Chances are that if you are reading this you are at least partially able to read. Before the advent of the internet, you had to PAY to read the rants and opinions of the semi literate. I’m asking you to cast your mind back to a simpler time when reading was a leisure activity. What are your favourite books? Fiction and non-fiction, just don’t bring up your favourite Mills & Boon.
To contribute : John Kennedy Toole; A Confederacy of Dunces. I just hope it never gets ruined by a movie adaption.
there’s been one in the works for years.
Asimov’s Foundation and Robot series 8-). Epic SF books!
I-Robot already ruined by an average action film
Foundation will be ruin by Roland Emerich 
Currently reading the Millenium series from by Steig Larson (Awesome). Haven’t seen the film yet.
Anton Chekhov: Selected Short Stories. Havent read his plays, find it hard to imagine they would be as good as his short stories.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime & Punishment. brutal, terrible book, never read anything so bleak in my life
both of the above authors have made me terrified of Russia
and no i havent read The Gulag Archipelago
Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Havent read Purgetory or Paradise yet, but Inferno almost scared me into becoming a Catholic.
Anything by P.J.O’Rourke (He’s a cunt, but not as much as Chris Hitchens)
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron. Great setting, would be perfect as a film.
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. Love that book for all the wrong reasons. I think they have it all sorted out, bring on the Soma.
do books on tape count, im a bandit for a book on tape!!
My newly required hour long train ride in the morning has given me plenty of time to read, i shall research the suggestions people write in this thread to find something to pass the time, even considered checking out a kindle. Save my fingers from those annoying papercuts! (insert sarcasm smiley here)
recent favourites, mostly borrowed from my more literary housemates:
Jorge Luis Borges- short stories and essays in Labyrinths
J G Ballard - The Drowned World, Concrete Island, The Atrocity Exhibition
W G Sebald - The Rings of Saturn (a few chapters of it anyway)
Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation, The System of Objects (for the uni thesis)
Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities, also that stupid one about a traveler
Pamphlet Architecture No. 28 - Mark Smout and Laura Allen.
A pile of stuff on Barragan, Ando, Isozaki, Asplund, Lewerentz, Boulee, Gilly… all for uni.
plus the BLDGBLOG book!
david foster wallace - infinite jest
stenbeck - the grapes of wrath
will self - great apes
celine - death on the instalment plan
The classics:
+1 American Psycho (I am a big fan of Brett)
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
J. D. Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Janette Winterson - The Passion
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
I am also very much into Australian Authors:
Andrew McGahan - Praise (if you live in Brisbane this is a must)
Tom Gilling - Miles McGinty
Anson Cameron - Lies I Told About a Girl
Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang
Tim Winton - Cloudstreet
My girlfriend just bought a copy of ‘The Anna Meares story’ - I can’t wait to read that.
David sedaris- anything this man has written is funny for scary honesty.
the time travelers wife -awsome
wuthering heights- emily bronte (my next book)
The poetics of rock- Albin J. Zak III - audio eninering/ mixing
Cycling endurance and speed- michael shermer
My booky Wook- russell brand - a 6/10 at most
+1, My granddad gave me a copy of Naked for my 20th birthday. Really loved the book, but it scared me to death to think he might have read it.
Has anyone read the new Hitchhiker’s Guide? It was written by the guy who wrote Artemis Fowl with Douglas Adams’ wife’s permission.
a people’s history of the united states - howard zinn
prison memoirs of an anarchist - alexander berkmann
dynamite: the story of class violence in america - louis adamic
white like me: reflections on race from a privileged son - tim wise
we real cool: black men and masculinity - bell hooks
what’s my name, fool?: sports and resistance in the united states - dave zirin
anything in the nabat books series
anything in the rebel lives series
and
our band could be your life: scenes from the american indie underground 1981 - 1991 - michael azerrad.
mr clarinet - nick stone
the skin gods - richard montanari
Post office - Charles bukowski
ham on rye - charles bukowski
the 11the hour - graham base
Damn Ash where are you getting your Bukowski from? I can’t find them anywhere.
“The Bicycle And The Bush”, Jim Fitzpatrick. Learn your history, kids! Fixed gear doesn’t always mean “track”.
Also this.
A portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce
Crime and Punishment
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (hipster garbage, as someone scrawled on the toilet wall)
The Plague by Camus
Spot
Pretty impenetrable book. My ex-girlfriend’s FAVOURITE author- he killed himself recently didn’t he?
The internet is reading, isn’t it? :evil:
ok so…
john irving- the world according to garp
george orwell-1984 and everything else this man wrote
nick hornby - high fidelity… best break up book ever
the first three bret easton ellis book are so good
alan moore mainly for ‘watchman’, but as well as ‘sin city’ and ‘v for vendetta’
murakami for his short storie
dantes divine comedy but i never got around to reading paradice
alex garlands ‘the beach’, awesome read for any one traveling
dostoyevsky - the idiot
and for the si-fi and modern fantasy nerd inside
neal stephenson - snow crash
and steven eriksons ‘a tale of the malazan book of the fallen series’ best modern fantasy epic ever… ever.
A few favourites, not in any particular order:
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Cloudstreet
The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway
To Have and Have Not - Hemingway
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
Age & Guile… P.J. O’Rourke
Gallipoli - Les Carlyon
The House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne
Adolph Hitler, My Part in His Downfall - S. Milligan
The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
It’s Not About the Bike
Fishing for the Educated Trout - John Sautelle
surprised noone has mentioned slaughterhouse 5, with all the other bleak books that have been mentioned here