Ok, one more
The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman by Bruce Robinson (of Withnail & I fame).

Brilliant, hilarious and, from some of the threads that appear on here, perfectly suited to B3ta types.
( Moey, Mon 19 May 2008, 17:07, Reply)

frankspencer's post/list (see below)
...prompted me to beg you to read 'Wild Swans' by Jung Chang. I know China is all over our TVs at the moment, what with olympics, earthquake etc. but this book gives a REAL insight into the country through the lives of three generations of women: Jung Chang, her mother and her grandmother. Jung Chang grew up during the Cultural Revolution, her parents were pretty high ranking party members from the days of the Mao revolution and her grandmother was concubine to a Warlord - beat that! Their individual and collective stories make a heart-stopping history of China throughout the 20th century.

Some of the stories will make you weep but this is a mind-changing book and so well written. Our daughter read it when she was about 16 or 17 and loved it and no-one I know that has read it found it anything other than startlingly brilliant and moving. It looks long, but it's a real page turner.

Jung Chang was one of the very first Chinese students allowed to study abroad (York University if you're interested), which should give you an idea of her intellect, but don't let that put you off. Go to Amazon NOW and make it the one book that you read as a result of this QOTW - you will thank me.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:59, 13 replies)

Ive never read.....
..... a book!
(Miggyman, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:50, 2 replies)

The bunny suicides

Before I read this I had no idea there was such a problem with mental illness amongst the rabbit population.

Since I first read it in 2005 I have retrained as a rabbit psycologist and regularly find myself talking bunnies out of killing themselves in ingenous and amusing manners.



.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:43, 4 replies)

Mansfield Park
Utter fucking bobbins, but having to read aloud "How can I pleasure you my dear Fanny?" in front of the rest of the class more than makes up for the rest of the book.
(Spaff_Quaffer Wise fwom your gwave., Mon 19 May 2008, 16:26, 1 reply)

Last Legends of Earth by A A Attanasio
Anyone else read this?

it wouldn't surprise me if you hadn't, but it is without doubt one of the best books I've read.

It is quite a struggle to get through, but well worth having a go if you like sci-fi, and like to be challenged.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:19, 2 replies)

Enid Blyton!
The first book that was made an impression on me was the first book I read all on my own - Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. I would have been about 5, and had been desperate to be able to read something for myself. This was my first choice because my parents had an old copy, a small red hardback from the 40s or 50s that smelt musty. Just looking at it seemed exciting! And I loved every second of reading it.

After finishing that one, I went straight into the next.... Everywhere I went during my childhood I had a book with me, especially in the car. Thanks to my mother, my formative years included as many examples of children's literature as she could lay her hands on, courtesy of a weekly trip to the local library.

Books led me to law school, where having to read a seemingly endless supply of musty old books made me give up the idea of reading for pleasure. Until I found the legal theory classes that is.

I can't identify any one book here that was really lifechanging, but the need to engage with what I read, to think about it and not just comprehend it, blew me away. The combination of Hobbes, Locke and Hume, Kant and Marx that we began with opened my eyes to being able to challenge and not just blindly accept what I was reading and what my lecturers said.

Thinking about it, Hobbes' Leviathan was probably my real introduction to not just philosophy and politics but also to reasoned thought and its application, and a whole new world of books. Cheers Thomas!
(Moniker, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:13, Reply)

God, I could keep doing this forever
I have to stop now. I won't recommend anything else. After these last ones.

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin - top philosophical/sociological sci-fi
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson - Get past the stupid names and very shocking rape scene and you'll read an amazing series that just gets better and better (although the jury's still out on the work in progress)
The Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson (apart from the ending)
Diaspora by Greg Egan

Other books by the same authors also recommended. And recommendations of more of the same would be appreciated!
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:09, 13 replies)

Slightly off-topic, but reminded by Enzyme's post below
There's only one book I've ever given up reading five pages before the end. It was 'The Redemption of Althalus' by David Eddings. Now, I love the Belgariad by Eddings - top-notch trashy fantasy which can be read without ever engaging the brain. I even quite liked the Malloreon, which was the same series again with twice as many 'sardonic' characters (and I hope never again to read the phrase 'rat-faced little Drasnian'). But since then he's got worse and worse, and the only explanation I can see is that his wife must be butting in more and more. (Not sexism - it's just that she gets a bigger credit each time).

