Must Read Books

Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham is brilliant - really good sci-fi/post-apocalyptic stuff. It's had a big influence on a lot of more recent stuff, most notably 28 Days Later.
 
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking.*

Recently started reading this and it explains many things so much better than my A-Level Physics teachers did.


*Provided you have even the tiniest interest in Physics.
 
anant_shah94 said:
catcher in the rye - salinger
trust me I'm a junior doctor - max pemberton
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Catcher in The Rye is the most over-rated book I have ever read in my humble opinion. It may have been relevant and rebellious in the 1950's, but today it's just dated, and Holden Caulfield just doesn't resonate any more.

Less than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis or the Perks Of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky are more relevant.
 
To agree with some posted above:

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Around The World In Eighty Days by Jules Verne
A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking


And a few of my own:

Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton
Flowers for Algernon (Charly) by Daniel Keyes
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
 
Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy
Never Trust A Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson
Life Of Pi by Yann Martel
The Long Dry by Cynan Jones
Remote Control by Andy McNab
The Game by Neil Strauss
 
Does anyone remember the short story about war prisoners who were forced to wring water from a cloth until it was bone dry? The story was so detailed regarding the pure torture of it all, how their own sweat would keep the cloth wet, and the occasional drop that would come from the ceiling, blistered hands and knees, things like that.
 
Raist said:
Does anyone remember the short story about war prisoners who were forced to wring water from a cloth until it was bone dry? The story was so detailed regarding the pure torture of it all, how their own sweat would keep the cloth wet, and the occasional drop that would come from the ceiling, blistered hands and knees, things like that.
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Not sure, SlaughterHouse 5, maybe?
 
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman

Quest for Fire by Jean M Auel

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Gormenghast by Mervin Peake

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
 
Wonderland avenue - danny sugarman.

Unbelievable book of life in the 60s 70s in LA, sugarman hung out with the doors and managed iggy pop, how he lived to to tell the tale is nothing short of a miracle.

Anyone who likes veitnam war bio's.
Chickenhawk - Robert mason, he flew helis into landing zones, amazing read that left me with tears in my eyes on more than one occasion.
 
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Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (Probably the most powerful novel of the last 50 years)
Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
Catcher in the Rye - Sallinger (Read this when I was 16, but still a great)
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Outsider - Albert Camus

They are the novels I have read which I feel are "must" reads, my favourite books and ones I have re-read over 3 times are:

The Road by McCarthy and the Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, the latter is the best fantasy series ever written surpassing LOTR.
 
Liefrich said:
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (Probably the most powerful novel of the last 50 years)
Farewell to Arms - Hemingway
Catcher in the Rye - Sallinger (Read this when I was 16, but still a great)
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Outsider - Albert Camus

They are the novels I have read which I feel are "must" reads, my favourite books and ones I have re-read over 3 times are:

The Road by McCarthy and the Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, the latter is the best fantasy series ever written surpassing LOTR.
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some good choices, I disagree with Catcher, and have you read Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan, it far surpasses the Song series by Martin. :)
 
Gaidin109 said:
and have you read Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan, it far surpasses the Song series by Martin. :)
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I hope you have written your will, because I'm now going to have to kill you for being unable to tell a good series from a bad one. The Wheel of Time represents everything that is wrong with Heroic fantasy, whilst Martin at least has attempted to break away from that.



Back to the original question:


Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (hard work, but not as hard as The Name of the rose)
If This is a Man by Primo Levi
A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell)
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick



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