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10 to read before the apocalypse?

Caesar_Bojangle

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

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Keplar240B

Your Survival
by Dr. Bob Arnot and Mark Cohen

How To Stay Alive In The Woods
Bradford Angier

Larry Dean Olsen’s Outdoor Survival Skills

The Survival Handbook, by Colin Towell

When All Hell Breaks Loose
from Cody Lundin

Naked Into The Wilderness
by John and Geri McPherson

Peterson’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants

Tom Brown’s Field Guide To Wilderness Survival

The Outward Bound Wilderness First-Aid Handbook
by Jeffrey Isaac

Northern Bushcraft, by Mors Kochanski,

Thomas998

Oh, forgot To Kill A Mockingbird - maybe not a popular choice these days, but powerful stuff nonetheless.

Thomas998

The Day of the Jackal.
11/22/63
The Green Mile
The Name of the Wind
Harry Potter series
Mistborn series
Stormlight Archive
Stalingrad
Red Alert
1984

sm213

Tales of the unexpected- Dahl
Falling leaves - Adeline Yen Mah
Goodnight Mr.Tom
The talisman - king and straub
King Lear -Shakespeare
The Shadow of the Wind- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The demonata series by darren shan is super cool.
Harry potter series.
Ugly - constance Briscoe
I'm sure I'm missing some.

FaulknersFav

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
Stoner - John Williams
For Esme with Love and Squalor - J.D. Salinger
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Beware of Pity - Stefan Zweig
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
The Outsider - Albert Camus

2395dfys

engineering the alpha 2.0 every male teenager/man should read it

[Deleted User]

I've read some really great books based on recommendations from this thread that I otherwise may have overlooked. Wish more people posted in it. I'll list ten now that haven't yet been mentioned yet or only mentioned a few times because we all know The count of Monte Cristo, Crime & Punishment etc are great books, its nice to stumble across lesser known greats.

Stoner - John Williams.
A forgotten masterpiece. It follows the life of a young farmer who goes to college and later becomes a professor, an inconsequential man who does the opposite of living life to the fullest. Its all very uneventful and yet its hard not to be captivated by it and feel so involved with William Stoner.

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes.
A man with an IQ of 68 is chosen to partake in a medical experiment to increase his intelligence. His diary tracks the effects of the experiment on him and the lab mouse Algernon that was also experimented on. Astounding read.

The Magus - John Fowles.
A young English teacher moves to a remote Greek island to teach and becomes embroiled in a dark psychological game with one of the islands inhabitants, an eccentric elderly man. I thought about this novel for weeks after I finished it.

The New York trilogy - Paul Auster.
Three interconnected stories of detective fiction that blew me away. Its so much more than what it appears to be.

Wonder boys - Michael Chabon.
The story of a creative writing professor who can't finish his novel and spends most of the novel stoned and or drunk and generally making an ass of himself. I loved it.

The orphan masters son - Adam Johnson.
The story of a North Korean orphan who stumbles from a life of poverty to a job as a body double for a hero of the revolution during the reign of Kim Jong Il.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace.
Its a struggle at times. Its gargantuan. I've never had to use a dictionary as much in my life as I had to when reading this book. And its bloody brilliant. I can't tell you what its about in a few words, just read it.

Times Arrow - Martin Amis
A novel in reverse. Amis is a great writer who doesn't always write great novels, this for me is definitely one of his best.

Wool omnibus - Hugh Howey
A post apocalyptic dystopian novel (yes another one) set in an underground silo hundreds of years after whatever event made life on the outside uninhabitable. It was originally released as one short novella and has exploded from there, I recommend reading the omnibus as it all slots together very well.

House of leaves - Mark Z Danielewski
First off, don't even try to read this in e-book format. It has to be read on paper. The formatting of this book is unique to say the least. It tells the story of a family who move into a small house where something is terribly wrong - the house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. This book will get inside your head. At different stages while reading it I had to put it down just to process what was after happening. I hated this book. Then I loved it. Then I didn't want to read it anymore. Then I couldn't put it down. The more you put into this book the more you will get out of it. It is not an easy read.

fayvirtue

Tom Sawyer , Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the rye , 1984 , World according to Garp, Suttree , The Orchid Keeper , The Five people you meet in Heaven ,The Hands Maids Tale, For Whom The Bell Tolls

Cedrus

mcsean2163 wrote: »

"Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut"

Maybe I read this when I was too young but I thought it was pretty rubbish, deadpan, "so it goes". It don't understand how it has so many fans, it's like the emperor with no clothes.

May be you did, may be try again before you diss it. It's nominated with good reason.

Kilgore__Trout

Preferred Cat's Cradle. Could make more sense of the message, which seemed to cover a lot more ground, and thought it was a weirder and more humorous tale.

Still thought Slaughterhouse was a fine read though. Enjoyed the dark humour, the portraits of humanity gone wrong, and the weird, offbeat nature of the story. Whether Vonnegut's experiences in WW2 and in Dresden adds something to the book is up for grabs, but for me it did.

