List your all time favorite books if you feel like it

[fightoffyour]

18 hours ago, Seat68 said:

God here we go then. The Harry Potter series. The Alex Cross series by James Patterson. One Day by David Nicholls. The Dirt by Motley Crue.
I know they are populist, low brow nonsense. You have seen the music I listen to right?  

Mine are of a similar lowbrow persuasion too. Gotta love the Harry Potters.

Many John Grishams - I'd probably pick out A Time To Kill, The Firm and The Partner.

More recently many Jo Nesbos - The Redbreast is probably the pick of the Harry Holes, and Headhunters as a standalone.

[villa4europe]

obvious ones is LOTR and I will say it - I liked dan brown's stuff! I liked the "factual" side of it even though I never actually fact checked any of it, they're very simple and easy to read

special place for anything written by Roald Dahl, I've since bought the box set for my little sister, my nephew and this xmas for my german niece, you cant beat his books, including his 2 autobiographies which are great, favourite autobiography is redemption song, favourite history book which is on a good day my favourite book of all time is romance of the three kingdoms, anyone whos played dynasty warriors should give the book a read

but something slightly different, the best put together book I've ever read is one from my dissertation (Chinese construction economics)

unfortunately with it moving so fast its probably out dated by now but the quality of that book is incredible, it bombards you with information but in a way that's enjoyable to read, its basically a rough history of "communist" china, followed by how they've built these mega cities along with various bits of urban planning explanations for their major cities

[PussEKatt]

21 hours ago, Seat68 said:

God here we go then. The Harry Potter series. The Alex Cross series by James Patterson. One Day by David Nicholls. The Dirt by Motley Crue.
I know they are populist, low brow nonsense. You have seen the music I listen to right?  

Alex Cross is ok but have you read "Texas outlaw" there only 2 books in the series so far ( both by James Patterson ) they are good reads. 

[PussEKatt]

22 hours ago, Follyfoot said:

Dan Spider Shepard is a brilliant character 

Yes,I really like him.

Have you read any John Grisham books ? they are good as well,all about leagal systems and lawyers but not as dull as they sound.

[sharkyvilla]

I love a book with a great twist, The Ghost by Robert Harris has probably my favourite.  I'm not sure if HHhH counts as fiction or non-fiction, I don't really read much non-fiction, I guess The Rise And Fall Of The Dinosaurs would be my favourite pure non-fiction book because it's about dinosaurs.  There are a few books I've read more than once that I guess I have to count as among my favourites, Filth, 1984, About A Boy, Silence Of The Lambs.  That probably covers it.

[villa4europe]

43 minutes ago, sharkyvilla said:

I love a book with a great twist

I am legend

not sure if you'd class it as a "twist" but its possibly the best last chapter of a book that I can think of, didn't see it coming

shutter island is another one with a great twist that the film completely missed the point of and yeah the ghost was ok, had forgot about that, I tend to read a lot of books that get turned in to films thinking about it, sometimes when I know they're in production I will read the book first, sometimes its after (world war z)

Edited November 3, 2020 by villa4europe

[mjmooney]

8 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I am legend

not sure if you'd class it as a "twist" but its possibly the best last chapter of a book

I read it only a few months ago, and I can't even recall what happened at the end. 

[villa4europe]

10 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I read it only a few months ago, and I can't even recall what happened at the end. 

spoils everything - 

Spoiler

he's the bogeyman, he's the one going round killing them  in the daytime whilst they're asleep, he's the last one of his kind on earth and they're the new normal, they're all terrified of him hence why they've been trying to kill him, it flips the idea of who is the monster on its head and its superbly done

 

[Follyfoot]

2 hours ago, PussEKatt said:

Yes,I really like him.

Have you read any John Grisham books ? they are good as well,all about leagal systems and lawyers but not as dull as they sound.

Yes I have, funnily enough one of my favourite books of all time is the one where the child at the start comes across the lawyer being killed in the Woodlands. Can’t remember what it’s called but cracking book

[theboyangel]

4 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

 

More recently many Jo Nesbos - The Redbreast is probably the pick of the Harry Holes, and Headhunters as a standalone.

Love these books and agree about Headhunter.

my favourite Hole book is probably the Snowman. It’s such a shame they made a real hash of the film adaptation (unlike Headhunter which is a cracking movie)

[Seat68]

I really like The Lovely Bones. Loved the book, and the film and saw it at the Rep a year or 2 back. 
I like David Nicholls full stop. Read all of his books and each one was excellent. 
I love A single man by Christopher Isherwood. Its a heartbreaking read. 
I really love End of the Affair by Graham Greene. Beautiful story. 
Vanity of Duluoz by Jack Kerouac was a huge influence on me, as was Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. 
I loved Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. 
Lastly I love Goodbye Mog. Beautifully written and allows children to question what happens when we die. 

[fightoffyour]

34 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

Yes I have, funnily enough one of my favourite books of all time is the one where the child at the start comes across the lawyer being killed in the Woodlands. Can’t remember what it’s called but cracking book

That's A Time To Kill, I just mentioned it. He's got two more books with the same lawyer and other characters, one of them is new this year which I haven't read yet.

