10 to read before the apocalypse?

AmeliaO

I suppose it's all a matter of taste; I just finished Caleb Williams by William Godwin & Bleak House by Charles Dickens and they blew my mind! I would recommend Caleb Williams as the better of the two though!

emeraldstar

AmeliaO wrote: »

I suppose it's all a matter of taste; I just finished Caleb Williams by William Godwin & Bleak House by Charles Dickens and they blew my mind! I would recommend Caleb Williams as the better of the two though!

A matter of taste is right! Bleak House is one of my very, very favourite books in the whole wide world, whereas I found Caleb Williams unbearably dreadful and wearisome.

Solidarity

I've only got one major book - Wuthering Heights.
Without a doubt an amazing read.

WickedWest

There are too many good books to limit it to ten! I'll give you a few I can think of at the moment, though.

Animal Farm
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Catch 22
LOTR
Dante's Divine Comedy

ViveLaVie

Hamlet
Wuthering Heights
The Picture of Dorian Gray
1984
Romeo and Juliet
Macbeth
Twelfth Night
Alice in Wonderland
In the Lake of the Woods
To Kill a Mockingbird

Monkeybonkers

Having just recently finished this amazing book I would have to include 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' by Laurence Sterne in this list

fusuf

WickedWest wrote: »

There are too many good books to limit it to ten! I'll give you a few I can think of at the moment, though.

Animal Farm
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Catch 22
LOTR
Dante's Divine Comedy

Why did you only list 5 then?

Monkeybonkers

WickedWest wrote: »

There are too many good books to limit it to ten! I'll give you a few I can think of at the moment, though.

Animal Farm
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Catch 22
LOTR
Dante's Divine Comedy

fusuf wrote: »

Why did you only list 5 then?

The answer to your question is in bold above

robbie7171

Here is my humble contribution.....
The old man and the sea...Hemmingway
Tortilla flat...Steinbeck
To kill a mocking bird....Lee
1984.....Orwell
The lord of the rings...Tolkein
Fight club...Palaniuk
The life of Pi.....Martell
The grapes of wrath....Steinbeck
Trainspotting....Welsh
A prayer for Owen Meaney......Irving

....so many books, so little time

BrendanCro

Personally, if the apocalypse was coming I want to read the books that brought me the most pleasure rather than neccesarily the best literature. So as a lover of non-fiction and fiction here is my top 10 books that for some reason or other I enjoyed most and have resonated with me the longest

• Count of Monte Cristo - simply the most enjoyable reading experience fo my life. Nearly cried when I finished it
• Matilda by Roald Dahl - as a kid I read this over and over. Maybe as a nerdy kid with evil teachers something resonated. Little concerned by how excited I was when i heard Tim Minchin had made a musical version!
• Rubicon by Tom Holland - best work of narriative history I have ever read. Incredible history of the last days of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Empire.
• Lords of Finance - by Liaquat Ahamed. History of the Great Depression (the last one, not this one) told by examining the 4 most powerful Central Bankers. Superbly written and its amazing how many insights in to todays crisis can be gleaned. If only Merkel read this she would have changed her mind on austerity long ago.
• The Stand - Stephen King. Read this as a kid and would stay up all night due to a) enjoying the book and b) terror. Spawned a lifelong love of apocalypse fiction!
• The Miracle of St. Anthony's by Adrian Wojnarowski . The story of an American High School basketball team and its Coach who has been responsible for hundreds of underpriviliged kids making it to college. Wojnarowski follows them for one unbelievable season. It is to my mind the greatest sports book ever written and I have read a LOT of great sports books.
• Open by Andre Agassi. Incredibly honest autobiography and one which gave me incredible motivation to sort out things I need to sort out. I must have reread one passage about how Agassi summed the strenght to build his career back a thousand times.
• Team of Rivals by Dorothy Kearns Goodwin. Story of Lincoln and how he turned his rivals into his strongest cabnet allies. Obamas inspiration behind making Hillary Sec of State. Very well told and immensly enjoyable.
• The Perfect Mile by Neal Bascomb. Story of 3 runners competing to break the 4 minute mile barrier. Despite knowing how it ends you find yourslef routing for them all! Reads like the best fiction. Incredibly gripping and the book I have passed on to more people than any other. And they all absolutely loved it!
• More than a gmae: football v apartheid by Henry Corr. Rugby may have helped heal South Africa by football helped prepare the prisoners of Robben Island for leadership

Honourable mention goes to
Garrincha by Rui Castros
State of Africa by Martin Meridith
Football against the enemy by Simon Kuper
Donnie Brasco by Joe Pistone
Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
World War Z by Maz Brooks
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
Imperium by Robert Harris
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakeur
Friday Night Lights - by H.G. Bissinger
Hand of God by Jimmy Burns

GunRunner

I'm not as well read as all of ye but anyway...

