10 to read before the apocalypse?

Ebony · 29-02-2004 8:45pm

hmm way too hard to put in order so here are my life changing ones off the top of my head

the virgin suicides (shows you how to be a girl in the coolest way)
hidious kinky (beautiful narration from an eight year old)
attonement-ian mc ewan (amazing)
romeo+juilet(the only thing i read in school that wasnt destroyed by teaching)
esiotrot-dahl (the sweetest love story for everyone)

theres so many more but i cant think of now!

irko · 07-03-2004 5:54am

I read The godfather by Mario Puzo.It happened by an accident,when i wanted to check a couple of pages.So it strick me ,i had to read it out.Nikolaj Gogol is a good writer, try reading some of his works.Celine is also good ,i read "The journey to the end of night" or something.Sexus,by Henry Miller.This guy named Heinrich von Kleist wrote some short novels which i liked,story of Michael Kolhaas.Alice in wonderland by Lewis Caroll.Körkarlen by Selma Lagerlöf .Njals Saga is very good.It is a medieval story from Iceland.

Woden · 07-03-2004 6:00am

Originally posted by graciek
Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger

i see a lot of people recommending this and i have to ask why? i read it recently and thought it was nothing special perhaps it just went over my head but he was a whiny fecker.

i usually read nothing of substance but i would recommend:

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The Player of Games, Iain M. Banks

jerenaugrim · 07-03-2004 6:23am

Originally posted by irko
I read The godfather by Mario Puzo.It happened by an accident,when i wanted to check a couple of pages.So it strick me ,i had to read it out.Nikolaj Gogol is a good writer, try reading some of his works.Celine is also good ,i read "The journey to the end of night" or something.Sexus,by Henry Miller.This guy named Heinrich von Kleist wrote some short novels which i liked,story of Michael Kolhaas.Alice in wonderland by Lewis Caroll.Körkarlen by Selma Lagerlöf .Njals Saga is very good.It is a medieval story from Iceland.

Are u Icelandic, irko? 'Cause I've heard there's some great stuff by Icelandic writers (most literate nation in the world, apparently), so can anyone recommend anything?

Catcher... is not Salinger's best. Try Raise High The Roofbeams, Carpenters! (a novella) or A Good Day for Bananafish (short stories).

irko · 07-03-2004 6:39am

No I`m not from Iceland.I Just happened to get my hands on that book.

Ancient1 · 07-03-2004 3:08pm

True, Njal's Saga is a must-read.
Also, get a book called Sagas of Warrior Poets (edited by Diana Whaley) - it contains 5 Icelandic sagas. When you consider when they were written, they're absolutely uplifting.

graciek · 07-03-2004 3:27pm

Originally posted by Dataisgod
i see a lot of people recommending this and i have to ask why? i read it recently and thought it was nothing special perhaps it just went over my head but he was a whiny fecker.

I enjoyed the book, but i do agree it's not salinger's best, i'm making my way through his books and so far i prefer franny and zooey. i lot of people say that it's just pretentious, but i think it's the kinda thing u like, or u don't like! :P

syngin · 10-03-2004 4:35pm

can't beleive that 1894 by George Orwell was not on the list

graciek · 11-03-2004 12:29am

oh yeah! 1984!! good book!

JudasMonkey · 19-03-2004 3:58pm

Requiem For a Dream-Hubert Shelby Jr.
1984- George Orwell
Animal Farm- George Orwell
The Tirlogy Of 5(Hitchrikers guide etc)- Douglas Adams
Salmon of Doubt-Douglas Adams
Catch 22- Joesph Heller
Jingo-Terry Pratchett
Nothing in this book is true, But its exactly how things are-Bob Frissell
Stupid White Men-Micheal Moore
Siddhartha-Herman Hesse

thetis · 20-03-2004 9:36pm

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Kundrun
The Selfish Gene - Dawkins
How the Mind works - Pinker
Cryponomicon - Stephenson
Metamorphoses - Ovid
The Prince - Machiavelli
To Kill a Mockingbird - Lee
Othello - Shakespeare
Scoop - Waugh
The Far Side - Larson

Instant Karma · 02-04-2004 8:14pm

in no particular order -

Fiction

The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
Animal Farm - George Orwell
Charlottes Web - E B White [yeah I know its a kids book]

