RECOMMENDATION THREAD I: Books

[Amnesiac]

The American Education System has done everything in it's power to destroy my (and thousands of others') reading habits with deadlines and empty analysis based on the presumption that reading any old thing will make you smarter. While I've regained my love of reading today, I still suffer from a "skimming" habit which will probably remain with me forever. But thanks to the diligence of my friends, I've been trying to break it with books that are really fucking cool.

So that's what this thread is about.

If YOU could recommend any number of DYNAMITE books to other people to read, what would they be?

Here's mine:

The Beach - Alex Garland
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Passion of David Lynch - Martha P. Nochimson
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Stand - Stephen King
Friday - Robert A. Heinlein
1984 - George Orwell
The Hellbound Heart - Clive Barker
Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of NIMH -
The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich - William L. Shirer
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

That's my list so far...what's yours?

 

[TklDuo-Ann]

Anything by Patricia Cornwell, Michael Connelly or Robin Cook. I'm also enjoying my re-introduction to Carlos Casteneda and the Dan Juan writings.

Both Patricia and Michael do murder mysteries and tend to work in a series with common main characters running through...a coroner and chief of police for Patricia and a detective for Michael. Each book is independant AFA the readability. But, it's nice to know what some of the comments are referring to when you read them in order.

Robin is more in the suspense/horror genre. While there are a variety of topics, many of them tend to come down to abuse of power in the field of medicine on some level...whether it be research, pharmacuticals or actual care. As a physician himself, his writing seems to be a way of venting his feelings on the system as it is today. NOT recommended for those about to undergo major medical procedures as they tend to leae you thinking about all the "what ifs".

Casteneda is a cultural anthropologist who began a study on the use of psychotropic drugs in the spirituality of the Yaqi indians. His experiences are shared throughout the books in a very readable and enjoyable manner. It's much more like reading a story than a study. Unfortunately, many of the books are out of print and difficult to find. But, they're well worth the search.

OK...Those are my main ones. There are other authors I'm getting into. (Every time I get new books, I try to grab at least one new author to try out.) But, these are my favs.

Ann

 

[Limeoutsider]

Anything by Dean Koontz and James Patterson

 

[sceej56]

Funniest book I've ever read ...

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole - the miasadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, overeducated (Masters degree in medieval literature), underexposed and finally (in his thirties) forced to seek gainful employment in New Orleans in the early 1960s ... really kind of hard to describe.

 

[TicklishSinner]

Why the Caged Bird Sings -Mya Angelou- Catcher In The Rye -J.D Salinger- Animal Farm -???-

 

[The Sean Man]

WILL, by G. Gordon Liddy.


The Sean Man

 

[BigJim]

Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries.

The Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell.

The Hornblower novels by C. S. Forrester.

The Bolitho novels by Alexander Kent.

The Dark Tower series and The Stand by Stephen King.

 

[Moses25]

Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)
Season of the Monsoon (Paul Mann)
Pet Cemetary (Stephen King)
Serpent and the Rainbow (Wade Davis)
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (W.P. Kinsella)
Cue for Treason (Geoffrey Trease)

Cheers.😀

 

[4Pawz]

hhmm, I don't read much, but there are a few I can recommend that interest me:

The Sign Of The Beaver: Elizabeth George Speare
Black Boy: Richard Wright
Snow Dog and Wild Trek: Jim Kjelgaard
Serpico: Peter Maas
Who Moved My Cheeze: I forget the author
Farenheit 451: ugh my mind is a block, forgot this one too

Pawzy

 

[milagros317]

Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451, Pawz.

Let me contribute:

"Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand
"We the Living" by Ayn Rand
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell
the entire "Foundation" series by Isaac Asimov

 

[4Pawz]

Thanks Milagros this has just been a week of massive brainfarts for me. 😀

Pawzy

 

[Admiral Trouser]

In no particular order:

American Gods - Neil Gaimon
Good Omens - Neil Gaimon/Terry Pratchett
Hitler and my role in his downfall - Spike Milligan
Down and out in Paris - George Orwell
His Dark Materials (Trilogy) - Phillip Pullman
The Meditations (non-fiction) - Rene Descartes
The Butterfly and the Diving Bell - Unable to recall, sorry.
The Secret History - Donna Tartt (thankyou Aph for that one 🙂 )

So many, many more....

AT

 

[Shem the Penman]

Off the top of my head, since most of my personal library is 100 miles away at the moment:

The "U.S.A." trilogy (The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money) by John Dos Passos

The Book of the Dun Cow and The Book of Sorrows by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

The "Illuminatus!" trilogy (The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple, and Leviathan) by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

253 by Geoff Ryman

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

 

[BigJim]

The Yellow River by I.P. Daley

Wild Tigers by Claud Boti

 

[phatteus]

Funny Jim! How about "Don't touch me there" by P. Daphelia.


