| Author | Message | ||
     Michael_kelly (Michael_kelly) Username: Michael_kelly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 174.88.168.249 |
We haven't done one of these in a while. Don't take too long to think about it: fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. Make sure it's the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. I'm sure the list would be different with more time for reflection. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien Lord of the Flies by William Golding Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury Shadowland by Peter Straub Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami The Road by Cormac Mccarthy The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont The Wine-Dark Sea by Robert Aickman The Sea Came in at Midnight by Steve Erickson The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger Cannery Row by John Steinbeck The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver Swan Song by Robert McCammon The Snowman's Children by Glen Hirshberg | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 94.194.134.45 |
Bad Brains - Kathe Koja The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, 1st Annual Collection - Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, Eds. Angry Candy - Harlan Ellison Stranger Things Happen - Kelly Link Collected Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges Mortal Love - Elizabeth Hand Little, Big - John Crowley The October County - Ray Bradbury After Silence - Jonathan Carroll The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe The Turn of the Screw - Henry James What You Make It - Michael Marshall Smith Requiem - Graham Joyce Flying in Place - Susan Palwick | ||
| Michael_kelly (Michael_kelly) Username: Michael_kelly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 174.88.168.249 |
Great list, Alan! Now that I think of it, I'd be remiss not to include Ramsey's The Influence, and Midnight Sun; Evenson's Altmann's Tongue, and Oates' Haunted. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
The books that have, for various reasons, had the most impact on me: Alone With The Horrors - Ramsey Campbell Midnight Sun - Ramsey Campbell Howards End - E M Forster Money - Martin Amis Talking It Over - Julian Barnes Misery - Stephen King Needful Things - Stephen King Sight For Sore Eyes - Ruth Rendell After Silence - Jonathan Carroll Selected plays by Alan Ayckbourn One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzenitzyn Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy The Outsider - Albert Camus The Brimstone Wedding - Barbara Vine Secret Strangers - Thomas Tessier | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.210.209.176 |
My selection (for today, anyway) - The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks The Long Lost - Ramsey Campbell The Road - Cormac McCarthy Shadowland - Peter Straub The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon More Tomorrow and Other Stories - Michael Marshall Smith Dark Feasts - Ramsey Campbell The Shadow at the Bottom of the World - Thomas Ligotti Pet Semetary - Stephen King Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural - ed Herbert A Wise & Phyllis Fraser The Hound of the Baskervilles - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Night Shift - Stephen King Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro The Separation - Christopher Priest | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski The Most Beautifu Woman in Town - Charles Bukowski Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham Demons by Daylight - Ramsey Campbell The Road - Jack kerouac Naked Lunch - William Burroughs Salem's Lot - Stephen King Skeleton Crew - Stephen King One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Alexander Solzenitzyn 1984 - George Orwell The October Country - ray Bradbury Jesus Son - Dennis Johnson Maribou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh The Dark Country - Dennis Etchison Red Dreams - Dennis Etchison | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
>>The Road - Jack kerouac<< I typed so fast that this is actually meant to be Kerouac's "On the Road" and "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Alice in Wonderland/Alice Through the Looking Glass (I'll class them as one book!) - Lewis Carroll Alice in Sunderland - Bryan Talbot Damien - Herman Hesse Gormenghast (well, the whole trilogy really) - Mervyn Peake The 2nd Pan Book of Horror (the first Pan BoH I ever bought!) Alone With the Horrors - Ramsey Campbell Weirdmonger - DF Lewis Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka Excluded From the Cemetery - Peter Marshall Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein The Spaces Between the Lines - Peter Crowther Sorry, I've lost count now!  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Ooo, can I add Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.85.251 |
Ulysses - James Joyce The Song of Kali - Dan Simmons The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway The Parasite - Ramsey Campbell The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Clarissa - Samuel Richardson The Phoenix and the Mirror - Avram Davidson The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie The Swords of Lankhmar - Fritz Leiber At The Mountains of Madness - H.P. Lovecraft Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift American Psycho - Brett Easton Ellis The Shining - Stephen King (in no particular qualitative order, and stopping myself at 15 purely because that's what was asked - that's them) | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 144.137.14.84 |
