A book I once (nearly) took as gospel
The Dice Man by Luke Reinhardt almost changed my life about (gulp) 35 years ago.

I was charged with possession of 1.34 grammes of ace Afghani, a very generous quid deal I thought. Being a believer in going with the flow, probably because I was reading the book at the time, I wrote out six options for what I should do in court:
1. Say and do nothing.
2. Say nothing but bare my bum.
3. Say "bum" but do nothing else.
4. Say "bum" and bare it.
5. Give a stout defence of marijuana over the perils of alcohol.
6. Apologise profusely, say it was my first offence, and plead for leniency.

Looking back, I'm glad the dice rolled up the six, although it was really difficult apologising over a fit of the giggles and an attack of the munchies.
(Jakartass, Fri 16 May 2008, 16:02, 3 replies)

I, for one, can honestly say that The Qur'an changed my life.
Picture the scene.

It's 1993, and, as we've discussed before, a young Devil In Tights is still scurrying hither and thither trying to gain acceptance from his peers.

He's had the right haircut (but, curse his stupid straight hair and his double crown, it just won't part in the centre like everyone else’s - no matter how much effort/Silvikrin is put in to it), has finally pestered his Mum in to allowing him an Umbro jumper - heck, he even wears white socks instead of the requisite grey.

His journey from class geek to something-approaching cool has been a bumpy one thus far. Only that morning he got a detention for hitting Andrew Frame in Geography (his protestations of "he hit me first, sir!" going entirely unnoticed). But, slowly and surely, he has progressed from the front row to that most holiest of grails:

The back row.

It's RE now. A soft touch. Mrs. Davies is a loser, we'll be OK. I'm sat next to Steve - the guy all the girls want. That means I, by association, might get his cast-offs.

And that's OK because, y'know, I'm not much to look at.

Mrs. Davies enters the room. She says that today we're learning about Islam. She shows a copy of The Qur'an. She tells the class some of its history, what it means to Muslims, how they live their lives by it. She talks, at some point, about the Shi'ites (using, of course, the English adjective describing Shia Islam).

It was at this point that The Qur'an changed my life.

Because I laughed. Not a so-quick-she-couldn't-hear-it giggle. Not even a snigger. A full-on, hearty, belly-laugh. A guffaw, if you will. Think Brian Blessed, but without the subtlety. Shi'ite! Sounds a bit like SHIT, doesn't it? That's HILARIOUS!

In an instant, I found myself in the Headmaster's office. Thenceforth, I was excluded from Religious Education, and so was allowed to do Drama instead. This gave me a form of escape, some release. I began concentrating, found the fun in learning again. Eventually, in the fullness of time, I realised that I could be so much more than I was setting myself up to be, and I studied. I passed my GCSE's, and took myself away to college. I met like-minded people, and passed my course with a distinction. I took a year out, and then went to Uni. Where I flourished and three years later was awarded a BA (Hons) in Theatre (Acting). I had various rubbish jobs, but now I've got a job I love, I'm getting married next year, and one day I hope to have little Devils of my own.

And all because of The Qur'an.

(I hope none of this caused offence to Muslim people! Please let me know if I've been wildly rude!)
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 16 May 2008, 16:01, 8 replies)

An extract from my book
I am currently writing an erotic novel for the blind.

This is an extract – please let me know if its hot and saucy enough

.::.::…:::::..::.:.:::.:….::::.:.. :.::..:.::::..:.:::….:.:.:. ::…::.:.:.:.:.:…

..:::.::..: : :: .. : .:: .:: ..:::: .:::. :::........::::..:

*really really sorry
( KISS.ME.WHERE.I.POO Signed the sex offenders register on, Fri 16 May 2008, 16:00, 11 replies)

The Handbook for the Recently Deceased
I find this one to be quite helpful lately.



/coat
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Fri 16 May 2008, 15:59, 2 replies)

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time
A "friend" bought me the first nine for my birthday.

I read the lot. Duck knows why.
Nothing.
Ever.
Ducking.
Happens.

On and on and on and on they go filling volume after volume with an average, at best, story. Its like he got the concept of Chapter and Volume mixed up. Yup, that's it. What should take a chapter to tell, fills a whole book.

I could summarize the first 9 in 500 words more than adequately. In fact, if you are ever curious about these books, I recommend you just read the summary on the back cover of the paperback. That might compress the "events" sufficiently to make an engaging short story.

