quite a thin book but seems to be about 10 volumes long when you read it. Like Clive Barker the imagination involved is collossal! It's really hard to provide a synopsis. The planet Dune is the home of Melange, this spice controls the process of travelling vast distances through space. A Great House of the galaxy oversees the mining on a rotating basis. It is time for the House Harkonan (boo hiss) to relinquish control to the House Atriedes (woo yay), they hate each other. There is a galactic emporer who is powerful and dominating etc. The Guild have the ships and navigators who use the spice to travel and the Bene Gesserit are female scholars/witches who have their fingers in lots of pies.
The scope is vast and you get the impression that the backstory in Herberts head is immense. Fantastic sci-fi.
6) The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Pirates, giants, castles, true love, magic, sword fighting, humour, the most beautiful girl in the world and screaming eels. Don't trust anybody who doesn't like this.
Ok that was 6
I preferred 'Tai-Pan' to Shogun.
And Clive Barker used to be good, but his later books are pretty much gay porn and that really doesn't do it for me.
I wish I'd read enough books to have a top 5 :(
Seriously though, I just haven't up the time to do it for years so now I'm doing a lot of catching up and that. Reading some Orwell and Bret Easton Ellis at the moment though.
1984 and American Psycho?
Yeah, the obvious Ellis one, I'm afraid.
(The Orwell one is "Down and Out In Paris and London", innit)
I'm going through a 'read the bloody obvious choices that everyone knows' stage so I can enter related conversations and such ;)
My Top 5:
1) Viz
2) Last year's OS UK Road Atlas (seriously, it rocks)
3) TV Quick (can't afford the RT anymore)
4) Local Phone Book
5) Yellow Pages
Posted by
Grim..., 11:35, 3rd August 2004:
In no real order:
1) The Firm
2) Jurrasic Park
3) Carrie
4) The Excorsist
5) Polo (ahem)
"I preferred 'Tai-Pan' to Shogun.
And Clive Barker used to be good, but his later books are pretty much gay porn and that really doesn't do it for me."
I liked Tai-pan but preffered Shogun. Tai-pan had more intrigue and was perhaps a better story but the characters didn't grip me the same. I've not read Whirlwind, is it worth a look?
What Clive Barker books do you mean? I've not read much of his latest stuff. I have Abarat on the shelf but haven't got round to it yet.
I also loved 20000 Leagues Under The Sea. Some fantastic stuff in there. A bit heavy on the taxonomy of sea snails and the like sometimes but the story is great.
I really enjoyed The Firm and Jurrasic Park too.
I was so dissapointed with The Firm movie.
Whirlwind is great, the craziness of the Iranian Revolution is even more worrying with the current state of Global affairs, I can't rememeber which books, let me do some googling.
King Rat is worth a look too.
Do Noble House and Whirlwind both still deal with the Struans? I think I've got King Rat kicking about somewhere.
I also should have included Catch 22 as one of my favourites. I put it down the first time I tried to read 'cause I think I was a bit young. Loved it when I read it at uni though.
I'm reading the Song of Ice and Fire trilogy by George RR Martin at the moment. It's good old fashioned Fantasy Epic stuff. Probably falls somewhere between Tolkien and Gemmell. Good characters and lots of intrigue. MOnsters and magic and it comes with maps at the front! Stick maps in the front of a book and I'm sold :D
Posted by
jeff, 12:11, 3rd August 2004:
in no pacific order innit...
the secret history - donna tart
brave new world - aldous huxley
hey nostradamus - douglas coupland
the history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters - julian barnes
harry potter and the chamber of secrets - jk rowling (i just threw that one in there to start a dispute or two)
Posted by
Rosie, 12:20, 3rd August 2004:
I've just finished reading The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell. It was great!
In no particular order:
1) Congo (great book, shit film)
2) LOTR (sorry, but it is a classic)
3) Laidlaw
4) Imajica (toss up between that and Weaveworld)
5) Nercoscope (the series)
two incredible stand-outs:
•
"Lords of Light" Roger Zelazny -- pantheonistic religion viewed as a high-tech political struggle. doubly ironic, in that zelazny is a god.
•
"The Situation is Hopeless but not Serious" Paul Wotzlawick or somesuch -- fucking hilarious analysis of how people deliberately cripple their lives and others. Nonfiction but should be a compulsory read.
Below them
• "Three Men in a Boat" Jerome K Jerome
• "The Colour of Magic" Terry Pratchett
• "Tik Tok" or in fact anything by Sladek -- brutally funny and brutally prophetic
• "For Esme, With Love and Squalour" Salinger -- just a short story which i just ran across recently but which really powerfully affected me. It's the title of the book it's in too, so see if you can grab it from a library like i did. 15 mins to read, you'll be a long time forgetting it.