Ghost Story - Straub The Doll Who Ate His Mother - Campbell Dark Companions - Campbell Books of Blood - Barker The Influence - Campbell The House Next Door - Siddons Christine - King House of Leaves - Danielewski Prime Evil - ed. Winter The Nameless - Campbell The Shining - King The Damnation Game - Barker Dark Forces - ed. McAuley I am Legend - Matheson White, and Other Tales of Ruin - Lebbon | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.176.9 |
- The Giant Under the Snow - John Gordon (my first ever horror book, bought when I was around 8 or 9) - The Influence - Ramsey Campbell (came into my mind just a split second before Dark Companions) - Winter's Tales - Isak Dinesen - - Our Lady of Darkness - Fritz Leiber - Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood - Tales of Horror & the Supernatural - Arthur Machen - The Jaguar Hunter - Lucius Shepard - Sub Rosa - Robert Aickman - We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson - The Serapion Brethren - E.T.A. Hoffmann - The Stories of Ray Bradbury - Watership Down - Richard Adams - The Lord of the Rings - Tolkien - Dark Forces - Kirby McCauley, ed. (introduced me to Ramsey, Aickman, and many other modern greats)) - Best Ghost Stories (an early collection that introduced me to many of the 'old' greats) Those are the first fifteen that I scrawled down as they came to mind. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.146.228 |
The Haunter of the Dark – H.P. Lovecraft Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allan Poe The October Country – Ray Bradbury Shatterday – Harlan Ellison Ariel – Sylvia Plath Funeral Rites – Jean Genet The Plague – Albert Camus Minima Moralia – Theodor Adorno The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett Street of No Return – David Goodis The Opener of the Way – Robert Bloch The Ice Monkey – M. John Harrison The Grin of the Dark – Ramsey Campbell Sub Rosa – Robert Aickman Night's Black Agents – Fritz Leiber | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.91.104 |
The Wine-Dark Sea - Robert Aickman We Have Always Lived In The Castle - S.Jackson The Road - Cormac McCarthy News from Nowhere - William Morris Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse Our Lady of Darkness - Fritz Leiber Mad Dog Summer - Lansdale The Face That Must Die - Ramsey Campbell Song of Kali - Dan Simmons Nights at the Circus - Angela Carter Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell Fahrenheit 451 - Bradbury The Collected works of Lovecraft The Shipping News - E Annie Proulx Borderliners - Peter Hoeg | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.171.143 |
Ally, I preferred DEMIAN – but STEPPENWOLF is very fine. | ||
| Simon Avery (Simonavery) Username: Simonavery Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 91.110.178.175 |
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller The Course of the Heart - M. John Harrison The Black Dahlia - James Ellroy I Was Dora Suarez - Derek Raymond The Affirmation - Christopher Priest Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris Imajica - Clive Barker Pet Sematary - Stephen King From The Teeth of Angels - Jonathan Carroll A Sport and A Pastime - James Salter To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee Catcher In The Rye - J.D. Salinger The Wine Dark Sea - Robert Aickman The Chrysalids - John Wyndham | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
It's always the case the day after, isn't it? I NEED to add Madame Bovary by Flaubert. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.60.106.5 |
The Lord Of The Flies- William Golding. The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov The Books of Blood- Clive Barker. 1984- George Orwell. Crime and Punishement- Fyodor Dostoevsky. Crash- JG Ballard IT- Stepehen King. The Street of Crocodiles- Bruno Schulz Ghost Story- Peter Straub. The Darkest Part of The Woods- Ramsey Campbell. The Brotherhood of Mutilation- Brian Evenson The Trial- Franze Kafka Naked Lunch- William Borroughs Gormenghast- Mervyn Peake Watership Down- Richard Adams The Wasp Factory- Ian Banks Red Dragon by Thomas Harris More Tommorow and other Stories by MMS | ||
| Lincoln Brown (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 124.181.103.161 |
Zed - no 'Needing Ghosts'?! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Thoise were pruely trhe first 15 that came to mind. I could've written about 100 titles. :-) | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.90 |
Hesse is simply brillant. Caroline and I have been chatting about him before on another board. We've both had epiphanies with him. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
