Top three books of all time

Caveat said:
Yes, excellent IMO. Rare to see such a great blend of horror and (black) humour - attempts are usually sadly lacking in one of the two.
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I'm a big Ian Banks/ Ian M Banks fan as well. I thought The Wasp Factory was great and I love his Science Fiction.
 
For a wonderful laugh, Spike Milligans War Memoirs. I read one every cople of months. Super...
 
The "Wheel of Time" series....wipes the floor with LOTR.
Fingerprints of the Gods.....outstanding book (non-fiction)
Misery - Stephen King. Still love it.
I, Robot. Utter genius.


Worst book....Filth (already mentioned, but so bad it has to be in there twice).
 
No 1 - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Dee Brown's hauntingly beautiful Indian odyssey.

No 2 - The Godfather. Mario Puzo's stunning depiction of the Mafia.

No 3 - The Old Man and the Sea. Ernest Hemingway's short and simple yet classic tale of an old man, his boat, the endless sea and a certain fish.

All three books stayed with me for a long long time after I had read them and that for me is the test.
 
PMU said:
Anyway, my top three fiction are:

1.The Fountainhead: Ayn Rand
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Didn't do it for me, I'm afraid. It was an interesting premise, but overly long with very dense prose. I found the characters to be a bit one-dimensional. They seemed to be operating almost to a pre-prepared script, no surprises.
creme egg said:
The time travellers wife - Audrey Niffenegger
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Fascinating book. The premise for the story is just so completely original, particularly for a first-time author. The short chapters suited my gnat-like attention span perfectly. The story is incredibly moving, in a very realistic way. I loved the references to the Violent Femmes and Iggy Pop etc.

Wicked is next on the agenda, seems promising from the first 30 pages.
 
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (The auld Leaving Cert never leaves ye!)
 
Elphaba said:
1. A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers
2. You shall know my velocity, also by Dave Eggers
3. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
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I loved Wicked, though I wouldn't usually read that kind of stuff. The whole Harry Potter and Lord of the RIngs phases just flew right by me. It had a great mix of the fantastical and the mundane, and the characters were very interesting and unpredictable. PS Love the username!

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is next.
 
The Partisan's Daughter, L de Berniers
Alice in Sunderland, Bryan Talbot
The Queen And I, Sue Townsend
 
Alice in Sunderland is a very good book,especially if you have connections with the NE of England, (Mrs K is a Mak'em) but I'm not sure that I would call it great.
 
cinders said:
We Need to Talk About Kevin
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Very, very scary book for any parent, though I took some reassurance that even the worst of times with my kids are nothing near as bad as the best of times in that family. Gripping reading.

jaybird said:
5) The Boy in the striped pyjamas. Simple but brilliant.
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MandaC said:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time Mark Haddon
I was laughing out loud reading some of this
Happy and sad parts, brilliantly written
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Some similarities in both these books, as both are written from the POV of a child. I though 'striped pyjamas' achieved this POV more credibly. It is very, very difficult to write in a simple style, and Boyne definitely achieved it here.

Some aspects of the autism in 'curious incident' just didn't seem credible to me, though I've no personal experience in the area. The book was definitely enjoyable.

Phibbleberry said:
Wonderland Avenue-Tales of Glamour and Excess by Danny Sugarman
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I'm in the middle of this one, and it is certianly an enjoyable story. Makes the worst excesses of my teens seem like choirboy stuff by comparison.
 
love this thread. i love reading but i haven't had much time for it the last few years. it's so hard just to pick three...

top three

The Pillars of the Earth [Ken Follett]
Accordian Crimes [Annie Proulx]
A Prayer for Owen Meany [john irving]

close runners up

Cold Mountain [Charles Frazier]
Cider House Rules [John Irving]
She's come undone [Wally Lamb]
Prodigal summer [Barbara kingsolver]
In Cold Blood [Truman Capote]
Life of Pi [Yann Martel]
Middlesex [Jeffrey Eugenides]
Jupiters Travels [Ted Simon]
Surfacing [Margaret Atwood]

I also love David Sedaris, he's just so funny.

and Arthur C Clarke short stories

and HG Wells short stories.

and i adored Anthony Doerr's short story collection The Shell Collector.

the joys of becoming totally and utterly lost in a book! when all the mundane daily tasks become just filling in between greedy massive mouthfuls of a juicy story. and for a week after finishing the book you know there's something just not right because the anticipation is over and all those wonderfully absorbing new aquaintances are just....gone.

 
The remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
 
di74 said:
The remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
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I absolutely loved this too - and you've just reminded me to read it again.

Has 1984 been mentioned? loved it - Brave New World much less so as it happens.
Re Irish authors, Amongst Women by John McGahern was great I thought as is most of his work. Also, I think almost anything by both Brian Moore & William Trevor are well worth reading.
 
Woodbine,

World Without End by Ken Follett is the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth and while not quite as good is still agood yarn which is very readable.

BillK
 
BillK said:
Woodbine,

World Without End by Ken Follett is the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth and while not quite as good is still agood yarn which is very readable.

BillK
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i know, i read it in January.

Not quite as fulfilling as Pillars of the Earth, but still not a bad book by any means. I love how both books introduce the reader to the origins of surnames and developments in engineering/medicine/legal system etc.
 
Re: Books - Top three best reads and worst reads of all time.

nacho_libre said:
- The Star of the Sea (Joseph O'Connor)
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This was a bit of a struggle for me. It was obviously very well researched, and cleverly written, but I just didn't enjoy it much. It was hard to feel any empathy with any of the characters, and it was more a relief that anything else to get it finished.

Here's my current book http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images...ow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg - very promising from the first couple of chapters, and couldn't be more different to Star of the Sea.
 
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