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10 to read before the apocalypse?

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  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,084 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    1: Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy (any part of it) - Douglas Adam
    2: Crytonomicon - Neal Stephenson (destroyed two copies by over-reading)
    3: A Discworld novel - Terry Pratchett

    I'll think of the other 7 over the next few days


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,055 ✭✭✭✭Tusky


    trainspoting is realy good - LOTR was great - lord of the flies was v.good too ...and umm well im reading a song of ice and fire at mo which is brilliant.


  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 42,362 Mod ✭✭✭✭Beruthiel


    LOTR - Mr. T.
    The Talisman - Stephen King/Peter Strub
    The Princess Bride - William Goldman
    Mort - Terry Pratchett
    Wonderland Avenue - Danny Sugarman
    The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
    The Alchemist - Pablo Carbo
    Ecstasy - Welsh Irvine
    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88 ✭✭TeenStar


    Well would have to think a lot harder for my real favourites but these few spring to mind:

    The Merlin Trilogy - Mary Stewart
    LOTR - JRR Tolkien (shock horror)
    The Beach - Alex Garland (ending much better than movie)
    Snow Falling On Cedars - David Gutterson
    The Shining - Stephen King
    Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (also love the Neeson&Rush movie of this)
    The Magician - Raymond E. Feist

    ........and for my feminine side (since i am female):

    Chocolat - Joanne Harris
    The Horse Whiperer - Nicholas Evans
    The Ivy Tree - Mary Stewart

    Ooooooooh I already wanna swap some of them!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88 ✭✭TeenStar


    Beruthiel : The Alchemist - Pablo Carbo

    Just finished this book a few days ago (that's if you mean Paulo Coelho, sorry cheeky me!) and really enjoyed it. I might check out some of his other books - 'Veronika decides to die' looks interesting.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 914 ✭✭✭Specky


    Really glad someone else put Foucault's Pendulum in there, brilliant book. I didn't know what I believed in when I'd finished it!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88 ✭✭TeenStar


    Originally posted by Sico
    I'm not bothered to put 10 up, but I'd throw A Clockwork Orange in there to be honest.

    DAGNAMMIT!!! I knew I should have given my list way more thought. A Clockwork Orange was GREAT so much better than the movie, though i have to admit parts of this book really grossed me out.....but then i was only 16 when i read it. What peed me off a bit aswell was that i picked up a later edition of this and there was an extra chapter at the end
    where Alex decides to turn good basically! What was that about??????


  • Registered Users Posts: 286 ✭✭Brerrabbit


    Yeah "The selfish gene" is amazing -It prompted me to start studying zoology (But that aside its class ;) )

    The Catcher in the Rye can also be a real eye opener.

    animal farm

    also (and I'm rather hesitant to put this in here with the established Greats but..) Are you Dave Gorman by David Gorman and Danny Wallace is one of the most hilarious and uplifting books I have ever had the pleasue of reading

    and if we can have Calvin + Hobbes (Which I also agree with) Can we have the "Far side" cartoons by Gary Larson?

    By the way this is a deadly topic, it brings home how many excellent books I have yet to read


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,852 ✭✭✭Hugh_C


    American Tabloid: James Ellroy
    The Wasp Factory: Ian Bainks
    The Cold Six Thousand: James Ellroy
    The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler
    Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy
    The Third Policeman: Flann O'Brien
    Something Happened: Joseph Heller
    White Light: Rudy Rucker
    Moby Dick: Herman Melville
    Cat You Better Home: Garrison Keillor


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,692 ✭✭✭Lorddrakul


    1. Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
    2. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
    3. Through a Glass Darkly - Sheridan le Fanu
    4. Beowulf - Heaney's translation
    5. Perfume - Patrick Suskind
    6. The Outsider - Albert Camus
    7. The Trial - Fans Kafka
    8. Ulysses - James Joyce
    9. Gilgamesh - Unknown
    10. Metamorphoses - Ovid


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12 dedoublya


    Lord of the Rings
    The Hobbit
    The Silmarillion
    Unfinished Tales
    History of Middle Earth
    Leaf By Niggle
    Smith of Wooton... ok! ANYTHING BY JRR TOLKIEN

    !984 - I don't really think its that good of a book, i mean half of it is reading another book, and the other half is them having sex. I read it when I was like 12 (16 now) so maybe i should read it again and maybe i'll appreciate it more, and being 12 I should have liked all the sex. But you should at least read it once, the ideas are great, and that makes it a classic. You can analyse it to death.

