Real books can harbour bacteria, viruses and possibly pinworm eggs
from the grubby butt scratching hands of children in their pages, some of which can survive a surprisingly long time (I mean the pathogens and parasites, not the children. Perhaps)

Far more frightening than that, they may contain ideas which are capable of migrating directly into your head and influencing your very thoughts.

Be careful out there.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 17:16, 1 reply)

Books I have read and loved
Tom Wolfe - Bonfire of the Vanities. Great story
Joseph Heller - Catch 22. Lives up to the hype
Hunter S. Thompson - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Brilliant
Alexander Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago. Feel the bile. Also recommend Cancer Ward and The First Circle
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas. Unique. Also recommend Number 9 Dream
Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger. Unbelievable for a first novel
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall. Great take on the historical novel
Mario Vargas Lhosa - The Feast of the Goat. Very dark
Brett Easton Ellis - American psycho. Savage genius
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 years of solitude. Brilliant prose
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the time of cholera. Even better
Roberto Bolano - 2666. Turns the idea of the novel on its head
Arthur C Clarke - The songs of distant earth. Utterly melancholy
George Orwell - 1984. Classic
David Lewis - Liar's Poker. Great insight into investment banking
Iain Banks - The Wasp Factory. Very dark, very funny. Love anything by Iain Banks/Iain M Banks, have all his books.
Terry Pratchett - Discworld series. Nuff said.
Steven Runciman - The Sicilian Vespers. Great piece of historical writing
Simon Sebag Montefiore - Stalin: The court of the red tsar. Superbly researched.
Frank Herbert - Dune series. Unique. Do not bother with the prequels written by his son and Kevin J Anderson
Robert Graves - I Claudius/Claudius the God. Very atmospheric
JG Ballard - Empire of the Sun. Great writer
Peter F Hamilton - Void trilogy. Pleasingly escapist
Rudyard Kipling - Stalky & Co. Hilarious
William Gibson - Neuromancer. Invented cyberpunk
Salman Rushdie - The Moor's Last Sigh. No one can write like him. Also recommend Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Gregory Roberts - Shantaram. Epic
Anais Nin - Delta of Venus/Little Birds. Filth
Henry Miller - Sexus. Bonkers
Ursula Le Guin - Earthsea Quartet. Lovely fantasy
Howard Marks - Mr Nice. Hilarious
Annie Proulx - The Shipping News. Lovely light style
Michael Burleigh - The 3rd Reich. Masterful
Orlando Figes - A People's Tragedy. Massively detailed history
Neil Gaiman - American Gods. Incredibly imaginative
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World. Brilliant classic
Jerome K Jerome - 3 men in a boat. Very funny
Scarlett Thomas - The End of Mr Y. So original.
Bernard Cornwell - various works. Extremely bloody
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange. Savage
Alastair Maclean - The Golden Rendezvous. Great little story
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaiden's Tale. Bleak
Roald Dahl - all works. Without parallel in children's fiction

No apologies for length.
(anvil, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 17:12, 14 replies)

Maturing tastes ....
I read and loved Carlos Castaneda when I was young and impressionable. I took it as gospel and preached the whole "knowledge" thing to anyone who would listen ... and often to those who wouldn't.

Now I think though, "What a load of bollocks !".
( Ramsay Tupper, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 17:02, Reply)

Hard to find a copy
When I was younger we used to go on family holidays to campsites in Italy and Spain - Keycamp holidays I think they were called.

At the campsites there used to be book exchanges - you left a book and took one - ensuring a regular supply of Bernard Cornwall, Jodi Picoult and Dan Brown.

Once I picked up a book purely for its cover - a badly drawn montage with two teenagers and a yellow spaceman - I wasn't expecting much but I couldn't put it down and finished the hefty tome in just a few days.

I forgot the details of the story but it was about a teenager who had fallen in love with a beautiful girl who was out of his reach being the school geek - classic boy meets girl.

However, one day he is saved from being hit by a car by a mysterious boy seemingly with knowledge of the future. They become fast friends and the boy mentors the protagonist until he disappears not to be seen again for 30 years.

