Sijun Forums :: View topic - Ok we've had it before, top 5 favourite books

el tigre · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 11:23 am

I know it's been done before, but tell me you're top 5 books cause I'm currently experiencing a good-book drought.

here's mine:

1.Excession - Iain M Banks
2.Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3.Use of Weapons - Iain M Banks
4.The Assasin Trilogy - Robin Hobb
5.The Godfather - Mario Puzo

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Nex · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 1:27 pm

among tolkien, shadowrun books, the darkelf saga:

'The Hollow Man' by Dan Simmons
'The Process' by Franz Kafka
'Catch 22' by Joseph Heller

elam · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 1:30 pm

It - Stephen King
Hyperion Series- Dan Simmons
Lord of the Rings
Anything by Bruce Sterling
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Grimms Fairy Tales

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Elam
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"Name? Loc Dog. Age? 19. Sex? Hell yeah, nigga!"

FaithInChaos · member Member # Joined: 27 Aug 2000 Posts: 183

most recently read books, that i ended up enjoying:

snow crash
lords of chaos (good for a laugh)
cryptonomicon
the long dark tea-time of the soul
enders game (the first one, the others sucked)

ceenda · member Member # Joined: 27 Jun 2000 Posts: 2030

Hmm, I was just wondering.

Iain Banks is Scottish.

Both el tigre and I put him amongst our fave books listings.

We both come from Scotland.

Is Iain Banks read that much outside Scotland? I'm just curious.

JayBee · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 2:50 pm

The Bridge
- Iain Banks

Foucault's Pendulum
- Umberto Eco

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Robert M. Pirsig

Infinity and the Mind
- Rudy Rucker

If Upon a Winter's Night a Traveller
- Italo Calvino

SlightlyTwisted · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 3:24 pm

In no particular order:

House of Leaves,Mark Z Danielewski.
The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks.
The Culture books, can't be arsed to single one out, Iain M Banks.
Lord of the Rings, JRRT.
Heroes Die, Matthew Woodring Stover.

I also quite like the Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R R Martin, because Tyrion Lannister kicks arse.

As for Banks, I'm not sure about his readership, but I was originally recommended him by an American, although, one known for having rather obscure tastes in literature.

[This message has been edited by SlightlyTwisted (edited February 15, 2001).]

Enayla · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 3:33 pm

Series: The Lord of The Rings (J.R.R Tolkien) -- grew up with it, will always love it.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde) -- one of the best books I�ve read, simply.
Series: The Fey (Kristine Kathryn Rush) -- very special series of fantasy books.
Divina Commedia (Dante Alighieri) -- um.... duh.
The Shining (Stephen King) -- scared me witless when I was younger.

Okay... those are the books that spring to mind. I could add LOTS more, but I won�t. Not right now at any rate.

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��.if the world didn't suck we would all fall off.��

el tigre · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 3:35 pm

ST: A fellow culture lover!, I thought I was the only one, no-one else that I know has ever read his sci-fi stuff.

Cool!

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Couldnae hit a coo in the arse wi a banjo if uh wis huddin it by the tail. :�
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Bishop_Six · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 4:12 pm

Ummmm... I don't read a lot of novels, but one very good book is Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. I like military things

snaplekap · junior member Member # Joined: 26 Jan 2001 Posts: 26

Bah! I pity the foo...well I see a lot of you love JRRT's Lord of the Rings series. Yeah, that series USED to be my favorite. The best series is the Jhereg series by Steven Brust. Unfortunately, some of the books are out of print since it is not a very common series. It is though, the BEST series EVER MADE! All of his books in the series are great. Too bad his latest book sucks because he wrote it after his brother died so he was depressed. Oh well, pick up the book wherever you can find it, I guarantee you won't be dissapointed!

SlightlyTwisted · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 6:58 pm

Yeah, the Jhereg books are great. What really pisses me off, though, is that I got half way through them, only to find that, like you say, they're out of print. But the other day I saw a Jhereg compilation, with all of the books in one volume. This is, of course, fantastic, except that I already have half of them, so don't want to buy the full set!

Socar MYLES · Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2001 11:27 pm

Well...There are such a lot...But I think I'd say:

The Master and Margarita
Gormenghast
Trainspotting
Decline and Fall
The Stand (I have to have one trashy horror book in here!)

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My old man's a dustman
'E wears a dustman's 'at
'E wears gorblimey trousers...
AAAAAAAAND....
'E lives in a council flat!

Ragnarok · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 12:12 am

If you think Lord of the rings is good you should read the Dragonlance saga, starting with the chronicles, following the legends and ending in the dragon's dawn.

faustgfx · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 12:17 am

i like Shadowrun pocketbooks alot.

and Gibson and Hickman/Weiss's Dragonlance books.

yeah, i'm the walking stereotype in full effect.

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the law of lead now reigns!@#!/earth crisis

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el tigre · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 12:25 am

The Assasin Trilogy is a dragony kinda book, very depressing, good though.

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Couldnae hit a coo in the arse wi a banjo if uh wis huddin it by the tail. :�
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ceenda · member Member # Joined: 27 Jun 2000 Posts: 2030

Here are a few that I've quite enjoyed.

"The Lord of The Rings", JRR Tolkien
"20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", Jules Verne
"DUNE", Frank Herbert
"The Bridge", Iain Banks
"Notes from the Underground (some publications contain 2 other stories as well, "The Double" and "The Eternal"", Fyodor Dostoevsky

Spitfire · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 2:00 am

Top 5? i�ve read through 3 entire libraries in my life...