Quite painful that, isn't it? I think natural yoghurt is supposed to relieve the soreness. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled M. R. James, Collected Ghost Stories James Joyce, Ulysses Ray Bradbury, The Silver Locusts H. P. Lovecraft, Cry Horror Alan Garner, Red Shift Robin Wood, Hitchcock's Films Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano William Hope Hodgson, The House on the Borderland (Arkham House omnibus) Mervyn Peake, the Gormenghast trilogy John Franklyn Bardin, The Deadly Percheron Fritz Leiber, Night's Black Agents That's nine minutes' worth. I should perhaps explain that there are better collections of Lovecraft's work, but that was the first one I read, and - along with Lolita three years later - it changed my writing profoundly. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.90 |
I like Faubert's Madame Bovary. I once read that he became so frustrated with his characters that he would write whole scenes, not to be included in the book, just to vent his frustration and anger at them. He also took about a week to write two pages which frustrated him even more. The result - a wonderful piece of work. | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 94.194.134.45 |
Those were pruely trhe first 15 that came to mind. I could've written about 100 titles. :-) That's the thing about a list this - too many books to fill too few slots ... Got to be said though - folks on this board sure have great taste. I could happily spend a month or two working through the selections from any one of these lists. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Something Wicked this way Comes - Bradbury Journey into Space - Toby Litt Land of Laughs - Jonathan Carroll Facts of Life - Graham Joyce Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - Adams (Is this the first comedy in any of these lists) Light Fantastic - Terry pratchett The October Country - Bradbury The Road - Cormac MacCarthy Hospital - Toby Litt Hounting of Hill House - SJ Little Brother Little Sister - David Campton (My favourite ever short play) Grusome book - Edited by RC - the first real horror fiction I read The cypher - Kathe Koja Salems lot Of Mice and Men Manhattan Ghost Story - TM Wright Strange Angels - K Koja Katie Price's perfect ponies One of those books does not really belong in that list... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
>>>Is this the first comedy in any of these lists No. From my own list: Money, Talking It Over, plays by Ayckbourn . . . | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
And from mine Lolita, Pale Fire and Ulysses. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.60.106.5 |
and from mine I'd add Brotherhood and Margarita | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.239 |
Confining myself to English-language books: Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles Bradbury, Dark Carnival Hodgson, The House on the Borderland Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror and Others Campbell, Incarnate Machen, Tales of Horror and the Supernatural Lanning, The Pedestal de la Mare, Best Stories Blumlein, The Brains of Rats Poe, The Annotated Tales Hollinghurst, The Swimming Pool Library Womack, Random Acts of Senseless Violence Elliot, The Complete Poems and Plays Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Wyndham, The Seeds of Time Speer, Inside the Third Reich | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
And One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a rollicking feel-good slapstick laugh-out-loud tale of everyday Gulag life. | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 94.194.134.45 |
Good to see another Koja fan, Weber. I came this close to picking Strange Angels myself; in the end I judged it on obsessive re-reading - Bad Brains just edged it in that regard. Hands down one of the best horror novels of the 1990s, from one of the best writers of the 1990s. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
I hadn't read any of the other lists in detail so it didn't influence my list too much or I would have spotted the Aykbourne. I won't give my opinion on Lolita again but I really don't see it as a comedy. The two comedies in my list were instrumental in forming my sense of humour as it is today. I'm thinking I need to add Wasp factory and Lord of the Flies into my list somewhere. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.239 |
Indeed! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.90 |
Lord. I forgot Machen for a while. The White People had a profound effect on me. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Yikes! Me too. It's the lack of a definitive collection, TALES OF HORROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL being an omnibus with an unmemorable title. I do wish THE HOUSE OF SOULS (longer version with lots of stuff) had remained in print. Hubert, Eliot's COMPLETE POEMS AND PLAYS is cheating. Put your head on the line: THE WASTE LAND AND OTHER POEMS or FOUR QUARTETS? Tough choice I know. I'm going to break the rules and suggest fifteen favourite poets: Charles Baudelaire Arthur Rimbaud Robert Browning T.S. Eliot Rainer Maria Rilke Robert Frost Weldon Kees Allen Ginsberg Sylvia Plath Philip Larkin Ian Hamilton Edwin Morgan Tony Harrison Carol Ann Duffy Ian McMillan | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.178.110 |
