books i haven't read yet

[b13thy]

what is the best book you have ever read - tell me so i can read them :)

[spudqueen]

In no particular order:
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Office Life (Keith Waterhouse)
The Time Travelers Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
The World of Tiers (Philip Jose Farmer)
Lord of The Rings (JRR Tolkien)
Harry Potter (J K Rowling)
ANY book by Thor Heyderdahl

[indian]

Very funny and all time classic- the adrian mole diaries! Start with the first one though.

Also:

Anything by Jane Austen- classics which are easy to understand.

What sort of thing do you like to read b?

[indian]

Oh, and the dead famouse books are informative and interesting.

Jodi Picoult writes books which grip you from the start.

Jenny Colgan does great chic-lit.

Sylvia Plaths The Bell Jar for serious reading about a girls desent into depression.

The Moayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy- lots of twists and turns.

[b13thy]

hey indian - i'll read anything, i've read all the mole books and found them v amusing. just wanted to know if i was missing out on any absolute gems - i read books and them demand that everyone i know reads them :)

[NiceCupOfTea]

'the Wind Up Bird Chronicles' is an excellent book, but I can't remember the author. It's a strange story about a man whose marriage is going through trauma. What's so good about it is the style it's written in - like having a sleepy, surreal conversation with your best mate. There was a brilliant discription of a man in it who our hero didn't like on first sight (paraphrase) 'He made me feel the same creepy way you feel when you brush a very large winged insect in a pitch black room'.

[David H]

By coincidence, though overall I could suggest a few including Portnoy's complaint as probably the funniest, a book on enlightenment has just come out from my own teacher which simplified and explained all earlier teachers, called 'enlightenment, the simple path' by Nick Roach. Google his name in UK to buy it.

[brionon]

''Borstal Boy'' by Brendan Behan. and

''The Good Soldier Schweik'' by Jaroslv Hasek.

[LeMarchand]

Skallagrigg by William Horwood.

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin (an as-yet-unfinished fantasy series). If you like SF/fantasy, most of Martin's work is pretty damn good.

[kick3m0n]

Have a look at bookcrossing.com, especially since you enjoy coming across books by accident. You could start bookhunting..........

Anything by Christopher Brookmyre would be my reccommendation. Quite Ugly One Morning is his first, good place to start. Great stuff.

[b13thy]

kick3m0n - i love the bookcrossing thing - thats a very cool idea. And i have discovered Brookmyre not so long ago , i read Be my Enemy and thought it was great. i'm on the look out for more of his stuff

[mimififi]

I'll second Time Traveller's Wife, that was quite good- (American style of writing.)

Also, "About Grace" by Anthony Doerr (this is very similar, if you liked TTW, you will like this probs)

Older titles would include "Alias Grace" by Margaret Atwood,

"The Chymical Wedding" by Lyndsey Clarke

"Body of Glass" by marge Piercy

" the marriages of zones 3,4 and 5" by Doris Lessing

"I'm the king of the Castle" By Susan Hill (this is a bit dark tho)

"Jude the Obscure" Hardy

Wuthering Heights (my no 1 fav novel of all time ever) Bronte

Around the wolrd in 80 days ( or in fact any of Verne's books, I always read them in English tho as my french is so poor)

"The 5 people you meet in Heaven" Mitch Albom

(and all of the rest of the books in the world)

[janesmythe22]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell

The Dead (from Dubliners) by James Joyce

The Golden Fleece by Robert Graves

[derekpara]

b13thy Have a look at this site. Off thread, but an interesting concept for book lovers !

www.BookCrossing.com

[derekpara]

Oh, and The Worm Forgives the Plow, by John Stewart Collis, described as ' A poet among modern ecologists.'

[TWINKYGIRL76]

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. O.K, it isn't a great piece of literature, but it's still a very good read and worth reading. :-)

[selima633]

hi :

The master and margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

So the wind won't blow it all away - Richard Brautigan

Anything by Nabokov.

[ryecatcher67]

The Catcher in the Rye.

Have read it every year for the past 18.

[helliebobs]

Anything by Banana Yoshimoto - Japanese Generation X

All John Fante's books - angry young man in Depression era.

Hunger - Knut Hamsun - Intense

The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - deeply disturbing!

Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - both rites of passage.

There are so many books out there though - it depends what genre you prefer!!

[Hammond Egg]

For non-fiction: Any of Lyn MacDonald's books about the First World War.

For fiction: Sevral already mentioned: Catch-22, The Good Soldier Schweik, The Catcher In The Rye, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.

Try John Fowles - The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus spring to mind.

If you like crime fiction, try any of the books by Carl Hiaasen.