It sounds corny but is really well written, has the classic porn reading baddy who gets his comeuppance and a spaceman who visits our hero at night time - it's heavy.

If anyone knows where I can get a copy of it - 'A match made in heaven' by G. McFly I would be so grateful!

Edit: autocorrect
(aeloen, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 16:07, 6 replies)

Penthouse Forum Compendium
Around 30 years ago when I was a wee slip of a boy I found an intriguing tome hidden amongst my parents Agatha Christie, Catherine Cookson & Jilly Cooper Books.

Penthouse Forum Compendium - A collection of readers stories from Penthouse magazine.

It contained some rather intriguing descriptions of what people did with dildos, obturators, vibrators and other weird devices I'd never heard of previously. Of course being in the pre internet era I had no idea what these things looked like or any way to find out until much older.

I just googled 'obturator' as I just realised it was the only device I still didn't know much about. Eww.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 16:01, 6 replies)

I read ‘The Lord Of The Flies’…

Imagine my disappointment to discover it wasn’t about some bloke who was brilliant at controlling insects...or even undoing his trousers…
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 6 Jan 2012, 16:01, 1 reply)

The books I read are better than the books you read.
The end.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:52, 9 replies)

I completed a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in 22 minutes!!
It's about Russia.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:52, 3 replies)

I am currently learning to speed read,
I have just read war and peace in 20 seconds which is not bad for 3 words....
(djgalaxe, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:40, 2 replies)

Evadne Price
When mini TitanLX is old enough I'll be reading him the Jane books by Evadne Price. Rather like the Just William books (although the author hated the comparison) but the carnage is perpetrated by a blonde-haired, blue eyed girl.
(TitanLX, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:40, Reply)

Oh
And the Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwall - unputdownable. I have had to replace my paperback copies several times through overuse.

They are a take on the King Arthur legend and I would recommend them to readers of all ages and ability!

Shame everything he writes now seems to be a carbon copy of the previous Sharpe book :(
(aeloen, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:38, 2 replies)

Last week I read Great Expectations
It wasn't as good as I'd hoped.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:34, 5 replies)

Flashman
Funny, incredibly well researched and very insightful - tragic that George MacDonald Fraser popped his clogs a few years back. Mr American was also really good..

I wasn't sure of the first Flashman because he rapes an Indian servant in it but I quickly grew to love the books and the character.

So much so that a I forgot about the rape scene and lent the first novel to a girl I was trying to bed. I don't think she finished it and I never got to play hide the sasuage with her, but I just could not be mad with Harry.

Recently been following the herd reading A Song of Ice and Fire.. hope we don't have to wait 5 years for the next one..
(aeloen, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:33, 1 reply)

Real books Vs Kindle: THE DEBATE!...

From what I’ve read so far, a bit of a theme has developed with this QotW…and that is the argument of ‘Tradition Vs Technology’. I would therefore like to host a forum on the fact (only I can’t really be arsed to do it properly). So, I offer my own opinion, and will leave it to other, more intelligent folk, to deliberate over which is best, and why (if they feel so compelled)…:

KINDLE: Small, convenient, technologically decent, practical, they even have a few tasty girls in the advert. Yet SOULLESS. Yes, you can show them off to your friends…but they don’t make you look ‘well read’ when they’re on a shelf, do they? (Thanks to A Vagabond for that)

BOOKS: Bulky, lumpy, impractical, pricey, grubby, erm…. but they’re bloody LOVEABLE...aren't they?

Help me out here…
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:28, 29 replies)

I met a cyclist who had read the Highway Code, once.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:28, 10 replies)

Tattoo
by Earl Thompson. I've never met anyone who's heard of it, let alone read it. It is, however, magnificent.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:27, 2 replies)

Books make me sleepy
I love books, I love reading, but within half an hour of picking up a book I usually end up falling asleep.

However.

One book that I literally could not put down and read from start to finish within a few hours was I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier. It's about a kid cycling from one town to another to deliver a parcel to his father. Interwoven with this story are flashbacks to his childhood and a conversation between a psychoanalyst and his patient. The ending is one of the most explosive and disturbing I have ever read. Highly recommended.

