That other forum stalwart - Fave Books

[Bodhbh]

Not much of a reader, but few ones I can think that have liked enuff to read several times:

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung - Lester Bangs (godlike!!)
Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton
The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad (see already mentioned)
Mr Noris Changes Trains - Christopher Isherwood

Bikewise, picked up a second-hand copy of Nicolas Crane's 'Journey To The Centre of The Earth' but not read it yet. Looks interesting anyone say if I'm in for a treat?

 

[swee'pea99]

Riddley Walker - Russel Hoban

 

[goo_mason]

I'll post some adult books later, but my fave little kids' books (which are even more hilarious for adults) are:

Dr Dog
The Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business
Mummy Laid An Egg

And for sheer fun and great for kids with their repetitive refrains:

A Squash & A Squeeze
The Gruffalo
The Smartest Giant In Town
Room On The Broom
Fox In Socks
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
The Cat In The Hat

 

[Maz]

how do you lot manage to find time to read books?
the only book reading I do is bedtime stories for the little'un.

 

[Crackle]

The Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business

Ah, we've got that. I'd forgotten about that one. Class book.

 

[John the Monkey]

how do you lot manage to find time to read books?
the only book reading I do is bedtime stories for the little'un.

Half an hour on the train in the morning, and in the evening.

 

[NickM]

Bikewise, picked up a second-hand copy of Nicolas Crane's 'Journey To The Centre of The Earth' but not read it yet. Looks interesting anyone say if I'm in for a treat?

It's one of the two best cycling books I've ever read

The other is Cycling to Xian, by Michael Buckley. Out of print, I believe, but nowadays that needn't prevent you from getting a copy.

As for my favourite books, this is an impossible task, as anybody who has seen the Twin Towers of books which teeter by my bed would realise. However, some novels which I have really, really enjoyed and will read again are:

How the Dead Live by Derek Raymond (the most depressing book ever written?)
The Bone People by Keri Hulme (not exactly a bundle of laughs, either...)
Monday’s Warriors by Maurice Shadbolt (and the rest of his NZ wars trilogy)
The Prince in Waiting trilogy by John Christopher
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (it's just fun)
The Burnt Orange Heresy by Charles Willeford
(almost) anything by Charles Bukowski, who I almost wish I had been

Others will no doubt occur to me the moment I press <enter>

The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin radically altered my outlook on the world when I read it thirty-odd years ago.

I am currently enjoying Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

 

[Melvil]

I liked River of Gods, but it reads like a bit of warm up for Brasyl IMHO. I've just finished Paul McAuley's The Quiet War, which is the best kind of technopolitics and solar system colonisation space opera...

Interesting...only read White Devils from Paul McCauley, which wasn't half bad...so I'll give this Quiet War a go, thanks for the recommendation

 

[cchapman]

The Slave - Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
The Palace Trilogy - Naguib Mahfouz
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
Capricornia - Xavier Herbert
Remembrance of things Past - Proust
A Hundred Years of Solitude - Marquez
The Handmaids Tale
The Secret diary of Adrian Mole.

 

[Dalestar]

Shogun - James Clavell
Emperor The Gates of Rome (series) - Conn Iggulden
Solaris - Stanislav Lem
The Hobbit - Tolkein
Ecstasy - Irvine welsh
Green Mile - Stephen King
Bartimeus Trilogy - Jonathan Stroud
Truckers - Terry Pratchet (and anything else he writes)
The Brentford Chainstore Massacre - Robert Rankin (and anything else he writes)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul - Douglas Adams (and anything else he writes)

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[beancounter]

Rabbit, Run
Rabbit Redux
Rabbit is Rich
Rabbit at Rest

by John Updike

A Man in Full

by Tom Wolfe

bc

 

[rich p]

Most books are ephemera for me and I find it hard to understand how a novel can be life-changing but hey ho.
Two that I enjoyed and remember fondly are

Catch 22
and
For Whom the Bell Tolls

 

[derall]

Snow Crash - Neal Stevenson
Idoru - William Gibson
Pavane - Keith Roberts
Chain of Chance - Stanislaw Lem
Ubik - PKD
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Williamson
Stars in My Pockets, Like Grains of Sand - Samuel R Delaney
Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
Use of Weapons - Ian M Banks

 

[NickM]

Pavane - Keith Roberts

Dammit, how could I forget that? Not to mention... The Road to Corlay, by Richard Cowper.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Dammit, how could I forget that? Not to mention... The Road to Corlay, by Richard Cowper.

Both excellent. I was just trying to stick to 10! It could have been hundreds... four more excellent gloomy British sf things...

Fugue for a Darkening Isle by Christopher Priest (anything by him, really)
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
Concrete Island by J.G.Ballard
and Barefoot in the Head, Brian Aldiss... (who also write Greybeard, which PD James plagiarised for Children of Men...)