Pulp Fiction

anything by Lincoln Childs and Douglas Preston

Timeline - Michael Crichton

Non-Fiction

The Forgotten Soldier - Guy Sajer
Stupid White Men - Michael Moore
Chickenhawk - Robert Mason

Other

The Lucifer Principle - Howard Bloom
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

[defunct]carlito · 10-04-2004 1:17pm

well best couple of books ive read to date are "captain corellis mandolin" and very recently "100years of solitude by gabriel garcia marquez" fantastic book it was....at mo im reading wait for it......John newtons story who wrote the "Amazing Grace Hymm" its by jonh pollock.
so 1 100 years of solitude(gabriel garcia marquez)
2 captain corellis mandolin
3 hanibal
4 long way from penny apples(bill cullen)
5 johnser loves jackie (neville thompson)

caro · 18-04-2004 9:04pm

the picture of dorian gray (wilde)
franny and zooey-(salinger)
the torture garden (octave mirbeau)
the bell jar (plath) -this has a bad rep, ooh she killed herself, it must be a depressing book, but the end seems to have a nice bit of hope in there...
revolt of the angels- (anatole france)
lord of the rings (jrr tolkien)
1984 (orwell)
All the harry potters
catcher in the rye (salinger)
all the calvin and hobbeses

Archvillain · 20-04-2004 9:18am

1) Malone Dies - Sammy Beckett
2) Ulysses - Jimmy joyce
3) Foucaults Pendulum - Umberto Eco
4) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
5) THe Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoevsky
6) Molloy - Samuel Beckett
7) THe Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
8) Ham on Rye - Charles Buckowski
9) The Bible - Loads of guys (lets face it, it's a cracker of a read)
10) Mog and meg - ??

Sleepy · 20-04-2004 10:07am

Some that have been posted here, others that surprisingly for me, haven't:

in no particular order etc:

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Art of War - Tzun Tzu
Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland
A Secret History of the IRA - Ed Moloney (much better than the Tim Pat Coogan books IMHO)
Collected Works - Shakespeare
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
Trinity - Leon Uris
Harry Potter Series J. K. Rowling (pure fantasy, yet fantastically written by a born storyteller)
Band Of Brothers - Stephen A. Ambrose

And if Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side are allowed, I'm having Dilbert.

Krusty_Clown · 20-04-2004 3:27pm

No particular order:
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
BattleField Earth - L Ron Hubbard
Life of pi - Yann Martel
Ender's game - Orson Scott Card
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
The Moon is a harsh mistress - Robert A. Heinlehen
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Graham
Do androids dream of electric sheep - Philip K Dick.
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Imajica - Clive Barker

coupland · 23-04-2004 10:35pm

In no particular order

The Big Picture - Douglas Kennedy
It - Stephen King
The Kid Stays in the Picture - Robert Evans
Hey Nostradamus! - Dougas Coupland (ok anything from him!!!)
Adventures in the Screen Trade - William Goldman
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Fatherland - Robert Harris
American Tabloid - James Ellroy
Tourist Season - Carl Hiaasen
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe

karma kabbage · 23-04-2004 11:07pm

can't bring myself down to just ten and I reckon most of the titles are found somewhere here anyway .... but....

Read the 'journals of Anais Nin'. You'll never get so far into another persons life. Truly fascinating!

SantaHoe · 23-04-2004 11:16pm

10 to read before the apocalypse?

Surviving the apocalypse for Dummies.
And perhaps the Bible.

RE*AC*TOR · 05-05-2004 4:02pm

1) The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien is by some distance the funniest book i've ever read - it should be on the Irish school syllabus. For all those people who have listed Catch22 - you would definetly appreciate the humor in this one. It's pure genius.