All Quiet On The Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
H - Autobiography Of A Child Prostitute And Heroin Addict - Christiane F
The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Guerilla Days In Ireland - Tom Barry
Borstal Boy - Brendan Behan
Confessions Of An Irish Rebel - Brendan Behan
Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Go Ask Alice
The Manchester Martyrs - Joseph O'Neil


... I just listed eleven.

galactus

GunRunner wrote: »

Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Great call. A disturbing (and funny) read.

"I am a sick man.... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man."

Say it Aint So

On the road -Jack Kerouac
The old man and the sea - Ernest Hemingway
Brave new world - Aldous Huxley

Zeek12

Tender is the night - Fitzgerald
Catch 22 - Heller
The Outsider - Camus
The Heart is a lonely hunter - McCullers
The Old man and the sea - Hemmingway
Memoir - McGahern
As I lay dying - Faulkner
Appointment in Samarra - O'Hara
A Clockwork orange - Burgess

thefasteriwalk

Great thread, OP. This is fairly off the cuff and I will, most probably, be back to do some trade mongering. Poetry, drama and graphic novels are included, because, well, I simply can't leave them out. Here goes:

The Man Without Qualities - Musil
Arcadia - Stoppard (or anything by Tom Stoppard really)
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Geek Love - Dunn
Brave New World - Huxley
Howl - Allen Ginsberg
The Impossibility of an Island - Houellebecq (again, anything by Houellebecq)
Maus - Spiegelman
A Clockwork Orange - Burgess
1984 - Orwell
Sex in History - Tannahill (a tour de force - highly recommended)

Lector

As more than one previous poster said, 10 is too few but...
Here's a few off the top of my head

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould
A History of Warfare by John Keegan
Dune by Frank Herbert
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien
The Sleepwalkers by Arthur Koestler

That's 10, but I could easily pick another 10 which would reward reading and re-reading..
Books, don't ya just love 'em!

Dirty Dingus McGee

All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (or any one of his books)
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Salems Lot by Stephen King
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1984 by George Orwell

Thats 12 but I couldnt leave some of them out

Mindfulness

Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbitt - JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
The Stand - Stephen King
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
Rubicon - Tom Holland
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexendre Dumas

Please note, this list will change over the years - didn't add Ulysses or numerous others that I also love for a variety of reasons.

marina10

Hi,
For me the most boring book is pride and prejude. It´s very slow this books, super naive.

I prefer books more deelply from authors such as tostoi or Dostoievsky.

Ormus

Mindfulness wrote: »

Brave new world - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbitt - JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
The Stand - Stephen King
The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens
Rubicon - Tom Holland
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexendre Dumas

Please note, this list will change over the years - didn't add Ulysses or numerous others that I also love for a variety of reasons.

Great choices!

UsedToWait

Great thread - I think I have enough books in my Amazon basket to last till the Apocalypse, and I'm only on page 30..

Will come up with 10 of my own when I get to the end of the thread.

Just a suggestion though - could you please write a sentence or so on why you've chosen a particular book - I've just been skimming over the posts listing the names of ten books, but have really enjoyed people's justifications for the ten they've selected..

sweargen

Ten Books WOORRAAGH In no particular order.

A Clockwork Orange. Is it justifiable for the state to take away the only thing a man loves to make him acceptable to society.
Dantes Inferno. listen to it on audio book get the tune, the music of the language, read the book, it has everything, and no Tom Bombadill.
Blood Meridian. Echos of Dantes Inferno, a master at work with the English language and quite possibly the most violent book I have ever read.
Grapes of Wrath. Just the best story about ordinary people ever told. Another master of language.
In Dubious Battle. Another Steinbeck novel, about the early formation of unions and how people of belief are used and sacrificed.
Stalingrad. History book reads like a novel, the cruelty and sacrifice, of a pivotal time of history.hing
Raymond Chandler. Anything, disdainful, Honest, jaded, expects the worst and is seldom disappointed. The real joy is the narrative, pure poetry.
The Killer Inside me. (Jim Thompson) Sparse, Uncompromising, Violent The master of the unreliable first person narrative
The Wasp Factory. It is just very ****ed up.
The Lost City of Z. (David Grann) Non Fiction. This Geezer explored the Amazon Basin in the late 1800 early 1900s when it was still blank on the maps Stopped to fight in WW1 and then went back. an astounding man you never heard of. S

