Recommend me books

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

anything by will self, can't remember its name but it has a monkey smoking a fag on the front, the story is crazy. about a human who gets smashed one night and wakes up the next day as a monkey but the world is run by monkeys (ie monkeys / humans switch) but he still thinks he's human. funny as fuck!

plus anything by george orwell/peter suskind/anthony burgess/hunter s. thompson all of these are abit populist but thats what i like reading so their!

It's called Great Apes.

I've got one of his books - My Idea Of Fun. He's an excellent wordsmith and author but I worry about his state of mind.

My Idea Of Fun is about a lad who's taken under the wing by some weird older guy (The Fat Controller) who teaches him how to have deep fantasies and sex within the fantasies. However it ruins any real sex life and when he tried to have relationships the Fat Controller pulls him away from the women. It turns out the Fat Controller is more than he appears and more stuff happens to the lad that I can't remember. It's extremely weird though.

[stokeriño]

My Idea Of Fun is about a lad who's taken under the wing by some weird older guy (The Fat Controller) who teaches him how to have deep fantasies and sex within the fantasies. However it ruins any real sex life and when he tried to have relationships the Fat Controller pulls him away from the women. It turns out the Fat Controller is more than he appears and more stuff happens to the lad that I can't remember. It's extremely weird though.

My mental image of Thomas the tank Engine just got a whole lot weirder.

[DFF]

Clearly, you need to get The History of the Runestaff by Michael Moorcock. Clearly. Oh, and the Rampart Worlds Trilogy by Julian May isn't bad, even if book three isn't great and you can call the twists from miles away.

And while we're here, has anyone read any of the Dan Simmons stuff (like Ilium, Hyperion, etc?). The synopsis of both look intriguing, but I'm not sure whether to go for them.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Dragon-F'n-Force!

[Hellfire]

For some good adventure books, grab anything by Clive Cussler. He's got three separate series out, and they all have their great points. Don't be put off by the fact that his name was attached to the half-baked pile that was "Sahara" the movie.

[StevenRichardsRules]

zOMG a Gurl?!?

>_>

I'm sorry. That was necessary. Also, check out Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Really good detective story.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

I can't remember now, who was the girl again?

[stokeriño]

Yasha_Shinigami. She hasn't bothered to return to the board since her brief one or two day appearance because she's not really in the habit of randomly browsing forums (unless I tell her to ).

[K]

Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.

It's Like Hitchhikers, but.. different.

[Farmer Reil]

Right, so this thread has been dead for a while, but the other thread I could've resurrected is from 2004, so deal with it.

The Belgariad series... I just happened across Book Four in a charity shop but I intend to read the whole series at some point, so I have a question. Is it more Wheel of Time or Discworld in nature? As in, if I read Book 4, will I have any idea what's going on, and will I have just ruined books 1-3 by knowing what I learn in Book 4. Or is it more like the Discworld, where the setting develops along with the books, but the stories themselves are largely seperate?

Reading the blurb on the back, I'm thinking it's more Wheel of Time-ish, where reading it out of sequence will make very little sense and destroy the rest of it.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Farmer Reil

[Gongsun Zan]

It's definitely sequential.

[wgh_2001]

I'm going to add a few in here:

"Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain

Any of Michael Connelly's books but I particularly like "The Poet" and "The Narrows". "Void Moon" is good too.

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman (I am seconding this suggestion from an earlier post)

[fourstarfizzle]

Just finished World War Z by Max Brooks.

Get it, it's far more than a zombie apocalypse-esque book, does it all from a much more realistic political and social viewpoint.

And hopefully the film will be good too.

[VerbalPuke]

"Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World" by Haruki Murakami

"Ulysses" by James Joyce

"A Drink With Shane MacGowan"

"The Great Shark Hunt" by Hunter S. Thompson

"The Picture Of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde

"The Hostage" by Brendan Behan

"Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

Just as a handful of books I've read recently, that should serve you well, I reckon. I can't be bothered summing them all up, but you should be able to get a decent synopsis on Amazon or whatever. If not, I could probably provide one on request >_>

I know you said you didn't want to sum these up, but can you tell me anything about this book that would make me want to read it? I've been interested in it for some time, and found that it is only three or four dollars at the local bookstore.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Currently Reading: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Only about a third of the way in, despite reading for days. I'm a bloody slow reader. Anyway, I'm really enjoying this so far. Nothing like the film. Some parts have been excellently written. The chapter where the creatures surround his house and he lures them away so he can get in is fantastically adrenaline pumping, and Matheson so far has done a great job of portraying a man who has lost everything on the brink of despair, totally alone....who has to fight vampires..... Some single lines detailing the thoughts/mental state of Robert Neville at a given moment have been superb and the writing more than the actual story and events so far has been wonderful.

Anyway, quick question, does anyone on here read much mythology? Its an area I've literally never looked into, but aspects have interested me for a while now. I wouldn't mind a book that gives a concise (but not threadbare) overview of basic mythology, Greek/Norse/Latin etc. I'm not looking for a 1000 page mammoth analysis of Greek myth, just an easy to read introduction. I was looking at 'Myhtology for Dummies', but maybe there's something better out there and you people being the educated lot you are, I thought I'd ask.

Edited February 5, 2009 by timmayy Makabe

[mattman1624]

I'm close to finishing Brave New World. It's definitely on of those books everybody should read. I've also started reading Bret Hart's autobiography. Halfway through and I'm a little bit annoyed at Bret constantly saying that all of his ideas for matches and finishes worked, even though most of them did.

When I'm done with those two, I'm going to read Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, which is considered to be one of the greatest baseball books ever written.

[RazorsEdge]

I'm close to finishing Brave New World. It's definitely on of those books everybody should read. I've also started reading Bret Hart's autobiography. Halfway through and I'm a little bit annoyed at Bret constantly saying that all of his ideas for matches and finishes worked, even though most of them did.

When I'm done with those two, I'm going to read Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, which is considered to be one of the greatest baseball books ever written.

Brave New World's alright, but its a pile of wank compared to what people hype it as. Thoroughly let down. That could be also because I had to analyze the fuck out of it for school, though.

Something sort of similar yet vastly different you may enjoy is Animal Farm by George Orwell. That is a book that everyone should read, whether they have an interest in politics or not. Brilliant.

[Hajjhowe]

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie is a book I seem to remember enjoying quite a bit. It's a mystery.

[Skummy]

I'm currently reading a(nother) biography of Hunter S. Thompson, called "Outlaw Journalist: The Life & Times Of Hunter S. Thompson" or something like that...it's not offering up much in the way of new information, but that's only because I've read far too much by and about him already, it's probably the most enjoyable and informative biography of the man. Good read.

Also working my way through "xxxxx" by...erm...xxxxx, apparently. It came with some circuit-bent noise boards I bought, and it's a series of confusing messy articles about life as an interface, through philosophy, sociology and technology, and how the three interact. It's bloody difficult, and will probably take me months to finish.

Just started on "Junk" by Melvin Burgess and DooDaa by Ralph Steadman too.

[hailstonehoward]

RUM DIARIES BY HUNTER S. THOMPSON

[Skummy]

....isn't very good.