10 to read before the apocalypse?

ladluver

1.Angus,thongs and full frontal snogging(louise rennison)
2.Its o.k im wearing really big knickers!( '' '' )
3.Knock out buy my nuga-nugas. ( '' '' )
4.dancing in my nuddy pants. ( '' '' )
5. 'and thats when it fell of in my hand.( '' '')
6.' and then he ate my boy-entrancers.( if u haven't guessed its a series,)
every 1 must read these they are the funnest booka ever, i've read them all at least 5 times and i still laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!

bluedolphin

hmm such a tough decision...
all quiet on the western front - remarque
sophie's world - gaarder
hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - adams
sophie's choice - styron
boy - dahl
catcher in the rye - salinger
to kill a mockingbird - cant remember her name!!
fatherland - ditto!! this tells of the third reich that might have been but never was; chillingly brilliant.
matilda - dahl
nineteen eighty-four - orwell

taibhse

In no order

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare
The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
The Republic - Plato
1984 - George Orwell
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
Five quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris
The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad
Under the Hawthorn Tree - Marita Conlon McKenna
A Good Man is Hard to Find and other Stories - Flannery O' Connor
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy


More than ten but they're all great books so it was worth it!

PunyHuman

I like these:

Down And Out In Paris And London (George Orwell)
The Dead (James Joyce)
Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (Oliver Sacks)
The Ginger Man (J.P. Donleavy)
At Swim-Two-Birds (Flann O'Brien)
Sword Of Honour (Evelyn Waugh)
Death In Venice (Thomas Mann)
The Comedians (Graham Greene)
The Naked and The Dead (Norman Mailer)

Honourable mention to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels

IceHawk

The Dark Tower books by Stephen King were excellent, they sort of tie in with his other books and the story grows over time. It was the first book he wrote, I think, and he finished the last two after declaring that he was finished writing, so as a series, they show his changing style over time.

And for some light relief during the end of the world? - Anything by Terry Pratchett

the dice man

supersheep wrote:

I'm only going to put books that I have read, and no cheating by putting in trilogies or collected works... And in no particular order:

1. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Amazing book. Desribes life in the Gulags. People talk about Chekov and Dostoyevsky as amazing Russian authors - I don't see it, although maybe I've just read bad translations. Solzhenitsyn, however, is undoubtedly an amazing Russian author.

Totally agree Solzhenitsyn books are amazing. if you haven't read his book of short stories you should try and get your hands on it.

i'm not going to bother repeating books that people have already put down so a couple of more that i didn't see here already and are worth a read are

women: bukowski
i served the king of england: hrabal
diary of a madman: gogol
a heart breaking work of straggering genuis: eggers
zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: pirsig

tonyj

Mine are;

1. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
2. 1984 (Orwell)
3. Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
4. War of the Worlds (HG Wells)
5. Rendevous with Rama (Arthur C Clark)
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

Left space for 4 more...

Setun

tonyj wrote:

Mine are;

1. The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
2. 1984 (Orwell)
3. Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)
4. War of the Worlds (HG Wells)
5. Rendevous with Rama (Arthur C Clark)
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)

Left space for 4 more...

7. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
8. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
9. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
10. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)

tonyj

Daddio wrote:

7. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
8. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
9. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)
10. Microserfs (Douglas Coupland)

What about Cannery Row ?

Setun

True. Very True.

11. Cannery Row (Steinbeck)
12. Microserfs (Coupland)

mayordenis

Double Indemnity - James M. Cain

a book that is in fact too good,
every page a masterstroke,
a ****ing crime novel that in itself is guilty of being irresponsibly genius.

