Nething by Stephen KIng....got a month off for christmas so im trying to read his entire dark tower series plus the Talisman and Black House...dont know if I can make it
Also Clive Barker has some really good stuff out there, the Abarat series is better than Potter and almost as good as the Narnia stuff.
Im amazed that no one has mentioned Trainspotting. Very hard reading to start as it is written in phonetically spelled scottish, but absolutely brilliant.
Seriously, go out and read it...it will blow you away.
Also, Birdsong is fantastic. A great WWI read.
I guess you've never read Lonesome Dove--the best western ever written. It's long, to be sure, but damn if isn't a masterpiece.
Jack Crabb wrote:
"My name is Jack Crabb. One hundred and ten years ago when I was six years old, my family was wiped out by the Cheyenne Indians. Used to call themselves the 'Human Beings.' "
Lest we forget...
Little Big Man by Thomas Berger
Perhaps the best western written, ever.
Right on about King. Far and away my favorite author. The Stand is his best, but the Dark Tower series in its entirety is amazing too. Off the top of my head:
1. The Stand -- King
2. The Lord of the Rings -- Tolkein
3. The Dark Tower -- King
4. Watchers -- Dean Koontz (if you've seen the awful movie starring Cory Haim, you'll be flabbergasted that it's actually based on a great book)
5. Pet Sematary -- King
6. Once a Runner -- Parker
7. It -- King
8. The Talisman -- King/Peter Straub (much better than the sequel Black House IMHO)
9. The Dead Zone -- King
10. The Mist -- King (novella in in Skeleton Crew, his best short story collection)
Walden; Or, Life In The Woods
no need to list any others
You're assuming I've read that many?
darren wrote:
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
A real horrorshow choice, O my brothers.
The Rules of Attraction
The Brothers Karamazov
Life at these Speeds
Underworld
The Old Man and the Sea
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Hours
Less than Zero
The Informers
Kafka's THE JUDGEMENT (short story)
Chris Hall wrote:
The Old Man and the Sea
Is that book good? Never have read it. It was actually a bit of a running joke in my school because all the really stupid jocks would do a book report on it. We all had to do a book report on a classic novel. Pretty much the entire football, baseball and wrestling teams chose The Old Man and the Sea because it was the shortest book that the teacher would allow. I think it barely over 100 pages.
I've been meaning to read it one of these days.
It's an absolutely wonderful parable. So is the judgement.
In no particular order:
Once a Runner
Running with the Buffaloes
The Perfect Mile
The Zombie Survival Guide
A Tale of Two Cities
World War Z
Bowerman and the Men of Oregon
Prey
Animal Farm
1984
Chris Hall wrote:
It's an absolutely wonderful parable. So is the judgement.
Are you talking about Kafka?
No particular Order
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy
Running With Pheidippides: Stylianos Kyriakides, the Miracle Marathoner by Nick Tsiotos, Andy Dabilis
Chasing the Hawk by Andrew Sheehan
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by LAURA HILLENBRAND
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
Chris Hall wrote:The HoursI really didn't enjoy this book all that much (so much for personal taste, eh?). Maybe I didn't give it a fair chance. What did you like about it that puts it so high on your list?
Pete wrote:
Chris Hall wrote:The HoursI really didn't enjoy this book all that much (so much for personal taste, eh?). Maybe I didn't give it a fair chance. What did you like about it that puts it so high on your list?
Old Man and the Sea is a Christian parable about snatching defeat from victory, the suffering of man as his condition on earth, although Hemingway once said 'man can be destroyed but never defeated.' Hemingway wasn't much of a Christian, but the Christian symbolism in this book is striking. For example, the whole ordeal takes 3 days, Santiago's bleeding hands, or his low groans ('Ay') as the sharks approach. As Hemingway explains: "There is no translation for this word, and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood." We also see Santiago carrying the mast on his shoulder up the hill after returning to port, struggling and falling many times (as Christ did carrying the cross up Cavalry).
Old Man and the sea was originally conceived as an epilogue to a much longer book on the sea that was published posthumously in 1970 as 'Islands in the Stream' (not a great book, but worth reading if you're a Hemingway fan). In 1952 Hemingway sent the manuscript Old Man and the Sea - originally title The Sea in Being - to Scribners to be published seperately as a novella. Hemingway hadn't published anything of significance since 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' in 1940 - 'Across the River and Into the Trees' (1949) was a dismal failure - and was very sensitive to the view that he was washed up as a writer. This decision proved to be one of the best of his career, as it won him his only Pulitzer prize.
Enjoy.
RunDaddy, I wasn't asking about Hemingway - it was The Hours by Michael Cunningham that I never quite "got."
For the record, while I'm too dense to ever "get" the underlying symbolism in books, I quite enjoyed Old Man and the Sea. Took me maybe 3 hours on a plane ride to work through it. I found it to be a page turner - didn't want to put it down before the end. Even then, didn't want it to end.
Thanks RunDaddy :)
Pete wrote:
RunDaddy, I wasn't asking about Hemingway - it was The Hours by Michael Cunningham that I never quite "got."
For the record, while I'm too dense to ever "get" the underlying symbolism in books, I quite enjoyed Old Man and the Sea. Took me maybe 3 hours on a plane ride to work through it. I found it to be a page turner - didn't want to put it down before the end. Even then, didn't want it to end.
Sorry Pete. I got confused. Should have been responding to busted. I did not read The Hours.
My faves are not necessarily the best books I've ever read, but are the ones I return to every now and again since I just like them so much. In that list, in no particular order (and including series rather than books where necessary), would be:
The entire Harry Potter series- JK Rowling
The Lord of the Rings trilogy- JRR Tolkien
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe- Douglas Adams
Cloud Atlas- David Mitchell
Dare, Truth or Promise- Paula Boock
A Morbid Taste for Bones- Ellis Peters
Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry
Dune- Frank Herbert
Foundation trilogy- Isaac Asimov
Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett
Just some bIeeder! wrote:
Angela's Ashes sucked balls. In fact, anything by that guy pretty much blows.
Good analysis genius. That guy won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his work and is a New Times best selling author.