10 to read before the apocalypse?

not bakunin

Damian Duffy wrote: »

Well said.

Anyone here read alot of Faulkner? Finished Light in August recently and thought it was brilliant.

ive read The sound and the Fury and thought it was ok, i should read more of his stuff i suppose.



may i also recommend Orwells "Burmese Days", Burgesses "A Clockwork Orange" and of course, "On the Road"

randomguy

I wasn't sure if I should pick books that I love, or the "important" books that I'd recommend that everyone should read before they die. In the end I picked books that I really enjoyed, rather than landmark literary ones.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Book of Evidence - John Banville
Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurty
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Eureka St - Robert McLiam Wilson
The Crow Road - Iain Banks
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler

But any of them could be replaced with any of my reserve 10:
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
My Secret History - Paul Theroux
Generation X - Douglas Coupland
Possession - A.S. Byatt
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
A History of the World in 10 and a 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes
The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing
The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald
At-Swim-Two-Birds - Flann O'Brien
of Human Bondage - W Somerset Maugham

And there are so many books that i mightn't be mad into if I read them now, but that blew me away when I did read them, from Salman Rushdie to E Annie Proulx, from Robertson Davies to Irvine Welsh that I wish I could include as well.

It's going to be hard not to come back and edit this after I post, but I'll try to resist.

teamB_macro

anything written by austen and dickens is worth it. can pass up on dostoyevsky and tolstoy but could be missing a lot. and at least a harry potter, but what's the point of not reading the whole series

Porkpie

Can only think of 4 so far

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado
The Damage Done by Warren Fellows
The Game by Neil Strauss

wantacookie

there is way too many to name!!

ya need classics from jane austen! but ya need stuff like tolkeins LOTR also!

don't forget harry potter or darren shan novels.

then again ya need romantics like from Nicohlas Sparks or Jodi Piccoult!

but i've not read near enough books to know! i just intend to keep reading!!

Spiritoftheseventies

Btw Tomorrow 09-09-09. Get reading folks!

thebadmonkey

Tough choices..personally:

Fiction
- Anything by John Connolly, his Charlie Parker series is nothing short of fantastic.
- Green Mile by Stephen King
- Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield
- The Arthur trilogy by Bernard Cornwell
- The Bible according to Pike Milligan

Non Fiction
-Selling your Fathers Bones by Brian Schofield
-Shake Hands with the Devil by Lt Gen Romeo Dallaire
- The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer
- The Dark Sacrament by David M Kiely and Christina McKenna
- Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Data_Quest

turgon wrote: »

As regards Ulysess, it would seem a lot of people read it to say theyve read it, and thus might put it in their top 10 just to say its in their top 10, if you get me. Ive read Portrait of an Artist myself. Wont embark on Ulysess for a few years. A lot of smaller miles to be tread on the journey first.

For anyone having difficulty ploughing through Ulysses I recommend you listen to the RTE audio book (over 24 hours long): really brought it to life for me anyway.

Data_Quest

I thought I had read a lot until I started reading this thread: thanks for all your recommendations: I have added loads of new titles to my wishlist on bookmooch.

Three great reads that I haven't seen mentioned are the first 3 on my list below:

• The Dumas Club Arturo Perez-Reverte
• For Whom The Bell Tolls Ernest Hemingway
• The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
• Homage To Catalonia George Orwell
• Foucault's Pendulum Umberto Eco
• Lord of the Rings J R R Tolkien
• Endymion Dan Simmons
• Hyperion Dan Simmons
• Dark Materials Philip Pullman
• Ulysses James Joyce
• QuickSilver Neal Stephenson

sxt

thebadmonkey wrote: »

Tough choices..personally:


The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer

Loved that book, such a harrowing gripping read .

K4t

moni333 wrote: »

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

:eek:

Poirot

embee wrote: »

My top ten, in no particular order.

1. The Alchemist : Paolo Coehlo
2. The Grapes of Wrath : John Steinbeck
3. Mary Mary : Julie Parsons
4. Animal Farm : George Orwell
5. The Bell Jar : Sylvia Plath
6. Catcher in the Rye : J.D. Salinger
7. Lord of the Flies : William Golding
8. Lovely Bones : Alice Sebold
9. Finnegans Wake : James Joyce
10. Memoirs of a Geisha : Arthur Golden

I can't believe that anyone would rate any book by Paolo Coehlo as their number 1 book choice. Some of your other choices are great, but I my jaw drops when I see him alongside John Steinbeck.
Ypou should read more of his books - I have read three - you will find that he uses the same cryptic rubbish formula for each book that he writes.

