Books everyone should have read.
Discussion
I know views will be massively different on this but! do you personally have a top list of books everyone should read.
This is continuing from a conversation started in a pub about classics from all genres that people should have read. It was a conversation not started by myself but one that's had me thinking ever since.
So, what does everyone else think? do have a few that come to mind or maybe just 1? and what's your reason behind that choice.
This is continuing from a conversation started in a pub about classics from all genres that people should have read. It was a conversation not started by myself but one that's had me thinking ever since.
So, what does everyone else think? do have a few that come to mind or maybe just 1? and what's your reason behind that choice.
For a more serous response:
'A Handful of Dust' by Evelyn Waugh - biting satire.
Or the, perhaps, better known 'Brideshead Revisited'. One of those epic journeys through characters' lives that really help you bond with them.
Several books by John Fowles ('The Magus' and 'The Ebony Tower' a collection of five short stories built on ideas from a medieval myth) are quite gripping, though there tends to be a high level of pretension and period artiness at times, but 'The Collector' was one of those 'can't put down' books when I read it many years ago. About a sociopath(?) who kidnaps and imprisons a girl he likes. Dark and sad but involving.
'A Handful of Dust' by Evelyn Waugh - biting satire.
Or the, perhaps, better known 'Brideshead Revisited'. One of those epic journeys through characters' lives that really help you bond with them.
Several books by John Fowles ('The Magus' and 'The Ebony Tower' a collection of five short stories built on ideas from a medieval myth) are quite gripping, though there tends to be a high level of pretension and period artiness at times, but 'The Collector' was one of those 'can't put down' books when I read it many years ago. About a sociopath(?) who kidnaps and imprisons a girl he likes. Dark and sad but involving.
Agree with 1984, and also there's one novel I'll throw in as a curve ball - Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
Nothing much at all to do with Religion or Satan or anything like that - just a fairy tale roller-coaster of a read about two lads that fell from the sky when their plane was blown up.
Of course, they think they're a bit 'special' washing up on the English coast after such an event! However the story didn't quite warrant a Fatwah in my eyes.
If you hate the concept of prosaic story books like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code please please please read this book.
It's beautiful, just subliminally beautiful - one of a few books that has made me laugh out loud.
The author's ability to reel you in and run you at the pace he wants you to read the book is supreme.
I'm fortunate that my little lad is at the age (7) where he can read almost any word you'd put in front of him, now is the time where we read books together and halfway through a sentence jump up to act out or imagine what the story is telling us.
I'll be utterly honest and say it is fantastic to lead a child through learning to read and demonstrating that it can be as much fun reading a book as playing a computer game or watching a video.
Heinlein is another vote from me too, and of course Mr Bainks both sadly RIP.
Nothing much at all to do with Religion or Satan or anything like that - just a fairy tale roller-coaster of a read about two lads that fell from the sky when their plane was blown up.
Of course, they think they're a bit 'special' washing up on the English coast after such an event! However the story didn't quite warrant a Fatwah in my eyes.
If you hate the concept of prosaic story books like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code please please please read this book.
It's beautiful, just subliminally beautiful - one of a few books that has made me laugh out loud.
The author's ability to reel you in and run you at the pace he wants you to read the book is supreme.
Mr Rushdie said:
Gibreel, the tuneless soloist, had been cavorting in moonlight
as he sang his impromptu gazal, swimming in air, butterfly-stroke,
breast-stroke, bunching himself into a ball, spreadeagling himself
against the almost-infinity of the almost-dawn, adopting heraldic
postures, rampant, couchant, pitting levity against gravity. Now
he rolled happily towards the sardonic voice. ‘Ohe, Salad baba,
it's you, too good. What-ho, old Chumch.’ At which the other, a
fastidious shadow falling headfirst in a grey suit with all the
jacket buttons done up, arms by his sides, taking for granted the
improbability of the bowler hat on his head, pulled a
nickname-hater's face. ‘Hey, Spoono,’ Gibreel yelled, eliciting a
second inverted wince, ‘Proper London, bhai! Here we come! Those
b
ds down there won't know what hit them.
Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea? But for me just a glorious read! (You can even get the PDF version for free!)as he sang his impromptu gazal, swimming in air, butterfly-stroke,
breast-stroke, bunching himself into a ball, spreadeagling himself
against the almost-infinity of the almost-dawn, adopting heraldic
postures, rampant, couchant, pitting levity against gravity. Now
he rolled happily towards the sardonic voice. ‘Ohe, Salad baba,
it's you, too good. What-ho, old Chumch.’ At which the other, a
fastidious shadow falling headfirst in a grey suit with all the
jacket buttons done up, arms by his sides, taking for granted the
improbability of the bowler hat on his head, pulled a
nickname-hater's face. ‘Hey, Spoono,’ Gibreel yelled, eliciting a
second inverted wince, ‘Proper London, bhai! Here we come! Those
b
ds down there won't know what hit them.I'm fortunate that my little lad is at the age (7) where he can read almost any word you'd put in front of him, now is the time where we read books together and halfway through a sentence jump up to act out or imagine what the story is telling us.
I'll be utterly honest and say it is fantastic to lead a child through learning to read and demonstrating that it can be as much fun reading a book as playing a computer game or watching a video.
Heinlein is another vote from me too, and of course Mr Bainks both sadly RIP.
A thought changing novel that I read aged 22 (lent to me by a dear uncle) was Mikhail Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita'.
In a nutshell, Satan descends on 30's Russia (as a black cat with a machine gun!) and it becomes a critique of not only communism but the horrendous robotic bureaucracy that was born of it.
That book led me to seek out other Russian writers of that period and led me to another 'master'- perhaps the best- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
If ever you think that life's been unfair or you're being put upon, just read his short book 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' to get a little perspective..
In a nutshell, Satan descends on 30's Russia (as a black cat with a machine gun!) and it becomes a critique of not only communism but the horrendous robotic bureaucracy that was born of it.
That book led me to seek out other Russian writers of that period and led me to another 'master'- perhaps the best- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
If ever you think that life's been unfair or you're being put upon, just read his short book 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' to get a little perspective..
kenny Chim 4 said:
That book led me to seek out other Russian writers of that period and led me to another 'master'- perhaps the best- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
If ever you think that life's been unfair or you're being put upon, just read his short book 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' to get a little perspective..
YES!If ever you think that life's been unfair or you're being put upon, just read his short book 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' to get a little perspective..
Whenever I am feeling sorry for myself, i read that book to get me to pull myself together. I have the most well thumbed copy in the world (it may need replacing now!)
I will add To Kill a Mocking Bird to the collective pile. Beautifully written and thought provoking. Also a hard lesson in life isn't fair.
Fup - Jim Dodge
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
Snowblind - Robert Sabbag
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bells Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
A Walk on the Wild Side - Nelson Algren
The Vulture & the Factory - Gil Scott Heron
The Corner - David Simon & Ed Burns
Pimp - Iceberg Slim
(the Old Man and the Sea has already been mentioned, only reason I'm not listing it)
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
Snowblind - Robert Sabbag
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bells Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
A Walk on the Wild Side - Nelson Algren
The Vulture & the
Factory - Gil Scott HeronThe Corner - David Simon & Ed Burns
Pimp - Iceberg Slim
(the Old Man and the Sea has already been mentioned, only reason I'm not listing it)
Edited by zb on Friday 13th September 20:17
Lord of the flies - a case study in humanity or lack thereof.
The Time Machine
North and South - an interesting view into 1840s England (its grim up north).
Dracula - its just fking scary and such a legendary story.
The House of Mirth - a cautionary tale about romance.
I could list so many more.
Still need to read To Kill a Mockingbird.... Will put it on the wishlist
The Time Machine
North and South - an interesting view into 1840s England (its grim up north).
Dracula - its just f
king scary and such a legendary story.The House of Mirth - a cautionary tale about romance.
I could list so many more.
Still need to read To Kill a Mockingbird.... Will put it on the wishlist
droopsnoot said:
I've read 'Smokescreen', not quite what I was expecting and a bit disjointed (sorry...) but not a bad read. I'm not sure I'd put it in this list, it's all way 'above' the kind of stuff I normally read.
Don't apologise. Smokescreen was a disappointment after Snowblind, which is why it is not on my list.northwest monkey said:
I did not care for this book.
My vote is for The Hobbit. Easier to get into than LOTR & a book that can be read over & over by any age range.
Depends what you want from a book, I guess.My vote is for The Hobbit. Easier to get into than LOTR & a book that can be read over & over by any age range.
I still think everyone should read 1984.
I don't feel that about any of Tolkein's work, even if you find then enjoyable.
M
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