| Author | Message | ||
     Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0120/Stephen-King-s-10-favorite-books/The-Go lden-Argosy-edited-by-Van-H.-Cartmell-and-Charles-Grayson | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.74.137 |
Some intersting and unexpected choices there. Surprised not to see any Drieser or Fowles. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.35.191 |
...or Hutson... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
We've one in common: 'Lord Of The Flies', which is my No. 1, and of the rest I've only 'Huckleberry Finn' in common - a magnificent novel, as if that needs saying. As for 'Bleak House', it's in my Dickens pile, though I've to get through 'Dombey And Son' & 'David Copperfield' first. I'm tempted to try some Cormac McCarthy one of these days. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
Stevie - McCarthy's work is outstanding. His prose is quite simply beautiful. A novelist of the highest order. Breathtaking. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.179.35.191 |
I've only so far read The Road and No Country for Old Men, both of which I loved. I have several more of his books here so will read those when time allows. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I'm glad he's got Dickens up there. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.74.137 |
He took the title Needful Things from Hard Times. He took the name Castle Rock from Lord of the Flies. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
As it's a game everyone can play, and one of my favourites (who'd have thought it!), here's mine, ranked in personal favourite order rather than by debatable "literary merit": 1. Lord Of The Flies (1954) by William Golding – UK – WILDERNESS ADVENTURE/PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER 2. Crime And Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky – RUSSIA – CRIME/PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER 3. Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville – USA – SEA ADVENTURE/GOTHIC HORROR/FANTASY 4. The Lord Of The Rings (1954-55) by J.R.R. Tolkien – 3 volumes: ‘The Fellowship Of The Ring’ (1954), ‘The Two Towers’ (1954) & ‘The Return Of The King’ (1955) [my favourite is ‘The Return Of The King’] – UK – FANTASY 5. The Dune Chronicles (1965-85) by Frank Herbert – 6 volumes: ‘Dune’ (1965), ‘Dune Messiah’ (1969), ‘Children Of Dune’ (1976), ‘God-Emperor Of Dune’ (1981), ‘Heretics Of Dune’ (1984) & ‘Chapter House Dune’ (1985) [my favourite is ‘Dune’] – USA – SCIENCE FICTION 6. The Inheritors (1955) by William Golding – UK – PREHISTORIC FANTASY 7. The Chronicles Of Narnia (1950-56) by C.S. Lewis – 7 volumes: ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ (1955), ‘The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’ (1950), ‘The Horse And His Boy’ (1954), ‘Prince Caspian’ (1951), ‘The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader’ (1952), ‘The Silver Chair’ (1953) & ‘The Last Battle’ (1956) [my favourite is ‘The Silver Chair’] – IRELAND – CHILDREN’S FANTASY 8. Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker – IRELAND – GOTHIC HORROR 9. The Plague Dogs (1977) by Richard Adams – UK – ANTHROPOMORPHIC FANTASY/SATIRE 10. The Exorcist/Legion (1971-83) by William Peter Blatty - USA - HORROR And fluctuating just outside the Top 10: 'Melmoth The Wanderer', 'Illuminatus!', 'The Ripliad', 'Wuthering Heights', 'The Ceremonies', 'The Devils', 'Barnaby Rudge', 'Watership Down', 'His Dark Materials', 'The Death Of Grass', 'His Natural Life', 'The Old Curiosity Shop', 'The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen/The Moon Of Gomrath', 'Job : A Comedy Of Justice', 'Slaughterhouse Five', 'The Naked And The Dead', 'The Kraken Wakes', 'Catch 22', 'Nicholas Nickleby', 'The Earthsea Trilogy', 'Incarnate' (the one that keeps floating to the top), 'Voice Of Our Shadow', 'The Stand', 'Ghost Story', 'Farnham's Freehold', better stop now or I'll be here all day... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.74.137 |
STEVIE WALSH IN LIST DECLARATION SHOCKER!! MEDIA COMPARE IT TO BEAR SHITTING IN WOODS!! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.23.74.137 |
Ah, fuck it. 1. MONEY by M Amis. 2. LONDON FIELDS by M Amis. 3. TALKING IT OVER, by Barnes. 4. MADAME BOVARY by Flaubert. 5. HOWARDS END by Forster. 6. MISERY by King. 7. MIDNIGHT SUN by Campbell. 8. 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Marquez. 9. SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION by Flaubert. 10. SISTER CARRIE by Drieser. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
