Books everyone should have read.

[DotCommunist]

Dune is a good book to read. I know people get sniffy about sci fi, But Frank Herbert's Dune is a genre-trancending masterpiece, almost the perfect novel

And also try Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

 

[Gromit]

Dune is a good book to read. I know people get sniffy about sci fi, But Frank Herbert's Dune is a genre-trancending masterpiece, almost the perfect novel

And also try Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

I'll admit to loving Dune to death. I've read it too many time to count.
I also like the lynch film despite the heavy critism it gets.

Hate the mini series version though. 4 times as long as the Lynch film but despite this manages to miss all the key scenes that give the real mystical feel to the story.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'll admit to loving Dune to death. I've read it too many time to count.
I also like the lynch film despite the heavy critism it gets.

Hate the mini series version though. 4 times as long as the Lynch film but despite this manages to miss all the key scenes that give the real mystical feel to the story.

I did enjoy the Lynch film, but I couldn't take it seriously. Plus the kid playing Paul Atradies was rubbish imo.

As for the mini series, pah. Far to clean cut and modern. None of the grimy feel you get from the books (and to a certain extend Lynchs film)

 

[danny la rouge]

Needs to be read a couple of times. It can be hard going.

In my opinion is doesn't need to be read at all.

 

[Calva dosser]

I wouldn't say these were books that need to be read by anyone, but I like Egils Saga- Attributed to Snorri Sturlusson.

Set in 9/10th C Iceland, it is a tale of incredible murder and mayhem, yet an amazing study of a complex character.

(In anycase, any story that starts off by saying the subjects grandfather (Kveldulf-'Evening Wolf') was a 'shape changer', and his best mate was Karl-Berli, a berserker, has got to be good for a laugh))

You can move forward to Haldor Laxness' 'Independent People', set one thousand years later. Remarkable that two authors seperated by so many centuries give precisely the same narrative feel.

As a must read- well, I suppose 'Germinal' by Zola. But then I am an old commie.

 

[danny la rouge]

Ooh, the Zola's good. Yes, read that.

 

[MysteryGuest]

I wouldn't say these were books that need to be read by anyone, but I like Egils Saga- Attributed to Snorri Sturlusson.

I'm putting that on my "to read" list. Not least because of the name - best said in a proper "r" rolling, warm Icelandic accent with extra-sibilant Ss. Bizarrely, I was told by a Finnish woman a couple of years ago that I do a perfect Icelandic accent. Which is good... I think.

 

[Demosthenes]

Inevitably will miss many out

In no particular order.

Catch 22.
The Lord of the Rings.
Crime and Punishment,
Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass.
The Trial.
Songs of Innocence and Experience and the Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
The Gospel according to John.
Asimov's novels.
Robin Hobb novels.
Hidden agendas (politics)
Bury my heart at wounded knee.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest.

 

[mentalchik]

Dune is a good book to read. I know people get sniffy about sci fi, But Frank Herbert's Dune is a genre-trancending masterpiece, almost the perfect novel

Was gonna suggest Dune but thought people would probably scoff...........


still my all time fav and lost count of how many times i've read it, starting when i got the trilogy for christmas when i was about 13 (still have them too)......


it's a much loved old friend !


The mini-series was cak imo.

 

[MysteryGuest]

Was gonna suggest Dune but thought people would probably scoff...........

Never don't post anything on here because you think that people might scoff. Seriously chikky, never do that. If you post something that you're worried that people might scoff at, and it turns out they do scoff at it, then PM me and I shall unleash the might of the mighty MG warriors anti-scoff pro-enthusiasm people's revolutionary niceness brigade upon them!

 

[Calva dosser]

MG.-Lost the broadband.

Mastering 'Raufarhafnarhreppur', I am told impresses the natives- but Icelanders are the parrots of the linguistic world-

As I found out when asked 'where abouts in London then?'

And my response of 'Stratford' illicited a chorus of "Geee-zah!"

 

[Calva dosser]

WRT Mr Herberts masterpiece.

I criticised GBS for his overkill in making Bluntschli (Arms and the Man) such a Shavian hero that the reader of the play nearly choked upon it.

Naturally, he called me a c***.

However, an author that has to give his heros bigger colons than their enemies- well Frank- see a shrink, or maybe a proctologist.

 

[mentalchik]

Never don't post anything on here because you think that people might scoff. Seriously chikky, never do that. If you post something that you're worried that people might scoff at, and it turns out they do scoff at it, then PM me and I shall unleash the might of the mighty MG warriors anti-scoff pro-enthusiasm people's revolutionary niceness brigade upon them!

Ta MG !






up the sci-fi massive


it's bad enough that my family thinks i'm weird coz i read a lot of sci-fi a lot of the time..........scoffers, eat shit and die

 

[Onslow]

By jove, thanks for all the suggestions, very varied and interesting selection to choose from. As I mentioned earlier I'm kicking off with Georgy O, then I think i may move on to the Communist Manefesto suggested by Danny L.R. I also want to get started on The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - Dr. Oliver Sacks, just because I've looked it up and it sounds

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another vote for Crime & Punishment. Don't know what it is about that book but 4 months after reading it I still keep thinking about it and im not sure why..............