    I've been told the wheel of time is good, but i haven't read it. Does anybody recommend it?
    dw


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,287 ✭✭✭thedrowner


    Originally posted by Brerrabbit
    Are you Dave Gorman by David Gorman

    is this the book that was promised to me? have you found it yet and will ya lend it to me!!!!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,555 ✭✭✭Wook


    The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
    Lord of the rings
    Perfume
    Fast food Nation ( you never eat a hamburger again)
    Get the picture (history of photgraphy)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 943 ✭✭✭Mewzel


    the bell jar -by- sylvia plath

    and just to even out the depressive nature of this book:

    hitchhikers guide to the galaxy -by- douglas adams :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,287 ✭✭✭thedrowner


    Originally posted by thedrowner
    is this the book that was promised to me? have you found it yet and will ya lend it to me!!!!!

    i actually bumbed into brer rabbit about 10 minutes after i wrote this and he gave me the book and it is bloody brillaint and well worth the read

    are you dave gorman by dave gorman and danny wallace


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,564 ✭✭✭Typedef


    Originally posted by Lorddrakul
    7. The Trial - Fans Kafka

    I quite liked "Metamorphosis" -- Frans Kafka and "The Telltale heart" -- Edgar Allan Poe.

    Both short stories, not fully fleged novels.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 965 ✭✭✭DriftingRain


    Hope this helps...

    1. Ulysses, James Joyce
    2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
    3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce
    4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
    5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
    6. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
    7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
    8. Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler
    9. Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence
    10. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
    11. Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
    12. The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler
    13. 1984, George Orwell
    14. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
    15. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
    16. An American Tragedy, Theodore Dreiser
    17. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
    18. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
    19. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
    20. Native Son, Richard Wright
    21. Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
    22.Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
    23. U.S.A. Trilogy, John Dos Passos
    24. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
    25. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
    26. The Wings of the Dove, Henry James
    27. The Ambassadors, Henry James
    28. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
    29. The Studs Lonigan Trilogy, James T. Farrell
    30. The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford
    31. Animal Farm, George Orwell
    32. The Golden Bowl, Henry James
    33. Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
    34. A Handful of Dust, Evelyn Waugh
    35. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
    36. All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
    37. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
    38. Howards End, E.M. Forster
    39. Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin
    40. The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
    41. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
    42. Deliverance, James Dickey
    43. A Dance to the Music, Anthony Powell
    44. Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
    45. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
    46. The Secret Agent, Joseph Conrad
    47. Nostromo, Joseph Conrad
    48. The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence
    49. Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
    50. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
    51. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
    52. Portnoy's Complaint, Phillip Roth
    53. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
    54. Light in August, William Faulkner
    55. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
    56. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
    57. Parade's End, Ford Maddox Ford
    58. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
    59. Zuleika Dobson, Max Beerbohm
    60. The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
    61. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
    62. From Here to Eternity, James Jones
    63. The Wapshot Chronicles, John Cheever
    64. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
    65. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
    66. Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
    67. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
    68. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
    69. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
    70. The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
    71. A High Wind in Jamaica, Richard Hughes
    72. A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S. Naipaul
    73. The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
    74. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
    75. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh
    76. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
    77. Finnegans Wake, James Joyce
    78. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
    79. A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
    80. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
    81. The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
    82. Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
    83. A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
    84. The Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen
    85. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
    86. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
    87. The Old Wives' Tale, Arnold Bennett
    88. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
    89. Loving, Henry Green
    90. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
    91. Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell
    92. Ironweed, William Kennedy
    93. The Magus, John Fowles
    94. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
    95. Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
    96. Sophie's Choice, William Styron
    97. The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles
    98. The Postman Always Rings Twice, James Cain
    99. The Ginger Man, J.P. Donleavy
    100. The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington



    Top 100 books of the 20th century!
    I personally recommend #'s, 1, 2, 10, 16, 41, 43, & 93. They are classic and good.
    Although LOTR is not on here, it is great, but start with The Hobbit and go from there!
    :p:p


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 28 paniniter


    How about

    the funniest four-book trilogy ever, the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams

    any Calvin and Hobbes you can get your hands on

    what's 1984 about?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,639 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Top 10 in no order fiction
    The Perisians - Aeschylus
    LOTR - Tolkein
    Legend - Gemmell
    Prisoner of Zenda - Hope
    Good Omens - Gaimen and Pratchett
    Treasure Island - Stevenson
    Master and Commander - O'Brian
    "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn,
    The Warrior's Apprentice - Bujold
    The man who was Thursday - Chesterton

    Top 10 in no order non-fiction
    The whys of a philosphical scrivener - Gardner
    Wonder life - Stephen J. Gould
    The 10,000 - Xenophon
    Modern Times - Johnson
    Bible - et al
    Last days of Socrates - Plato
    Free to Choose - Friedman
    The Western way of War - Hanson
    Ortthodoxy - Chesterton
    The Art of War - Sun Tzu


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,838 ✭✭✭DapperGent


    Originally posted by Manach
    Bible - et al
    I think you placed this in the wrong category.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 427 ✭✭pyure


    "One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Solzhenitsyn,

    what a great book (cant be bothered figuring out this quote crap :p)

    dr jeckyl and mr hyde - cant remember
    dracula - stoker

    two classics from my youth, loved both of em

    funnily enough, jeckyl and hyde was written from scratch in 3 days. but when his wife read it she was so shocked he tore it up and burned the manuscript. then he re-wrote it in 3 days again :p
    useless fact from stephen kings book about the history of horror.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,331 ✭✭✭Dr Bolouswki