So, to The Redemption of Althalus. I saw it in the shop and browsed the back cover. Ooh, thought I, this one looks like it might be a bit of a return to form. And it started pretty well. And kept going pretty well. And it was still pretty good about three-quarters of the way through. And kept being OK. Until I realised that this was it. It was never going to go anywhere. It was just going to be the same rambling crap all the way to the bitter end. And so I stopped.

edit: just noticed how similar my subject line was to the last post. Sorry
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 19 May 2008, 16:03, 6 replies)

Slightly off-topic but just remembered...
..a game Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis used to play when they met up, in which they had to come up with titles of Shakespeare plays if they had been written by Robert Ludlum.

eg: The Elsinore Conspiracy - Hamlet.
Good fun in the pub if your friends are of a literary bent.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:50, 17 replies)

Recent read
John O'Farrell's An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: or 2000 Years of Upper-Class Idiots in Charge.

Really informative and had me reading large passages to my brother, much to his annoyance.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:47, 1 reply)

'1421' by Gavin Menzies
It didn't change my life, but is remarkably well-researched and (I thought) pretty conclusive evidence of Chinese global trading missions embarked upon in the 1420s.

I loathe 'shocking new evidence that blah blah blah' type books but the author's inclination not to believe his own conclusions at first and his tentative steps toward a coherent theory had me (a cyncial history graduate) convinced.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:39, 2 replies)

Espedair Street
by Iain Banks

now, I love all of his work, except possibly Canal Dreams because it is a bit dull, but Espedair Street is a fantastic read.

It came along shortly after I'd read the masterpiece that is Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me, which had catapulted me back to my childhood, and combined it with my love of Led Zeppelin.

Espedair Street then took my dreams a bit further and took me through what it might be like to be a rich and decadent 70s rockstar

and it did it in an engaging, thought-provoking and amusing way.

Can't be better

also, Endless Night by Richard Layman.

I'm not a fan of horror, movies or books, apart from Stephen King and zombie or monster films

I read Endless Night in one night at the age of about 12 and it scared the bejeesus out of me.

I was terrified that a group of psychos dressed in clothes made of human skin were going to come and mutilate me and my family...
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:30, 1 reply)

Another cool sciency one
Guns, Germs and Steel. It's ace, and one of the few cases I can think of where someone presents a scientific theory that you can be almost sure it's true *before you even see the evidence* (Darwin's the other one).

Lots of cracking stuff in there, but the theory in question is this: The reason that Europe and Asia developed complex industrial civilizations before America or Africa is that Europe/Asia is aligned along an East-West axis rather than North-South, which means that agricultural developments in one part of the continent are likely to be successful in other parts as well. Conversely, even if someone in Mexico had developed a new high-yield strain of maize, it would have been unlikely to be successful in Brazil.

Genius. Like I say, there's a lot more to the book than that - read it, it's mind-blowing. Other good ones about human development are The Third Chimpanzee and Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. And while I'm at it, read Consciousness Explained and How the Mind Works, and indeed anything by Daniel Dennett or Steven Pinker.
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:28, Reply)

Dunno if it's been mentioned yet
But Duma's "The Count of Monte Cristo" is an excellent read, though perhaps not life changing. It's a shame that it's been dumbed down in so many films and such because the nature of the story as well as the content is of a rather adult theme.

Also Hugo's "Les Miserables". I'd heard about it from the musical, but read the book first after seeing a TV version of it (yea, yea...). How the hell does it work as a musical?