I was going to list The House of Souls originally but went with Tales of Horror and the Supernatural because it is, ultimately, a better collection, I feel. The House of Souls lacks many of the stories that are collected in Tales, instead opting to include the novella A Fragment of Life and more from The Three Imposters (but still not the complete version). Tales includes several stories not in The House of Souls: 'N', 'The Great Return', 'The Shining Pyramid', 'The Terror', The Bowmen', 'Out of the Earth', 'The Bright Boy', 'Children of the Pool', and 'The Happy Children'. As a 'best-of' collection of his horror fiction, it's a better representation, although it's preferable to have both, of course! My first editions of The House of Souls and The Three Imposters are two of the most valued books I own. And then there's Ornaments in Jade, which collects some of his best writing, in my opinion. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.90 |
William Blake W.B.Yeats Swinburne Christina Rossetti Sylvia Plath Keats D.G. Rossetti Coleridge D.H.Lawrence Burns Robert Browning Shakespeare Chaucer Henry Vaughan Byron | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
Larkin Tennyson Shakespeare Er, P. Ayers R. Stilgoe Er, er . . . | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Pam Ayres? ;-) My list of poets contains only one name: Bukowski. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.234.239 |
There isn't a single line in Complete Poems and Plays I dislike and nothing to compare with this book as a whole. The sheer richness contained in those stanzas is enough to . . . ah, well. Choose between "Four Quartets" and "The Waste Land"? I'll have to think this over. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Ogden Nash Derek Willy Dick (aka fish) erm... | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.178.110 |
I'd agree with most of the choices of poets listed above (esp. Keats, Blake, Coleridge, Rilke, Lawrence, Yeats, etc.) but I would like to add some of my favourite Chinese and Japanese poets (some of whom were originally published over a thousand years ago), who are unlikely to be mentioned otherwise: Li He Wang Wei Li Bai Du Fu Su Tung-po Li Ching-jao Basho Issa | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.90 |
And I've just remembered Lisa Tuttle and her Nest of Nightmares. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Su Tung-Po is fantastic with pilau rice and a side portion of spring rolls. Sorry, someone had to do it | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.178.110 |
I knew you'd be unable to resist, Weber! Ironically, Su was renowned as a cook as well as a poet (he was a 'renaissance man', really) and there is a famous dish today which bears his name. | ||
| Michael_kelly (Michael_kelly) Username: Michael_kelly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 174.88.168.249 |
Poets!? Gah! Okay. Yeats Neruda Poe Rilke That's all I got. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.84 |
William Blake Emily Dickinson Wallace Stevens Sylvia Plath Geoffrey Chaucer Walt Whitman Edmund Spencer John Milton William Shakespeare Marianne Moore Thomas Hardy Alexander Pope William Wordsworth Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost ... sorry, a rather pedestrian list... not like there's anything unusual or challenging here.... | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
I have to confess, I've never found poetry very inspiring. I do enjoy the nonsense verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll though! ("Jabberwocky" has to be the best poem ever - honestly, I really think so) Oh, and William Blake is pretty good too - but I think it's probably the accompanying illustrations which do it for me there. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.0.84 |
Caroline, read, oh, I dunno.... "The Rhodora" by Emerson "I heard a fly buzz - when I died" by Dickinson "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop "Auguries of Innocence" by Blake "The Darkling Thrush" by Hardy Any gigantic number of others... even a stone-cold poetry-hating text-obsessed doped-up over-sexed gum-chewing Paris Hilton prostitot strolling down the sidewalk with a chihuahua yapping from her handbag will be - okay, not her; but everyone else can always, always be reached by great poetry, no matter the time, place, or circumstances.... | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
I tried not to look at anyone else's list, so as not to be influenced one way or another -- but here are the first fifteen unforgettable books off the top of my head: Lord of the Flies (Golding) 1984 (Orwell) The Stand (King) London Fields (Amis) Throat Sprockets (Lucas) Jude the Obscure (Hardy) The Cat in the Hat (Seuss) Cold Hand in Mine (Aickman) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams) Red Dragon (Harris) Houses without Doors (Straub) The Cipher (Koja) Altmann's Tongue (Evenson) The Turning (Winton) The Influence (Campbell) Right. Now I'm off to read everyone else's list. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
3 Koja fans??? Bloody hell!!! I think we've got her entire readership here. Literally no one I've ever mentioned her to in the real world has heard of her. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.181.220 |