These books taught me the importance of giving up on a bad thing. I've never given up on a book that I have started before but next time I get bored of a read I'll dump it. I read all the WOT books I had, desperate for something to happen but it never did.

I don't care if Matt married the Daughter of the Nine Moons and I hope the bloody Dragon Reborn does go mad and magic everyone into blue smoke.
Robert Jordan - you stole 9 books worth of my life and I'm glad you are dead.

P.S. why not include a link to your favourite book on Amazon so I can buy something decent to read?
(Rich T has a clever and witty sig, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:54, 4 replies)

Book on easy to do Meditation Techniques
the reviews on Amazon say it all:
www.amazon.com/DIRECT-RAPID-MEANS-ETERNAL-BLISS/dp/0979726794/ref=sr_1_

Or you can have the book for free online
www.albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/contents.aspx

you can ignore the spiritual jargon and use it purely to achieve greater clarity of mind - like a reboot button for your brain
(The Goat www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:47, Reply)

Allergies
In these days when almost everyone is whining about allergies to nuts or wheat, I was fascinated to read a book about a woman called Harriet Bzdura, the world's most allergic woman. Here is the first page of her book "Life - my Hideous Existence."

"You may have heard of me: I appeared on Swaffham Lunchtime News last month and there was a feature on me in "Toby Jug Collector" magazine in June 1999. I am the woman who is allergic to many different things. Some people cannot eat wheat, or meat, or nuts - but I am allergic to all foods. I survive by sucking a specially prepared solution made of amino acids and rainwater. If one atom of regular food passes my lips, I drop dead immediately. People ask me how I discovered this, and why I'm not dead from the first time I suckled my mother. I tell them that the condition came about as the result of a nasty shock I had back in 1984. I was at a Kajagoogoo concert and I almost choked on a Fab lollipop. My life flashed before my eyes and I wasn't able to eat from that point on - or I would die.

"But that's not all. I am also allergic to all manmade or natural fibres and therefore cannot wear clothes. I have to wear a suit of medieval armour made of titanium and at night I am suspended in a magnetic forcefield so that I don't touch anything. If this wasn't bad enough, I cannot bear the merest sound. If I hear so much as a piece of A4 paper fall to the ground, my eardrums will burst and gush blood until I die (I am also haemophiliac, by the way). As a result, I have to live on the inside of a 3-metre-thick stainless steel sphere buried one mile down in the earth's crust. I communicate with the surface by carrier pigeon, for I am not allergic to birds (although I cannot touch the paper with my bare hands or I will burst out in bubonic plague and surely die).

"Many people would be disheartened by such hardships, but I bear them with patience and humility. People ask me if I am a Christian and I have to answer "No, I am allergic to all the world's religions." It is quite true, for if I were to believe - even for a second - in Allah or God or the Dalai Lama, my uterus would explode. Naturally, I have no direct experience of this, but I think you'll agree that it's better to
be safe than sorry. So I am a nihilist. There was once a nasty close shave when I thought about Jesus and a huge spot appeared on my chin!

"For years I have wanted to reveal my plight on TV. Unfortunately I am allergic to all forms of light, so I find that TV audiences have
to use their imagination to some extent when the cameras silently enter my sphere and film me in complete blackness. I should also point out for the purposes of further publicity that I cannot expose
myself to any electrical devices. I have laboriously written this letter using potato prints on sheets of inert zinc. Then I strapped these sheets to my pigeon so my secretary could transcribe them. The first few times, the pigeon clattered fatally against the sides of the sphere and caused me intense agony, but finally I managed to release my letter.

"I'm exhausted now. You might think I can sleep, but, alas, if I should pass into the realms of Morpheus for even one moment, my limbs would shrivel and fall off. I have not slept since that fateful concert.
(frankspencer, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:46, 11 replies)

Blood and Belonging by Michael Ignatieff
Ignatieff travels around war zones throughout the world and talks to people about why they're fighting, and discusses the nature of nationalism. A slightly-less-than-great time is had by all concerned. Young Donuts learns about people who aren't sheltered, middle class, self-centred honky trash, and changes (hopefully) for the better by getting interested in politics.

And now I work in a library. So i should know what all the good books are. Genuflect before me, mortals
(donuts saw Gordon Gekko raking through the bins on, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:38, Reply)

A few years ago
a friend of mine suggested that I should read Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks, I didn't really think it would be my cup of tea, but read it anyway.