Kurkov's "Death and The Penguin", and it's sequel "Penguin Lost", are worth picking up as well.
(Speedyjx, Mon 19 May 2008, 15:06, 4 replies)

Ooh Ooh, I thought of one!
*Does quick Amazon search to remember details*
*Wishes he'd read the reviews here before purchasing*

"You're Pregnant Too, Mate!: The Essential Guide to Expectant Fathers"

After carefully steering Mrs Greencloud away from a plethora of inane, ineffective and downright bollocks purchases marketed to her as 'essentials' for her, the mother-to-be. I browsed waterstones one lunchtime and bought this utter, utter heap of shite simply because it was something related to pregnancy that promised to actually consider ME as part of the whole process. I'll post the link to the amazon page; please read Mr James Kaye's review (third one down) as he states my opinion better than I can myself while hurriedly having a sneaky read / post in a busy office.

www.amazon.co.uk/Youre-Pregnant-Too-Mate-Essential/dp/1861052774/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211204778&sr=8-1
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Mon 19 May 2008, 14:57, Reply)

Silly little "travel" books
by Danny Wallace, Dave Gorman, Tony Hawks, and to a certain extent Bill Bryson.

I know that to some people, the books by Wallace, Gorman and Hawks can appear to be a bit "wacky" but there is a lovely little charm in them that to me, makes them really heart warming.

"Join Me" is probably my favourite book, because I've always believed that acts of kindness (whether random or not) make the world a far better place. However, Join Me made me realise that there are other people out there that think the same way, and now I quite often make an effort to do something nice.

I also have a "join me" sticker on my car's rear window :P

My favourite thing to do is leave money in car park ticket machines, vending machines and shopping trolleys.

I know there are pages and pages of people saying YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK, but you really, really should.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Mon 19 May 2008, 14:55, 3 replies)

Waterstones top 100
How many have you read? Honestly now - you must have read the whole thing. I've read 51 and failed to finish a further 5. To be honest, I have no urge to read the ones I haven't read.

1. The Lord of the Rings , J. R. R. Tolkien
2. 1984 , George Orwell
3. Animal Farm , George Orwell
4. Ulysses, James Joyce
5. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
6. The Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Salinger
7. To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude , Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
10. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
11. Wild Swans, Jung Chang
12. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
14. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
15. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
18. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
19. The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
20. The Outsider, Albert Camus
21. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis
22. The Trial, Franz Kafka
23. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
24 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
25. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
26. The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
27. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
28. Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
29.To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
30. If This is a Man, Primo Levi
31. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
32. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
33. A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, Marcel Proust
34. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
35. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
36. Beloved, Toni Morrison
37. Possession, A. S. Byatt
38. The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
39.A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
40. Watership Down, Richard Adams
41. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
42. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
43. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
45. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
46. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
47. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
48. Howard's End, E. M. Forster
49. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
50. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
51. Dune, - Frank Herbert
52. A Prayer for Owen Meany, - John Irvine
53. Perfume, - Patrick Süskind
54. Doctor Zhivago, - Boris Pasternak
55. Gormenghast, - Mervyn Peake
56. Cider with Rosie, - Laurie Lee
57. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
58. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
59. Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain
60.The Magus, John Fowles
61. Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
62. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
63. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
64. Tales from the City, Armistead Maupin
65. The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles
66. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernières
67. Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
68. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig
69. A Room with a View, E. M. Forster
70. Lucky Jim, - Kingsley Amis
71. It , Stephen King
72. The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
73. The Stand, Stephen King
74. All Quiet on the Western Front, - Erich Maria Remarque
75. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
76. Matilda, Roald Dahl
77. American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis
78. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
79. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
80. James and the Giant Peach , Roald Dahl
81. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence
82. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
83. Complete Cookery Course, Delia Smith
84. An Evil Cradling, Brian Keenan
85. The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence
86. Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell
87. 2001 - A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
88. The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
89.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
90. A Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
91. The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
92. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
93. The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
94. Cry the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
95. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
96. The Van, Roddy Doyle
97. The BFG, Roald Dahl
98. Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess
99. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
100. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
(frankspencer, Mon 19 May 2008, 14:52, 46 replies)

I'm suddenly remembering a game David Lodge invented
(or at least described - see Changing Places). It was called 'Humiliation': the idea was that each person comes up with a book that they haven't read, and scores points for each other player that *has* read it. So the idea is to bring up books that you really should have read but haven't. He describes it as a particularly English game - Americans who tried to play it invariably kept suggesting very obscure books.

