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My non-sc-fi/fantasy bookshelf is a little thin, and it needs bulking up. Ergo, this thread.

Please post any fiction(non-sci fi/fantasy) novels you'd recommend. Descriptions are welcome(but no spoilers!)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Simply one of the best goddamn books I've ever read. It's positively brilliant.

Sort of sci-fi, but more alternative history. Anyway, I still have to recomend it.

You MUST read Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.

See my two threads about it in OSF. It is the second best book I have ever read.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey is really good too, although if I remember correctly you're 15 and that might be a bit too hard of a read. I'm not sure.

Actually, I think he's 13, dear...

If you're up for some naval (specifically submarines) reading i recommend these:


Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag.

Silent Victory by Clay Blair.

Hitler's U-Boat War by Clay Blair (Both Volumes).


I have a few more, but I gotta dig up the titles.

Duh, guess i should read the post more clearly. I don't really read fiction, so i recommend these if you're in a non-fiction mood.

Of Mice & Men by Steinbeck and An Inspector Calls by Priestley were good at school.

Bravo Two Zero by McNab was good from what I recall and some Clancy novels can be entertaining if you like military and political stuff.

Oh yeah, Nineteen Eighty-Four by Orwell and A Clockwork Orange (which I need to read) by Burgess are brilliant (could be seen as sci-fi like, but like Battle Royale, nothing as hardcore as say anything by Clarke or Baxter).

The Road to Gandolfo and The Road to Omaha, by Robert Ludlum. They're both funny and well-constructed.

High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Club Dumas - Arturo Perez-Reverte (basis for the film The Ninth Gate)
Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut

I'll second Slaughterhouse Five.

A word of warning on Catcher, though: Don't be surprised if you feel you want to murder Holden about two-thirds into the book.

And under no conditions read Ragtime. If you're able to choose, read The Great Gastby instead of that garbage...

Any of CS Forrestor's Horatio Hornblower novels:

• Mr Midshipman Hornblower
  Lt. Hornlbower
  Hornblower and the Hotspur
  Hornblower in the Crisis
  Hornblower and the Atropos
  Beat to Quarters
  Ship of the Line
  Flying Colours
  Commodore Hornblower
  Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

You could give some Twain a shot. I've only read Adventures of Huck Finn, but I've been reading to mean more of his work.

Treasure Island! Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece.

Also, try Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I'll second Slaughterhouse Five.

I third it!

1. Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnagut (many good short stories)
2. The Stranger - Albert Camus
3. Shogun - James Clavel
4. The Complete Stories (with Foreward by John Updike) - Franz Kafka
5. The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe
6. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman

Anything by P.J. O'Rourke. Parliament of Whores and Eat the Rich are higlhy recommended.

Time on the Cross is a pretty interesting tract on the economics of American slavery, if you can slosh through it.

Team Yankee, Harold Coyle. Its military fiction from the 80's. While dated, its a good read if you like the Cold War.

Fraternity of the Stone, sort of a spy novel where the Catholic Church and a much older religion do covert battle with most of us ordinary folks unawares.b

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

Stephen Pressfield: "Gates of Fire" and "Tides of War" the best damn historical fiction I have read in a long time.

Here's some of my fave horror novels:

'Salems Lot - Stephen King
Christine - Stephen King
The Stand (uncut) - Stephen King
The Talisman - Stephen King
Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice
The Books of Blood - Clive Barker

I also want to add this really great book I read a few years back:

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt
A very good book about a woman and her genius son as the son searches for a father.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemmingway
Awsome novel about love and faith and pretty much everything else set during the Spanish Civil War.

Beowulf
The dude is fucking badass. 'nough said.

The Cookoo's Eggp by Cliff Stoll.
The real life story of an astronomer who tracked a hacker who was breaking into government computers. Not the greatest writing but was pretty interesting.

anarchistbunny wrote:You could give some Twain a shot. I've only read Adventures of Huck Finn, but I've been reading to mean more of his work.

Innocents Abroad is the name of his adventures as a tourist, circumnavigating the globe on assignment to, iirc, the New York Times. It's where the famous "Reports of my death..." quote comes from. I've only read excerpts from it, because I've yet to find a full copy and have the money for it at the same time.

Twain's sense of irony and humour turn his meetings with natives of the countries he visits into sly pokes at the believes and expectations of 1800's Americans.

Mission Compromised- Oliver North ~ decent read

Without Remorse- Tom Clancy ~ best Clancy novel ever, shows why John Clark is such a badass

Alpha Beta by John Man. It's a general history of the alphabet and how it shaped Western civilization. Hell of an interesting read.
The Egyptian by Mika Waltari
The Unknown Soldier by Väinö Linna (if you can find a copy anywhere, that is, but it has been translated, I've seen an English copy)

Edi

Angels&Demons by Dan Brown

and

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown


Both thrillers about the same guy. In order it goes Angels&Demons and then The Da Vinci Code. I read them the other way around though, it doesn't really matter. Both AWESOME books. Full of really cool information. All true stuff. MUST read.