Posted by
Grim..., 12:39, 3rd August 2004:
Fog: Congo was a great book, but LOTR?
Frodo and Sam walked. And walked. And walked. Then they stopped and ate some evlen bread. Then they walked. Then they sang an odd song. While walking, of course.
The whole thing feels like it's being read to you by a treeant =/
oh and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy is both hard sf and phenomenal literature.
and Enders Game.
and Starship Troopers.
and The Adventures of Myrh.
and Cordwainer Smith's Rediscovery of Man/Norstrilia series is awesome. this guy was a linguist and academic who became a diplomat instead of a soldier to do more good, and hit on a way to shorten the korean war dramatically.
GRim, good point but I read it when I was very young...really enjoyed it then, probably not as much now though.
I liked LOTR, it's rambling but the writing is great so who cares? I like that he takes his time, it makes it feel like more of a journey.
I really enjoyed the Mars Trilogy too Saltation. Future technology but it's all really believable now. Wonderful stuff.
Been meaning to read Enders Game for ages.
Well, obviously, Salman isn't going to include any of his own books in his list.
Off the top of my head;
A History of the World in 10½ Chapters - Julian Barnes
Catch 22 - Jo Jo Heller
The Waste Land - T. S. Eliot (or indeed just Eliot's collected poems)
Othello/Hamlet - Shakespeare
Forever - Judy Blume
Kate Atkinson
Tom Stoppard
Elizabeth Bowen
Posted by
su, 13:40, 3rd August 2004:
LOTR
Winne The Pooh
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Princess Bride
Anne of Green Gables
But i'll cheat and add my Fav 5 autors as well
Barbara Kingsolver
Jane Austen
Tom Wolf
Ludwig Bemelemans
Douglas Coupland
Posted by
Sul, 13:48, 3rd August 2004:
American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story - Cynthia True
The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World - David Icke
The Red Dwarf series of books - Grant Naylor
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series - Douglas Adams
Letters from a Nut - Ted L. Nancy
Posted by
Miki, 14:35, 3rd August 2004:
some of my favourite authors:
Douglas Adams
Julian May
Adam Hall
Elizabeth George
If you enjoyed LOTR you should give George RR Martins Song of Ice and Fire trilogy a bash. It's pretty good epic fantasy stuff. Not the greatest of literature or anything but a bloody good story.
Posted by
cal, 17:56, 3rd August 2004:
Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson
The diamond age - Neal Stephenson
Requiem for a dream - Hubert Selby Jr
Hey nostradamus - Douglas Coupland
The long dark teatime of the soul - Douglas Adams
Posted by
lau, 22:59, 3rd August 2004:
1. Jennie - Paul Gallico
2. Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen - Garth Nix (they're in a series. they count as one right?)
3. Lucas - Kevin Brooks
4. The Duncton Chronicles - William Horwood (again, 3 books, but they tell one story.)
5. Anything in the Narnia Chronicles really, but especially The Last Battle - C S Lewis.
I love books. The library is my favourite place. That list was hard to write, and I don't think 2 and 3 really count, as I've only just read and loved them, where as the other ones I've read again and again.
Posted by
lau, 23:03, 3rd August 2004:
Totally missed off Watership Down by Richard Adams. Most excellent. Love it.
I really have to read all these books again.
The film is better, but only because it has "Bright Eyes", by Art Garfunkel. Who is now in an iranian prison.
Posted by
reitsma, 06:28, 4th August 2004:
Mr Tickle - Roger Hargreaves
Mr Sneeze - Roger Hargreaves
Mr Happy - Roger Hargreaves
Mr Bump - Roger Hargreaves
Mr Greedy - Roger Hargreaves
Posted by
su, 09:17, 4th August 2004:
you wish Salman
last i heard he was doing a revival tour arouns the uSA with Paul Simon
He's touring Europe at the moment. Extemely pissed off I didn't get tickets.
Posted by
Grim..., 11:29, 4th August 2004:
Ooh! Can I add anything by Ben Elton, but especially High Society.
Posted by
jeff, 11:35, 4th August 2004:
no. no you can't
Mario Vargas Llosa is great. I wasn't sure at first because the style, south american magical realism, is quite different if you've never read it before. People get so passionate they burst in to flames and are so unhappy they cry rivers and stuff like that. Bloody good stories though. Similar to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and A Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time Of Cholera etc. Particular reccomendations are Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter and The Storyteller.