This whole thing is difficult to really work through. Favorite book, okay. Favorite experience reading it? Most profound? Clever and deft off the charts, is not the same as purely entertaining; and a sugar-high reading, might not remain months/years later. So I read a book I absolutely flipped over 15 years ago, but have not returned to once... and have no intention of returning to... is that a "favorite" book? Isn't that more for the "Best One Time I Had Reading This One Book" list? So my favorite books must be those I return to, again and again, I assume. Then, they'd include: any book by Nietzsche; as well, any/every book by his preeminent English translator, Walter Kaufmann; any creation of Shakespeare's (sorry to be boring there); the major fictions, and all the non-fictions, of Vonnegut; and the critical works of Harold Bloom. For poetry: Blake. In genre, I'll read and re-read: Ramsey's work, and Avram Davidson, Karl Edward Wagner, and Fritz Leiber. So... stuff by them. I guess I've got ten there total. So the best books by each one?... Okay, alphabetically by author-last name, so as to give no preference, I'll focus them at this moment in time down to these "favorite"s: William Blake, Songs of Innocence/Songs of Experience Harold Bloom, The Western Canon Ramsey Campbell, Alone With The Horrors Avram Davidson, The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy Walter Kaufman, Critique of Philosophy and Religion Fritz Leiber, Heroes and Horrors Freidrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science William Shakespeare, Antony & Cleopatra Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday Karl Edward Wagner, In A Lonely Place ... ask me in an hour, this extremely misleading list changes.  | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
In no particular order, and subject to change depending on my mood... THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, HG Wells STRANGE LOYALTIES, William McIllvaney THE BRIDGE, Iain Banks THE UNLIMITED DREAM COMPANY, JG Ballard IT, Stephen King WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, Shirley Jackson DARK GODS, T.E.D. Klein CITIES OF THE RED NIGHT, William Burroughs BRAVE NEW WORLD, Aldous Huxley THE KILLER ANGELS, Michael Shaara | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
To think I omitted Ballard, Barker & Greene from my "fluctuating" list, specifically: 'The Unlimited Dream Company', 'The Crystal World', 'The Drought', 'The Books Of Blood', 'The Damnation Game', 'Brighton Rock', 'The Power And The Glory' & 'The Heart Of The Matter'. And no doubt dozens more authors as they come to me... | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
I could never even rough up a top ten. There too many books. But I'd include all of the books on everybody's list so far, though there are one or two I haven't read. BUT, I know I'd include Midnight Sun if I tried to make a list. That book has had a massive impact on me. A true classic (no arse kissing intended). | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Don't get me wrong, I liked MIDNIGHT SUN. Very much. But I liked THE INFLUENCE, NIGHT OF THE CLAW, THE NAMELESS, THE DOLL WHO ATE HIS MOTHER, and THE PARASITE much more.... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
The ones that always seem to stay in my top batch of Ramsey's novels would be: 'Incarnate', 'The Nameless', 'The Long Lost', 'Needing Ghosts', 'Midnight Sun', 'To Wake The Dead' aka 'The Parasite', 'The Influence', 'Silent Children' (his best psycho novel), 'Ancient Images', 'The Face That Must Die', hmmm, better stop at ten before I name them all! | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.18.253 |
Favourite Ramsey novels... The Grin of the Dark Silent Children The Darkest Part of the Woods Midnight Sun The Influence | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/world/2002/may/08/books.booksnews?fb_source =other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.21 |
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/books/2011/jun/14/100-greatest-non-fiction- books?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.29.16 |
Stevie, I wouldn't classsify 'Needing Ghosts' as a novel but agree it's outstanding. Some of my favourite books are selections of stories or poems that weren't made by the author (e.g. Lovecraft's The Haunter of the Dark), which don't really qualify as standalone works. Also, 'favourites' doesn't necessarily mean 'best' as it refers to books that have been in my mental landscape for a long time. But here's a top 10 (in random order): Ray Bradbury, The October Country H.P. Lovecraft, The Haunter of the Dark Cornell Woolrich, Rendezvous in Black Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon Ramsey Campbell, The Influence Jean Genet, Funeral Rites Albert Camus, The Plague Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems Sylvia Plath, Ariel A. Alvarez (ed.), The New Poetry | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Joel, I have 'Needing Ghosts' as a stand alone and beautifully produced book and consider it the purest glimpse we've had yet inside Ramsey's psyche. A nightmarish novella and one of the finest works of weird fiction of the late 20th Century. We've quite a few in common there: Bradbury, Lovecraft, Hammett, RC & Camus (another favourite I forgot about and, yes, 'The Plague' is his finest achievement). Keep hoping to come across some more Woolrich but so far only 'Waltz Into Darkness' has crossed my path. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