It's about a guy who was 21, I was 21 at the time of reading. He has an affair with a married woman, I was having an affair with a married woman at the time, called Janice. In the book the affair ends badly, and the main character never recovers. I remember the last line of the chapter where she leaves, 'Stephen felt cold.' reading that hit me like a cold, bitter punch in the gut.
My affair with Janice had ended just as badly, not long before I read the book, and it took me years to move on.

If I re-read that book now, I'd hate that poncey, emo bell-end, Faulks and wouldn't even be able to recognise the feelings that the book had originally stirred.

So, up yours Janice, and Seb, you twats.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:35, 28 replies)

Great Expectations
It wasn't what I expected

/mustfabindun?

/coat
(ldwater otherwise known as a 'jive turkey', Fri 16 May 2008, 15:33, 1 reply)

crap
I was a swot at school and when it came to playing star wars I never got a good role - perhaps being r2d2 once in a while and bleepity-bleeping my way across the playground was as good as it got.

Suffice to say there was the odd bit of bullying and I lacked confidence. I was mr peripheral. I was 10 years old.

THen one day in the library I, being the swot, was putting the new books into their colour coded age and alphabetical ordering and lo! what was this? It can't be. HILARIOUS!!

I skipped out into the classroom and convinced the top boys that if they followed they'd see something funny and brilliant.

They reluctantly skulked in.

TAA-DAAA!!! Look it's a book called CRAP!! And it has a fish on the front. IT'S A FISH CALLED CRAP.

Trev piped up - It says Carp, and a carp is a fish. He shot a pitiful look that said 'twat'.

Off they skulked back out.

Yes, in my eagerness to be accepted I'd opened myself up to yet more ridicule, and perhaps a few more sessions of being forced to pick the soap up out of bog that my bullying friends had dropped there after using.

But and odd thing happened. I revelled inside myself how funny the it would have been if there was a fish called CRAP.

Ha ha! CRAP. What if you went fishing and caught CRAP. Did someone win CRAP at the fair? What if someone caught and ate CRAP?

This was the very beginning of my developing a perculiar sense of humour which over the years has built confidence and won friends (though not quite women over yet). Woo and all thanks to CRAP. The best book I never read.
(Heyzeus, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:32, Reply)

A Confederacy of Dunces
Finished this on the tube last week - I do not advise reading it on public transport. I gave up trying to supress giggles and ended up producing a full-blown belly laugh somewhere under Oxford Street. People just stared. But one knowing blonde winked at me.
Funniest. Book. Ever. (and may help you find love underground)
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:26, 2 replies)

A question - if I may
Has anyone read any Ron L Hubard books??
( KISS.ME.WHERE.I.POO Signed the sex offenders register on, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:24, 12 replies)

The New Testament.
The gammy table in my local doesn't wobble anymore, so I can now greatly enjoy my beers in a nice seat by the window.

I leave The Old Testament stashed in the toilets for when the shit-wipe runs out.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:19, Reply)

I've just started to re-read my copy of Orwell's The Clergyman's daughter....
And realised my copy is 20 years old. That's older than some people on this website for Christ's sake.
( girlinthehole, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:19, 1 reply)

More graphic novels
Well, sort of.

"Lost Girls" by Allan Moore, and "The Troubles of Janice" (parts 1, 2 and 3) by Erich von Gotha. The first books that proved to me that "cartoon-porn" could be immensely sexy.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:16, Reply)

Roger's Profanisaurus
It's certainly expanded my vocabulary, if nothing else.

Favourite phrases that spring to mind:

Swamp Donkey: Female not overly endowed with physical beauty

Firkeyfoodling: Tudor foreplay

Clam jousting: A fanular encounter between two ladies afflicted with lesbism.

Get up them stairs: A gentleman's instructions to his wife which indicates that he has finished eating, drinking and watching football, and now wishes to retire to the bedroom to make an ungainly and flatulent attempt at sexual intercourse.

Etc.

There's loads more, but I really should get back to doing some work.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 16 May 2008, 15:16, 14 replies)

Large Dictionary
Someone once decided to throw a large dictionary out of a window.

It landed on my head and destroyed my spine. I live in a wheelchair and piss in a bag.

That book had a large "impact" on my life.

(everything in the story above is 100% made up on the spot)
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:05, Reply)

Ulysses - James Joyce.
Utter over rated shit.

