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Yeah, it's been a while since we've had one of these, and hopefully this one will get stickied. I seem to recall a thread like this that was stickied, once...perhaps I'm hallucinating.

Anyway, recommend any books; fantasy, nonfiction, sci-fi, modern day, romance, comedy, historical, etc. Just try to make sure they're *good* books.

Shogun, by James Clavelle.

I have been trying to read the next book in the series Taipan, but it just pales in comparison to Shogun.

It's simply one of the best books I have ever read.

Click here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
top 21-100 are listed
voting for top 20 is still on, see here for choices:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/vote/

That should be enough for you to read over a few years.

lukexcom wrote:Click here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
top 21-100 are listed
voting for top 20 is still on, see here for choices:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/vote/

That should be enough for you to read over a few years.

Not one Terry Pratchett in the Top 50?
Harry Potter in 22,23,24 ?
Something fishy going on there is you ask me!

It's because most Terry Pratchett fnas are mature and literate enough to relaise that his books, while very good, are not the masterpieces that many of the top 20 are.

I've recently finished Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel, which was good, but beware any book that makes me think it's a pile of profeminist bull.

InnerBrat wrote:It's because most Terry Pratchett fnas are mature and literate enough to relaise that his books, while very good, are not the masterpieces that many of the top 20 are.

I said none in the top 50 so there's still 30 places to fill, some of which are taken by:

22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

Those are the ones that i have read and consider to be inferiror comapred to most Discworld novels, especially the ones nominated.

And Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is classed a s a masterpiece now? Pleeeeease!

Read!

Blindness, Jose Saramago
Battle Royale, Koushun Takami
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks

The Neverending Story. That's all you need.

Any of the Culture books by Iain M. Banks for sci-fi, his fiction work is an acquired taste, but he does have some good non-Culture sci-fi novels too.

Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. 'Nuff said.

The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins for excellent explanations about how life came about, how it works and where it's going plus brilliant rebuttals to Creationist fallacies.

1984 by George Orwell, the definitive dystopia future state scenario.

Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck, an amazingly real story about American drifters looking for work during the great depression.

The Terminator Trilogy (T2: Infiltrator, T2: Rising Storm & T2: The Future War) by S.M. Stirling. Definitive and very true to the original sequels. What T3 should have been.

Prey by Michael Crichton, a sci-fi thriller with a team of scientists working on nanotech only to make an artificial organism of nanoswarms. Slow to get going and pretty technical, but a good overall story.

2000AD wrote:

InnerBrat wrote:It's because most Terry Pratchett fnas are mature and literate enough to relaise that his books, while very good, are not the masterpieces that many of the top 20 are.

And Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is classed a s a masterpiece now? Pleeeeease!

please note the word 'many'
Also please bear in mind the method of voting - you can only vote for one book.

I am a huge Pterry fan, However I voted for 1984 because it's just better than anything Pterry's written.

The five books you've listed were all childrens books, and were almost certainly voted for by children who had never read any better books.

Understand yet?

Just when was the vote to decide which got into the Top 21? Whenever i looked at the site there was only stuff about discussions and reading groups.

1984 by George Orwell, the definitive dystopia future state scenario.

i have to buy this book... Saturday... *writes in a trip to waterstones on work diary* i keep forgetting to look for it

Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck, an amazingly real story about American drifters looking for work during the great depression.

did that one in year 9 at school, good book, shame trying to read it was constantly ruined by prats who didn't like the subject.

Prey by Michael Crichton, a sci-fi thriller with a team of scientists working on nanotech only to make an artificial organism of nanoswarms. Slow to get going and pretty technical, but a good overall story.

i was so hooked on this book, i started reading it at 6pm on a school night expecting it to send me too sleep, by starting slow like most crichton books, I was still up at 4 am!!! needless to say, my school day wasn't particularly productive.. i did however finish the book

I'd like to recommend Lord of The Rings.

Unparalleled.

"The Elegant Universe" - Brian Greene

Its what I'm reading now, good stuff. It's a little more involved than a typical Hawkings book but should still be understandable to people with a little scientific background, and gives more details (also good), which is not surprising in that its 448 pages of small text. Flipping ahead I see diagrams of various modes of string vibration, complex spacial geometry diagrams... sweet.

The cover says:

Superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory.

Pullitzer prize winning finalist.

Lets see on the top of my list of fun/interesting books I;ve read are:

World War Invasion Series by Harry Turtledove (there are good, but the follow up, colonization, kinda blows)

Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Servant of the Shard by R.A. Salvatore (my favorite book written by him)

Terry Pratchett's latest, Monstrous Regiment, gets weirder and weirder.

I also like Neal Stephenson books.

The Kama Sutra, because you never know when you might get laid and it'll be nice to surprise your partner with some original techniques.

Rogue Warrior: Green Team - Richard Marcinko. Things get blown up and people get killed, and there's lots of fucking swearing. An eery prediction of the Islamic fundamentalist terror to come.

Zoink wrote:"The Elegant Universe" - Brian Greene

Its what I'm reading now, good stuff. It's a little more involved than a typical Hawkings book but should still be understandable to people with a little scientific background, and gives more details (also good), which is not surprising in that its 448 pages of small text. Flipping ahead I see diagrams of various modes of string vibration, complex spacial geometry diagrams... sweet.

The cover says:

Superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory.

Pullitzer prize winning finalist.

Have you seen his series? I'm two episodes in and the guy is great at explaining this stuff unlike most scientists.

If you're looking for something relaxing and mindless, yet still with a decent plot and enjoyable characters, then I really enjoyed David Edding's Belgariad lot, very similar to Lord of the Rings in premise and in some of the myth, but a thoroughly enjoyable work nonetheless.

Every time we have one of these threads I recommend Lord of the Flies, but why break with tradition?

Anyway, recently I had the pleasure of reading Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, which is an extremely strong work and I would heartily recommend it to any and all comers.

I would also have to recommend Dracula, and Tender is the Night.

Alastor by Jack Vance. Probably obscure as hell, but I personally liked.

"The hows and whys of touching yourself" by Aerius.

Frankenstein is a lot better than the movies make it out to be.

I just read 'Mirror Mirror'. It wasn't too bad.

Lord of the Ring and The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Look to Windward and Excession by Iain M Banks

Dune by Frank Herbert

Path of the Fury by David Weber


Series to read:

Any of the Horatio Hornblower novels by CS Forestor:

• Midshipman Horblower
• Lieutenant Hornblower
• Hornblower and the Hotspur
• Horblower in the Crisis
• Hornblower and the Atropos
• Beat to Quarters
• Ship of the Line
• Flying Colours
• Commodore Hornblower
• Lord Hornblower
• Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies

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Any of the Gaunts Ghost's or Eisenhorn novels by Dan Abnett:

The Ghosts Novels:

• First and Only
• Ghostmaker
• Necropolis
• Honour Guard
• Guns of Tanith
• Straight Silver
• Sabbat Martyr[/i]

The Eisenhorn Trilogy:

• Xenos
• Malleus
• Hereticus

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The main Honorverse:

• On Basalisk Station
• The Honor of the Queen
• A Short Victorius War
• Feild of Dishonor
• Flag in Exile
• Honor Among Enemies
• In Enemy Hands
• Echoes of Honor
• Ashes of Victory
• War of Honor[/i]

the Honorverse anthologies

• Worlds of Honor
• More than Honor
• Changer of Worlds
• Service of the Sword

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