Procasinator

Poirot wrote: »

I can't believe that anyone would rate any book by Paolo Coehlo as their number 1 book choice. Some of your other choices are great, but I my jaw drops when I see him alongside John Steinbeck.
Ypou should read more of his books - I have read three - you will find that he uses the same cryptic rubbish formula for each book that he writes.

I started to read The Pilgrimage, and must say, the word "rubbish" fits perfectly.

IrelandSpirit

Riddley Walker – By Russell Hobon

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

Barbelo’s Blood - by Capt. Joseph W. Barbelo, AKA Joseph Ferri

The Dice Man – Luke Rhienhart

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

Foucault's Pendulum – by Umberto Eco

The Flashman Series – (all of them!) by George McDonald Fraser

Asterix the Gaul - by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

V For Vendetta – by Alan Moore

The Way of Wyrd – Brian Bates

Cannibal Ox

Procasinator wrote: »

I started to read The Pilgrimage, and must say, the word "rubbish" fits perfectly.

His style puts me off, but his books/message are okay I think.

The Emperor - Ryszard Kapuscinski
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
If Not Now, When? - Primo Levi
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Hunger - Knut Hamsun
The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
The Immoralist - Andre Gide
Herzog - Saul Bellow
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

footing

Happened on this thread; don't see a lot of French books in there - the French wrote some of the best novels of the 19th century. Here are three that I have particularly loved:
Balzac - Lost Illusions
Flaubert - Sentimental Education
Stendhal - The Charterhouse of Parma
Plus (at the moment):
Anything by the crime writer Fred Vargas
(Also Edith Wharton, who is not French but spent a lot of time there. A beautiful writer of the English language.)

blogga

Am I late or what but then the only eternity there is is the net:

The Story of San Michele...Axel Munthe
Hamlet
King Lear
Yeats later poems
Paul Celan

I just realised that this should be ten movies / songs / books...

KateC92

First books that pop into my head:

Harry Potter (everyone should read these - you have to read the whole series to appreciate the genius behind them, oh and the books are a million times better than the movies)
The Twilight Saga (if you are a teenage girl)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Before I Die
Anne of Green Gables
Greyfriar's Bobby (a short but moving tale)

Wilde

Catcher in the Rye, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Survivor, Fight Club and anything else by Chuck Palahniuk, Catch 22, On The Road, The Buddha of Suburbia, Lamb: The Story of the Gospel according to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. The Rum Diaries, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Lord of the Flies, Ask the Dust, The Sun Also Rises, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Life of Pi, The Rum Diary, RABID: A Novel, The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay anything by Bukowski, particularly Post Office and Factotum.

footing

KateC92 wrote: »

First books that pop into my head:

Harry Potter (everyone should read these - you have to read the whole series to appreciate the genius behind them, oh and the books are a million times better than the movies)

One big problem: Rowlings is a very ordinary writer; no spark.
In this genre, Pullman is the man.

fanuel

I'm "limiting" to these 10....but it's been really hard....

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Hermann hesse - Siddhartha
Dante - The Divine Comedy
Goethe - Elective Affinities
Bukowski -Women
Bukowski - Ham On Rye
Kerouac - On the Road
Kafka - The Trial (I would add "The Metamorphosis" as well)
John Fante - Ask the Dust
William Gibson - Neuromancer

In Italy, I was giving a ride home to a girl that I use to work with. After few minutes in the car, she says that her last reading was The Lord of The rings and that was one of the best books written. I HAD to stop the car and ask her to leave.

rickman

here comes robert kingdom - peter mc cluskey
paddy clarke ha ha ha - roddy doyle

Mjollnir

The Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
The White Hotel - D. M. Thomas

FishFingers

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

rickman

i agree with nick horby's "fever pitch"
ben elton's "blast from the past"
bateman's "mystery man"
peter mc cluskey's "here comes robert kingdom"
mith albom's "have a little faith"

ther27

These books are all equally brilliant and will stay with you long after you have finished reading them.
1. Point to Point Navigation-Gore Vidal
2. To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee
3. Collected Letters-Graham Greene
4. The Age of Turbulence-Alan Greenspan
5. The Reader-Bernhard Schlink
6. The Catcher in the Rye-J.D. Salinger
7. Catch-22-Joseph Heller
8. Memoir-John McGahern
9. The Untouchable-John Banville
10. The Sea-John Banville

Farolina81

Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ if you have even a vague interest in Christian books!

castle

Catcher in the Rye
1984
Animal Farm
To kill a mocking bird

Freebee09

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.

It's life changing

Eliot Rosewater

Given the epicness of this thread and the amount of times it is referenced, I think it would be cool to compile the 600+ posts so far into one chart of greatness. If anyones up for it we could divide the workload.

