Your favorite books?

[1C5]

Going to order a couple from Amazon, anything you can suggest? Fiction or non fiction.

And please tell what it is about/ the topic of the book so I can see if it would be something that interets me.

[-Skeme-]

The Minds Of Billy Milligan

I suggest 'The Chaos Engine Trilogy', fiction and very good,(if you like X-men books)

just read "something happened" Joseph Heller. about upper middle class American family. hilarious depraved book.

[poker-penguin]

Catch 22 - um it's about war and the futility of the small man, or something. It's a modern classic dammit. Enjoyable and poignant all at once.

Any of the discworld novels by Terry Pratchett - technically a fanstasy series, but really it's a comedy. Very funny.

This game of ghosts - Joe Simpson. This is a climbing book but it pwns touching the void (also by him, also good).

[DemonDeac]

catcher in the rye
angels and demons
da vinci code obviously

[KingDan]

Just read Double Play, I enjoyed it.

[MrTrik]

I'm a huge William Gibson fan, but many of his early books are the love them or hate them variety. I always loved them, but some can't deal with his style.

But more mainstream yet still cutting edge future is "All Tomorrow's Parties". A truly great novel combining today's globalization and some of tomorrow's technology with some of yesterday's technology. Great character and if you get past Gibson's different style for 50 pages or so, it takes off like a bandit.


Snow Crash - by Stepenson (I think) is a early 90's book (I think) but an excellent read if you like the concept of the Net as woven into society as it will be within a few years.

Dan Brown ... the last two for sure, not sure about Digital Fortress though. I haven't made it through this one after two tries.

Lastly, check out "Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood. A mind blower.

[The Armchair]

[ QUOTE ]

Dan Brown ... the last two for sure, not sure about Digital Fortress though. I haven't made it through this one after two tries.

[/ QUOTE ]

Digital Fortress sucked.

[MrTrik]

Yeah. I guess I was being a pussy. If I don't finish it after two tries, it probably isn't worth reading.

[SmileyEH]

Ishmael, the Fountainhead, A seperate peace, the master and margarita.

Theres four very different but good books.

-SmileyEH

[pokertonbear1]

definitely the Fountainhead...not a quick read, more like you have to read 10 pages at a time and let them sink in before you move on. If you like books that are character driven then you will enjoy this one and get a lot out of it, but if you're into action it's probably not for you.

[gravis]

ender's game by orson scott card. science fiction book about a futuristic earth training children to lead their space fleets against an alien enemy.

[Superfluous Man]

[ QUOTE ]
Dan Brown sucks.

[/ QUOTE ]
FYP.

Anyway, get A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I also recommend Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.

[StevieG]

"Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett

[orange]

"Watchers" by Dean Koontz.

[Claunchy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Dan Brown sucks.

[/ QUOTE ]
FYP.

Anyway, get A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I also recommend Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.

[/ QUOTE ]
Whew. I knew there had to be one person in this thread that didn't recommend total crap.

Oops, forgot about Joseph Heller guy.

[shots]

The charm school -Great cold war era spy novel
Plum island -Detective type novel
The lions game - catch a terrorist pre 9/11 type novel

All by Nelson DeMille

[Claunchy]

White Noise by Don Delillo.

[Superfluous Man]

[ QUOTE ]
White Noise by Don Delillo.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good call. That's a fine novel. Also, Joseph Heller's stuff is good; I recommend his short stories, which can be found in the book Catch as Catch can.

[tbach24]

The Curious Incident about the Dog in the Nighttime

Everyone who I know who's read it has enjoyed it and it's my favorite book.

[TylerD]

you've probably read my two favourites, but if not:

George Orwell, 1984
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

[jacki]

[ QUOTE ]
The Curious Incident about the Dog in the Nighttime

Everyone who I know who's read it has enjoyed it and it's my favorite book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great book.

I'll add:
Moneyball
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
The Bear Went Over The Mountain

If you're into WWII, read anything by Stephen Ambrose, particularly D-Day and Citizen Soldiers. And Band of Brothers.
His Lewis and Clark book is good too.

[diebitter]

If your interested in the workings of modern politics, I'd suggest:
1984
Dune

[Michael Davis]

Invisible Man by Ellison.

Topic is electricity.

-Michael

[The Yugoslavian]

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy....best/favorite book I read in high school. I'm rereading it and so far, it has lived up to the remembered hype.

I really like Soren Kierkegaard's Either/Or.

As for like bestselling thriller book I feel the best one I've ever read is The Day After Tomorrow (no, not the book about the weather) by Allan Folsom?

