Must Read Books?

syke

syke

syke

Soldato
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18 Feb 2006
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Coming up to a hell of a long flight, thought id order a few books.

Which do you recommend?

Not Harry Potter though :).

I like Crime, Bi/Autobiographies, and a lot more.

Any you think are must reads out there?

Will buy the rest of the Harry Potters and give them a read too.
 
I'm reading A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah at the minute. Its both a fascinating and disturbing read about a boy soldier in Sierra Leone.

If your looking for something a bit more light-hearted then anything by Terry Prattchett
 
Spuds said:
I'm reading A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah at the minute. Its both a fascinating and disturbing read about a boy soldier in Sierra Leone.

If your looking for something a bit more light-hearted then anything by Terry Prattchett
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Sounds quite good actually.

Any others you recommend?

Any comical, to lighten me up on the flight :D.
 
For comical I've always been a big fan of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams and the sequel, comical with the strangest logic ever.
 
If you want something funny then I would strongly recommend Terry Prattchett. His discworld series is fantastically funny. I'll not even try to describe them to you but in my opinion Hogfather is probably one of the best in the series
 
Arcade Fire said:
Are you looking for recommendations for yourself, or are you asking what books we think are 'must reads'?
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Both really.

See what people recommend, read about them & see if ill like it :).
 
White Fang - Jack London
The Thirty Nine Steps - John Buchan (although the others in the Richard Hannay series are decent as well)
The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

If you want cheap and trashy (but still reasonable) then Christopher Brookmyres novels are worth a read, I picked a few up fairly cheaply in Virgin.
Tony Hawks has done quite a few decent travel(ish) books - Round Ireland with a Fridge is probably his most enjoyable.
Bill Bryson writes well, either travel or the science book he decided to write are fascinating and well explained.

Those are just off the top of my head, I've missed out a whole load that I should have remembered no doubt. :)
 
I am not much into Biographies but I have read three that are quite good imho

King of the World - Muhammed Ali and the Rise of an American Hero

My Life - Bill Clinton

No one here gets out alive - Jim Morrison Biography

If your into crime books then I would rec. some of John Grishams earlier work

MikeHunt79 said:
Freakonomics - S D Levitt & S J Dubner :cool:

Very eye opening I must say.
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+1

Oh and I forgot World War Z for a bit of mindless entertainment
 
Fiction:

Michael Marshall Smith -Only Forward
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Robert Rankin - The Antipope

Non Fiction:
Christopher Hibbert - Wellington: A Personal History
Antonia Fraser - Cromwell: Our Chief of Men
David Niven - The Moon's A Balloon
 
Fiction
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (idiosyncratic anti-war story)
Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (heartwarming)
Foucalt's Pendulum - Umberto Eco (intensely clever and very gripping)
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (irreverent tragi-comedy)

Non-Fiction
Freakonomics - Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner (economics applied to real life)
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb (why we misinterpret luck as skill)
The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins (excellent introduction to a modern perspective on evolution)
Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hofstadter (consciousness, emergence and artificial intelligence - one of my favourite books of all time)
 
One the Road, by Kerouac. It's hard to get into because of his style, but once you get used to it it's a very addictive and enjoyable book. It makes you think about how boring your life (probably) is, and... I dunno, it just changed my outlook a little, for the better.
 
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