I also loved Wuthering Heights. It's the only classic I have read and only read it because I wanted to get off with an English Lit. student. Totally amazing, passionate, tragic and beautiful.

Currently reading George R.R. Martin's books, which have turned me into a Game of Thrones nerd. I have a bunch of sciency books waiting to be read but cannot put the series down.

Worst book I have ever read was lent to me by a mate called Best Man by Matt Dunn. Absolute arse water, a crappy Razzlesque wank fantasy by a middle-aged man wishing he was 15 again. The only book I have ever thrown away. Avoid.
(Ghostlight, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:17, 4 replies)

American Psycho.
I have never hated a book so much. It's fucking disgusting. I'm no prude, as I hope you know, but it's beyond sick. It's unneccessary and graphic and vile, it's repulisive on every human level. Just the thought of it makes me want to vomit. I can read anything, i thought, I really didn't think i could possibly be offended by a book, but American Psycho offended me in every possible way. Everyone associated it with it is reprehensible, appealing to the lowest of the low among humanity. The fact that it's so famous just saddens me and makes me dislike the world just a little bit more than I already did. It's just not right when you are reading a book and suddenly find yourself reading a graphic and detailed description of the virtues of Genesis.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:17, 7 replies)

Plug of my own book warning!
The Book of Magic Bollocks, by me, seems to be going down well with the yoofs. However, it has the strap line "All magicians are wankers" so The Magic Circle don't like it much... Fuck 'em.

My favourite novel has got to be A Confederation of Dunces. Sprawling plot lines, great characters, piss funny.
Least favourite, The Lovely Bones (pile of dogshit that was).
(835Rocks, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:09, 2 replies)

Richard Branson can fuck right off
Virgin Media has a call centre in Liverpool. They announced last September that it was being closed down. Nobody there has had a pay rise in 8 years and in the same time, the average wage declined from about 18.5k a year to just under 13k.

Having essentially put everyone there through shit year after year for nearly a decade and telling them that they're all being made redundant, you'd think Richard B would be sympathetic - and indeed he was. Do you know how he tipped his hat to everyone? By giving them a copy of his new book!

Cheeky fucker had the audacity to put a "not for resale" stamp on it, too. Cunt.

So I think what I'm trying to say is, only cunts give books to people. Or something. And that Richard Branson's new book is shite. And that he's a cunt.
(Kushan just wants to fit in..to your mum, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 15:00, 5 replies)

Tinkers, maps, gays, criminals. Wait, come back.
Last year for Christmas I was given a book called Tinkers by Paul Harding. I only picked it up as back up for the train home this year but once I started it was impossible to put down (and I had pretty much nothing else to do). It's a great story about an old man dying and clocks. There's more to it than that but... spoilers etc.

Also last year I was given a great book called The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. It's about a young boy who's a genius and a cartographer. It has a lot of footnotes and a lot of maps.

I'm currently reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. It's incredibly funny. A series of short stories about his life in America and France, about growing up and things that happen along the way. The kind of book that makes people look at you like you're crazy while reading on public transport.

Last one is the Parker novels by Richard Stark. I got my Dad the first one (Point Blank/The Hunter) which subsequently led to him snapping up any and all copies of books in the series in preparation for retirement. These are addictive, compact, economically written crime capers. Parker is an anti hero but you root for him anyway. He's nasty but he knows what needs to be done. There are 24 of them, some better than others but all worth a read.
(cannonfodder fodder for cannons on, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 14:51, 3 replies)

Meh, it's not a competition.
reading any old shit is better than not reading at all.

Books that I like that no-one else has mentioned:

If this is a man - Primo Levi
Shatterer of Worlds - Peter Goodchild (Oppenheimer's biography)

Books that, despite any number of pseud critics stranglewanking over them, are utter unreadable horseshit:

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (despite winning the Booker Prize)

Anything else, knock yourself out. But if you insist on reading Harry Potter as a grown adult, absolutely fine, but do please buy the children's version. Some gothic-styled dragon and dark cover colours is unlikely to convice the rest of the train carriage you're actually reading Joyce, you stupendous twathammer.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 14:42, 27 replies)

i loved Richard Scarry books when I was a kid. Awesome illustrations, and characters like Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat and Rudolf von Flugel.
(Amberleaf, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 14:25, 9 replies)

Biographies, non-fiction and Kindle
LENGTH.

