What are your six favourite fiction books (or authors) ?

Started by vandermolen, April 05, 2008, 10:09:27 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Keemun

Dan Simmons (Carrion Comfort, Song of Kali, Hyperion)
Stephen King (The Stand, Pet Sematary)
Tad Williams (The War of the Flowers)
Larry Niven (Ringworld)
Frank Herbert (Dune)
P.D. James (Adam Dalgliesh series)
Martha Grimes (Richard Jury series)

I'm sure there are plenty more I could think of, but I'm off to bed to read.  ;)
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. - Ludwig van Beethoven

Bogey

Quote from: Keemun on April 05, 2008, 08:27:34 PM

Stephen King (Pet Sematary)

Keemun,
I was fortunate enough to receive a signed a copy from him for high school graduation back in '84.  He signed it :
To the son of Flash.  With best wishes from Chris "fast hands" Morgan and "terminal slump" King-Stephen King 5/13/84.   Not sure who Chris Morgan is.  I should ask my dad who got the book signed for me.  King has a home in Bangor, Maine, my hometown.
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Renfield

Quote from: Bogey on April 05, 2008, 08:22:56 PM
Dracula-Bram Stoker

I adore this book. Hence the nickname, too.

Fascinating thread! I'll be sure to post a quintet when I can trust my mind to be as clear as to select them. Currently, sleepless, no. ;)

Josquin des Prez


Brian

Quote from: Keemun on April 05, 2008, 08:27:34 PM
P.D. James (Adam Dalgliesh series)
I think I've told you this before, but that is also one of my favorite series. So far I've read The Murder Room and The Lighthouse and am left eagerly searching for more! (We have some of the earlier books at home, so when I go back for the summer I can catch up.)

Bogey - several of my friends have also recently read and loved Dorian Gray, so I checked it out from the library today. :)

vandermolen

Thanks for replies.  Lots of interesting suggestions for further reading here and not much overlap really. I should have added Orwell to my list. My work colleague insisted tht I read Slaughterhouse 5, which I did. It is a weird book but I did like it.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Haffner

Quote from: Bogey on April 05, 2008, 08:40:36 PM
Keemun,
I was fortunate enough to receive a signed a copy from him for high school graduation back in '84.  He signed it :
To the son of Flash.  With best wishes from Chris "fast hands" Morgan and "terminal slump" King-Stephen King 5/13/84.   Not sure who Chris Morgan is.  I should ask my dad who got the book signed for me.  King has a home in Bangor, Maine, my hometown.




I've seen the home in Bangor (I'm from Portland). Pet Sematary is for me the most legitimately frightening book I ever read by Stephen King.

Henk

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 05, 2008, 01:57:47 PM
This is very hard. As I do with questions of this type concerning music, I want to discard the classics straight off - they go without saying. My list of true, personal favourites is not inordinately long, but just a little too much for this list (why six, of all numbers?  ??? ;) ) - I could list about 15 books which I would want here. So

1.  You're not alone - put me down for that one too. A book that contains everything. Including quite a bit of Janacek.


Are you Dutch then? I think Mulisch is not very well-known outside the Netherlands, though his work deserves to.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 05, 2008, 01:57:47 PM

2. The Baroque Trilogy  (Neal Stevenson - Pynchon fans take note)

Noted. I'm currently reading Cryptonomicon and loving it. I'll order the trilogy.

Sarge

the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Sergeant Rock

#29
Quote from: Corey on April 05, 2008, 08:08:19 PM
Buying this the next trip to the bookstore. Thanks. :)

My pleasure. Anything by Nabokov is worth reading. He's one of the giants. But be aware that my listing Ada is based on an extreme personal identification with parts of the story and may be coloring my admiration for the book. Whether Ada is actually one of the supreme masterpieces of the 20th century, or one of his lesser books, I'm not in a position to objectively evaluate. Love is blind.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

lukeottevanger

@ Sarge, re. Stevenson's Baroque trilogy - Yes do read it! The best thing I read last year - but then it took most of the year to get through all three books ;D  Actually, the best thing I've read for many years.

@ Henk - my father is Dutch, but I don't speak the language; I read The Discovery of Heaven in translation

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 06, 2008, 05:03:22 AM
@ Sarge, re. Stevenson's Baroque trilogy - Yes do read it!


I assume the books are meant to be read in order. Is this the correct order?

Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World


Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

J.Z. Herrenberg

Difficult to choose. Writers I admire: Henry James, James Joyce, Frank Herbert, J.R.R. Tolkien, the German Arno Schmidt, and in Dutch literature Willem Frederik Hermans.

(Henk, there are a few Dutchmen here: Christo, Que, Harry, myself and a few others I forget; and pjme is Flemish)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

lukeottevanger

@ Sarge again - Yes, that is the correct order. You realise, I assume, that Crytonomicon (though written first) is really in a sense the fourth book in the series, though taking place over a period around three centuries later.

I really can't get over how good those books were - I don't recall ever being so shaken by a work of fiction. It's such a dazzling, detailed, fantastical thing, learned, outrageous and philosophical at the same time - and his language is this wonderful mix of ancient and modern like I've never read before. Hope you enjoy them!

Kullervo

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on April 06, 2008, 05:01:22 AM
My pleasure. Anything by Nabokov is worth reading. He's one of the giants. But be aware that my listing Ada is based on an extreme personal identification with parts of the story and may be coloring my admiration for the book. Whether Ada is actually one of the supreme masterpieces of the 20th century, or one of his lesser books, I'm not in a position to objectively evaluate. Love is blind.

Sarge

Nabokov is big on my list of authors to read (along with Solzhenitsyn).

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 06, 2008, 05:14:51 AM
@ Sarge again - Yes, that is the correct order. You realise, I assume, that Crytonomicon (though written first) is really in a sense the fourth book in the series, though taking place over a period around three centuries later.

Yes, I'd read that somewhere. Would you suggest I stop reading it now (I'm only 150 some pages into it...barely begun  :D ) and begin again after reading the trilogy?

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

david johnson

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on April 05, 2008, 09:37:36 PM
The bible. Somebody had to say it.

it's mostly non-fiction, sorry.

back to the o/p.

these guys do both fiction/non-fiction well

shelby foote
tolkien
cs lewis
turtledove
edmund hamilton

dj

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Corey on April 06, 2008, 05:16:58 AM
Nabokov is big on my list of authors to read (along with Solzhenitsyn).

Excellent, Corey. I endorse Ada, then, with no reservations.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

MN Dave

Quote from: Haffner on April 06, 2008, 04:37:08 AM
Pet Sematary is for me the most legitimately frightening book I ever read by Stephen King.

Bingo.

MN Dave

Quote from: ChamberNut on April 05, 2008, 03:24:51 PM
The Exorcist - William Peter Blatty

2001:  A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

The Island of Dr. Moreau - H.G. Wells

Nice!