Nows yer chance

[Locke421]

Nows yer chance to name books you think should be read by everyone!
Dont be shy. All friendly critisim is welcome of course!
Even you Mr. Moorcock!

Some books (besides MM books)

-the outlaw josey wales
-I enjoyed the first dragonlance's (dragons of autumn twilight and such)
-I am legend ****
-Ishmael
-Lord of the flies
-Yes..(sorry all) I did enjoy lord of the rings
-still life with woodpecker
-thief of always

those are mostly what i have read recently
any suggestions for better stuff?
Also.. if anyone can name a book where one of the characters is a zombie looking gunslinger in black id be much obliged, unless perhaps it was just artwork and not a book character.

[Numazel]

hmm, other than mr. moorcocks books:

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jorden
Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind
The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist
The Drizzt books (forgotten realms) by R.A. Salvatore

probably some others but i have to leave now

[Trinalor]

I'd like to second the Drizzt books (especially the Dark Elf Trilogy) by Salvatore and add that his Demonwars books are also an excellent read.

Other favorites of mine:

anything by Patricia A. McKillip particularly The Riddlemaster Trilogy and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea books

China Mieville's Perdido Street Station & The Scar

[Doc]

I recently posted some of this on a different thread, but since Trinalor hit on some of the books that I mentioned...

Patricia McKillip is one of the few classical fantasy authors I really like. Her stories are akin to fairy tales, but not in a childish sense. I loved the Riddlemaster trilogy the first three times I read it.

China Mieville is doing better things than most people writing anything today. His imagination and description are top-notch.

I've also liked everything I've read by Jeffrey Ford, Jeff Vandermeer, Robert Holdstock, Neil Gaiman, Graham Joyce, and especially Jonathan Carroll, who is also one of MM's favorite authors. All of their work is very character driven, but not at the expense of great storytelling. Most is very dark, blurring the line between horror, fantasy, and literary fiction. This seems to be a little more rewarding to me than most straight fantasy.

Also for the record, everyone should read MM's second ether series, Breakfast in the Ruins, The Brothel in Rosentrasse, King of the City, and Mother London.

[Numazel]

well i said i'd think of more and i did, so without further ado (though i'd love to prattle on more... maybe i will another time...)

The Rose of the Prophet Trilogy by Weis/Hickman
The Darksword Trilogy by Weis/Hickman
The Riftwar Legacy by Raymond E. Feist

[Jules]

Borges - I find it hard to pick a particular volume of shorts. All of then contain at least one great strory, but probably the one that really sticks in my mind most is The Garden of The Forking Paths.

Kyril Bonfiglioli - Don't Point That Thing of Me. Dark comedy, a kind of pre-cursor to Tom Sharpe in many ways - and a contemporary editor of SF magazines to MM.

Richard Braughtigan - The Abortion : An Historical Romance / A Confederate General at Big Sur

Hammett - The Thin Man

Tove Jannson - the Moomin books. Read just as well from an adult point of view.

[Paul]

Personally, I'm a big fan of Albert Camus. That Nobel prize for literature speaks for itself.

[zakt]

Coming from a very insular perspective:

Confessions of a Justified Sinner - James Hogg
Lanark - Alasdair Gray
Gillespie - J. McDougall Hay
Greenvoe - George McKay Brown
A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle - Hugh McDiarmind
Morven Caller / These Demented Lands / The Sopranos - Alan Warner
Trainspotting, Maribou Stork Nightmares, Filth, The Acid House - Irvine Welsh

and less insularly ...

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Anything by J.G. Ballard
Agree with Paul on the Camus, especially L'Etranger (and A Happy Death for comparison's sake)
Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (for light relief :D )
Agree with Jules on the Brautigan
Dickens, Wells ...
Oh! Puckoon by Spike Milligan :lol: :lol: :lol:


As someone (maybe Jericho?) said elsewhere, go for the classics as well, they're the foundations and reference points for much in the modern vein.

[Jules]

Zakt - I've read a bit ABOUT Alisdair Gray, but nothing by him. I shall have to remedy that. Anyway, my main point was to second your recommendation for Alan Warner, particularly Movern and The Sopranos - which I'd forgotten about but I'd say is one of the best novels in the last decade.

Am I mistaken in thinking you had a weblink up to some music you'd done?

[ghost]

I am reading "The Book of the Jhereg" by Steven Brust. Pretty good.
Also reread "the Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelanzny. Great stuff.

After that I am moving on to:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Liked his comics and other books "Neverwhere" and "Stardust"

"Gods on Darkness" and "Midnight Sun" by Karl Edward Wagner. These two volumes collect most, if not all, of the Kane stories.

[zakt]

Jules

I will keep working on that weblink and let you know (meantime go to http://www.thewickermanfestival.co.uk/index.php for directions to a good time!)

Let me know if you have difficulty locating Gray, there are usually some floating round 2nd hand up here. If you can't find Lanark, try Poor Things, which is a bit more accesible in some respects, and doesn't suffer as much from the "first novel brewing for 30 years, chuck everything into the mix" syndrome!

[Jules]

I've seen Lanark in the Waterstones in town, just didn't want to add it to the bookshelves of unread books at the time!

Wickerman looks good - Spiritualized on a summer evening is always a hard one to beat.

[zakt]

Should be grand (weather permitting, otherwise it'll be wet but grand) :D

[VenusVictrix]

[quote="Jules"]Zakt - I've read a bit ABOUT Alisdair Gray, but nothing by him. I shall have to remedy that.

Do! I was about to recommend Lanark myself. It's my all time favourite book (and spookily like my own experiences in places). Stylistically and thematically it has a lot in common with the Cornelius cycle, especially The Condition of Muzak. In fact I have quite a lot to say on this, but no time to do so at present. Maybe later...

Nice to see Kyril Bonfiglioli get a mention too. I discovered the Mortdecai books about 5 years ago (about the only worthwhile recommendation ever made to me by a publisher's rep!). By turns hilarious, nasty and often genuinely shocking.

[zakt]

VenusVictrix wrote:

Stylistically and thematically it (Lanark) has a lot in common with the Cornelius cycle, especially The Condition of Muzak.

I think there's a lot of similarities to the "biographical" bits of Behold the Man as well, especially the massive artistic self-pity!

I hear Gray has just finished (the start of) a series of zodiac paintings on the ceiling of a new and fairly huge Glasgow pub. This will have to be investigated next time I hit the city.