Cured_Alright

1. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
2. The Outsider - Albert Camus
3. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
4. 1984 - George Orwell
5. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
6. Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
7. Life Of Pi - Yann Martel
8. The Lord Of The Flies - William Golding
9. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
10. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (just cuz it was my favourite as a child, a whole 3 years ago)

sterculelum

^^ and A Confederacy of Dunces and The Catcher in the Rye and Adrian Mole (all).

dramaqueen

* Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
* The Shining (Stephen King)
* Harry Potter (the series)
* Princess (can't remember who wrote it, but it's a true story about a saudi princess)
* Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
* Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare)
* Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Roddy Doyle)
* One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Harper Lee)
* Anything by James Patterson
* Little Women (Louisa Alcott)

pukey

surely a book about the averting of the apocalypse would be a must
that and
1984 - orwell
catch 22 -keller?
american gods - gaiman
a short history of nearly everything - bryson
a brief history of time - hawkins
the selfish gene - dawkins
on the road - kerouac
the doors of perception/heaven and hell - huxley
****e's unoriginal miscellany - parody

NineMoons

The Earthsea Quintet - Ursula Le Guin (the best ones are the first two and the fourth)

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

The Bible - Various authors

Medea - Euripedes

The End of the Affair - Graham Greene

I, Claudius - Robert Graves

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

Atonement - Iain McEwan

lordgoat

magician by RE Fesit

Outcast

Bob Dylans Chronicles are well worth a read
The Iliad-Homer
No Logo-Naomi Klein

And, for posterity's sake, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings

ratboy

Caesar_Bojangle wrote:

What ten books would you consider as a must, to be read in ones lifetime?

1984 and Animal Farm by Goerge Orwell
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
War of The Flies by Golding
Star of The Sea by Joseph O Connor
The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle
Different Seasons by Stephen King
The Pearl by Steinbeck

johnny_ultimate

1. Catch 22 - Heller
2. 1984 - Orwell
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Thompson
4. On the Road - Keourac
5. High Fidelity - Hornby
6. The Killing Joke - Horowitz (the light hearted choice)
7. The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (1 through 5) - Adams

Ill think of more later probably.

Tiriel

White Apples - Jonathon Carroll

read during the summer.. excellent

johnny_ultimate

Oh yeah!
8. Ubik - Phillip K Dick

gaf1983

I think this website just proves how superfluous to the information requirements of us all that the internet can be from time to time. Basically it's a list of 2004/05 Premiership players, one from each club, and their favourite book, either a children's or adult's one. It's supposed to be an initiative to get kids to read. What harm I suppose.

Here's the list:

FREDDIE LJUNGBERG (ARSENAL) - Cars, Trucks & Things That Go by Richard Scarry (children's book)

MARK DELANEY (ASTON VILLA) – The Iron Man by Ted Hughes (children’s book)

STEPHEN CLEMENCE (BIRMINGHAM CITY) - The Twits by Roald Dahl (children’s book)

CRAIG SHORT (BLACKBURN ROVERS) – Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (adults' book)

KEVIN NOLAN (BOLTON WANDERERS) – IT by Stephen King (adults' book)

DEAN KIELY (CHARLTON ATHLETIC) - It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong (adults' book)

JOHN TERRY (CHELSEA) - Cool! by Michael Morpurgo (children’s book)

TOMMY BLACK (CRYSTAL PALACE) – Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell (adults' book)

LEE CARSLEY (EVERTON) - The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho (adults' book)

MORITZ VOLZ (FULHAM) - The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (children’s book)

CHRIS KIRKLAND (LIVERPOOL) – There’s a Viking in My Bed by Jeremy Strong (children’s book)

DAVID JAMES (MANCHESTER CITY) - The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (children’s book)

RYAN GIGGS (MANCHESTER UNITED) - A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (adults' book)

COLIN COOPER (MIDDLESBROUGH) – 1984 by George Orwell (adults' book)

STEVEN TAYLOR (NEWCASTLE UNITED) – Keeper by Mal Peet (children’s book)

PAUL McVEIGH (NORWICH CITY) - The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (adults' book)

LOMANA LUALUA (PORTSMOUTH) - Tintin & the Lake of Sharks by Hergé (children’s book)

DAVID PRUTTON (SOUTHAMPTON - The Folk of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton (children’s book)

ERIK EDMAN (TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR) – Ramses by Christian Jacq (adults' book)

RICCARDO SCIMECA (WEST BROMWICH ALBION) - Keane: The Autobiography by Roy Keane and Eamon Dunphy (adults' book)

gaf1983

Here are ten books that I really liked, I'll probably think of books that I liked better than them, but nevertheless, I'm still glad that I've read them before the apocalypse.