Fiction doesn't really keep my interest. Whilst I like Douglas Adams' stuff, I've not really been able to keep my interest on anything else along the same lines.

I'm a big fan of the "Do something daft for no reason" types of books by Dave Gorman, Danny Wallace and Tony Hawks etc, but what I'm really into at the moment is going through the biographies section on Kindle at the moment and looking for books with decent reviews that cost about a quid and buying those. I've found some really good ones from 'regular' people on there. The style of some of them may be a bit more "DIY" than you'd get on a bestseller, but to me that makes them more interesting.

A lot of them seem to take on a sort of diary / blog format, but there's some interesting stuff about peoples' professions in there. I'm currently part way through "Zen and the diary of a B&B owner" (77p). A good one I found is "confessions of a GP" which I bought for 99p. "Hell of a salesman" (86p) was good, even if you didn't really sympathise with the author, but "Delete this at your peril: The Bob Servant emails" for 99p was an absolute, utter bargain and one of the funniest things I've ever read anywhere, ever.

Sure, I've downloaded a few shite and average ones as well, but when they average at about a pound each, it's not much of a gamble.

As for ones to avoid:

Anything by Will Self. Just seems like pure linguistic wankery. Admittedly I've only (attempted to) read 2 of his books, but I just sat there reading it, thinking "He's just saying LOOK HOW CLEVER AND ERUDITE I AM constantly."

Stephen Fry's "Moab is my washpot" was disappointing. I normally like Stephen Fry when he's on teh tellehbox but I just didn't get in to this at all.

But the most appallingly bad book I've ever had the misfortune to read was Sammy Hagar's autobiography "Red: My uncensored life in Rock". Jesus sodding Christ, what a deluded, self centred, selfish, spoilt, vacuous, waffling cretin this man is. Yes, I did finish the book, but all the way through I was thinking "What a complete and utter dick". I don't know if that was what he was trying to achieve (so if it was, well done him), but, despite all the details about his 'humble beginnings', he just seemed have a talent to blabber on about pointless minutiae one minute and then go on to self-congratulatory bollocks the next. I know the purpose of an autobiography is for the author to talk about themselves, but this really was something else.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 14:03, 1 reply)

My Grandad's favourite book was The Bible.
e'd read to us from it every morning, use it to make us swear we were telling the truth, and smack the shit out of our arses with it if we weren't.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 14:01, 4 replies)

A very quick shortlist
One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A passage to India by E M Forster
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austin
Small gods by Terry Pratchett

Oh, and since it doesn't say fiction only...

On the origin of species by Charles Darwin
From knowledge to wisdom by Nicholas Maxwell
The blind watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Chimpanzee politics by Frans de Waal
Halliwell's film guide (when it was still written by Leslie Halliwell and before it went shit).
(Cheeselog is mostly water, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 13:55, Reply)

Charlottes Web by E.B. White
I first read Charlottes Web when I was about 8.
Probably the most upsetting thing I've ever read was the line, "Charlotte died".*
Still gets me now.

*apart from court summons, and post-mortem reports etc
( insignificantsnivellinglittleturd I Like Peas, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 13:50, 1 reply)

Kiddies book recomendation
I cannot recommend the Mr Gum books (by Andy Stanton) highly enough. They are very silly but also sometimes have really brilliant use of language. They are like a cross between Roald Dahl and Vic Reeves Big Night Out. How many times at storytime have you had to stop reading because you & your child(ren) have been laughing too much? Every Mr Gum book has done that to me and the duckling.

www.mrgum.co.uk/
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 13:33, 1 reply)

William Least Heat Moon's
Blue Highways, one of my fave reads and I recently discovered was the inspiration for a friend to take to the highways of the US on a monumental road trip.
I'm sure you can just google it so I won't go into detail, suffice to say that I re-read it every few years and it brings me as much pleasure as the first time.

It's a travelogue that you just don't want to end, not ever.

His attempt to cross the US by small boat, coast to coast was rather spiffing too.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Fri 6 Jan 2012, 13:33, 1 reply)