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

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

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MN Dave

Quote from: Keemun on April 05, 2008, 08:27:34 PM
Dan Simmons (Carrion Comfort, Song of Kali, Hyperion)
Stephen King (The Stand, Pet Sematary)


Nice!

DavidRoss

How about six recommended fiction books (includes collections of short stories)?

Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King
John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War
Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad
Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From
Flannery O'Conner, Everything That Rises Must Converge
J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Daedalus

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Odyssey by Homer (Translation by E.V. Rieu)
Complete Works of Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (What? It's fictional isn't it?  ;D  nobody said that a complete works wasn't allowed! 0:) )

My definitive list, at least for now!

D.

Christo

Alas, no time for reading fiction books for years, now. But a few favourites, recent ones and the old ones that stay with me, are:

William Golding - all, but especially Free Fall
Ismail Kadare - almost all, especially Le crépuscule des dieux de la steppe [no English edition so far, and you won't read the Dutch translation or the Albanian original]
Jaan Kross - especially Professor Martens' Departure (as you will prefer a translation instead of the Estonian original)
Imre Kertész - Sorstalanság, probably translated as Fateless [?]
Reinhold Schneider - a lot, only available in German
Orhan Pamuk - Snow

In Dutch literature, of course Willem Frederik Hermans, dear Jezetha. And also Boeli van Leeuwen, but please as little Harry Mulisch as is unavoidable  >:D 0:)


... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Keemun

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.

Bogey, that's awesome!  I didn't know you were from Bangor, Maine.  I've never been to Maine, but it's on my list of places to visit.

Quote from: Haffner on April 06, 2008, 04:37:08 AM
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.

Haffner, Pet Sematary was the first (and one of the few) novels to actually frighten me.  I read it when I was in high school.  I still have it, I should read it again. 

Quote from: MN Dave on April 06, 2008, 05:40:19 AM
Nice!

Dave, have you read Carrion Comfort or Song of KaliCarrion Comfort was a great story on a grand scale, but I found Song of Kali to be more frightening.  Part way though the book I began feeling like I was experiencing a nightmare.  Hyperion is of course science fiction, but equally as good.  I have yet to finish it, I think I became confused when the Shrike was introduced. 

Quote from: Brian on April 05, 2008, 10:29:39 PM
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.)

Brian, I really liked Murder Room, it was my first of her novels that I read.  I'm reading The Lighthouse right now, but I find it to be kind of slow.  Original Sin was good.  I've read a couple of others I think, but I don't remember which one's right now.  One of them was a very early Adam Dalgliesh novel about a psychiatric clinic and the other took place in an Anglican seminary.   
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. - Ludwig van Beethoven

knight66

Some of mine have been mentioned. But here goes.

Hesse - Narcissus and Goldmund
Robert Graves - I Claudius
Wilde - Dorian Gray
Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Zola - Nana
Anything by PG Woodhouse

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: knight on April 06, 2008, 08:34:19 AM
Robert Graves - I Claudius

I loved that book. I gave it to a friend to read thirty years ago. The last time I visited her (summer of 2006) she wouldn't give it back! She claimed it was hers.  Maybe there is an unwritten law; a borrowed statue of limitations in which the object borrowed eventually reverts to the borrower if you don't claim your property within so many years. :D  Anyway, I'll have to buy a new copy and read it again.

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"

Brian

Quote from: DavidRoss on April 06, 2008, 05:45:33 AM
Gabriel García Márquez, Cien años de soledad
YES.


Keemun, I sometimes have problems with the solutions in James' books, but never with the buildups. I love how atmospheric, how detailed her worlds are, how every character is a very real creation (unlike Christie), and how the tension ramps up very very slowly until it's unbearable ...  :)

lukeottevanger

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on April 06, 2008, 05:17:53 AM
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

No, I wouldn't worry. The other three books are essentially a partitioning up of one enormous book, itself conceived in 8 parts (each the size of a large novel) - so all three have to be read together. Crytonomicon, OTOH, though it has important links to the trilogy, is a separate work. And this way, you are reading the earliest-written work first - like Wagner with Siegfried's Tod (  ;D ;D ;D ), Stevenson wrote the last part first, subsequently realising that he needed to go further back in time and write three 'prequels'!

drogulus

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on April 06, 2008, 08:47:10 AM
I loved that book. I gave it to a friend to read thirty years ago. The last time I visited her (summer of 2006) she wouldn't give it back! She claimed it was hers.  Maybe there is an unwritten law; a borrowed statue of limitations in which the object borrowed eventually reverts to the borrower if you don't claim your property within so many years. :D  Anyway, I'll have to buy a new copy and read it again.