I'd do well among literary types - I can never get through pre-20th century literature and have never managed to read Austen, Dickens or any of the Brontes. I'd do very badly if we played it on B3ta - it turns out I agree with nearly all of you!
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:58, 7 replies)

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
This quartet of marvellous tales was my favourite reading as a boy.

Being the son of a public schoolteacher meant long holidays with my parents - but invariably within the UK (money was not in ready supply), so these beautiful and exciting yarns set in locations all over Britain were enormously easy to imagine myself in.

Cornwall, rural Wales - chances are I was holed up in one of the places featured in a rented house (in the rain)and was utterly thrilled by the adventures - full of Britsh folklore and Arthurian legend. In short, just my kind of thing.

I am told some insufferable simpleton made a film of them recently with an American in the main role. Now I'm actually a big fan of Americans, unfashionable as that may be, but these are quintessentially English works and that is SACRILIEGE, I tell you, SACRILIEGE!!!
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:33, 6 replies)

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
Linky - www.amazon.co.uk/13-2-Lives-Captain-Bluebear/dp/0099285320/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1211199984&sr=1-1

I can't remember how I got onto it, but it's the most surreal entertainment in a children's book I've ever read - Not quite Dr Suess, but totally weird.

It's a book that made me laugh out loud a lot and when he can read properly, my son will be reading it (he doesn't know that yet though!)

Read it, you'll love it :)
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:31, 1 reply)

Stupid white men
No, not you lot :D

But the Michael Moore book - This book had such a profound impact on me - the impact was so deep, it only too 30 pages for it to deeply affect me.

The effect was one that was profound and meaningful, it caused me to think and ponder and muse on life and it's meaning.

Well, it did after I binned it - it was, without a shadow of doubt, the worst written load of overhyped shit I've ever read. It remains, to this day, the only book I've ever binned - I couldn't even face giving it to charity....
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:25, 2 replies)

Doing my CBT changed my life
Having had a journey to and from work that could last up to four hours, I made the most of the opportunity to read. I have no idea how many books I ploughed through over the 5 or so years, but I read constantly; often continuing on the short walk from tube to office.

Then last year I finally gained license to drive a motorised vehicle (well, a 125cc anyway) and it's made my journey much, much quicker. I now fly into work in no more than half an hour.

I have since experienced freedom like I've never known; the freedom to travel around the sprawling capital without relying on its second rate public transport; the freedom to go wherever I like so long as it doesn't rely on motorways; the freedom to indulge my laziness and not have to walk everywhere (I do actually enjoy walking, but it's nice to have the choice).

However, this freedom had two significant drawbacks: 1) I put on weight (over indulging my laziness, clearly); 2) I went from reading for hours everyday, to reading only occasionally.

I really try to make time to read (and walk) as I feel like something significant is missing and that no books are changing my life.
( Moey, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:24, 1 reply)

Without Remorse
Well, this book didn't change my life, but it has helped me understand how a good book should be written and how intertwined stories linked together.

It's a moving book and whenever I read it, which is at least once a year, there's two parts in the book where I always cry at - even though I know it's coming up...

It's no literary masterpiece, but it's called "Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy. The hardcore book people would probably say "It's not a real book, etc" but if a book makes you think and consider things carefully, then that, surely by rights, makes it a good book?

JTW
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Mon 19 May 2008, 13:20, Reply)

This book changed someone's life, certainly.
Take a look at this.