You know we could play a great game of psycho-analysing each other from our Top 10 favourite books list. Mine are characterised by a thirst for adventure, and an escape from the "normal" and the restricting, tempered by the realisation that life and experience involves pain and risk, even in our most heartfelt fantasies, and the bravery to be able to transcend both - because one never knows what lies over the horizon. Joel, you seem to take pleasure in a shared bleakness of the soul, an acknowledgement that other people have suffered as much as you have and created great art from the same, a kind of cosy contentment in misery and the surly acceptance of undefeatable injustice, with only the beautifully transcendent ending to Ramsey's 'The Influence' providing a brief chink of light. As for Stephen King... there is a fascination with people and people-watching and an almost clinical trying to fathom out what makes other people tick, that suffuses all his writing - wonderfully so. Craig, you didn't understand the game! We want your favourite novels/books or reading experiences - those that most touched your soul, not your intellect or your admiration or aspirations. John, you're a man after my own heart and but by a twist of fate your inclusions could have been mine own. Gary, there is a concentration on magnificent isolation that has me wanting to recommend; 'Robinson Crusoe', 'His Natural Life', 'Hunger', 'Pincher Martin', 'Concrete Island', 'American Psycho' & you get the picture... I know I talk a load of shite but I'm bored, okay!  | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Okay, Stevie. I hear you, and I can do that. I'll get mine in by tonight.  | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.27.112.54 |
"an acknowledgement that other people have suffered as much as you have and created great art from the same" Oh dear. Do I give the impression I believe I've suffered? If so I honestly apologise. Life isn't always a barrel of laughs but I've never been battered or abused or abandoned or violated or even (seriously) hungry. A bit poorly, a bit lonely, a bit mis, that's par for the course and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. If my taste runs to the bleak and disturbing that's just what appeals to me, doesn't mean I live like that. I settle down to a noir novel or psychological ghost story with my cocoa and biscuits and fluffy slippers all lined up, cosy as a hamster in its little wheel. And then I want the real darkness. I have standards you know. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks for that, Joel, you've brightened up my day no end. Now I'm off to wallow in 'Shame'... | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 195.59.153.201 |
The Heart of the Matter (Greene) The End of the Affair (Greene) Ask the Dust (Fante) Women (Bukowski) The Exorcist/Legion (Blatty) In a Strange Room (Galgut) The Act of Love (Jacobson) Birthday Letters (Hughes) All Shakespeare from about 1600-1607 and: The Complete Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell. I know that that "book" doesn't actually exist but, well, never mind. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 94.197.127.164 |
Okay, scrap the above. Upon returning home from work I glanced across my bookshelves and realised those things I'd forgotten. This is going to need a serious rethink. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Okay, Stevie. Books I just ate up like candy, that I loved reading?... let's see... how about allowing myself only one novel to an author, ten authors total, and then doing it in reverse alphabetical order: Gene Wolfe, Soldier In The Mist Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan Jack Vance, The Dying Earth Kay Ryan, The Best of It Ross McDonald, The Underground Man Fritz Leiber, The Swords of Lankhmar Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest Stanley Ellin, The Specialty of the House and Other Stories Robert Bloch, The Scarf A selection of recent, not too long ago, and long ago readings... just to balance things out... again, ask me again in an hour, it would probably be different... but I would stand by these books as being of the highest caliber, easily accessible, absolute art & quality entertainment you can find. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Have you read 'Soldier Of Arete' & 'Soldier Of Sidon', Craig? I hear that's a great trilogy and I plan to read it next, after 'The Wizard Knight'. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
I've read all three, Stevie. Soldier of Sidon is the last book I actually had to rush out to buy and read immediately... so rare, that effect upon me, anymore.... They're not connected quite as indelibly as The Wizard Knight: Soldier in the Mist and Soldier of Arete do, though, feel like two-parters. Soldier of Sidon came many years later, like... ten years I'm thinking? So it's more of a continuation of the series/character. It's criminal Wolfe didn't do more of these. Imagine all the wonder of Wizard/Knight, except in classical Greece. These novels are necessarily a shade darker too, reflecting the tragic outlook of the Greeks, I presume. They're in a word: mind-blowing. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
