books

[Ted Max]

I have read 25 of those. Looks quite US-focussed.

[david_carnell]

Ted Max Wrote:

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> Is there a Boden-approved reading list for the

> summer?

Close.....

[mockney piers]

Well, anglo saxon at least TM. I guess apart from Joseph Conrad, who was of course a Polish Immigrant, doing an excellent job at half the cost.

Very marmite list whether or not the best.

Can't stand some, love others.

Where are the Jeeves and Wooster books though?

[Huguenot]

Yes, sorry, it was specifically books that were first published in English.

[Moos]

Perhaps not surprising given my dodgy predilections, but Mockers I was terribly impressed by Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. But I do think I was about 15.

[????]

On holiday I used to take

One Poker Book

One propa classic

One more contempary 'right' sort of book, say Birdsong or other such tedium (the bit in the attic, now that IS good)

and one sh1te book

....That was before kids

I now just take a copy of No Logo in case there's no paper in the bog

[Marmora Man]

Ted Max Wrote re Top 50:

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> I have read 25 of those. Looks quite US-focussed.

Ditto and ditto.

My bookshelves hold - all Patrick O Brian novels, all John Le Carre, some Wodehouse, lots of Graham Greene, some William Golding, temporarily held - lots of airport thrillers, police procedurals etc - these come and go to / from charity shops, some John Fowles (quite 70s - not for today's reader but the Magus is fun as is French Lieutenant's Woman), masses of military history & biography, travel book, walking guides, maps, way too many bibles for an atheist - but better to know thine enemy, political biography (but NOT Blair's Journey).

[Ted Max]

One more contempary 'right' sort of book,

Aye, you gotta have something that says "I'm unexpectedly fuckable" to the other half of your best mate, when you're on holiday.

[MrBen]

The Naked Ape? Every bookshelf with a 70's heritage had a copy.

And why oh why oh why is there no mention of To Kill a Mocking Bird?

[Moos]

"too many bibles for an atheist".... who reads Graham Greene.

[????]

I used to read Greene alot, when I used to read :(

The list is both american and largely first half of the last century

[MrBen]

The Quiet American - still gets read once every six holidays.

[mockney piers]

Greene, Forster, Wodehouse cannot praise highly enough (actually from that list I'm partial to Vonnegut and Steinbeck too).

Hemmingway, Lawrence, Nabokov, Woolf and Joyce (because I haven't the faintest idea what he's blithering on about) I can live very happily without.

Fitzgerald's trickier, spoilt playboy, eminently unlikeable, but writes rather well.

Heller wrote one good book, actually make that masterful. I've tried others. He should have quit whilst he was ahead in a catcher in the rye stylee.

Have read most of that list. Alot of it I want my life back please.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I can't join in - I'm currently reading "Little House on the Prarie".

[*Bob*]

I'm still watching it

[maxxi]

No G.G.M. (think I got rid of them around the same time as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Catch 22), got too many Wodehouse (Mr Mulliner and Blandings rather than Jeeves and Wooster) and Ackroyd books though, a slough of Russell Hoban's (adult rather than kids) novels and have a guilty pleasure in Boris Akunin's 'Erast Fandorin' books - ideal holiday reading.

[maxxi]

In liht of tonight's re-airing of Dirk Gently I should also confess to a shelf full of the collected Douglas Adams, including the Dirk Gently Omnibus and The Salmon of Doubt.

[Otta]

Otta Wrote:

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> Does liking a particular type of book, make you clever / cool / sad / boring? I read every day, but most of it is not very challenging, because I find the rest of my life challenging enough. I read to get away from that stuff.

I wish I'd read this before I started reading A Handmaid's Tale! Very very good, but christ on a bike, it's depressing!

[Dee Woffaz]

I have a Handbook on Wills on my bathroom bookshelf....

[Ridgley]

Otta Wrote:

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> Does liking a particular type of book, make you clever / cool / sad / boring? I read every day, but most of it is not very challenging, because I find the rest of my life challenging enough. I read to get away from that stuff.

I have to agree with Otta I need escapism; the last thing I want to read when I finish work is something that melts the brain or stick my head in an oven give me smut Jackie Collins Jilly Cooper mixed in with Catherine Cookson. Does anyone know a good book on ghost stories love those too?

[Jah Lush]

I have read 100 Years OF Solitude and a few more of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's books and I've also read 30 of the books in Hugenot's list but it doesn't make me an intellectual bore or a cool mofo does it. I read voraciously and always have something on the go. I'm also partial to a biography/autobiography, usually of the musical variety and the more dissipated and debauched a life the better. I can recommend The High Life and High Times Of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker by Ross Russell or Life by Keith Richards for what it's worth.

[Otta]

Life by Keith Richards

Or "Faithfull" by Marianne Faithfull.

I actually enjoyed reading her stories about her days hanging with The Stones, more than I did Keef's. I did enjoy his book a lot, and he has managed to remember a hell of a lot of stories, but equally, he doesn't seem to really get in to much detail about a lot of it (probably because it's all a bit hazy). Still well worth a read though.

And one sort of semi autobiographical novel that should appeal to ock music fans, is "Stories we could tell" by Tony Parsons, which I'm pretty sure was inspired by his younger days as a music journalist.

In terms of "trashy" stuff, my favourites for reading on the train are;

Harlan Coben (thrillers)

Raymond E Fiest (Lord of the rings / dungeons & dragons type stuff... Geek)

Charlaine Harris (Supernatural crime type stuff)

Mike Gayle & Matt Dunn (both do what I guess you might call the male equivalent of "chick lit")

[Ridgley]

Nothing wrong with that Jah Lush, I find historical figures whether in music or not interesting as well I just finish reading the most evil men in history I found Vlad the impaler quite fascinating.

[mockney piers]

I do loads of trashy, most of it sci-fiish i guess.

China Mieville is writing some entertaining stuff, I love Neil Gaimian too, or Alaistar Reynolds, Dan Simmons or even Iain M Banks for the more Space Opera type stuff, but can't beat the classics* like Philip K Dick, Asimov etc.

I have yet to wade into Missus Mockney's towering collection of Maeve Binchy or the ones by whatever that girl who's dad was the Taoiseach's is called.

* a very geeky definition of the term obviously

[Jah Lush]

Otta Wrote:

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> Life by Keith Richards

>

> Or "Faithfull" by Marianne Faithfull.

Oh yes. I can highly recommend Marianne's book as well. Also Stoned and Too Stoned by Andrew Loog Oldham and All The Rage by Ian McLagen.