Black Light -- Stephen Hunter Axiomatic -- Greg Egan The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams The Drive-in -- Joe R Lansdale The Unquiet -- John Connolly The Hound of the Baskervilles -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Wind in the Willows -- Kenneth Grahame Dune -- Frank Herbert Dirty White Boys -- Stephen Hunter Mucho Mojo -- Joe R Lansdale L.A. Confidential -- James Ellroy Mortal Stakes -- Robert B Parker Dr Who and the Planet of the Spiders -- Terrance Dicks Biggles Hits the Trail -- Captain W.E. Johns The History of the Runestaff -- Michael Moorcock Of course it goes without saying that I will come back later and pretend that I only failed to include Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Cervantes etc because I didn't think of any of their work until after the 15 minutes was up. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 12.165.240.116 |
Weber: Koja's great -- and not only her novels. She must have at least fifty great uncollected short stories as well. | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Stu - that's brilliant! How could I NOT have included any Conan Doyle or Douglas Adams in my list? And I only negleted to name a Target Doctor Who novel as I couldn't decide which particular ONE to name! Craig - I think my inability to get into poetry stems from being forced into analysing it to death at school. School English lessons killed Shakespeare for me too.  | ||
| Carolinec (Carolinec) Username: Carolinec Registered: 06-2009 Posted From: 82.38.75.85 |
Oh heck - there's a typo in my last post - it should be "neglected" of course. Is there any post editing facility on this message board? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.23.225 |
"Su Tung-Po is fantastic with pilau rice and a side portion of spring rolls." Especially when served with cold foo man choos, or, conversely, hot boo poo pa doo sauce. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.152.176.126 |
Incarnate - Ramsey Campbell Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust Our Lady of Darkness - Fritz Leiber Jimbo - Algernon Blackwood The Magus - John Fowles The Dying Earth - Jack Vance. The Heat of the Day - Elizabeth Bowen Songs of a Dead Dreamer - Thomas Ligotti Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess Powers of Darkness - Robert Aickman The Haunter of the Dark (Panther) - HP Lovecraft David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard - Eleanor Farjeon Collected Stories - Elizabeth Bowen The Fontana Books of Ghost Stories | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.176.138 |
Caroline, to be fair Conan Doyle and Douglas Adams had already been mentioned. As for Target novelizations you might want to tune into Radio 4 tomorrow at 11.30am. --http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l59rk | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.152.176.126 |
And, btw, thanks, Caroline, for being the first person I think to put my book in a 'favourite list'!  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.16.79.198 |
As an aside: I've come to the conclusion - from oh so many posts in oh so many places here - that the #1 favorite Ramsey Campbell novel of all the residents here is by far THE INFLUENCE which I sorrily must admit to having missed. I am reading (ever so slowly, but reading) INCARNATE right now, but maybe I'll make an effort to locate INFLUENCE first.... Carolyn: that's a good new word you've invented - to "neglete" is to neglect and then summarily delete. | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.186.44 |
THE INFLUENCE is great, Craig. I couldn't recommend it more highly. But you're right -- THE INFLUENCE is a clear favorite. My second favorite Campbell novel is one that rarely gets mentioned here, though: THE COUNT OF ELEVEN. It's horrifying and hilarious at the same time. Just brilliant. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.182.143 |
The Count of Eleven is one of my favourites as well, Chris! It has a wonderful blend of horror, humour and tragedy. Jack Orchard is a great character. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.6.105 |
Catullus, if we're still mentioning poets... | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
On the strict understanding that probably half of these will be different, the next time I'm asked the question: Vladimir Nabokov: LOLITA Thomas Pynchon: GRAVITY'S RAINBOW Martin Amis: LONDON FIELDS Franz Kafka: THE TRIAL Herman Melville: MOBY-DICK Flannery O'Connor: WISE BLOOD William S. Burroughs: THE NAKED LUNCH J.G. Ballard: THE UNLIMITED DREAM COMPANY Harlan Ellison: STRANGE WINE Angela Carter: THE BLOODY CHAMBER Robert Aickman: THE COLLECTED SHORT STORIES M.R. James: THE COLLECTED GHOST STORIES Shirley Jackson: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE Peter Straub: HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS Alberto Manguel (ed.): BLACK WATER | ||
| Alansjf (Alansjf) Username: Alansjf Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 94.194.134.45 |
Manguel's Black Water and the follow-up White Fire would almost certaintly make it onto my anthology-only 15 - they are both superb, and it would be a tough call trying to choose between them. | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
Alan, you're right: it could easily have been either in terms of quality, but I was thinking, BLACK WATER came first, and therefore generated the greater "wow". | ||
| Gcw (Gcw) Username: Gcw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.150.109.19 |
"But you're right -- THE INFLUENCE is a clear favorite. My second favorite Campbell novel is one that rarely gets mentioned here, though: THE COUNT OF ELEVEN. It's horrifying and hilarious at the same time. Just brilliant." Mentioned many times over the years by me Chris - A marvellous book! gcw | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.4.20.22 |