'Resurrection' - Tolstoy.
'The Kindgom of God is Within You' - Tolstoy.
'The Death of Ivan Illych' - Tolstoy.
Notes From The Underground - Dostoevsky.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Anything by Thomas Mann. He's a genius. Most of Milan Kundera's stuff is pretty good, too. Experience by Martin Amis is pretty compelling. And William Boyd's works are also very interesting and sometimes very darkly humorous. One last book, Seize the Day, by Saul Bellow. Brilliant.

 

[bluestreak]

TO D-L-R: are you from Scotland? I have never met any non-Scottish person that has read this, despite it being a total masterpiece.

i've never even been to scotland and alisdair gray is one of my favourite authors. poor things is the one i'd recommend as an introduction.

 

[Superdupastupor]

i've never even been to scotland and alisdair gray is one of my favourite authors. poor things is the one i'd recommend as an introduction.

excellent
<adds an X to the collumn headed :non-scots to have read Alisdair Gray>

A bit of a dense question I have come to realise, I live in Scotland most people I meet a therefore Scottish squeeing my information gathering somewhat.

 

[Gromit]

Speaking of Scotland i just remembered another very enjoyable read:

McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (okay its nothing to do with Scotland but i was reminded of it) by Pete McCarthy

Not intellectually stimulating but a fantastic feel good read.

 

[Dubversion]

TO D-L-R: are you from Scotland? I have never met any non-Scottish person that has read this, despite it being a total masterpiece.

seems a bizarre comment - i know many people who've read it and aren't scottish, myself included.

 

[Dhimmi]

Great selection of recommendations from all.

Alan Clark Diaries: Covers the machinations around Thatcher's demise along with a pile of other gems.

The Holocaust Industry: Finkelstein's powerful essay on how the shoah has become a political tool for some.

Flashman and the Great Game: Imperialism has never been so much fun. Not only well crafted but so well researched you'll end up actually learning something.

Brideshead Revisited: Just because.

 

[Sweaty Betty]

The silver sword - Ian serralier

talking in whispers - ??????

star of the sea - Joseph O'Conner

IT - Steven King

and of course ...

The Hungry cattepillar - Eric Carle

 

[Eva Luna]

Read the first two pages and bar the Dostoevsky, I have read all on the suggestion lists!!

*polishes own nails and rethinks previous thoughts that self would be illiterate next to most urbanites*

I'd like to recommend 'Wild Swans' - about life in Communist China, as written by the little daughter of the mother with the grandmother presiding at the top. Fascinating.

I also recommend 'Eva Luna' by Isabelle Allende - this is the most gorgeous read you will ever have. Similar to (God what's his name?! - who wrote 100 Years of Solitude) in style ie lots of magic and mystery interspersed with historical facts. A truly lovely lovely book that will have you escaping every night. Not slow at all.

Has anyone here actually read the entire contents of their bookshelves?

 

[soulman]

Eldridge Cleaver - Soul on Ice

 

[lobster]

Faust by Goathe
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
The bedbug by Mayakovsky

 

[Idris2002]

I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned Primo Levi's If this is a man, and The Periodic Table. The former is his account of life in Auschwitz, the second his more general set of memoirs, before during and after the war.

Oh, and his If Not Now, When about Jewish partisans in wartime Eastern Europe.

 

[dweller]

these are some books that I liked a lot when I read them
not all top class literature - but they meant something to me
at the time

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
Journey to the end of the night - L F Celine
Mysteries - Knut Hamsun
The Magus - John Fowles
'Empire of the sun' and 'The kindness of women'by J.G.Ballard
Vurt - Jeff Noon
Cyrus Cyrus - Adam Zameenzad
Out - Ronald Suckenick
'Lectures on Ancient Philosophy' by Manly P. Hall
Talks at Saanen 1967/68 - J Kirishnamurti
'Cremer 2' by Jan Cremer
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey
The Cosmological Eye' and 'The Air Conditioned Nightmare'by Henry Miller
Another Roadside Attraction - Tom Robbins

 

[kerb]

Another vote for Crime & Punishment. Don't know what it is about that book but 4 months after reading it I still keep thinking about it and im not sure why..............

Mate, the same thing happened to me!

I finished it in August and ever since now i couldnt pick anything up for ages. I just read Jeckyll and Hyde about a week ago and i'm still thinking about Crime and Punishment.

One of the passages that stay with me is the description of the young drunk girl walking down by the river and then collaspes on the bench head back and deleriously drunk. The description was amazing. Just an incredible, incredible read.

 

[JTG]

Some Dickens, my favourite is Hard Times, gives a real feeling of the industrial north. Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan makes you feel.

I thought it was set in the Medway towns?

 

[JTG]

Stalingrad - Anthony Beevor
The First World War - John Keegan
1421: The Year China Discovered the World - Gavin Menzies

I don't read much fiction