'Must-read' books

[Yellow Fang]

1984, Catch 22, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Just three that spring immediately to mind.

Three books I've never finished.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I would add Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. Strangely enough, I picked up quite a bit on bicycle maintenance from said tome!

Didn't finish this one neither.

Actually, I thought he had a good point. I'm very bad at maintenance because I get frustrated. He just kept on hammering home the point for too long. The same goes for Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. The original editor was right to cut it in half.

 

[Yellow Fang]

The Remains of the Day was very sobering.

Dance to the Music of Time was brilliant in places, especially the conversations. You felt you were in the room with them.

We Have to Talk About Kevin impressed me. The narrator's analysis was so intelligent.

Homage to Catalonia - Orwell certainly put his money where his mouth was. I'm not too keen on his fiction.

Nice Work by David Lodge was very good, as was Small World, which was funnier.

Black Ajax by George MacDonald Fraser was good. I thought he'd painted himself into a corner in the middle of the book, but he got out of it. Mr American was very good too.

I Claudius and Claudius The God were the first books that I read as an adult that I thought were really good.

I read Watership Down about eight times as a kid, but I find it embarrassingly dated and sexist now.

I loved the Lonesome Dove series. There were four books, which go back and forth in time. Larry McMurtry is very hard on his characters.

 

[PaulB]

How can you not've finished Catch22? The film I understand, but the book is ace. It's worth it for Milo Minderbinder alone. The best ever satire about capitalism.

Indeed. Anyone who's never finished Catch 22 I'd suggest starting it again but it's not a book you have to read from front to back in a conventional way. Read any chapter in any order, it doesn't make a difference. It wasn't written in a chronological order so doesn't have to be read in one.

I love this book so much, I am always envious of those who haven't read it as they still have ahead of them the pleasure of being able to read it for the first time.

 

[NickM]

I was Looking for a Street - Charles Willeford + any 'Hoke Mosely' books.

Yes! Yes! Yes! A Willeford I haven't read - woohoo!

Anything (almost) by Charles Bukowski.

And the Factory novels by Derek Raymond, particularly How the Dead Live.

 

[rich p]

particularly How the Dead Live.

More like, How the Threads Live

 

[swee'pea99]

Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban - trubba not
The Old Man and The Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Adolf Hitler - My Part in His Downfall - Spike Millligan (Puckoon for pudding if you read nice)

 

[NickM]

Tools for Conviviality by Ivan Illich. You want hope? You got hope. This is why I ride a bike

Read it here. I intend to.

...you've got to go for the Big Stuff, the stuff that changed things.

I'm more inclined to go for the stuff that changed me. Nothing seems to change things much.

 

[trj977]

Indeed. Anyone who's never finished Catch 22 I'd suggest starting it again but it's not a book you have to read from front to back in a conventional way. Read any chapter in any order, it doesn't make a difference. It wasn't written in a chronological order so doesn't have to be read in one.

I love this book so much, I am always envious of those who haven't read it as they still have ahead of them the pleasure of being able to read it for the first time.

Paul your enthusiam has inspired me to try CATCH 22 again. This will be about my 5th attempt all tried at different times in my life. Last attempt must have been about 7/8 years ago, 1st a long, long time ago

I would add The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart as a "must read"

 

[Andy Pandy]

Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco. A huge complex and absorbing conspiracy theory, if you like that sort of thing.

 

[Dayvo]

I would add The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart as a "must read"

I tried reading that in Swedish, but gave up after 60 pages. Must have lost something in translation.

Maybe I'll try the English version (if it lands on an even no.).

 

[cisamcgu]

Ender's game

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Ender's game

God, please no... that would probably be my vote for most overrated SF novel ever written. Overblown Morman allegory, beloved by American teenagers... horrible, sorry!

 

[Abitrary]

The only book to properly reduce me to tears, and I seem to be in a crying mood at the moment, was Keith Waterhouse, There is a Happy Land.