'The Chronicles Of Narnia' by C.S. Lewis 'Lord Of The Flies' by William Golding 'The Stand' by Stephen King 'Ghost Story' by Peter Straub 'They Thirst' by Robert R. McCammon 'The Nameless' by Ramsey Campbell 'The Lord Of The Rings' by J.R.R. Tolkien 'Dune' by Frank Herbert 'The Crystal World' by J.G. Ballard 'The Forgotten Soldier' by Guy Sajer 'Dracula' by Bram Stoker 'Crime And Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoevsky 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville 'Dagon And Other Macabre Tales' by H.P. Lovecraft 'The Collected Ghost Stories Of M.R. James' | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
Indeed, both THE INFLUENCE and THE COUNT OF ELEVEN are great super smashing, as Jim Bowen would doubtless have put it (if he'd read them). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.134 |
Actually, I believe - swear, not hedging, but that cover is SOOO familiar now - I believe I did read THE INFLUENCE waaaaayyy back when I first discovered Mr. Campbell - we're talking, twenty plus years or so ago - and I'm just totally blanking on it. Isn't it very similar in plot to THE PARASITE...? Hey, Steve Duffy: I just today got, in the mail, the John Huston-directed WISEBLOOD - starring Brad Dourif (?!?) - which was released on Criterion only this month, I believe... never seen it before... have you? How do you rate it? | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.6.105 |
Craig - WISE BLOOD is excellent; a great performance by Dourif. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Almost a career best by Dourif. A truly great film. Therefore you'll probably hate it. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
They used to show 'Wise Blood' quite regularly on TV back in the 80s and it's a slow burner that gets better each time you see it. One of Huston's best later films with a similar low key emphasis on character development to his equally great 'Fat City'. The only starring role I can think of for Brad Dourif and his best performance imho - he's quite mesmerising as the fruitcake bible belt preacher with a difference... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"Fat City"...oh, yes. Now there's a cracking film. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Grimm Prairie Tales was another lead for Dourif, although the film was almost stolen by James earl Jones | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.152 |
Hmmm... I'm still unsure, Weber... did Michael Bay produce it? Because then, well, slam-dunk for sure.... I'm trying at the moment to finish up the 5+ hour FANNY & ALEXANDER. Quite liked it. Fwiw, here's my own 5-movie meme - 5 movies I'd seen for the first time within the last 5 years, that leap to my mind, etc., same as above: TOKYO STORY TOGETHER CURE QUANTUM OF SOLACE KANSAS CITY | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
THE DEPARTED THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? THE LIVES OF OTHERS TWO LANE BLACKTOP GLORIA ...as above, first that came to mind. QUANTUM OF SOLACE?!?!?!  | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.210.209.176 |
Mine - Pan's Labyrinth No Country For Old Men The Mist The Curious Case of Benjamin Button The Prestige | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
5 off the top of my head: LADY VENGEANCE THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (very tough choosing just one Fassbinder) TIME OF THE WOLF AQUIRRE WRATH OF GOD WOYZECK | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
Hiya Craig! WISE BLOOD the movie is WONDERFUL. John Huston's late-career masterpiece. And Dourif is outstanding. Hope you enjoy it! | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.202 |
Well for me, it's... THE DEPARTED?!? (And of course: THE MIST?!?) Say, WOYZECK, I never heard of it, but it looks good from what I looked up: I'll have to Netflix that one. I enjoyed LADY VENGEANCE just a tad less than I did OLDBOY (liked both). But I loved THE PRESTIGE, and THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?... though that last one is a bit dreary, so you gotta be in the mood.... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
How about SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE, Craig, the first in the loose trilogy? remarkable films, all three, byt LADY just comes out in front for me. WOYZECK is...amazing. One of those films, you realise when you see it, whose techniques have been ripped off so many times, yet still it seems fresh and vital. | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
Gary, did you get those two Werner Herzog DVD box sets when they were dirt cheap in the HMV sales (or maybe in the Amazon sales of late)? What a bargain. What films. What a director. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Indeed I did, plus GRIZZLY MAN. A truly great director, IMHO. Even his recent film RESCUE DAWN was excellent, apart from the final scene. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
WTF? The mad german genius has now gone and made a BAD LIEUTENANT cash-in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s043quEQ9FY | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