Each to her/his own, I guess : )

mcsean2163

"Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut"

Maybe I read this when I was too young but I thought it was pretty rubbish, deadpan, "so it goes". It don't understand how it has so many fans, it's like the emperor with no clothes.

Kilgore__Trout

The Postman - David Brin
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Flowers For Algernon - Daniel Keyes
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
Catch 22 - Joesph Heller
The Terror - Dan Simmons
Shutter Island - Denis Lehane
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

Not in any particular order.

Washington Irving

The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Odyssey - Homer
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
The Arabian Nights

And a sacred text of your choosing.

megadodge

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
1984 – George Orwell
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
Secret Scripture – Sebastian Barry
Star of The Sea – Joe O'Connor
The Sicilian – Mario Puza
Seabiscuit – Laura Hillenbrand
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – Roddy Doyle

A number of honourable mentions (there's loads more I just can't think of right now):

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
A Star Called Henry – Roddy Doyle
Alone in Berlin – Hans Falada
Five Star Billionaire – Tash Aw
The World According to Garp - John Irving

Slattsy

Then they wouldn't make your top 10 :-)

Kalimah

Star of the Sea- Joseph O'Connor.
We need to talk about Kevin. Lionel Shriver.
Hatter's Castle. AJ Cronin
Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte
22.11.63. Stephen King
Stalingrad. Anthony Beevor
Berlin. Anthony Beevor.
Alone in Berlin. Hans Fallada .
The Eagle of the Ninth. Rosemary Sutcliffe
The last testament of Gideon Mack. James Robertson.
I could put in another 10 very easily!

johnROSS

Dharma Bums- Jack Kerouac
Down and Out in Paris and London - Orwell
Animal Farm- Orwell
Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Trainspotting- Irvine Welsh
Brave New World- Huxley
any of the Sherlock Holmes stuff
East Of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
almost any Oscar Wilde

Banneret

Nice

Up The Bare Stairs

Confining this list to fiction, with one exception, and thinking how do I limit it to ten:
1. The Sportswriter – Richard Ford
2. Foster – Claire Keegan (really a stretched out short story but exquisite)
3. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
4. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
5. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
6. That They Might Face The Rising Sun – John McGahern
7. The Iliad – Homer
8. Ulysses – James Joyce (much more accessible than people might think)
9. The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
10. Mimesis – The Representation of Reality in Western Literature – Erich Auerbach (very, very heavy but one of the best works of literary criticism I’ve read)

Would include Dante's Inferno if I was allowed 11, but that's cheating

onethreefive

I'm new to reading book's for pleasure so I don't have 10 favourites yet but my top 3 would definitely be:

1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky.

2. The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger.

3. Harry Potter book 4-7 - J. K. Rowling.

Monkeybonkers

After recently finishing it I would have to put Vanity Fair by William Thackeray in here.

SilSil

bellinter wrote: »

The Stand - Stephen King
The Long Walk - Stephen King

I vote for these two!

Kazan

Mikhail Bulkagov: The Master and Margarita
Sofi Oksanen: The Purge
Bohumil Hrabal: Too Loud a Solitude
Bohumil Hrabal: I served the King of England
Michael Cunningham: The Hours

Comic Book Guy

Hi all,

Finished the Count of Monte Cristo last week after seeing it listed in a lot of peoples top 10.
Great read, really enjoyed it with the only drawback that the basic story is so well known now in popular culture that ya already know the main plot and are reading it as such.

Whippersnapper

Off the top of my head:

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Master - Colm Toibin
The Celestine Prophecy - James Redfield
All The President's Men - Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Perfume: The Story Of A Murder - Patrick Suskind
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance - RM Pirsig
Animal Farm - George Orwell
A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Gandalph

I'm going to have to read King's 'The Stand' due to all the mentions here and being a big post apocolyptic theme fan myself, although I really didn't enjoy McCarthy's 'The Road', with all the praise it got.

Some of my favourite books being;
World War Z - Max Brooks
Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan (Only read from 1-5)
Harry Potter (from no.4 onwards) - JK Rowling
The Wolf of Wallstreet - Jordan Belfort
Pathfinder - David Blakely

bellinter

The Stand - Stephen King
The Long Walk - Stephen King
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
All The Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane
The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
Open - Andre Agassi
Rough Ride - Paul Kimmage
Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Monkeybonkers

Neil McCauleys Cooler Brother wrote: »

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.
Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon.
The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B., J.P. Donleavy
From Hell, Alan Moore.
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy.
American Tabloid, James Ellroy.
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy.
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce.
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake.

I read this years ago and remember at the time thinking it was brilliant. Must give it another read. Thanks for the reminder

beauf

Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake. That one as always stuck in my head.

Neil McCauleys Cooler Brother

A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller.
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.
Mason & Dixon, Thomas Pynchon.
The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B., J.P. Donleavy
From Hell, Alan Moore.
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy.
American Tabloid, James Ellroy.
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy.
A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce.
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake.