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wub wrote:Great Shark Hunt drops off a bit in quality after pt 1, and a lot of the pieces in pt 2 form the basis for Fear & Loathing On The Campaign Trail.

Rum Diary is a good craic and an easy read if you're after some Thompson fiction.

+1 for Rum Diary

Fear and Loathing is also great
Then take a swing at Fight Club.
I loved the book.

Cheers Gents I'll check that out

My experience is mostly only from the sci-fi/fantasy side of things:
- H G Wells. Such good writing, I'd say most of his stuff is quite timeless despite being rooted in technology and written over a hundred years ago.
- Brian Aldiss. Hothouse was amazing.
- George R R Martin. His Song of Ice and Fire series is incomparable in terms of pacing and story hooks.

Franz Kafka.

Start with this (it's a novella, so not very long):



Then move onto:

JR Tolkien - The Silmarillion.

now that`s a a lot to read

Are you familiar with the books of Patricia Cornwell?

Kurt Vonnegut is one of humanity's finest writers imo, Slaughterhouse 5 is a miracle of literature. He melts your mind in the best possible way. I urge all ninjas to check him out.

Paul Auster is great for straighter fiction, touches of Salinger but he plays with genres cleverly, like in The New York Trilogy. Finished Moon Palace recently which was more conventional but still an insanely complex story. He links so many things that you don't realise how well thought out his worlds are until you have finished the book.

Charles Bukowski needs a mention for the only poems I can take seriously and genuinely enjoy.

Steven King hasn't been mentioned, so I'll put him in. The Stand is just the most epic thing I've read so far.

People in here are interested in literature to some extent I'm guessing, so might find this program interesting - Armando Iannucci's program about the life and works of Charles Dickens. Good watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... s_Dickens/

lloydnoise wrote:Kurt Vonnegut is one of humanity's finest writers imo, Slaughterhouse 5 is a miracle of literature. He melts your mind in the best possible way. I urge all ninjas to check him out.

Paul Auster is great for straighter fiction, touches of Salinger but he plays with genres cleverly, like in The New York Trilogy. Finished Moon Palace recently which was more conventional but still an insanely complex story. He links so many things that you don't realise how well thought out his worlds are until you have finished the book.

Charles Bukowski needs a mention for the only poems I can take seriously and genuinely enjoy.

Yeah some good stuff in here, I loved Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, Mr Vertigo from Auster is wonderful like simultaneously chilling and stunning.

Michel Houellebecq Atomised is hardwork but really good.

Arthur C Clarke and Philip K Dick for the science fiction hype.

pessoa

asimov

I'm distinguishing between great writers and great publications.

Marilynne Robinson, describing mind, reaction & motivation e.g. Gilead

Ian McEwan, the most precise word-smith e.g. Atonement

Cormac McCarthy, lyrical evocater of landscape yet tells stories by inference e.g. All the pretty horses

Paul Theroux, master of metaphor and description of events within a setting e.g. The Mosquito Coast

Emile Zola, expressing the enduring human condition and characters emotional/political responses e.g. Germinal

Ken Wilber, obsessive synthesist and compulsive writer on the big themes e.g. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: the spirit of evolution

Pablo Neruda, communicating his passionate, committed life in inspirational language e.g. Tonight I can write the saddest lines

lloydnoise wrote:Kurt Vonnegut is one of humanity's finest writers imo, Slaughterhouse 5 is a miracle of literature. He melts your mind in the best possible way. I urge all ninjas to check him out.

Somehow I've never got round to reading Slaughterhouse 5... but I *really* enjoyed "Slapstick or Lonesome No More!" the other year. It even changed the way I brush my teeth. Not many novels do that.

Lafcadio Hearn

some great suggestions in here, tastemakers

would highly recommend anything by kafka, faulkner, james kelman, alasdair gray, carson mccullers, julian maclaren-ross, kazuo ishiguro

but the best book i've read lately would be 'devil all the time' by donald ray pollock, kind of on a brett e-e tilt but technically a bit better, imo

Some of my favourites are Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky and Joseph Heller.

Surprised nobody has said Jack Kerouac yet, "On the Road" is a book I think everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.

volcanogeorge wrote:Some of my favourites are Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky and Joseph Heller.

Surprised nobody has said Jack Kerouac yet, "On the Road" is a book I think everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.

read on the road twice and was underwhelmed both times... 'the subterraneans' i enjoyed much more

+1 for phillip k. dick

also seb? faulkes is good, not a fan of birdsong but his other two ones set in france are great- Charlotte Grey and Girl at the Lion D'or

muggle wrote:

volcanogeorge wrote:Some of my favourites are Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky and Joseph Heller.

Surprised nobody has said Jack Kerouac yet, "On the Road" is a book I think everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.

read on the road twice and was underwhelmed both times... 'the subterraneans' i enjoyed much more

Really? I'm a big fan of it, I re-read it every few months.

Burroughs
Vonnegut
Thompson
Pynchon
Hesse
Dostoyevsky