Thats it, off the top of my head, hope I inspired someone to read any of these books. S

MaggieNF

sweargen wrote: »

Ten Books WOORRAAGH In no particular order.

A Clockwork Orange. Is it justifiable for the state to take away the only thing a man loves to make him acceptable to society.
Dantes Inferno. listen to it on audio book get the tune, the music of the language, read the book, it has everything, and no Tom Bombadill.
Blood Meridian. Echos of Dantes Inferno, a master at work with the English language and quite possibly the most violent book I have ever read.
Grapes of Wrath. Just the best story about ordinary people ever told. Another master of language.
In Dubious Battle. Another Steinbeck novel, about the early formation of unions and how people of belief are used and sacrificed.
Stalingrad. History book reads like a novel, the cruelty and sacrifice, of a pivotal time of history.hing
Raymond Chandler. Anything, disdainful, Honest, jaded, expects the worst and is seldom disappointed. The real joy is the narrative, pure poetry.
The Killer Inside me. (Jim Thompson) Sparse, Uncompromising, Violent The master of the unreliable first person narrative
The Wasp Factory. It is just very ****ed up.
The Lost City of Z. (David Grann) Non Fiction. This Geezer explored the Amazon Basin in the late 1800 early 1900s when it was still blank on the maps Stopped to fight in WW1 and then went back. an astounding man you never heard of.o read any of these books. S

Thats it, off the top of my head, hope I inspired someone to read any of these books. S

Who's the author of the Stalingrad one? Interested in a book on it

sweargen

Stalingrad is written by Anthony Beevor. Good choice, don't be put off by the size. hope you enjoy it. S.

MaggieNF

sweargen wrote: »

Stalingrad is written by Anthony Beevor. Good choice, don't be put off by the size. hope you enjoy it. S.

Doesn't seem that long, will probably read soon, since I'm reading a lot of World War 2 books at the moment, thanks for telling me

sweargen

MaggieNF wrote: »

Doesn't seem that long, will probably read soon, since I'm reading a lot of World War 2 books at the moment, thanks for telling me

My pleasure

Paddy Samurai

Stalingrad. History book reads like a novel, the cruelty and sacrifice, of a pivotal time of history -sweargen

A book I always wanted to read.Sitting on my shelf a few years now. Hopefully I will manage it this year.Too many damn books.:(

Blood Meridian. Echos of Dantes Inferno, a master at work with the English language and quite possibly the most violent book I have ever read.-sweargen

Great Book,but "In the Rogue Blood" by Blake is my favourite of the two.Some say more violent,and I would probably agree.

The Stand - Stephen King-Mindfulness

A Top Notch post-apocalyptic read,only surpassed IMO, by Swan Song (McCammon).

Salems Lot by Stephen King-Dirty Dingus McGee

Great book,My favourite King book,I have reread it more times than I have any other.

sweargen

Great Book,but "In the Rogue Blood" by Blake is my favourite of the two.Some say more violent,and I would probably agree.

Is that by William Blake ? forgive my ignorance

Paddy Samurai

sweargen wrote: »

Great Book,but "In the Rogue Blood" by Blake is my favourite of the two.Some say more violent,and I would probably agree.

Is that by William Blake ? forgive my ignorance

James Carlos Blake (born May 26, 1947) is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards. He has been called “one of the greatest chroniclers of the mythical American outlaw life” [1] as well as “one of the most original writers in America today and … certainly one of the bravest.” [2] He is a recipient of the University of South Florida's Distinguished Humanities Alumnus Award and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

If your interested there is an interview here where Blake talks about McCormack

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/201202/james-carlos-blake-friends-pancho-villa-johnny-depp-adaptation-country-bad-wolfes-book

sweargen

Thanks Paddy for the tip, my appetite is whetted. I read the interview, straightforward, succinct I like that.,