What's your favourite book?
I'd like to read it.
Two rules:
1/ Please only post books you've actually read.
2/ There is no second rule.
Posted by pearce at August 30, 2006 11:47 AMWell I can't strip it down to one favorite book so I'll give you my current picks off the top of my head (in no particular order)...
Player of Games - Iain M Banks
Blood Music - Greg Bear
Nymphomation - Jeff Noon
Illumantius Trilogy - RAW & R Shea
The Hacker Crackdown - Bruce Sterling
They're sorta in a theme there - but thats been the sort of thing I've been into in the last couple of years..
Posted by: Scott C at August 30, 2006 1:20 PMWell, sticking to fiction...
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller, which I first read when I was 8. It's brilliant take on the twisted logic of war and politics was formative. I re-read it every few years.
London Fields, by Martin Amis. Smart Mart at his best. It just seethes with 20th century unease. Again, I reread it every few years just for the easy brilliance of his writing. No one can put a sentence together like that guy. Not for nothing was the winner of a most unlikely book title competition, "My Struggle - by Martin Amis."
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll - more twisted logic. My favourite stoned-reading book ever.
For the Love of Seven Dolls, by Paul Gallico. Also Anne-Marie's favourite book. A short fairytale, set in Paris. Should be made into a movie by the guy that does "Amelie", etc. I cried at the end. Ya big lug.
And, erm, I better stop there...
Are you saying that Martin Amis won an award for Most Unlikely Title by submitting the title "My Struggle by Martin Amis"?
Posted by: Pearce at August 30, 2006 2:08 PMMy favourite book is The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox, which I really have to stop lending to people. This is slightly more serious than my greatest album answer, but that was pretty serious too.
Posted by: James McM at August 30, 2006 2:10 PMJames: I have that book, but I've never been able to get past the blurb saying that there's an angel in the book. Guess I have to read it now.
Posted by: Pearce at August 30, 2006 2:13 PMYeah, I really do like it. Which is weird because verything else I've read by her is pretty average.
Have a read and let me know what you think.
Posted by: James McM at August 30, 2006 2:27 PMAnd by the way, I can't use my email address here, because y*hoo.com is blocked by the spam filter. So I haven't commented for ages. But today, I just worked out to lie about my email. I'm very bright.
Posted by: James McM at August 30, 2006 2:29 PMBwa ha! I hope you saw the photo of your brother.
Posted by: Pearce at August 30, 2006 2:34 PMNo, no - it was some kind of readers competition in an English newspaper...
Posted by: Scott K at August 30, 2006 2:54 PMOh I saw it. I did not inform him of his internet celebrity status though. Thought it was best for me to just block that out.
Posted by: James McM at August 30, 2006 4:17 PMCryptonomicon and its prequels, The Baroque Cycle.
The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was the last book to blow me away.
Posted by: Martin at September 1, 2006 12:11 AMBloody Jack by L.A. Meyer
Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block
Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Truly awesome)
Posted by: Jenni at September 1, 2006 2:59 PMOh, and btw Scott K said "Ya big lug" up there, which means he's going to snuggle you.
and an extra bonus book, because I realised I was only naming books with the main character for the title:
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding.
Posted by: Jenni at September 1, 2006 3:05 PMWell, I already recommended 'The Fall' by Albert Camus yesterday, but for the sake of everyone else here, I did that because I just re-read it for the first time in 18 years, and found it darker and more darkly humorous than I did as a teenager (ie I found the bits that went over my head). And it's short: just over 100 pages in the 60s penguin pbk I read it from; less than 100 pages in the new penguin translation (this is about page size: it's not another travesty like the original English translation of Proust).
Another recommendation is 'A Single Man' by Christopher Isherwood, which is also just over 100 pages in my 60s penguin pbk copy. It's about a day in the life of an English lecturer in LA whose gay lover has just died unexpectedly. It's set in the early 60s so homosexuality is still illegal in California, and it's also framed within Isherwood's religious beliefs (vedanta), which sounds like it might make things wishy-washy but actually gives it as hard an edge as Camus' atheism. This was one of the best things I've read in the last year and the best thing I've read by Isherwood.
Posted by: Andrew at September 1, 2006 5:18 PMBetter late than never...
I'll side with James McM; and recomend Elizabeth Knox's "The Vintner's Luck" also.
And for my own... it's a toss up between "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson, or "The Book Of Fame" by Lloyd Jones.
Actually, scratch that: make this a sole "favourite book" recomendation for "The Book Of Fame."
It's a book about rugby. But written in the most wonderful prose poetry I have ever encountered. It's a work of pure artistic fancy.