And a horror film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233219/ :-) | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.60.106.5 |
'Inspired by a true crime, a man begins to experience mystifying events that lead him to slay his mother with a sword' Now thats a description. With Defoe in another horror picture. And Udo of course. | ||
| Steveduffy (Steveduffy) Username: Steveduffy Registered: 05-2009 Posted From: 86.159.105.54 |
GRIZZLY MAN. What a movie. Poor, stupid, stupid, stupid Timmy Treadwell. And his poor girlfriend, for whom I feel even sorrier. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
I should have had 'Grizzly Man' and 'No Country For Old Men' on my 5 MOVIES list. Along with Scorsese's 'The Departed' the three most riveting cinematic experiences of the decade for me. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
I spent most of Grizzly Men shouting "Run you fucking bellend" at the screen. Treadwell was a very very messed up individual. The bit where he actually punches a grizzly on the nose is bloody terrifying. The weirdest thing about the film is the mortician/Doctor that Herzog talks too. He's like Jeffrey Combs in Reanimator. It took a long time to convince me he wasn't an actor. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
I went to see it twice in one week I came out so affected the first time. Never experienced a range of emotions in a film like it. Started off thinking what a complete tosser and sort of siding with the bear that ate him - especially as he doomed his poor girlfriend to the same fate! But the story was so masterfully edited I came round to thinking he was a likeable eccentric and actually quite funny (I cried laughing several times - the bumble bee sequence really creased me up) and finally (when it went back into his childhood and later developments) I had run the emotional gauntlet to choking back real tears - along with every other riveted individual in that cinema. A masterpiece I have watched again and again since and am constantly pestering people to watch with me. The greatest feature documentary ever made in my opinion. Herzog was always a favourite but this movie rubber stamped his genius for me!! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
I was going to comment that Joy Adamson, the author of BORN FREE, suffered a similar fate – mauled to death by one of the lions she'd devoted her life to studying – but according to Wikipedia that was an inaccurate claim made in an early news report, and the inquest established that she had been murdered by stabbing. I have an odd inability to cope with dramatic reconstructions of (real) violent deaths in films. I try to avoid them or look away. At some level it feels like watching an actual death. The deaths of fictional characters on screen bothers me somewhat less. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
The Joy Adams thing I find terrifying for some unspecific reason. Wasn't it also poachers who did for her? I have an odd inability to cope with dramatic reconstructions of (real) violent deaths in films I know exactly what you mean, Joel. I feel the same, yet cannot help but watch them. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.60.106.5 |
A man who had been tending the tiger's cages here in the zoo in Denmark for a decade or so, according to news media a couple of weeks ago, then killed himself by intentionally provoking the very animals he had cared for and thus comitted suicide. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
The thing with Treadwell is that he wasn't an academic in the same sense Joy Adamson was. He was actually fairly ignorant in a lot of ways when it came to the bears, which is what ultimately finished him. | ||
| Stephen Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.72.14.113 |
Treadwell was a hopeless romantic who cared deeply for animals because he couldn't integrate socially on any sane level with his fellow human beings. That was the ultimate tragedy of his story. It was when he gave his rant about fox hunters I realised he really did care and wasn't just on some glory trip - although that hilariously did play a part in his psyche. A fascinating character and an unforgettable (I might even say life-changing) movie. I'm an incorrigible animal lover myself though and should have included 'The Plague Dogs' by Richard Adams in my 15 books... along with many more lol. | ||
| Richard_gavin (Richard_gavin) Username: Richard_gavin Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 65.110.174.71 |
M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories Ramsey Campbell, Dark Companions Dan Simmons, Song of Kali Clive Barker, The Books of Blood: 1 Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein Robert Aickman, Sub Rosa Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby Ray Bradbury, The October Country Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of the Grotesque & Arabasque H.P. Lovecraft, The Tomb and Other Stories Comte de Lautremont, Les Chants de Maldoror Algernon Blackwood, Collected Ghost Stories J.S. LeFanu, Collected Ghost Stories Hanns Heinz Ewers, Strange Tales | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.176.32 |
5 movie meme: The Broken Dark Knight Logan's Run The Beguiled Gran Torino | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 86.29.176.32 |
Oh, there's a new thread for the fims meme. Sorry. |