Sarge

   I had to buy a new copy of Claudius the God recently. I couldn't find the one from the '70's.
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J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 06, 2008, 09:10:36 AM
No, I wouldn't worry. The other three books are essentially a partitioning up of one enormous book, itself conceived in 8 parts (each the size of a large novel) - so all three have to be read together. Crytonomicon, OTOH, though it has important links to the trilogy, is a separate work. And this way, you are reading the earliest-written work first - like Wagner with Siegfried's Tod (  ;D ;D ;D ), Stevenson wrote the last part first, subsequently realising that he needed to go further back in time and write three 'prequels'!

Luke, could you give me the ideal reading order of Neal Stephenson's novels? I have never read any of his books, but I want to see what he is doing, and how (taking a writerly interest...)

Btw - the scores are on their way (since Thursday).
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

MN Dave

Quote from: Keemun on April 06, 2008, 07:22:15 AM
Dave, have you read Carrion Comfort or Song of KaliCarrion Comfort was a great story on a grand scale, but I found Song of Kali to be more frightening.  Part way though the book I began feeling like I was experiencing a nightmare.  Hyperion is of course science fiction, but equally as good.  I have yet to finish it, I think I became confused when the Shrike was introduced. 

SONG OF KALI is one of the best horror novels ever.

lukeottevanger

Quote from: Jezetha on April 06, 2008, 09:38:28 AM
Luke, could you give me the ideal reading order of Neal Stephenson's novels? I have never read any of his books, but I want to see what he is doing, and how (taking a writerly interest...)

Btw - the scores are on their way (since Thursday).

Thanks! Looking forward in eager anticipation!

Re Stevenson, I've only read these four books. They take quite an investment of time, so I don't want to read his other books till I'm good and ready. Also, I'm slightly worried, because I can't imagine how they can be as good as the ones I've already read are. Or maybe I'm exaggerating - perhaps they aren't as good as I say. But they certainly worked wonders over me.

Anyway, if coming at them fresh, I'd read them in chronological order of the plot (just as you'd listen to The Ring!) - thus:

Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World
Crytonomicon

but as I said to Sarge, the last of these is fairly loosely connected to the three previous ones, which make up the trilogy, and set at a much later date, so it doesn't matter that he's reading it first.

rockerreds

Stendhal
Philip K. Dick
Ann Beattie
George Eliot
Mary Robison
Dostoyevsky

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: lukeottevanger on April 06, 2008, 09:49:24 AM
Quicksilver
The Confusion
The System of the World
Cryptonomicon

Thanks! I'll have a peek at Quicksilver then...
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

bhodges

Albert Camus: The Plague
Ian McEwan: The Comfort of Strangers
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
Frank Herbert: Dune
John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces
Toni Morrison: Beloved

--Bruce

Bogey

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

Danny

The Devils--Dostoevsky
Bread and Wine--Silone
East of Eden--Steinbeck
The Cancer Ward--Solzhenitsyn
The Power and the Glory--Greene
Taras Bulba--Gogol

Kullervo

Quote from: Danny on April 06, 2008, 02:31:25 PM
The Cancer Ward--Solzhenitsyn

This one is sitting on my shelf, saying "read me".

Quote from: Danny on April 06, 2008, 02:31:25 PM
Taras Bulba--Gogol

I love Gogol's short stories and this one, but I haven't yet read Dead Souls which is supposed to be his masterpiece. I didn't put anything by him because it would seem almost akin to listing Valse Triste as my favorite Sibelius, while never having heard the symphonies. ;D Even so, The Nose is probably my favorite short story apart from Death in Venice — even eclipsing Kafka's stories in my opinion.

Danny

Quote from: Corey on April 06, 2008, 02:45:42 PM
This one is sitting on my shelf, saying "read me".
Dude, read it already! ;D


Quote from: Corey on April 06, 2008, 02:45:42 PMI love Gogol's short stories and this one, but I haven't yet read Dead Souls which is supposed to be his masterpiece. I didn't put anything by him because it would seem almost akin to listing Valse Triste as my favorite Sibelius, while never having heard the symphonies. ;D Even so, The Nose is probably my favorite short story apart from Death in Venice — even eclipsing Kafka's stories in my opinion.

Why, I still haven't read any Mann, alas (saw Visconti's version of A Death in Venice).  Have read Dead Souls, but didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as Taras Bulba, though his reflections in DS are why, I think, it is regarded as his masterpiece. But some parts of it he wasn't able to finish; he changed the course of it while writing due to his religious conflict, and because of that he destroyed the other part to it before dying. So, I put Taras Bulba instead, even if it isn't quite as profound in whole as Dead Souls is in parts.

And, dammit, I need to read Mann already!