Seriously, I love to reasd, and have read several million books, so here are my favorites:

"Deliverance" by James Dickey. Yes, it was a book before Ned Beatty got it up the... never mind

"Paradise Lost" by John Milton. More of an epic poem than a book, but I could read this every day.

"Jester" by James Patterson. Different from anything he's ever written, therefore it's good.

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell. Satire at it's best.

"The BFG" by Roald Dahl. Actually, anything by Roald Dahl.

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" so far the best of the series.

"Shoeless Joe" by W.P. Kinsella, the book that "Field of Dreams" was based on, one of the only movies that can make me cry every time I watch it.

"Star Wars: Heir to the Empire/Dark Force Rising/The Last Command" just shut up and read this trilogy. You'll thank me.

"Frankenstein" by Mary Wolstonecraft Shelley. Good shit

"The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston L'Heureux. Not like anything you've ever seen.

"The Odyssey" by Homer. Phatteus! Enough with the poetry! Well, I like this one, despite its being nearly impossible to read.

"A Cellarful of Noise" by Brian Epstein. The band's Manager tells about the rise of the Beatles in a kind of autobiography.

"Watership Down" by Richard Adams. Rabbits. Talking rabbits. Intelligent talking rabbits. How could you go wrong?

"The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton. The movie sucked, but they should remake it with Denzel... "Hail, men of Fordham hail..."

"The Stand" by Stephen King. 27,000,000,000 pages of brilliance.

"The X-Files: Antibodies" by Kevin J. Anderson. Arguably the best Sci-Fi writer out there right now, I only put this here because I was in the middle of writing a story similar to this one (without the X-Files basis) when this came out. I quickly scrapped it.

"Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. It's Cliche, but for good reason.

"Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut. Honorary mention goes to "Galapagos", also by Vonnegut, because few people have read it, and because it kick's Cat's Cradle's arse by incorporating Darwin's Theory of Evolution in a work of fiction.

"Pet Sematary" bt Stephen King. I read this over a 26 hour period.. It's that scary.

That's all I can think of right now... I'm sure there are others. I'll be sure to post them later.

-Phatteus

 

[desdemona]

So many great replies. It's hard to choose what to add...

C.S. Lewis: Chronicles of Narnia. Not just for children
Lewis Carroll: Alice and Through the Looking the Glass. Again, not just for kids.
Agatha Christie: best mystery novelist of this century, period.
Albert Camus: The Stranger. Non-existentialist existentialism...figure that out.
Any work by Honore de Balzac...fascinating study in humane nature.
Kafka: The Trial. More insight into the secret police/paranoia of modern society.
Achebe: Things Fall Apart. The white man's impact on tribal society in Nigeria.

We could have a major working library here 🙂

 

[TklDuo-Ann]

C.S. Lewis: Chronicles of Narnia. Not just for children

Oooo! I forgot to mention him. I've had the CoN series since I was a kid and always get something out of it. His other works are great as well...whether read from a purely entertainment standpoint or a spiritual one.

Ann

 

[WraithTickler]

A few fun ones/favorites to throw out there.

Lord of the Rings- Obligatory hailing to the triology.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series- Like it a lot. So far book III's been my favorite, but really a lot of fun through out. Last one is interesting, especially with a few twists at the end.

David Edding's Belgariad and Mallorean series- Lightwieght fantasy books. A fun read, nothing more- lots of witty humor/dialogue.

Terry Brooks- Shannara series. Another light, but fun sword/sorc series. Highest recommendations.

Asimov's Foundation Books- An amazing set of books, especially with how it joins up with his Robot and Galactic Empire series for one long continious history. Favorite might be Prelude to Foundation or the original Foundation.

CS Lewis- Screwtape Letters- A short book, dealing with Christian morality from the POV of two demons in correspondence. Great, great book.

Heart of Darkness- I'm sure this has been mentioned, but I love it enough to give it a second endorsement.

Catch 22- Another classic worth reading.

Molier's the MIsanthrope- Actually a play, and a short one at that, it's another fairly, but not too quick read.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree and Longitudes and Attitudes by Thomas Friedman. Books on first- globalization and the second on the Arab/Israeli conflict. Both very well written and thought provoking.

and finally-

The Cat in the Hat- Still a children's classic. Should read to wash away the foul taste that the new movie may have left you.

 

[zyclos_b]

Hmmm, a good book that I've read was Youth In Revolt by CD Payne.
The 2nd book would be Revolting Youth. Also very good.


You won't ever read a book like that one