I think we found out where one of our fellow b3tards works.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 19 May 2008, 13:12, 19 replies)

Bit of a cliché maybe

When I was a sixteen or so I read "1984" followed by "A Brave New World". These two books shaped my thinking and informed my world view to this day.

To me religion is just someone being told something so many times they end up believing it and then repeating to themselves "I'm so glad I'm an Alpha / Beta / Delta / Epsilon / Gamma".

If you want to understand the nature of control read these books.
(Fluke feels bitter as well as thick, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:36, 5 replies)

Guilt
Reading the posts on this qotw is filling me with guilt.

It's no good having my shelves full of Byatt, Carver, Lessing, Murakami or even Miller all jostling and waiting for my attention if I don't get around to reading them.

Each day they sit there forlornly staring at me like so many starving children...even the Fitzgerald that I've almost finished is currently lying in my handbag silently weeping because of the lack of attention I show it.

And why?

Bloody B3ta.

Some months back my internet connection went down for a week...a whole week without B3ta, email and the usual junk I like to call 'research'. During that week I managed to return to my erstwhile habit of reading voraciously.

(Just as a complete aside here to give an example of my butterfly brain - years ago someone commented that their son was a voracious reader - well, at least that's what they meant, but they used another word, one that sounds a little like voracious but means something else entirely. I've just spent the last ten minutes trying to remember that word and searching for it on the internet...I still can't find the word...and I've wasted ten minutes).

During that week I read four or five novels - not pulp fiction but contemporary literature, things that made me think and both entertained and exercised my imagination.

I believe it was Stephen King who said that if anyone has any plans to become a writer they should devote themselves to reading for at least four hours a day.

Does the internet count?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 19 May 2008, 12:23, 19 replies)

physics
I used to say "Books are for those, who are too lazy to think for themselves". In my younger years I read through a number of books, and none of them was to the least thought provoking or even enjoyable. So it took me until I was 18, to finally find a book that wasn't a bore to me. "The Physicists" by Dürrenmatt.
It's about a guy, who believes he is Albert Einstein, and lives in a mental sanatorium together with two other guys who believe they are famous physicists. However, they are separated from the other patients, as they are very dangerous. In fact, they even killed a nurse. In the course of the book, it turns out none of them ist crazy. The first one made a discovery so dangerous, he believed he only can protect it, by making everyone else believe he has been out of his mind for some time, and what he had been working on is nothing but nonsense. The other two however are opposing spies, who try to get to this discovery. Naturally everyone is deceiving everybody, and even the reader ist often led into wrong conceptions.

Today i study physics, learned to question wether what is possible is also desirable, and read a lot. Through this and Sartres "La Nausée" I eventually even got into philosophy, but that's another story.
(Boor, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:56, 3 replies)

Gravity's Rainbow
Many years ago, I read a piece in the newspaper the writer of which claimed that Gravity's Rainbow had been a life-changing read. I made a mental note, and eventually got around to getting a copy.

I don't like leaving books unfinished once started, so trawled through it dutifully. I tried to figure out what was meant by the adenoid the size of London; I squirmed at the testicle-removal; I boked at the coprophagy; I wondered whether the Schwarzkommando ever existed. I neither understood nor enjoyed it.

And yet... I was hooked. The blurb on the back cover placed the novel in a tradition that included the Bible, Moby-Dick and Ulysses; I therefore read all three of these as a preparation to having another crack at Rainbow.

I still didn't get it. I still didn't enjoy it.

But I was still hooked.

Slowly, I began to investigate other Pynchon books. V was a touch more accessible, and almost enjoyable. The Crying of Lot 49 was bordering on the conventional - there are fewer sung interludes, for example. Slowly, slowly, I am being drawn towards a third attempt at Gravity's Rainbow, about which I make the following prediction: once again, I will neither understand nor enjoy it. But I will read it at least twice more in the coming decade. And with every turn of the page, I will ask myself this question: WHY?

To this extent, Gravity's Rainbow has been a life-changing book. It'll never leave me.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 19 May 2008, 11:40, 16 replies)