most influential books

[bristol_citizen]

The Dharma Bums - Kerouac
The Fall - Camus
A Rebours (Against Nature) - Huysmann

 

[articul8]

these books influenced me a lot in my late teens...

comte de lautremont..maldoror

How could i forget this? Probably the best thing ever written by anybody. In any language. Period.

 

[rennie]

le petit prince... great stuff!

 

[shoddysolutions]

The Owl Service
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Book of Norse Myths
King Arthur
Wizard of Earthsea
2000 AD
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
The Saga of the Exiles
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Animal Farm
A Series of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums
The Wasp Factory
High Rise/Concrete Island
No Logo
Hidden Agendas
Free To Be Human
To Have Or To Be?
The Soul Bird

 

[fishfingerer]

 

[Echo Beach]

I'm working hard to spread the Communist Manifesto's influence. I make my students read it at the start of every semester.

Hahahahahahahaha!

 

[oneflewover]

It has struck me how strange accidentally finding this forum and then this list of books and how many i've read. Through the Sven Hassel, Flann O'Brien, George Orwell and on to Alan Garner and JRR Tolkien.

Anyway, whilst going along my shelves, looking to be influenced, another book jumped out that was very provoking, Borstal Boy - Brendan Behan


Up The Tigers

 

[Brainaddict]

Tropic of Capricorn - Henry Miller
The Great Shark Hunt - HST
The body of Orwell's work - couldn't really name one book
Ditto for Vonnegut
The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
On the Road - Kerouac
And for my introduction to politics - Hidden Agendas, by John Pilger

 

[Ryazan]

I'm working hard to spread the Communist Manifesto's influence. I make my students read it at the start of every semester.

Hahahahahahahaha!

I didn't become aware of that kind of thing when I was at school, just in GCSE History my teacher would patronsingly refer to the Vyborg militants wearing "their Sunday best" when out and about with their machine guns, when I was at school anyway. My mother encouraged me to read it though, and I hate her for it.

 

[Firky]

The Outsider

 

[Firky]

Albert Camus, The Outsider.

Doh!

 

[Barking_Mad]

Isn't Camus a 'poor mans Dosotevsky'? So i heard like.

 

[Dillinger4]

Isn't Camus a 'poor mans Dosotevsky'? So i heard like.

The Fall is better than The Outsider.

 

[belboid]

no he's not anyway, fuck all that fate bollocks. (to grossly overprecis the complete works of Dostoevsky)

 

[ringo]

Read those Hassel books as a nipper, can't imagine reading them now, but for some reason still remember laughing uncontrollably at lines like "Porta farted like a rifle shot" and the like.

2000AD - good call, some of the SF ideas explored by Tharg's Future Shocks, Judge Dredd etc led me towards the cyberpunk novels, appreciation of comic art, graffiti, helped persuade me that god didn't exist etc.
George Orwell - 1984 & Animal Farm
Luke Rhinehart - The Dice Man - Led to an unpredictable year or so of attempting to live like that in the late 80's. Not all the time fortunately.
Marlowe - Faustus - Book which made me realise that not all old books were a load of old tosh and that struggling through olde English was worthwhile. Wouldn't have read Shakespeare etc without it.
Tom Wolfe - Electric Kool Aid Acid Test - Led to a life-long interest in counter culture books leading to Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Anthony Burgess etc.
Dosteovsky - Crime & Punishment
Child Of God - Cormac McCarthy
Sarah Brown - Vegetarian Cookbook - Taught me basic veggie cookingand the ability to follow and enjoy recipe books.
Autobiography Of Malcolm X - First inklings of what racial equality was about.
Roots Knotty Roots - reggae discography, use it every day. http://www.nghthwk.com/rkr/
Conrad - Heart Of Darkness - Teenager realises the book is alwaysbetter than the film moment.

 

[Firky]

The Fall is better than The Outsider.

Is it shite

 

[Firky]

Isn't Camus a 'poor mans Dosotevsky'? So i heard like.

Always been put off by Doso' because of the kind of people who read him. People like max_freakout.

 

[Dillinger4]

Is it shite

I always thought The Outsider was over rated myself. I got more out of The Fall.

 

[Firky]

That is because you have a pea for a brain.

(((Dillinger))))

 

[Dillinger4]

That is because you have a pea for a brain.

(((Dillinger))))

Jean Paul Sartre agrees with me. I don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

 

[N_igma]

The old man and the sea.

 

[AndyO'C]

Slaughterhouse 5 and 1984 - both read at an impressionable age.

 

[purves grundy]

Always been put off by Doso' because of the kind of people who read him.

Don't be But if you are, read the one which fewer people go on about i.e. not 'Crime and Punishment' or 'Notes from Underground'. Read the mind-blowing 'Brothers Karamazov' instead and have done with it

 

[Dillinger4]

Don't be But if you are, read the one which fewer people go on about i.e. not 'Crime and Punishment' or 'Notes from Underground'. Read the mind-blowing 'Brothers Karamazov' instead and have done with it

I liked 'The Double' more.

Why do I keep doing that?

 

[Diamond Dog]

'Tales from the Time Loop' by David Icke

This isn't hyperbole guys; it actually shits on the Da Vinci Code

 

[Firky]

Slaughterhouse 5

Excellent book

 

[Firky]

Don't be But if you are, read the one which fewer people go on about i.e. not 'Crime and Punishment' or 'Notes from Underground'. Read the mind-blowing 'Brothers Karamazov' instead and have done with it

One day, mate, one day

 

[Dillinger4]

Excellent book

I agree.

 

[Firky]

pea brain

 

[Dillinger4]

pea brain