Sewer, Gas & Electric by Matt Ruff
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The Five Sous of Mr. Lavarede by Paul d'Ivoi
Practically everything by Kinky Friendman and David M. Pierce
Most everything by Kafka

[quote=Red]I think my favourite though is Animal Farm.[/quote]

lol that book was wierd IMO I had to read it in English class.

Why has no-one listed Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" Trilogy yet?! They're probably my favourite books. "Dune" by Frank Herbet is another one of my favourites.

On the subject of George Orwell, I really like his books too, and I agree that 1984 had one of the scariest ideas I'd ever seen in a novel. I've read Down and out in Paris and London too, and I'm sure there's a copy of Animal Farm somewhere around here...

Currently I'm reading an anthology of short stories by Arthur C. Clarke, which are actually very good (I am usually sceptical of science fiction) as are some of Ray Bradbury's science-fiction short stories. The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is another science-fiction/humour title I'd recommend, and other Douglas Adams stuff - particularly Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - is worth reading.

Rattling off a couple more recommendations: Catch 22 (hilarious), Molesworth (hilarious, but probably only to british tastes). I'm not going to put the Lord of the Rings here, because to be quite honest I find the books to be quite tedious, and with such a stunning movie version I don't see the need to read books which are, in my opinion, fairly drab in terms of actual writing style just because of the merits of the epic overarching idea. The Hobbit on the other hand, I would recommend, but I'm certainly biased because I have fond memories of my dad reading it to me and my brother when I was young.

My brothers as well . . I never took the time to read them. Did you know a movie is being made of them.

This post has been edited by gamer10: Jul 9 2005, 10:45 PM

I knew the movie rights had been bought by New Line Cinema pretty quickly, but I didn't know there was a movie actually in production. I can imagine it failling quite dismally. It's just not the kind of thing that would transfer well to film, and I can't stand the vast majority of child actors. Either the leads would have to be older than they are in the book, which would ruin it, or they would have to be shoddy actors, which would ruin it. Ah well...

Or they have to be child-looking midgets. . . .strange.
<--- Go get them.

Hmm... favourite books Let's see, authors in no particular order:

Douglas Adams - utter geniosity

Franz Kafka - as someone's already mentioned.

Antoine de Saint Exupery - (most famous for the Little Prince) French war-time existentialism.

Samuel Beckett - the theatre of the absurd and most people around him (read: Harold Pinter) are absolute, sheer class. Essentially the genesis of Monty Python and, subsequently, the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Edgar Allan Poe - as someone's already mentioned, again, very good, very eerie.

MA Bulgakov - early Soviet-regime satirism

Oh and of course - Ray Bradbury

That's about all the good ones I can remember

Poe is fine as well, althogh I prefer King.
On another note, I discovered The Chronicles of Narnia a few days ago. Lewis is surprisingly fun to read

Oops, forgot Time Inc. by Ray Bradbury and America, a guide to to democracy by John Stewart and the rest of the cast of the Daily Show.

I've also read some books by Clive Cussler.. they are good, he's a good writer

Ok, here goes:

Robert Jordan. Yes, I am resisting the criticism and putting him here. Where d'you think my sig comes from? In truth, by the time I finish reading the last book, I've forgotten nearly everything that happens before that (the books are pretty big), and so I start again, to recap before the next book comes out. The whole thing repeats itself in a everlasting cycle.

LotR. And not just the trilogy but the related books too (i.e. Silmarillion - I learnt how to spell it properly!). Tolkien has always been my favourite, or one of my favourite authors. At some point, I attempted to learn elvish, but I gave up after....ummm......five minutes probably ...

Occassionally, I read some Star Wars books too - not the trilogies, but the books set after them. There's a heck of a lot, and some are surprisingly good. My favourite is the Jedi Academy trilogy (I think it's a trilogy at least).

Most recently, I've been reading Tom Clancy. I'm reading one right now! That's about as different to these other books as you can get. A real mixture of genres!

This post has been edited by Elongar: Jul 10 2005, 03:35 PM

People keep listing Poe, but I've hated his stuff ever since we did it at school. And it's not the fact that we did it at school that made me hate it, since we've done other books at school that I've enjoyed - Of Mice and Men was enjoyable, and even Macbeth was fine.

Poe is ok but I didn't think his stuff was anything to hoot about






Belgium....

Looks like only me and treydog read David Gemmell's work. He's pretty much responsible for my style of battle scene writing

This post has been edited by LoneWolf: Jul 11 2005, 01:17 AM

Nonsense!

Orson Scott Card- Ender series. every book is so philosophical and deep.
Clive Cussler
George Orwell
a bunch of others I can't think of

Just like the Wheel of Time itself, eh?

lol I'm the only one who criticized Robert Jordan, and I'm a fan. I was just being blatantly honest.

He says he's finishing the series in 2 more books...that seem impossible unless they're 388888888888243986234965 page books.

Dang, forgot to put Orson S.C. I loved near the end when Ender was drugged and could remember select things like the needle and the bugger.

My over all fave would have to be The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I read that book at least 10 times. Anyone heard of it?

Hm, a good fantasy thief book you say? I might have a look at that one.