Anywhoo, my top 10, in no order:

Animal Farm, George Orwell.
1984, George Orwell.
Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Lord of the Flies, William Golding.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut.
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
That They May Face The Rising Sun, John McGahern.
Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.
Heart of Darkness, Joesph Conrad

Thats me for the moment, and its definitely subject to change! I sure when I get around to re-reading the Hemingways books one of them will knock Fiesta off. Its just that the more Ive read him more the more Ive liked him.

getz

Freebee09 wrote: »

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte.

It's life changing

most of the books by the bronte sisters, were written from actual events and the folk law of haworth,one person realy did try and dig up the grave of a loved one, in haworth church yard,

The_Kew_Tour

many history readers would have read this but "Berlin" by Anthony Beevor is great book for all history lovers just finished reading it and excellent book for all.

Denerick

adrian280582 wrote: »

many history readers would have read this but "Berlin" by Anthony Beevor is great book for all history lovers just finished reading it and excellent book for all.

Whats it about? Never heard of it. (This question brought to you by an anorak wearing history nerd.)

silvine

+1 for Stalingrad by Beevor.

Lands Leaving

Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Camus - L'Etranger/The Outsider
Easton Ellis - Less Than Zero
Didion - Play it as it Lays
Roth - Portnoy's Complaint
Virgil - The Aeneid
Waugh - Vile Bodies
Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
Mailer - An American Dream
Kafka -Metamorphosis

I think thats a good mix of comedy and tragedy. Can't be too downbeat at the apocalypse!

danny979

I like "sherlock Homlme" " Gone with the wind", "To whom the bell ring", "Wuthering Hill" Nortre Dame and some works like that.:cool:

RolandIRL

almost anything by stephen king esp the dark tower series. read the book insomnia first by him. ties in to it a good bit as well as the stand - best apocalyptic book out there - and eyes of the dragon. all link to the dark tower.

Ka is a wheel.

enry

[quote=
Notes from the underworld (dostoevsky)


Davej[/quote]

Anything from Fyodor Dostoevsky such as demons, the idiot, and of course crime and punishment are worth reading he is exceptional. On saying that notes from the underground/world depending on your translation is short, accessible and fantastic.
I like the classics, however, for the ladies read the godfather you won’t be sorry and i never lie to the ladies

surime

Wow, looks like irish people do read books! I am afraid I was working with dick heads then. Sad.
My 10 favorites :

1. "The black obelisk" Erich Maria Remarque -genius
2. "Disgrace" John Maxwell Coetzee
3. "The magic mountain" Tomas Mann
4. " The wind-up bird chronicle" Haruki Murakami
5. "The grass is singing" Doris Lessing
6. "Crime and punishment" Fiodor Dostojevsky
7. "The plague" Albert Camus
8. "Its me Eddie" Edwuard Limonov - very intresting "story" by russian author about his life in NY.
9. "Solaris" -something from where I come from -Poland! by Stanislaw Lem - SF genius!
10. and "as" 10 there will be whole work by another Polish author Ryszard Kapuscinsky. I dont know what's available in english in Ireland ,but I really really recomend his books:

• Another Day of Life (Jeszcze dzień życia) (1976)
• The Soccer War (Wojna futbolowa) (1978)
• The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (Cesarz) (1978)
• Shah of Shahs (Szachinszach) (1982)
• Imperium (Imperium) (1993)
• The Shadow of the Sun (Heban) (2001)
• Travels with Herodotus (Podróże z Herodotem) (2007[17])
• Encountering the Other: The Challenge for the Twenty-First Century (Spotkanie z innym jako wyzwanie XXI wieku) (2007[18])
• I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuściński (2007

Salman Rushdie wrote about him: "One Kapuściński is worth more than a thousand whimpering and fantasizing scribblers. His exceptional combination of journalism and art allows us to feel so close to what Kapuściński calls the inexpressible true image of war".[4]
Although he was frequently mentioned as a favorite to win the Nobel Prize in literature, it was never awarded to him. In a 2006 interview with Reuters, Kapuściński said that he wrote for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world."

randomguy

surime wrote: »

Wow, looks like irish people do read books! I am afraid I was working with dick heads then. Sad.
My 10 favorites :

1. "The black obelisk" Erich Maria Remarque -genius
2. "Disgrace" John Maxwell Coetzee
3. "The magic mountain" Tomas Mann
4. " The wind-up bird chronicle" Haruki Murakami
5. "The grass is singing" Doris Lessing
6. "Crime and punishment" Fiodor Dostojevsky
7. "The plague" Albert Camus
8. "Its me Eddie" Edwuard Limonov - very intresting "story" by russian author about his life in NY.
9. "Solaris" -something from where I come from -Poland! by Stanislaw Lem - SF genius!
10. and "as" 10 there will be whole work by another Polish author Ryszard Kapuscinsky. I dont know what's available in english in Ireland ,but I really really recomend his books:
Kapuściński said that he wrote for "people everywhere still young enough to be curious about the world."