Others:-
2) The Age of Reason, Jean Paul Sartre
3) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4) The Old Man and The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
5) 1984, George Orwell
6) Catch 22, Joseph Heller
7) Catcher In The Rye, JD Salinger
8) To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
9) The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
10) The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde

mob · 06-05-2004 6:50pm

1)George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four
2)George Orwell - Animal Farm
3)Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy (A Trilogy In Five Parts)
4)Robert Harris - Fatherland
5)Robert Harris - Enigma
6)Terry Pratchett - Guards Guards!!
7)James Joyce - The Dubliners
8)Douglas Adams - The Salmon Of Doubt
9)Hunter S. Thompson - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
10)Karl Marx - The Communist Manifesto

and if i had some spare time before the end of the world i'd read Ann & Barry again for old times sake

butterfly · 16-05-2004 9:09pm

in no order that's at all logical...

hallucinating foucault- patricia duncker
captain corelli's mandolin- louis se bernieres
house of the spirits- isabel allende ( most of her stuff's pretty great..)
1984- george orwell
(actually, anything by george orwell. keep the aspidistras flying is pretty crazy...)
the devil and miss prym- paulo coelho
the bell jar- sylvia plath
the lovely bones.. because it gets into your head for a while... and it's not restricted to just bookish people.. everyone.. y'know? i do not communicate well..

hm... there'll probably be more. i have to think..

keu · 16-05-2004 10:12pm

1. The Pillars of the Earth ~ Ken Follet; middle ages epic, must read.
2. Illusions ~ Richard Bach; philosophical adventure story type book
3. Manual of the Warrior of light ~ Paulo Coelho; more of the above
4. Johnathon Living seagull ~ Richard Bach; as above
5. How the Irish saved civilisation ~ Thomas Cahill; really good read
6. Awareness ~ Anthony De Mello; .... just for some enlightenment
7. Z for Zachariah ~ Robert O'Brien; old school book about a soul survivor of the apocolypse
8. The unbalanced earth series ~ Johnathon Wylie; fantasy saga
9. A smaller social history of ancient Ireland ~ P.W. Joyce;
10. Anything by Oscar Wilde, (starchild)

The Brigadier · 16-05-2004 10:25pm

In no particular order...

1. Plutarch's History of Alexander
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. The Yellow Heart by Pablo Neruda
4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thomson
5. The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robery Anton Wilson
6. The Koran
7. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
9. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
10. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

doonothing · 20-05-2004 11:00pm

in any order you like:

THE DICE MAN, luke rhinehart (how has no one mentioned it yet?)
the vampire chronicles, anne rice (if lotr counts as one, so do these)
the bell jar, sylvia plath
catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger
fight club, chuck palahniuk
paradise lost, john milton
the oddysey, homer
his dark materials, phillip pullman
lord of the flies, william golding
dracula, bram stoker

runners up...
1984, animal farm, on the road, any bill bryson, prozac nation, bitch...
actually, some of my runners up belong in the top 10, but meh, just pic'n'mix if you want....

RE*AC*TOR · 21-05-2004 11:12am

Originally posted by doonothing

fight club, chuck palahniuk

really? is it THAT good?

savemejebus · 21-05-2004 11:32am

in no order (and showcasing my questionable tastes)

-1984 George Orwell
-The Poet - Michael Connelly
-Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil -John Berendt
-Guards Guards/Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett(interchangeable one is as good as the other)
-Ressurection Day - Brendan Dubois
-Have a nice day - Mick Foley
-In the electric mist with the confederate dead - James Lee Burke (or any Burke title)
-The Stand - Stephen King
- Point of impact - Stephen Hunter
-L'etranger - Albert Camus

OT: Books that made me beg for an apocalypse

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Fountain Society - Wes Craven

doonothing · 22-05-2004 9:10pm

Originally posted by savemejebus

-Have a nice day - Mick Foley

GO YOU!!! that book was great.

filmlaw74 · 24-05-2004 2:59pm

1. The Beach - Alex Garland
2. Tell Me Lies - Tony Strong
3. Catcher In The Rye - JD Salinger
4. Catch Me If You Can - Frank W. Abagnale
5. The Tesseract - Alex Garland
6. High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
7. The 25th Hour - David Benioff
8. Hedonism - Tony Fletcher
9. Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
10. Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thomson

not in order btw, but all are good and worth a read.
Alex garland in particular is a great writer and I am definitely looking forward to his next novel "The Coma".

mmm..this is annoying, i'm thinking of more great books now, The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn is also good, The Old man and The sea by Ernest Hemingway...theres too many to name...for now the above will do.

10 to read before the apocalypse?

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