    In no particular order

    1. Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
    Crazy view of the future where the protaganists use a made up language - totally understandable, dark, funny and a scathing attack on the loss of individual freedom and the violence at the heart of any modern society.
    2. The Untouchable - John Banville
    Story based loosely on the Anthony Blunt spy saga - great novel, Banville's a genius - great if you're into Art, pretension, bohemian living, language and feeling like an outsider...
    3. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
    Tolkien created a whole world before he wrote these books. Created the languages, historys, and social and cultural millieux for many different races. It reads like no other mythical tale ever written. Phenomonal.
    4. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Gacia Marquez
    For any who have known the pain of unrequited love. Beautiful and funny.
    5. The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter S Thompson
    Thompson was a maverick, drug fueled lunatic who told it like it was. Scathing satirical commentary on all aspects of American life in the 50's, 60's and 70's. I would say 'Fear and loathing in Las Vegas' but the shark hunt gives you so much more - it's his collected writings spanning almost 30 years. Great foundation in contemporary American history.
    6. Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr.
    Horrifying. Very bleak look at New York life in the 50's. Banned for obscenity - won on appeal. Incredible.
    7. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
    Written on speed in 3 weeks. The blue print for all modern road novels - a big player in redefining of how language, grammer and structure were used in the modern novel. Was the impetous for the whole beat/hippy movement of the 50's and 60's...
    8. Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
    Burroughs redefined the modern novel. Experimental madness full of sickening and beautiful imagery.
    9. To kill a mocking bird - Harper Lee
    Easily accessible story about two kids growing up in the southern states and their relationship with a mysterious neighbour called Boo radley. An allegory for racism and injustice in America. Brilliant.
    10. Catch 22 - Norman Heller
    Work of satirical genius. Took him 7 years and he never wrote anything nearly as good again. You can never take authority, officialdom or the business world seriously again after you read this story set in a small island off Italy during the 2nd World War. The island is a microcosm of the modern world and Heller cuts us, and our behaviour, apart with relish.

    I feel sick with the ones I'm leaving off here, but some other authors you should consider are Tim Page, Oscar Wilde, Charles Bukouswki, Shakespeare, Allen Ginsberg (Poetry - but totally hip!) John Cooper Clarke (punk poet), Thomas Pynchon, early Thomas Wolfe, Brett Easton Ellis, Seth Morgan (only wrote one book, Homeboy - hilarious!), Douglas Adams, Alexander Schivorsky, Joe Simpson (the greatest mountaineering writer ever!)... man I could go on and on...


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,831 ✭✭✭s8n


    The catcher in the rye - JD salinger


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,263 ✭✭✭Caesar_Bojangle


    I was going to compile a list of 10 books but decided against it and opted for the one, which is

    The hitch hikers guide to the galaxy - just go read it


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 61 ✭✭mavedic


    Lord of the Rings as above.
    Sophies World - history of philosophy, really makes you think about life. Told through the eyes of a young girl in Norway who is taught through letters left for her by a strange philosopher.
    Dune - Fantasy
    Snowcrash - great science fiction novel with cool main characters Hyro Protaganist and YT
    Watership Down
    Wuthering Heights
    Phillip Pullman trilogy
    Animal Farm
    The Alchemist
    IT by Stephen King

    These are probably not my _top_ten but there the 10 that came to mind. A lot of books on peoples lists seem to be recent enough though, is this due to memory? I know it is on my part.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,263 ✭✭✭Caesar_Bojangle


    Actually you must read this book

    Hagakure: Book of the Samurai, its a philosophical book about the samurai code of living which in a sense can be implemented in to everyday life. Boards ninjas should take note


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 965 ✭✭✭DriftingRain


    http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984.htm


    paniniter: This is a good link of Orwell. For his book 1984!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26 Vlad_Tepes


    Last exit to Brooklyn H.Selby JR
    Lord of the Rings Tolkien
    Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
    Les fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire
    all the books by Bret Easton Ellis
    Die Hexe von Paris
    The Cities of the Red Nights
    Junkie
    Naked Lunch
    by W.S. Bourroughs
    On the Road, Jack Kerouac


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭bringitdown


    no particular order
    1. 1984, George Orwell
    2. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
    3. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
    4. Nueromancer, William Gibson
    5. The Informers, Bret Easton Ellis
    6. The Man in High Caslte, Philip K. Dick
    7. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
    8. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
    9. Orwell In Spain (inc. Homage to Catalonia), George Orwell
    10. Catch 22, Joseph Heller


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 658 ✭✭✭Trebor


    Originally posted by Caesar_Bojangle
    Actually you must read this book

    Hagakure: Book of the Samurai, its a philosophical book about the samurai code of living which in a sense can be implemented in to everyday life. Boards ninjas should take note

    then they would be boards samurai :D

    anyway samurai are the natural enmy of the ninja as their codes are quite different.

    Haven't read enough books to have a good list but here are some that i have read.

    Magician
    Legend
    Sword of truth series, Terry Goodkind
    The Farseer Trilogy, The Tawny Man Trilogy by Robin Hobb
    Harry Potter

    can't remember anymore :eek: so they mustn't be any good :D

    must check out some of the ones that others have mentioned though


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