What has me intrigued about 'The Soldier Trilogy' is to find out how Wolfe deals with a first person narrator, in a fantasy novel, who suffers from anterograde amnesia. The literary equivalent of Christopher Nolan's 'Memento' (2000), perhaps? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Yes! Many years before Nolan (who just may have taken the idea from him?...) The soldier of the story has a scroll, he has to read every morning he wakes up, to remind him of everything he's forgotten the previous day... and week and years.... It makes for a delicious read, since of course, the reader doesn't suffer from this malady; but the reader is sometimes lost, when the soldier describes things differently from what we've been expecting - at times, we're forced to "forget" too, because of this. But all of that is just one facet of the novel/s. It's really an amazing work, that is criminally underrated. | ||
| Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker) Username: Patrick_walker Registered: 01-2010 Posted From: 195.59.153.201 |
Look, I know nobody cares but it's just that I love compiling a list as much as the next sad bastard. I've reworked my Top 10 favourite books. I decided that a favourite book doesn't necessarily mean it's a book I've had the most enjoyment reading. I tore through M J Hyland's This Is How, for example, like nothing I have read before I since, and came away from it feeling simply exhilarated and that the book and spoken to my heart and my mind, but I have no real desire to go back to it; I'd taken from the book everything I needed and that's that. Oh, and I excluded plays and poetry this time, too. The Heart of the Matter (Greene) The End of the Affair (Greene) Intimacy (Kureishi) The Shrinking Man (Matheson) In a Strange Room (Galgut) The Act of Love (Jacobson) The Exorcist/Legion (Blatty) Gertrude (Hesse) And as before, The Complete Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell. Again, I know it's not an actual book. Bla bla bla... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
To my mind that list would mark you out as an incurable romantic, Patrick, with an unshakeable faith in the inherent nobility of the human spirit. It was you recommended I read 'The Ministry Of Fear' & 'The Heart Of The Matter' back-to-back, wasn't it? They kind of work in reverse to each other, don't they. [**** SPOILERS ****] The first relating a slow painful climb to redemption, following a killing, while the second is a tragic downward spiral into despair leading to another inevitable killing... is that what you had in mind? | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Yet both characters believed they were doing the right thing for the one they loved...  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Or were they really doing the right thing for themselves? Hmmm... | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
What does Jane Eyre and Stephen King's It have in common?... This: http://www.fearnet.com/news/b26617_director_cary_fukunaga_adapt_stephen.html | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.158.57.52 |
I never did get roind to compiling a lsit for this. Off the top of my head - in no order ither than that in which they occur to me (and limiting myself to one per author) Fahrenheit 451 - serious toss up between this and something Wicked, but this one pips it - if only for the very freaky occasion when Manchester blew up just while I was reading his description of the city exploding - I kid you not, we had the description of the planes, the bombs dropping and he sees the city explode. The next line of the book is "A second later the sound came" at which point there was a huge bang and my windows shook. the first thing I thought was Fuck me, the book''s got sound effects. I looked out of the window (I had a great view of Manchester at the time - I lived on the 19th floor of a block of flats) and saw a plume of smoke rising over manchester. The IRA had just set off a bomb in the city centre. Journey into Space - Toby Litt. Manhattan GHost Story - TM Wright - a struggle to choose between this and Last vampire A Child Across the Sky - janathan Carroll The Fionavar tapestry (trilogy) by Guy Gavriel Kay. The single best high fantasy trilogy ever IMHO. Far better than Tolkien The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett Still makes me giggle uncontrollably when I read this. the Talented Mr Ripley - Highsmith We have always lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson Cujo - Stephen King The wasp Factory - Iain Banks This list would change if you asked me tomorrow - possibly if you ask me in 20 minutes... Ah well. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
