Heartland

Ignoring the currently reading topic for a moment.
I’m just curious what your favourite books are.
as I am getting trough my ‘to read’ list I may get some inspiration that way.

I never was a big reader before, but here are a few suggestions from me.
- everything from Raymond E. Feist. - (for those who haven't read this yet) The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave - christopher paolini ......

i've just finished 'magician' by our raymond

gormenghast trilogy, anything by jane austen, dante's divine comedy, samuel pepys' diaries.

Umberto Eco's book Foucault's Pendulum has always been a favourite of mine.

But for stranded-on-a-desert-island-with-only-one-book I'd have to choose Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (which is a bit of a cheat since it really comprises 4 books: The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch). Superb, intensely multi-layered, and feverishly symbolic stuff.

thx. though I fear my library is not very suporting

William Boyd ~ Any Human Heart

everyone I have passed it to has commented on how wonderful it is

No question. For over half my adult life nothing has come close to:

Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities

So very, very beautiful.... let me quote:

"This most beautiful of his books throws up ideas, allusions and breathtaking imaginative insights on almost every page.

Each time he returns from his travels, Marco Polo is invited by Kublai Khan to describe the cities he has visited. The conqueror and the explorer exchange visions: for Kublai Khan the world is constantly expanding; for Marco Polo, who has seen so much of it, it is an ever-diminishing place.

Although he makes Marco Polo summon up many cities for the Khan's imagination to feed on, Calvino is describing only one city in this book. Venice, that decaying heap of incomparable splendour, still stands as susbstantial evidence of man's ability to create something perfect out of chaos. Nevertheless, it's a place where rats thrive, where the dead can seem to outnumber the living."

Times Literary Supplement

"Invisible Cities is an extraordinary collection, a Baedecker of the imagination. The cities correspond to psychological states and historical states, possibilities and transformations."

The Listener

"Whole chapters of unforced poetic prose in which insight and fantasy are perfectly matched... an exquisite work."

The Observer

"Of all the Italian post-war novelists, Italo Calvino is the adventurer. He glitters, impersonal, brilliant and lasting."

Financial Times

Blimey! where did that come from Michael?

Hi- it's his Mrs.

Michael is drunk- what can i say?

I like the Stand- Stephen King. Although i don't read anything about the zoo or the kid- too scary! Joyce

Philip K. Dick - The Man In The High Castle.
John Christopher - The Death Of Grass.
Fowles - The Collector.

I LOL'd, see

The Big Figure is my library, he has loaned me some gems:
Autobiography of a Murderer ~ Hugh Collins
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush ~ Eck Newby
24hr Party People ~ Anthony H. Wilson
and others like scotty and the Hom_Corleone have given me treasures - loadsa Irvine Welsh, a Maconnie or two and my current obsession Pigs Might Fly

books are great

BTW, excellent beard Joyce

James Blast wrote:William Boyd ~ Any Human Heart

everyone I have passed it to has commented on how wonderful it is

I recommend -

Viz anyone?

I didn't think I'd find any other subscribers to 'Boots, Bottoms and Boobs' here, so I let it lie

James Blast wrote:I didn't think I'd find any other subscribers to 'Boots, Bottoms and Boobs' here, so I let it lie

Can I be really predictable and say Crime And Punishment, please?

Or Brave New World - try and spot the Bauhaus lyrics (clue, they're from Silent Hedges)

+1 for Book of the New Sun, and Gormenghast.

China Mieville, M John Harrison, and Robert Holdstock should definitely be investigated.

Not as easy to get hold of, but worth tracking down are R A Lafferty and Cordwainer Smith.

Other things I have read recently and recommend: Mikhail Borgakoff's
The Master and Margarita, and James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away...Richard Brautigan. Best book ever!

Neil Gunn:
The Green Isle Of The Great Deep
The Silver Darlings
The Silver Bough
The Well At The World's End
Young Art & Old Hector


Dostoevsky:
Notes From The Underground
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime & Punishment

Joseph Conrad:
Heart Of Darkness
Nostromo
The Secret Agent
Under Western Eyes

Nick Cave:
And The Ass Saw The Angel

J G Ballard:
Crash

John Irving:
A Prayer For Owen Meany

D. F. Robertson:
On The Wire (currently in preparation by the author)

To name but a few of my favourite books!

a suitable boy - vikram seth

There are so many books I could name as favourites (Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, High-Rise by JG Ballard...) but overall I'd say anything by Patrick Hamilton (Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, Hangover Square ...). He's a criminally neglected writer who's recently being rediscovered somewhat and whose work is slowly coming back into print. He was an alcoholic who suffered from depression (pubs feature prominently in his books) and his view of human nature is pretty cynical - he deals extensively with themes such as deceit, betrayal and (especially) unrequited love, many of his central characters being people who life has left behind in some way - but his books aren't bleak at all. They're beautifully written depictions of the inter-war years, very evocative of a bygone era.

I got a book about Dinosaurs for Christmas. It has colour pictures.

That is all.

I'll second Eco--especially Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. I first read Foucault's Pendulum when I was a lad in high school. It wasn't until I was about halfway through my doctorate that I realized just how goddam funny the book is. It's full of the most pretentious academic jokes one could imagine (assuming, of course, one is a pretentious academic). Calvino, too, is also beautiful. I'm currently working through Lampert on Nietzsche, and--if and when I have the time--the next work of fiction I read will probably be Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Pretentious? Yeah. Occupational hazard, alas.

I'm on board with Eco, Calvino, M John Harrison, and Fowles - pretty much anything by any of them, actually.

If I had to pick a single author, it would be John Crowley.

If I had to pick a single book, it would, peculiarly enough, not be Crowley - it would be Mistress of Mistresses, by E R Eddison. (And getcher minds out the gutter, it isn't that sort of book... )

Oh, and speaking of outrageous academic jokes: Nabokov's Pale Fire. Total screamer - and the most intentionally banal poetry ever written.

Very possibly the finest book I've ever read.

JAWS.