Recommend me some books!

Mark

Im going heavy book shopping soon so quick replies would be nice. I want some excellent books, though I already have LOTR and all The Hitchhikers Guide books so dont bother recommending those.
Some good horror would be nice, actually scary now. Comedy, I have a load of with Adams and Bryson but if theres some good humourous books you know about please do recommend. Anyway basically- NAME REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD BOOKS please. If you do Ill send you love in a box

BEAT

personally I enjoy biography's:
an excellent one i read was Brendan Behan's
Borstal Boy (5 star rating personally)
another one that is in my top five is Jack Kerouac's biography
or even his book "on the road"

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

tad williams - otherland, great series of sci-fo 4 books

for comedy, pratchett of course "good omens" is a great book

CodeMonkey

The "a song of ice and fire" series by George R.R. Martin. Everyone who's read it agrees all the books are just amazing so it'll fit under the really really really good books category you are looking for. Listing them in sequence...
A Game of Thrones
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow
A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold

Hammer of the gods - biography of Led Zeppelin

they call me muppet

smiles

check out Amazon.co.uk

click wishlists and search for "Fionnuala Gibney" and thats the best list you'll get

<< Fio >>

yellum

Get Fight Club , by Chuck Paulsomething , its a great book.
Get The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Use of Weapons - Iain M. Banks
Donald Westlake - Payback
I am Legend - Richard Masterson

Lemming

2 books I heartily recommend .....

both true accounts of events.

"Band of Brothers" - following the tv series of the same name (or rather .. the tv series following the book of the same name)

"ChickenHawk" - a helicopter pilot's experiences in the Vietnam war. Some of the stuff in this book is SOOOOOO f*cked up its actually hysterical. Very good reading though.

DadaKopf

Why don;t you just go into a bookshop and look around until you find a book you like the look of and buy it - get the book that just jumps out at you most.

Chowmein

Get The Colour of Magic and start reading the Discworld Series (in order )

BEAT

cant forget jim morrison's biography! (the door's singer ofcourse);)

Snaga

Originally posted by Chowmein
Get The Colour of Magic and start reading the Discworld Series (in order )

This here is a heartily endorsed good, and or, service.

Mark

Spanks for all your help so far, your boxes of love should arrive shortly. Potential books to buy now include:

Snow Crash
Northern Lights
The Silmarillion
Couple of Discworld books (Have heard nothing but good things here)
Will check into the 4 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books
Otherland (This intruiges me)
And of course, 'The Salmon of Doubt' by the man himself (R.I.P)
Ill also have a gander at whatever grabs my fancy as yer man above suggested

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Otherland (This intruiges me)

good man you sure as hell won't regret it./

yankinlk

Check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez - try 1000 years of solitude is proper literature

Von

Go grab a load of classics for 1.50 each.

Humour (other than Pratchett)

Well Remembered Days - Arthur Mathews
The Onion books - particularly Our Dumb Century
The TvGohome.com book
Best Of Myles - Flann O'Brien
Mondo Desperado - Pat McCabe
Against Nature - JK Huysmans
The Fist Of God - Tom Brezneski
In A Glass Darkly - Sheridan Le Fanu (19th century horror with funny bits)

roxy

Originally posted by yankinlk
Check out Gabriel Garcia Marquez - try 1000 years of solitude is proper literature

Yeah! I just came on here to recommend Love in the Time of Cholera. I don't know how Gabriel does it and I'm not even sure what he does but it's just magic.

Haven't read One Hundred Years of Solitude but it's next on my to do list.

Oh and as regards buying books - come to the book shop where I work would ya! It's small and local.

You can bring your box o' love there and I can take it off your hands.

Nice.

sceptre

Funny books eh?

Check out anything by PJ O'Rourke. Some are better than others so you'll be wanting to look through your local bookstore (or bigger bookstore) for one you like. The last one I read was "Eat the Rich" - funny in a tragic sort of way.

And "The collected short stories of Roald Dahl" Not all funny but all good (nothing to do with his kiddie books - it's an adult collection (not that kind of "adult collection")) - get this from AMazon or wherever if you like - you will like it (everyone does)

And Robert Graves' "I Claudius" and "Claudius the God" - leaf through them and see if they're to your taste. I thought they were funny.