Yugoslav

[DasLeben]

"1984" George Orwell
"Lord of the Rings" JRR Tolkien (I'm a geek)

Probably some others too, but those are the big two that stick out in my mind.

[MrTrik]

[ QUOTE ]
I knew there had to be one person in this thread that didn't recommend total crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would imagine everyone here has complete confidence that you read all those selections and determined them to be total crap. Or I guess you are just absorbing a work's content and value through an oriface that was truly meant to be an 'exit only' oriface.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

Good call. That's a fine novel. Also, Joseph Heller's stuff is good; I recommend his short stories, which can be found in the book Catch as Catch can.

[/ QUOTE ]

DeLillo doesn't really do it for me. He can put together some pretty sweet sentences, but his books as a whole don't make much of an impression on me, or at least the two I've read (White Noise and Ratner's Star).

Here are a few books that I've liked across a pretty broad range of things, with a slight slant towards things I've read recently:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (hard to describe, all over the place and tends to wax philosophical)
The Selfish Gene (nonfiction, about evolution)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (fiction, England at the time of Napoleon, but with magic)
The Fortress of Solitude (fiction, pretty much a coming of age story)
Lolita (fiction, middle-aged man falls for teenage girl)
Godel, Escher, Bach (nonfiction, very clever book mostly about self-reference and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem)
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (nonfiction, anecdotes from probably the most idolized physicist of the past century.)
Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky writes good)

Neal Stephenson and William Gibson, as others have recommended, are pretty good choices as well.

[Pocket Trips]

[ QUOTE ]
"Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing book... great summer read too

[TheTROLL]

[ QUOTE ]
Catch 22

[/ QUOTE ]

Heller was a genius... one of my fave all-time arrogant quotations: In response to complaints that over the years he had never written another book as good as Catch-22, he replied, "Neither has anyone else."

[goofball]

Animal Farm
Catcher in the Rye

he someone lesser known 'Feynman's Rainbow'

[JaBlue]

invisible man is awesome.

not my personal fave though

[pokerdirty]

http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/seuss-cat-hat.gif

[A_C_Slater]

Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell. This was his first book and I like it as much as 1984. It's a autobiographical account of his experience with poverty. And eventually he describes what it's like to fall down to the homeless, no money at all poverty level.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
And please tell what it is about/ the topic of the book so I can see if it would be something that interets me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

~D

[smokingrobot]

Borges - Collected Fictions
All short stories, and approach issues like infinity and mirrors and books with a very philosophical way of thought. Full of refernces to other cultures' works of both writing and lore, generally an amazing read.
I'd suggest first reading the Garden of Forking Paths, and if you like that, move on from there.

Murakami - Dance Dance Dance - 1 part Charlie Kaufman, other part entirely his own. The characters are all well fleshed out. Takes some surreal twists, some parts are even downright eerie.

Nabokov - Lolita: Some super-intellectual pervert falls for some young tart. Seriously, this book is a amazing.

Paul Auster - Mr. Vertigo - I'm in the middle of it now, Americana type story, good writer.

Some others:
Dostoevsky - The Brother's Karamazov
Conrad - Heart of Darkness

If you like Hip Hop culture, i'd say:

Can't Stop Won't Stop by Jeff Chang. its actually more of a history of pop culture in NYC than just hip hop.

And anything by David Sedaris

I havent read these but am meaning to:
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Tipping Point, same author
Oblivion:Stories - David Foster Wallace
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Kundara

[smokingrobot]

i've been meaning to check that book out ever since i read a review vonnegut wrote up on it.

[smokingrobot]

Can i mention that Dan Brown sucks as well here?

Because he does.

[MrTrik]

[ QUOTE ]
Can i mention that Dan Brown sucks as well here?

Because he does.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, you are entitled to your opinion as are many others that pushed that book to the top of all sales lists for a record number of weeks. To each his own man.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
the Fountainhead

[/ QUOTE ]

I second The Fountainhead by Rand. Also a mention for King Rat by Clavell. Will, G. Gordon Liddy's autobiography, was interesting if you can get through him bragging on himself for most of it. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. For quickie fiction reads, any of the Burke books by Andrew Vachss, anything by Jack Higgins, any of the earlier Spenser books by Robert B. Parker.

[Slow Play Ray]

Last couple good books I read:

Syrup, Max Barry (quick, funny read)
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs (memoir of a dude that had the most f'd up childhood you can imagine...disturbing but engrossing)
Dry, Augusten Burroughs (turns out his adult life is far from normal too)
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (Ignatius...'nuff said)

And if you're at all into epic, historical-type (as opposed to magical-type) fantasy, I would highly recommend the whole Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin, as well as the Winter King - Enemy of God - Excalibur Arthurian legend trilogy by Bernard Cornwell.