Interesting...
I've a copy of the newer english translation of The Magic Mountain on my shelf - maybe i'll get around to reading it soon.
I really really liked Travels with Herodotus - for the classical history and context more than for his own travels - if I was to read just one more Ryszard Kapuscinsky, what would you recommend?
And is The Black Obelisk better than All Quiet on the Western Front? That's the only Remarque I've read, and while I thought it was good, I wouldn't be rushing out to buy anything else by him.
(I'm presuming that you are not really that surprised to find that Irish people read - having lived in a fair few countries, I'd say we are pretty high up the table for the consumption of literature).

Denerick

Here is my revised list, considering I forget what was on my old one (I posted it recently enough and all)

In no particular order:

1) Name of the Rose, Eco
2) Catch 22, Heller
3) Baudalino, Eco
4) Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brien (This alone accounts for 21 books
5) Bonfire of the Vanities, Wolfe
6) Rob Roy, Scott
7) Point Counter Point, Huxley
8) To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee
9) Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
10) The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wilde

Jan_Itor

i know this isn't really a proper book, but if your a sports fan -

Roy Keane's book.

Denerick

Jan_Itor wrote: »

i know this isn't really a proper book, but if your a sports fan -

Roy Keane's book.

:eek:

Wrong forum mate.

surime

randomguy wrote: »

Interesting...
I've a copy of the newer english translation of The Magic Mountain on my shelf - maybe i'll get around to reading it soon.
I really really liked Travels with Herodotus - for the classical history and context more than for his own travels - if I was to read just one more Ryszard Kapuscinsky, what would you recommend?
And is The Black Obelisk better than All Quiet on the Western Front? That's the only Remarque I've read, and while I thought it was good, I wouldn't be rushing out to buy anything else by him.
(I'm presuming that you are not really that surprised to find that Irish people read - having lived in a fair few countries, I'd say we are pretty high up the table for the consumption of literature).

Sorry for understimeting Irish people.. I was just frustrated with people around me , but thats probably because of the jobs I have to to here..
So, by Kapuscinsky I realy recomend :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Sun

and about Remarque... "All quiet on the western front" is one of his books i didnt enjoy -because is to much about war and solders life..and
"Black obelisk" and " Arch of thriumph" are just about ... human soul -beautiful , almost every sentence from those books is so deep..

Jan_Itor

Denerick wrote: »

:eek:

Wrong forum mate.

fine then Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, The Kite Runner?

surime

I dont get it. My posts keep dissapearing and I cant log myself in sometimes.. Do you have the same problems?

surime

Now - I wrote this:

"
Quote:
Originally Posted by randomguy
Interesting...
I've a copy of the newer english translation of The Magic Mountain on my shelf - maybe i'll get around to reading it soon.
I really really liked Travels with Herodotus - for the classical history and context more than for his own travels - if I was to read just one more Ryszard Kapuscinsky, what would you recommend?
And is The Black Obelisk better than All Quiet on the Western Front? That's the only Remarque I've read, and while I thought it was good, I wouldn't be rushing out to buy anything else by him.
(I'm presuming that you are not really that surprised to find that Irish people read - having lived in a fair few countries, I'd say we are pretty high up the table for the consumption of literature).

Sorry for understimeting Irish people.. I was just frustrated with people around me , but thats probably because of the jobs I have to to here..
So, by Kapuscinsky I realy recomend :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Sun

and about Remarque... "All quiet on the western front" is one of his books i didnt enjoy -because is to much about war and solders life..and
"Black obelisk" and " Arch of thriumph" are just about ... human soul -beautiful , almost every sentence from those books is so deep.. "

-and when I am trying to return to page 43 where that is if I go from my posts on my statistics its no longer there.. (?)
I'm confused..

surime

Helllooooooooo? What happened here? :cool:

pixiegaga

I know these are for children but Philip Pullmans trilogy:

-Northers Ligths
-The Subtle Knife
-The Amber Spyglass

This will sound odd but i read them whan I was about...ten or eleven and they changed my life...i only recently realised what an impact they had on me and my beliefs, I always reread them!! Wouldnt reccommend giving them to children tho kinda heavy books but my teacher gave them to me so I guess that ok..:O my fav books frm childhood!

footing

If we're moving on to "children's books"(though Pullman is surely a writer for all ages) then "Wind in the Willows" is my all-time favourite.