Le Livre Secret des Fourmis - Michael Werber

This is a bit like a miniature encyclopaedia about more or less everything by a French philosopher. He tends to refer everything back to the world of the ants, for some reason.

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Very cynical, in a good way.

The Complete Prose - Woody Allen

Some of the short stories are much better than others - my favourite would be the Old Testament rendition of how Lacoste came to have an alligator as their logo. Very funny in parts.

Letter to Soviet Union Leaders, 1974 - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

A great polemic on why politicians should not cling unflinchingly to any one ideology - why pragmatism should always prevail.

Cars, Trucks and Things That Go - Richard Scarry

The title says it all. Features loads of furry animals driving mechanically-propelled vehicles. I loved it between the ages 2-5.

The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien

Is it about a bicycle? Kind of. If you haven't read this book, read it. If you have read it, read it again.

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

A book about loyalty.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

Tragic and funny - tragicomic? - but brilliant. Reminded me a bit of The Shawshank Redemption or An Lasair Choille.

Rhinoceros - Eugene Ionesco

Crikey Mikey, what a great read! Okay I know it's a play, but it's still a great piece of satire on collective hysteria, or how the masses can let themselves be governed by tyrants without even realising it.

Wild Swans - Jung Chang

Quite a sad book that makes me glad I didn't live in China for most of the twentieth century. A historical biography that's easy to read.

Sammy Jennings

CHARLES BUKOWSKI Post Office
ALBERT CAMUS The Stranger
NICK CAVE And the Ass Saw the Angel
KEN KESEY One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
IAN MACDONALD The People's Music
NORMAN MAILER The Spooky Art
JOHNNY ROGAN Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance
HUBERT SELBY, JR. Last Exit to Brooklyn
WILL SELF Great Apes
EVELYN WAUGH Brideshead Revisited

Eva24

Just a couple then, Anything by Jeffrey Eugenides, Who else can write black comedies and satires around Suicide pacts of beautiful teenage girls and Man/woman hybrids.
Would you have time to read Ullyses though [I am actuallly reading it btw] I feel You could read it thirty times and still not cover alll of the aspects. Portrait of Dorian Gray[I love Oscar Wilde ]
A clockwork Orange, The Grapes of Wrath[heard it is extremely overrated though, hated the pearl] Heh, But I'll read anything!!

...............except :mad: Cecilia Aherne.................... Not That I hear she's that bad but no first time writer gets a milllion euro advence on their first novel, especiallly such a mediocre text

Miguel_Sanchez

Underworld - Don DeLillo
Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway

Jay Tomio

1. Dubliners James Joyce
2. Confessions of a Mask - Yukio Mishima
3. Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
4. Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe
5. The Master and the Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
6. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
7. In Search of Lost Time - Marcel Proust
8. The Three Impostors - Arthur Machen (colelction)
9. Gravitys Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
10. Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas WOlfe

Very difficult; there are hundreds of other books that could replace any of those - but for the sake of particpation, that will work.

ombak

The Journey to the East, Herman Hesse.
Everything is Illuminated, Jonathon Saffron Foer.
The Buddha's Little Finger, Victor Pelevin. (This book also goes by the name The Clay Machine Gun for some reason. And was glad to see it made it onto someone elses list.)
Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels.
Labyrinths, Jorge Loius Borges.
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende.
Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver.
The Bend for Home, Dermot Healy.
Catch 22, Joseph Heller.
At swim-two-birds, Flann O' Brien, (if only for the last page/segment which is one of the strangest most unsettling pieces of writing I've read).

Kazibums

Would recommend these few for the top ten

Alchemist by Paulo Coelho..... a really simple story about recognising omens in our lives and trusting intuition.

5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.... every life impacts another in some way, and sometimes unknowingly or unintentionally

My sisters Keeper/The Pact... Jodi Picoult..... couldnt put these down and was dying to talk it over with someone when finished.... great books.

Rachels Holiday by Marian Keyes... only book where I've laughed and cried int he one chapter... or had any reaction to really... love her humour

Also, any of the Judy Bloom books, as just brings back memories of being 10, with glitter pens, fancy paper and irish dancing. Ah yes, them were the days....