It certainly changed the way I look at book critics.
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Fri 16 May 2008, 15:01, 7 replies)

The Da Vinci Code
I read it after Angels & Demons and found that to be the better book. The pace was slow in the Da Vinci code and there was nothing new in it as a book or story. It simply wasn't worth the hype.
But about 2 years ago I was contacted on a dating website by a woman who had read my profile and was interested in knowing more about me. Based on her profile listing her favourite book as the Da Vinci code, I declined.
She persisted and we exchanged numbers, our differing views on the book helped us get over that awkward initial conversation. A year later we married.
Damn you Dan Brown, you made me married and middle aged!
( Weejock, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:55, 2 replies)

I'll be boring....
But it has to be 2001 by the late Arthur C Clarke. It was the summer holidays and I had just turned 13, i'd just watched 2010 on the TV and as I had no access to things like cable or sky (this was 1986 in the UK and my parents were broke!) I went to the library to look for 2001....

It blew my mind...

All summer I did nothing but read as much sci-fi as I could, I even learnt a few things along the way which came in handy at school!

I also read the book of 2010 which was even better than the film!

I was even waiting outside the bookstore in 1988 for 2064 to be released!

The least said about 3001 the better :o(

edit: Okay it was 2061...I blame this crappy keyboard!
(Lip Up Fatty Fatty Reggae still loves BBQ food on, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:55, 5 replies)

Thanks, Bob!
You just reminded me - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller. I picked up a copy at a mate's and was intrigued, having stopped reading comics years earlier.

Gritty, twisted, and wonderful, it got me back into that world again. Alan Moore's Batman: The Killing Joke is good, too. I'm also sporadically wading my way through the hardback volumes of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Comics. graphic novels, call them what you will. They can be good literature.

I also like them because they've got nice pictures. Too many words confuse me at times ;-)
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 16 May 2008, 14:51, 5 replies)

Slightly off topic...
... but a lot of people have mentioned Catch-22 - and rightly so. It is wonderful.

A few years ago, Joe Heller was being interviewed. I'm paraphrasing, but one part of the conversation went something like this:
INTERVIEWER: Would it be fair to say that in the years since Catch-22, you've not written anything comparable?
HELLER: But then, who has?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:51, 8 replies)

Jackanory!
Yes I know it's a programme. Is it still on by the way? I was trying to remember a book that stood out as a child but as I said, I wasn't really an avid reader until I left school. What I do remember however is watching this programme without fail every week and loving the stories that were read to me. I hope it is still going and still enjoyed by children as much as I enjoyed it.
( girlinthehole, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:47, 3 replies)

Not life changing but...
I would recommend to everyone Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Made me question everything I thought lirerature should be.

The fantastic thing about going down the literary route at uni was the amount of great books I would never have read otherwise.
Just a few:

Money - Martin Amis
Nights at the Circus and The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
Curtain: Poirot's Last Case - Agatha Christie (don't laugh, it's fantastic)
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:45, 6 replies)

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Probably used these days as a management consultancy/Who moved my cheese kind of thing, but when I first read it at about 15, it changed everything about the way I look at life.

That and the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy series. Ace.
(UXB you said it man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:44, 1 reply)

From Hell
was the first book that taught me that graphic novels actually can be novels. I am now completely addicted to Alan Moore, and want to try some of the Sandman series as well.

EDIT: the first graphic novel to make me cry like a little girl was "Maus". It's so very, very poignant.


Also, on an unrelated (to Alan Moore) note, did anyone ever read kids books by Robin Jarvis? He did the Deptford Mice ones etc. There was another trilogy, called "Wyrd Museum" or something, which draw strongly from the Norse Myths. They were great (and really quite scary for kids books, from what I can remember).
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:36, 5 replies)

Some more
(Non-sexy ones this time).

"The Age of Consent" by George Monbiot. I don't agree with everything he says, and he can be irritatingly preachy. However, since the 'softly-softly' approach to trying to cure the world's ills hasn't worked, perhaps the in-your-face method is best.

"Opera's Second Death" by Slavoj Zizek. A look at the genre of opera from a philosophical point of view. Helped to give me an extremely wide view of music.

The Letters of Benjamin Britten, vols 1 to 3. Britten is one of my favorite composers of all time, and was an extremely prolific letter-writer. They provide invaluable documents of both his feelings, and his attitude towards his own music.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 16 May 2008, 14:27, 2 replies)