Great list, Weber! I've read six of those; 'Fahrenheit 451', 'Manhattan Ghost Story', 'A Child Across The Sky', 'The Talented Mr Ripley', 'Cujo' & 'The Wasp Factory' while I also intend to read everything of Shirley Jackson over time. Don't know Toby Litt and only heard of Kay through you. I've tried Terry Pratchett and (apart from the stone cold classic collaboration with Neil Gaiman, 'Good Omens') find him a bit too sweet and whimsical for my tastes but admire the man as a human being above almost all other authors you could mention. That's an unusually high percentage of agreement, sir! You have impeccable taste, imho. | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.158.57.52 |
And this morning I absolutely have to add Night of the Hunter - Davis Grubb The Minotaur takes a cigarette break - Stephen Sherrill Millroy the Magician - Paul Theroux Vampire Junction - SP Somtow Quite which books I'm dropping for these I don't know. I also need to switch Journey into Space for Hospital (also by Toby Litt) | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.158.57.52 |
Oh and Lord of the Flies has to be in there as well. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.18.174.156 |
'Lord Of The Flies' is my No. 1 and the book I have read more times than any other while still finding new things in it each time I do. Of the others I'm only familiar with 'Night Of The Hunter' which is in my TBR pile. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 94.197.127.188 |
Well, they're not all the 'best' books I've read, but they're probably the ones that have amazed me the most at the time of reading given where I was in my life. I've restricted myself to one book per author, though I've cheated in the case of Peter Straub's Blue Rose trilogy. I'd probably have included The Hellfire Club by him on another day, or/and lost boy, lost girl. I've also kept things to fantasy fiction. Otherwise Fitzgerald would be there for Gatsby, Dickens, Amis (Martin), Anne Tyler, Mark Twain, many others... Fantastic Four circa 1973/4 - Stan Lee Stig of the Dump - Clive King Christine - Stephen King The Songs of Distant Earth - Arthur C Clarke Midnight Sun - the old lad Sleeping in Flame - Jonathan Carroll Imajica - Clive Barker The Blue Rose trilogy - Peter Straub The Queen's Captive - Haydn Middleton Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn - Rob Holdstock | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.158.57.52 |
Christine is one of my least favourite Kings. I honestly thought the film was better. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Wow, do lists change! I looked at mine above, and would probably switch them all out in an instant. Gun to my head now, no time to think, 10 most enjoyable books (novels only I'll say), relying on a faulty memory? Lessee.... Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest Ramsey Campbell, Night of the Claw John Fowles, The French Lieutenant's Woman Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises Fritz Leiber, The Swords of Lankhmar Gene Wolfe, Soldier in the Mist Avram Davidson, Virgil in Averno Emily Brönte, Wuthering Heights Robert Bloch, The Scarf That list is good for about... 15 minutes.... | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.72 |
I recently reread Christine, Weber. It's really a YA book. I read it when I was 13 first of all and it captured the anger and confusion I felt at being a teenager. That's why it's on my list there. While there's a lot wrong with it, there's an awful lot right as well. Give it another go, maybe? It's the context in which I read it that matters. Same's true of Rob Holdstock's Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn. Because technically his book Lavondyss is better. But the emotional punch at the end of Gate outsrips Lavondyss's linguistic and literary pyrotechnics. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.8.17.111 |
All right - written down in no particular order and as fast as they came to mind, my ten novels (and one trilogy): Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov The Gormenghast trilogy, Mervyn Peake A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene Ulysses, James Joyce Moby-dick, Herman Melville The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell The Old Devils, Kingsley Amis The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.40.253.70 |
Funny, isn't it? I find Kingsley Amis unreadable, yet love Martin's writing. I wonder if I were of Kingsley's generation if that would be different. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
Moby Dick and Ulysses are beautiful but difficult novels. I'd have selected Melville's shorter work, or Dubliners or Portrait with Joyce... but then, that would be my list, wouldn't it?... The Power and the Glory was the great discovery of recent years, for me (thanks Stevie). I remember really enjoying The Alexandria Quartet in graduate school, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything about them.... Blame the grey cells, not the books. Having read neither (nor seen either's TV series yet), I get the feeling Gormenghast and Game of Thrones are similar: vast political fantasies. Am I right, or way off? | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 94.197.127.132 |
You're right and wrong. It's a bit like saying Red Mars and The Martian Chronicles are the same thing. |