Both Forrest Gump books (the first one is mostly funnier than the movie) - second one is "Gump and Co" - both written by Winston Groom).

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

DapperGent

I just spent ages tapping out an authortative lists of book titles the like of which man has never seen, a list to make men admire me and women want to sleep with me such was it's mix of the popular, the avant-garde and the classical.

When I went to post it it disappeared. Rassin frassin.:mad:

I couldn't be arsed writing it again so go read Iain Banks, Nick Horby and Neal Stephson while I lament.

Corega

The anarchists cookbook, by anonymous. :P

Thanx 4 The Fish

American Gods by Neil Gaimann.

Owns

tHE vAGGABOND

The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro - Joe McGinniss

American lives with small Italian football team. Best sports related book ever written.

plastic membrane

Gates Of Fire by Steven Pressfield is a really good Historical Epic. Big, bloody and poignant.

Manach

I-X Sandman by Neil Gaiman, just finished reading : highly recommended,

Brian Houlihan

Kurt Angle- It's True It's True
Mankind- Have A Nice Day

Or any other wresting books they ain't all about wrestling they are quite funny and good

PyjamaMan

Mein Kampf - hitlers book some weird ****

The Eagle Has landed - jack higgins (ww2 thingy)

Touch the devil -jack higgins(ira and british intelligence)

angel of death - jack higgins (IRA +loyalists and british special branch)

Bravo Two Zero - SAS book, half of it aint sposed to be true.... e.g. the 8 fellas didnt kill 250 iraqis but its still a leathal book, good insight into how the sas work

Midnyte Rambler

If you liike to get into a good series of books that will keep you enthralled for months on end you could do worse than check out the Vampire Chronicles of Anne Rice...starting with Interview with the Vampire and ending with (to date anyway) Blood and Gold ...I have read and re-read this series of books and still find new stuff in them every time. Also the Witching Hour series by the same author is also wonderful stuff. If you like dark gothic novels with a good splattering of history these are ideal.

Cheers and happy reading :-)

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Midnyte Rambler

Thanks :-) Am actually searching for something like that to read at the moment...am at a loose end till I get back into Chapters and re-stock..:-)..so will check him out ...cheers :-)

r0sc0

A couple good books that I would really recommend in vague catagories:

Light reading -
Mario Puzo is fun, Omerta was my favorite.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.
Wilbur Smith (Monsoon) is cheap but quick and amusing.
Dune by Frank Herbert is fun if you like sci-fi.
Neuromancer and Virtual Light by William Gibson, also good sci-fi.

Quality Reading -
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulk; lovely book.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy; lovely book.
Crime and Punishment and the Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (two of my favorites.. Russian authors are great).
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut; Cats Cradle and Breakfast of Champions are great ones.

Heavier Reading -
The First Circle by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. I cant really comment, you have to read it
Beyond Good And Evil by Fredrich Nietzsche. I havent actually finished this, because its so big. Try it if you like philosophy.

Does anyone know of a place you can get coffee and sit down with a good book for a couple hours in Dublin?

DapperGent

Try the Hoggis Figgis Cafe on Dawson St. good goffee and they let you sit down with books off the shelves (don't ask me what happens if you spill some on them) they wouldn't let you smoke though the Nazis. Also Cafe Mocha has comfy seats and good coffe if you can ever get anyone working there to pay attention.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

cafe mocha..
mmm , lovely place

stevoslice

Ten Men Dead - David Beresford

Amazing telling of the events leading up to the capture of each of the Ten Hunger Strikers of 1981, and then their struggle for Political Status within the H-blocks.

po0k

Ghost Soldiers - Hampton Sides

BJJ

If you liked Herbert's Dune, Well's Timemachine or Arthur C.Clarke's Space Odyssey then you'll LOVE these ones:Invaders On The Moon - Kris Neville .
Turn of the Screw -Henry James
The Lurker At The Threshold - H. P. Lovecraft with August Derleth .
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

MrPudding

Hi here are a few of my suggestions

For horror

Shaun Hutson & James Herbert are OK if you are 12. It's hard to get good horror when you pass puberty.

Clive Barker (not to a lot of peoples taste but I think his sfuff is excellent)

The books of blood
Imajica
Weaveworld- These would be good for starters.

General

-The Eight- Katherine Neville. One of my favorite books. Would be really good if you like chess but not essential.

