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Best book you've ever read

Drakares

My two favs are A Song of Ice and Fire. George RR Martin has an amazing style of writing - then A brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Daemon by Daniel Suarez was also really nice to read.

So what is the best book you have ever read?

I am going to Denmark for 2 weeks in a week for a chill on the beach holiday and will buy some books the others suggest! I like all genres

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wretcheddomain

The Q'uran

KungPao

Bouncing Back by Alan Partridge.

Needless to say, he had the last laugh.

Rightwing

Man Utd: A Look back at the great season of 2013/2014.

super_furry

Lux the Poet by Martin Millar.

dodderangler

Rightwing wrote: »

Man Utd: A Look back at the great season of 2013/2014.

Jesus get over it. Had one bad fcukin season.

osarusan

I don't really like the idea of rating books, or anything for that matter, on a scale of 1 to 10 or anything like that. So I'm just going to mention some of the books that I often think about, even if it's been a long time since I last read them.

The Pickwick papers by Charles Dickens.

The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck.

100 years of solitude by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez.

Disgrace by J M Coetzee.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

And an Irish one which made a real impression on me:

That they may face the rising sun by John McGathern.

I'm not sure if any of them are beach holiday reading though, some of them are massive and they're all quite serious.

Spunge

The Stranger by Albert Camus

catallus

+1 for Disgrace

Something Happened by Joseph Heller is my favourite American novel.

kylith

House of Leaves. I really can't recommend it enough.

Hotfail.com

Tales of the Dying Earth, it's a fantasy book by Jack Vance (you might like it seeing as he's one of GRRM's inspirations)

Afroshack

Let the great world spin by Colum mccann

New York trilogy by Paul auster (three relatively short books)

A thousand splendid suns

American psycho (you might get a few odd looks reading that on a beach)

JohnnyChimpo

War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Magus by John Fowles
+1 for House of Leaves

cloud493

The Bible. I read that thing front to back, back to front.

Ballfro

A Thousand Splendid Suns

She's Come Undone

Brooklyn - a simple yet beautiful story

The Secret Scripture

wretcheddomain

cloud493 wrote: »

The Bible. I read that thing front to back, back to front.

I only read it from front to back, but yet I still found it backwards.

irishgeo

A brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson

MRnotlob606

communist manifesto

Dercola

Drakares wrote: »

My two favs are A Song of Ice and Fire. George RR Martin has an amazing style of writing - then A brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Daemon by Daniel Suarez was also really nice to read.

So what is the best book you have ever read?

I am going to Denmark for 2 weeks in a week for a chill on the beach holiday and will buy some books the others suggest! I like all genres

If you like A Song of Ice and Fire so much, maybe check out the Malazan Book of the Fallen series? Its a tough read, but by god its rewarding!

Sephiroth_dude

Neil gaimen neverwhere

FTA69

Game of Thrones series - worse than heroin

The Communist Manifesto - everything fell into place.

A History of the Irish Working Class - applied the above to an Irish context.

Guerrilla Days in Ireland - by my hero Tom Barry

Labour in Irish History - James Connolly

My Life - Autobiography of my other hero Fidel Castro.

Pillars of the Earth - ripping yarn about building a cathedral in the English Middle Ages.

takamichinoku

Don't even know how to gauge books like that but I'll try....

I liked almost all the Haruki Murakami I read but the slower pacing a more simple plot of Norwegian Wood really struck a chord with me when I read it. Extremely meditative experience.

Catcher in the Rye was one that was pretty much nothing like I had been led to expect, really wish I was able to get my hands on it at a younger age (I knew of it but couldn't remember its name too, which was bloody frustrating). Prolly got to revisit it soon but my memories of it are aging incredibly well.

The Trial was ****ing brilliant when I was 17 but I never want to go near it or most that existential stuff again, got plenty of my own going on, thank you very much.

Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth is nowhere near perfect but the growth in Ware's skill throughout the sections is crazy and I just adore that guy's scattered inventiveness, some profoundly sad moments.

The Road's just fantastic, all minimal and cold but with a really warm centre and so well written and god why the **** haven't I read more Cormac McCarthy?!

Kid's books: I read all the Harry Potters and was pretty big into the launches of new books and all, but I never thought they were amazing or anything. Enjoyed His Dark Materials at the time but nowadays I mostly just like that such a bat**** insane book series managed to get as far as having a hollywood adaptation. So yeah... I guess that leave Roald Dahl and the Happy Prince. Never had anyone too enthusiastic about books around me and the house only had Enid Blyton ****e.

In regards to short stories: the first Carver book, the Metamorphosis, the Death of Ivan Ilyich, Dubliners and, especially, John Cheever's collection (the Swimmer's the obvious standout, the film's great too actually!). Should really try to read more short stories, I like them more usually and my attention span can actually handle them!

RE: Non-fiction, hard to beat the scope and effectiveness of the Story of Art... I read a fair bit of non-fiction and it's hard enough to think of ones that stand out especially, but it does.

RE: Textbooks! The shockingly well structured approach of the C Programming Language stands out a good bit.

cletus van damme

hard to rate books but the one that blew me away the most on first reading was

Saddam-Hussein-The-Politics-Revenge by Said K. Aburish

totally opened my eyes to saddam, the west and the middle east.

osarusan

catallus wrote: »

+1 for Disgrace

If you haven't already, spare some time for Waiting for the Barbarians. Another extraordinary Coetzee novel.

takamichinoku wrote: »

Catcher in the Rye

Oh god oh god oh god how did I forget this one?

I was lying on my bed posting earlier, and I knew there was one more on my bookshelf that I was missing, but couldn't recall it.

Thanks Taka, but my gratitude is tempered by your admiration for Murakami.

pharmaton

There have been different books for different times. Most recently I've been digesting Viktor Frankl's work because his first had such an impact on my life, it changed me completely. I think that's the marker of a good book for me.

Birneybau

I guess 1984 by George Orwell. It changes all the time but that book is a landmark work.

LizzieJones

Drakares wrote: »

My two favs are A Song of Ice and Fire. George RR Martin has an amazing style of writing - then A brief history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson. Daemon by Daniel Suarez was also really nice to read.

So what is the best book you have ever read?

I am going to Denmark for 2 weeks in a week for a chill on the beach holiday and will buy some books the others suggest! I like all genres

I once read a book called Chicken Every Sunday. It was written decades ago but I got a kick out of reading it. Tough to find a copy nowadays. I've been looking to replace it in my book collection since my old copy was lost many years ago.

boobar

Won't win any Booker prizes...

But I really enjoyed all the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child.

Great way to unwind.

Sir Arthur Daley

Diesel In-line Fuel-injection Pumps: Bosch Technical Instruction by Robert Bosch.

FortuneChip

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandra Dumas
I've read it four or five times now, and I've always enjoyed it. Edmund Dantes is one of my favourite characters of all time.

A Secret History - Donna Tarte
An absolute belter! I read this once every couple of years. A modern Greek tragedy that rivals the classics.

diomed

LizzieJones wrote: »

I once read a book called Chicken Every Sunday. It was written decades ago but I got a kick out of reading it. Tough to find a copy nowadays. I've been looking to replace it in my book collection since my old copy was lost many years ago.

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/chicken-every-sunday/author/rosemary-taylor/page-1/
You can buy it for about €7 incl. shipping.