indierich06 Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 In an attempt to broaden my horizons, I'm going to read 30 books before I'm 30 - and I want you lot to suggest them to me. They don't have to be the obvious ones, they don't have to be at the top of any must-read list, I simply want to read good books. Let's go below the surface a little bit! Anyway, please visit the blog and drop me a suggestion in the comments box. http://30booksbefore30.blogspot.co.uk/?view=classic
Guest MattP Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 This Bloody Mary is the last thing I own - Jonathan Rendall. (If you like sport, boxing or gambling) Was never sober in his life but wrote thre books, all brilliant. Some of it so good it could never be written by the brain of a sober man. "Kid Chocolate sat down on one of the chairs and opened his mouth to speak. But rum trickled out instead through his cracked lips stained with tobacco, like lava suddenly spewed from a long-extinct volcano. His voice when it emerged was a hoarse whisper, and he formed words with difficulty, each syllable accompanied by the widening of his eyes and a grin, as if greeting every tortured sound as an old, forgotten friend."
Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Cormac McCarty, The Road 1984, George Orwell War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Sampson Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Brother's Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon Ulysses - James Joyce As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner The Trial - Franz Kafka Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
oakman Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Papillon - Henri Charriere Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski Barrow's Boys - Fergus Fleming
James. Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Make sure one of them is this: Haruki Murakami - The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
Gary Eatfood Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood Brighton Rock - Graham Greene Songs of Innocence and Experience - William Blake (poetry) Empire of the Sun and Crash - J G Ballard Animal Farm - George Orwell Catch 22 - Joseph Heller The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (quite a disturbing book!) The Twits - Roald Dahl
Steve_Guppy_Left_Foot Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 a) how old are you? b) Will these be the first 30 books you've ever read?
The God Emperor Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Atlas shrugged. Oh wait you've only got 2 years, don't bother then.
Captain... Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 The Dice Man - Luke Rhineheart Blindness -Jose Saramago The Raw Shark Texts - Stephen Hall
Alf Bentley Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 James Joyce, Finnegan's Wake. Good luck with that one! After completing "Ulysses", which has the reputation of being a difficult book (but isn't), I thought that I'd move on to "Finnegan's Wake". I managed about 5 pages and gave up. Not sure I'd trust a man named Finnegan on this subject, anyway, unless he loved the book so much that he named himself after it... I'd stick to the Dubliners' audio version: Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace The Brother's Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon Ulysses - James Joyce As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner The Trial - Franz Kafka Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy You've picked 2 of the 3 greatest novels I've ever read there: "Ulysses" and "Brothers Karamazov" (worth selectively consulting reference notes for "Ulysses" as you're reading or you'll miss a lot). The third would be "Middlemarch" by George Eliot. Also strongly recommended: "The Rabbit Omnibus" - John Updike Read and enjoyed a lot of Kerouac & Graham Greene in my 20s & "Madame Bovary" (Flaubert) & "Germinal" (Zola) in my 30s Not read much modern literature, but enjoyed "Brick Lane" by Monica Ali last year; Martin Amis is massively over-rated, I reckon. Travel books: "The Old Patagonian Express" (S. America) & "The Kingdom by the Sea" (UK) - Paul Theroux (Louis' Dad) Football book: "The Damned United" - David Peace WW1 memoir: "The last fighting Tommy" - Harry Patch Poetry: was almost put off for life by an ultra-trad education, but sampled/enjoyed W H Auden a couple of months back Would second some other people's suggestions: "The Road" (Cormac McCarthy); "Dice Man" (Luke Rhinehart); "Anna Karenina"; "Brighton Rock" A couple of excellent, very readable history books, neither of which I finished for some reason (must go back to them): "The making of the English working class" - EP Thompson "London - The Biography" - Peter Ackroyd
Webbo Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Quill 2 Ink 2 Paper by Anonymous. I'm waiting for the film.
Unabomber Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Please read a Jo Nesbo book either Headhunters or a Harry Hole adventure. They're the best fiction I have read.
Mike Oxlong Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Reading a book called Kill your Friends by John Niven. Here's a review http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/kill-your-friends-by-john-niven-780982.html It's laugh out loud funny in a bad, sick sort of way. Stongly recommend it.
James. Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Someone mentioned Catch 22 - you should definitely read Catch 22 it's amazing.
orangecity23 Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood Brighton Rock - Graham Greene Songs of Innocence and Experience - William Blake (poetry) Empire of the Sun and Crash - J G Ballard Animal Farm - George Orwell Catch 22 - Joseph Heller The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (quite a disturbing book!) The Twits - Roald Dahl Was going to post Catch 22. Brilliant book, my all time favourite.
MikeyT Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Most of Bill Bryson's books. Always has me in stitches reading his travel books. Especially Notes From A Small Island, Notes From A Big Country and Neither Here Nor There. And call me morbid but one of the best books I've read is " The Complete History of Jack The Ripper" by Philip Sugden.
Buce Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Some cracking reads mentioned already, to which I will add, 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'.
Voll Blau Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Born Free by Laura Hird is the best thing I've read this year.
Guest Electric Yetis Posted 18 July 2014 Posted 18 July 2014 Most of Bill Bryson's books. Always has me in stitches reading his travel books. Especially Notes From A Small Island, Notes From A Big Country and Neither Here Nor There. And call me morbid but one of the best books I've read is " The Complete History of Jack The Ripper" by Philip Sugden. Bryson is brilliant, think I've got them all. Currently reading One Summer 1927. A Walk in the Woods is probably my favourite of his mind.
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