Okay.

1. A song of stone [Iain Banks]
2. Complicity [Iain Banks]
3. The Crow Road [Iain Banks]
4. The Wasp Factory [Iain Banks]
5. Idontknowwhatitwascalledinenglish [Iain Banks]

Oh wait. hmm. *looks up at the list*

How about some variation?

1. The Lord of The Flies [William Golding]
2. All of Iain Bank�s non-scifi novels
3. Catch 22 [Joseph Heller]
4. Lost Souls [Poppy Z. Brite]
5. About a Boy [Nick Hornby]

That�s the absolute top 5 of books that moved, amused, hurt and changed me. The list of books i enjoyed reading more than the rest goes on till 150 or so and then we get to the books that were "fun".

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I am but a statue, impervious to love.

tayete · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 6:14 am

"100 years of solitude" by Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez (100 a�os de soledad in Spanish
)
"Foucault�s Pendulum" by Umberto Eco
"Steel Tempests" by Ernst Junger
"The name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco
"I, Claudius" by Robert Graves

el tigre · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 8:16 am

Read "Name of the Rose" last week, heavy going, but well worth it. I'm looking forward to "foucault's pendulum"(sp)

Enayla · Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2001 5:27 pm

Aaarrrgh... The Lord of The Flies... How could I forget that one?

Awesome reading.

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��.if the world didn't suck we would all fall off.��

raupe · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2001 12:07 am

I would recommend
"Otherland" by Tad Williams and
everything by Melanie Rawn

Frozen Consciousness · member Member # Joined: 24 Jan 2001 Posts: 91

My favourates seem to come in twos...

"DragonFlight" - Anne McCaffery
"DragonQuest" - Anne McCaffrey
"Interesting Times" - Terry Pratchett
"Soul Music" - Terry Pratchett
"Gridlock" - Ben Elton
"Stark" - Ben Elton

Socar MYLES · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2001 8:28 am

Yeah...I must say, I was quite taken with 'I, Claudius', as well. Until I read that, I could never quite sort out my Claudiuses from my Caligulas (Caligulae???). Sorry. I've been awake all night playing FF4 (Why, God? Why?), and I'm in a rather silly mood.

Now that I've thought about it a bit more, I'm also very fond of both 'Splatterpunks' anthologies (I have a secret fondness for splat horror); also Stone Junction and Not Fade Away by Jim Dodge. The ending of Stone Junction seemed a bit...abrupt...after the glorious sweep of the rest of the story, but overall.... I'd recommend it to everyone. Even my boss who never reads liked it.

And if comic books count as books (Sure! Why not?), I want to put in a vote for Maus, Sin City, Sandman, Cerebus, and V for Vendetta.

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My old man's a dustman
'E wears a dustman's 'at
'E wears gorblimey trousers...
AAAAAAAAND....
'E lives in a council flat!

[This message has been edited by Socar MYLES (edited February 17, 2001).]

jcterminal · Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2001 11:52 am

The Art of War - Sun Tzu
The Book of the Five Rings - Musashi
The Gunslinger - Stephen King
Anything by Clive Barker
Anything from the Hotter Blood Series
(Erotic Horror Anthologies)

so there.

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j.c.terminal
mind
body
soul

kochun · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2001 3:21 pm

Ceenda: I'm a Culture fan -- read Look to Windward as soon as my library got it

I'd like to see some artists here do renderings of Culture stuff. Military drones, cool weapons, ellipsoid ships, maybe.

--
Good literature that *hasn't* been mentioned(scifi, it's almost all I read):

1) The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein

2) Contact, Carl Sagan

3) Axiomatic (short stort collection), Greg Egan [SEARCH THIS ONE OUT!]

4) The Diamond Age, Neal T. Stepenson (he lives around here, I saw him speak at my school a couple of years ago when Cryptonomicon came out)

5) Startide Rising, fun space opera by David Brin.

Transcendence · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2001 5:34 pm

hm..can't really give a list of my top 5...that'd be impossible..heh.

I'm currently reading Neal Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors, and it's very good...

SoMK · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2001 6:20 pm

Let's say...

- The October Country / Ray Bradbury
- The Lord of the Rings
- The Time Master Trilogy / Louise Cooper
- The hitchhikker's guide to the galaxy :p Douglas Adams
- Destiny Doll / clifford Simak
but I should mention "patience en l'azur", "Solaris" and many others...

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SoMK
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In The Beginning there was nothing, which exploded.

Kreuze · Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2001 7:21 pm

Am one of the only people who didn't really like Tolkien?

I guess I never really liked the classic going from point a to point b quest, and thought he had pretty poor characterization (hehe, the worst was the 13 dwarves who were all the same except one was fatter in the Hobbit.) Blasphemy? Poor taste on my part?

I am a fantasy buff though, and I did like the Dragonlance ones specifically by Weis and Hickman (& Death Gate Cycle) , Magician by Raymond E. Feist (his first book was the best,) to name a couple.

I can't name 5 favorite books, so I'll name 5 that I've read recently and enjoyed.

Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson (More fun than the Diamond Age, though I did like that too.. what's this guys fascination with sperm as a means of transporting information though?

)
The Lions of All-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay
Dune, Frank Herbert
Sphere, Micheal Crichton (Much better than the movie)

[edit] Wanted the forum to tell me "Thanks for editing this message"

[This message has been edited by Kreuze (edited February 21, 2001).]