[SippinSoma]

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

Good call on Jorge Luis Borges smokingrobot, I think the latest release is called 'Labyrinths' and it's his collected short stories + essays (which are compelling in their own right, especially the one where he refutes time). Perhaps not my favorite book ever, but definitely up there, and certainly the one that's made me think the most. He's obsessed with memory and time and human perception. His work is utterly fascinating.

Other favorites:

'The Happy Isles of Oceania' by Paul Theroux. Written when Theroux was seperated from his wife and at his most bitter (and Theroux is plenty bitter when things are going well), this book follows his travels through Australia and the south Pacific. It's simultaneously an incredible 'off the beaten track' travel guide and a look at the breakdown/redemption of Theroux himself.

'Guns, Germs & Steel' by Jared Diamond. Some of my friends complained that this book just repeated itself over and over, but they missed the point. It's not a history text, it's a history abstract. The repetition is the whole point. Diamond outlines a generalized way of looking at human history, then uses it to analyze why exactly the modern world is the way it is. If you like history at all you should read this.

'If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...' by Italo Calvino. My favorite novel. It's meta fiction, fiction about fiction. It follows one reader in his attempt to finish reading a novel he purchases which leads him to read parts of many, many more. It's interesting as a story, but it's also interesting on another level, especially if you're the type who is always looking for another book to read.

'Balzac & The Little Chinese Seamstress' by Dai Sijie. Short, but a fun book set in the Chinese cultural revolution.

'Stardust' by Neil Gaiman. Another short one. The best modern fairytale I've ever read.

'Give Me The World' by Leila Hadley. This is a memoir written in the 50s by a 25 year old woman who gets divorced, quits her job and takes her 6 year old son on a trip around the world. Initially she travels to the Phillipines and Hong Kong as a New York socialite, staying with people she knows from that crowd, but she eventually falls in with four California boys sailing around the world and joins them. This is sort of 'Happy Isles of Oceania's' counterpoint. It might be my all time favorite book.

'The Rotters Club' by Jonathan Coe. Superb novel about school kids in Britain in the 70s. The funniest book on this list.

[KaneKungFu123]

vernon god little
narcissus and goldmund
siddhartha
the catcher in the rye
the virgin suicides
one flew over the cuckos nest

[YourFoxyGrandma]

I just bought and read 1984. It was awesome. Plus, the new cover is sweet:

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/7380000/7381989.gif

[smokingrobot]

His writing is crap. His theories are hokey.

i'd just rather read something worth while that actually may have some value in it.

Just becacuse a billion people read it definately does not mean it is worth reading, or good for that matter. I'd say most people have poor taste in music or movies or whatnot. I maye be labeled an elitist, but i prefer to have some discretionary taste where i actually DO research what i like and dont like and DONT just swallow whatever bestseller rolls off the back of the dump truck.

[smokingrobot]

thew new cover is really sweet actually. my gf just bought that edition of it.

[ackid]

" E is for Elevator People"


They never speak, and they cannot meet your gaze. There are five hundred buildings in the US whose elevators go deeper than the basement. When you have pressed the basement button and reached the bottom, you must press the basement button twice more. The elevator doors will close and you will hear the sound of special relays being thrown, and the elevator will descend. Into the Caverns...

Chance has not looked favorably onoccasional voyagers in those five hundred cages. They have pressed the wrong button too many times. They have been seized by those who shuffle through the caverns, and they have been ...treated. Now they ride the cages. They never speak, and they cannot meet your gaze. They stare up at the numbers as they light and then go off riding up and down even after night has fallen. Their clothes are clean. There is a special dry cleaner who does the work. Once you saw one of them, and thier eyes were filled with screams. London is a city filled with narrow,secure stairways.

Harlen Ellison (STRANGE WINE)

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follett

[/ QUOTE ]

Amazing book... great summer read too

[/ QUOTE ]

nh

================================================== ===
Ender's Game as mentioned. On every sf critic's Top Ten list.
================================================== ===
The Devil in the White City. About the Chicago World's Fair of 1892, and the serial killer who used it to lure prey. Excellent nonfiction.

[squeek12]

I just read Rule of Four, I thought it was just as good or better than Da Vince Code, if you like that kind of thing.

[RiverFenix]

Counter opinions-
I thought rule of four was total crap and couldnt hold a candle to the dan brown books, or anything in that genre.
Confederacy of Dunces will put you to sleep, the humor is awful for a book thats suspossed to be hilarious.

Catch22 should be on your list for sure