Recommend me some books.

[phildwyer]

I got 'Ludmilla's Broken English' by DBC Pierre ou of the library recently. Cracking read. Dark, funny, rattles along. I'd recommend that.

Seconded. His first one, "Vernon God Little" is also brilliant.

 

[kabbes]

I liked Vernon God Little but it wasn't perfect by a long shot. Not for everybody, I suspect.

 

[harpo]

I liked Veron God Little but preferred Ludmilla's Broken English by a long way.

 

[phildwyer]

I liked Veron God Little but preferred Ludmilla's Broken English by a long way.

Me too. Looking forward to his next one...

 

[mrsfran]

I have so far bought:

Kavalier and Clay. Started reading it already, very much like it.
Affluenza by Oliver James
A Leiths cookbook
An Oliver Sacks book
The latest Harlen Coben

Still got £25 to spend.

 

[Orang Utan]

I have so far bought:

Kavalier and Clay. Started reading it already, very much like it.
Affluenza by Oliver James
A Leiths cookbook
An Oliver Sacks book
The latest Harlen Coben

Still got £25 to spend.

oh goody that's a good start!

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Anything by Tim Moore if you like being entertained

 

[cyberfairy]

Bollocks To Alton Towers and it's sequel-both about curious visitor attractions in the UK and utterly hysterical.
Sunday At The Cross Bones by John Walsh is an engrossing and superbly written book based on a true story about a vicar who consorted with prostitutes and was killed by a lion.

 

[Orang Utan]

Bollocks To Alton Towers and it's sequel-both about curious visitor attractions in the UK and utterly hysterical.

Yes, it is quite wonderful

 

[Cheesypoof]

Friction by Joe Stretch is great.

 

[rosa]

Friction by Joe Stretch is great.

Went to uni with Joe Stretch. One of my mates told me he was a bit unsure about whether to read the book after he heard that he had to explain to the woman who was translating the book into German what the word 'minge' meant.

 

[stereotypical]

American Psycho

 

[colbhoy]

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Das Boot by Lothar-Gunther Buchheim
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw

 

[starfish]

As you like John Irving you may like A Fraction Of The Whole by Steve Toltz.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

...You might also want a crack at Instance of the fingerpost by iain pears. That's a great piece of historical fiction.

That rang a bell with me, just looked it up on Amazon, yes, I've read it and can second that one.

Another one you might like, missfran, if you haven't already read it, is John Lanchester's A Debt to Pleasure, which is a good read for a foodie.

Amazon blurb: A gorgeous, dark, and sensuous book that is part cookbook, part novel, part eccentric philosophical treatise, reminiscent of perhaps the greatest of all books on food, Jean-Anthelme Brillat Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Join Tarquin Winot as he embarks on a journey of the senses, regaling us with his wickedly funny, poisonously opinionated meditations on everything from the erotics of dislike to the psychology of a menu, from the perverse history of the peach to the brutalization of the palate, from cheese as "the corpse of milk" to the binding action of blood.

There's another novel that's on my bookshelf at home, I can't think of the title, set in Italy, has a strong food theme... bugger... something about bread... I'll let you know if it comes to mind.

If you haven't read Joanne Harris' Chocolat, yet, that's a good one as well. I read the book before the film came out, and while it's an oldie, it's a goodie so far as the food/taste theme goes.

A bit of a weird one, but Patrick Suskind's Perfume, a history of a murderer. I saw the film on telly for the first time a couple of nights ago, and was reminded how good the book was. It's very evocative of smells and tastes and sights.

Fiction:

...Isabel Allende...

Books like Freakonomics:

Yes, I second Isabel Allende.

Not a book, a DVD recommendation if you can get it in a bookstore: Rob Newman's A History of Oil is really entertaining.