23 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

Love these books and agree about Headhunter.

my favourite Hole book is probably the Snowman. It’s such a shame they made a real hash of the film adaptation (unlike Headhunter which is a cracking movie)

Not sure if I watched The Snowman because I heard it was crap. Headhunters was a good movie though.

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

I am legend

not sure if you'd class it as a "twist" but its possibly the best last chapter of a book that I can think of, didn't see it coming

shutter island is another one with a great twist that the film completely missed the point of and yeah the ghost was ok, had forgot about that, I tend to read a lot of books that get turned in to films thinking about it, sometimes when I know they're in production I will read the book first, sometimes its after (world war z)

The Firm is probably the worst book adaptation ever made. WWZ might be close, but I saw the movie first and I'm a sucker for zombies. Would love to see a TV series based on the books, which is something that's been discusses somewhere on here very recently.

Edited November 3, 2020 by fightoffyour

[Xann]

Clive Barker - 'Weaveworld'

[mjmooney]

4 hours ago, villa4europe said:

spoils everything - 

  Reveal hidden contents

he's the bogeyman, he's the one going round killing them  in the daytime whilst they're asleep, he's the last one of his kind on earth and they're the new normal, they're all terrified of him hence why they've been trying to kill him, it flips the idea of who is the monster on its head and its superbly done

 

Ah, yes, that. Um, I kind of got that pretty early on in the book. Pretty good book, all the same. 

[tonyh29]

I used to be a bit of a bookworm but like someone else mentioned previously , the web seems to have killed me in that regard , I get suckered into news articles around the world and haven't picked up a  book in yonks ....

A favourite would be nigh on impossible , but there are a few series that I've gone back and read a couple of times , mainly the Conn Iggulden ones on Caesar(Empire series) and Michael Dobbs  Churchill series

Ben Mezrich is probably my most read non-fiction author ... The accidental billionaire was the basis for The Social network so most people probably know his work even if they don't know him , Straight flush was compelling read as was Bringing down the house  ( became the film 21) and ugly Americans   ..

Guess if i had to pick one , then it would be a low brow one , The Faithful spy by Alex Berensen , the whole John Wells series has been pretty good , but the first one really stood out

 

[AVFC_Hitz]

A few from childhood would be Snowleg by Nicholas Shakespeare and the Tomorrow When the War Began series.

Cryptonomicon is up there as my all time favourite book. I reread it every three or four years. Then there's The City and the City by China Mieville.

Downing, Furst and Kerr are all masters of what they do and I've read and reread what ever they've produced. Then there's Mankells Wallander series.

The Jack Reacher novels are perfect holiday books. They're aren't up their own arse. 

Ah man, just writing this has got me thinking...Gunther Grass and Hans Fallada books are all brilliant. 

[mjmooney]

26 minutes ago, AVFC_Hitz said:

Cryptonomicon is up there as my all time favourite book. I reread it every three or four years. Then there's The City and the City by China Mieville.

Downing, Furst and Kerr are all masters of what they do and I've read and reread what ever they've produced

Cryptonomicon is ace, and it led me onto the amazing Baroque Cycle - which also should be in my list (I will edit it in shortly). EDIT: Oh crap, it won't let me edit it - after only 24 hours. Grrrr. 

Never read any Mieville, although I've had Perdido Street Station staring at me from my 'to read' bookcase for years. Don't know if it's going to be My Sort Of Thing or not. 

Downing > Furst > Kerr. Fallada should be the best, as He Was There, but I abandoned Alone in Berlin, thought it was boring. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by mjmooney

[TheAuthority]

The Alexandra Quartet - Lawrence Durrell - Fantastic piece of literature

Naked Lunch - William Burroughs

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - technically a play but had a profound effect on me when I first read it

Honorable mention for Orwell's 1984.

[AVFC_Hitz]

On that...there is/was a slew of copycat writers that have tried to emulate the cold war espionage thing. Some of them are on Amazon for around £1 to £3. 

There is a series I've just read by Paul Grant which I thought were quite excellent.

Edit: didn't quote @mjmooney

Edited November 3, 2020 by AVFC_Hitz
Boban

[mjmooney]

4 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

The Alexandra Quartet - Lawrence Durrell - Fantastic piece of literature

Bravo. I read it back in my 30s, and it made an impression on me, but I think I only really took it in as semi-decadent, fever-dream hallucinatory poetic writing. If you'd asked me, I'd have said that the plot was confusing and almost nonexistent. I thought the characters all blurred into one another. Verdict: impressive, but a bit pretentious. 

Read it again just last month, and realised the plotting and structure is utterly brilliant. Loved the characters, and found it a total page turner. Verdict: triumphant masterpiece. 

Just goes to shown that we read books differently at different stages of our life. (Exactly the same thing happened with Mann's "The Magic Mountain" - re-read immediately before the Durrell, after a similar timelapse).