-Micheal Conolly (might be spelt wrong) Very good crime/detective novels.

-Jeffery Deaver- He wrote The Bone Collector, I haven't read it but the rest of his stuff is excellent.

-David Baldacchi He wrote Absolute Power.

Comedy

This is very difficult

-Robert Rankin
-Terry Pratchett
There are definitly more but I can't think.

Sci Fi/Fantasy

-Jeffery Donaldson- The Cronicles of Thomas Covenant (six books) These are just amazing.
-Just about any Azimov
-Philip K Dick

I can't really think of anymore but it's a start

JarJar blinks

Clive Barker.
H.G Wells
Philip K Dick
Jack Higgins
Pj O' Rourke
James Herbert


A must for any reader.


I'm not sure about Terry Pratchett, some people love him others hate his style of writting

stevoslice

What Tom Clancy Novels are worth a read, I'm on the look out for the Sum of all fears , but can't find it anywhere. So whats the best of his books that weren't made into film?

DapperGent

IMO his best book is far and away Red Strom Rising. It's plot is a third world war between America and the USSR when both were at the height of their powers. Absolutely fascinating. I enjoyed Cardinal of the Kremlin as well though it wasn't as good. His only other book which I thought was brilliant was The Hunt for Red October. Patriot Games, The Sum of All Fears and Clear and Present Danger are absolute trash. And steer clear of the that Ops Centre rubbish as well. Oh I'd highly recommend Rogue Spear for the PC as well .

jahras

I recommend Len Deightons books. Bomber is a great one and so are the 3 Bernard Samson trilogies. Berlin Game, Spy Line etc. Frederick Forsyths books are also good especially his short story book No Comebacks.
If you like funny books I found some old Woody Allen books and found them hilarious in parts but I dont know if you would get them in a bookshop.

spaczed

jack kerouac -on the road
books by ursla k. le guin, especially the earthsea trilogy
Albert Camus
Hemmingway- the old man and the sea
john steinbeck-the pearl
The Famished Road by ben okri
(non fiction) fermats last theorem by simon singh

BJJ

Well it depends what you like, I love science fiction, horror, fantasy and mystical stuff.

I also like some Historical stuff and conspiracy theories like what happened in Burma Bermuda or Colombia during the 60s and 70s.


Here we go


CS Lewis: Out of this planet
Eric Lustblader: Sunset Warrior
Estleman Gorman Philbrick: Blackmoon
Iain Banks: Looking to Winward
Arthur C Clarke: The city and the stars
Bob Shaw: Love me tender
Gene Wolfe: Excellent , but....hmm??
Robert Cromie: ?? Irish author round the time of HG Wells....not sure of my favourite...?

Bard

Originally posted by DadaKopf
Why don;t you just go into a bookshop and look around until you find a book you like the look of and buy it - get the book that just jumps out at you most.

Yeah... those jumping books are f**kin' freaky... why I remember this one time that I... oh nevermind...

I'd recommend the books I've read recently, - which were Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" and Eric Idle's "The Road to Mars". I'm currently starting "Billy" by Pamela Stephenson - it's good so far.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Would recommend Billy, got it for €2 from the book club, would have been happy to have pais €20. Well written and gives a great insight into Billy and his comedy.

bernie_1974_10

Anything by James Patterson
Richard North Patterson
David Baldacchi
Stephen King
Dean R Koontz
Minnette Walters

Bloody Drunkard

Anything by Bill Bryson
Manslaughter United by Chris Hulme - bout a prision football team
A season with Verona - Tim Parks

and of course

Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas

stevoslice

Anyone know if james herbert's "Magic Cottage" is worth a read?

DapperGent

I don't think any of James Herberts books are worth a read. Might go and add him to my punch in the face list on after hours.

Elvish

If you like humor and have heard of big brother then read Ben Elton's Dead Famous. It's brilliant!

IF your into sci-fi read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanly Robinson (I think thats his name), you may have heard of them: Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars. They focus more on the human elements of the colonisation of mars rather than the technology.

-rob

DapperGent

Originally posted by Elvish
IF your into sci-fi read the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanly Robinson (I think thats his name), you may have heard of them: Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars. They focus more on the human elements of the colonisation of mars rather than the technology.

Currently rereading them. Truly brilliant books if you have the patience for them.