Your Favourite Book

[Mahemium]

The Satanic Bible

No, seriously. Anton LaVey and Satanists in general were genius trolls before trolling was a thing and the Satanic Panic from the 70's-90's is probably the most hilarious public rustling of jimmies in recorded history. Though they had nothing to do with the launch of the panic, Satanists are the type to roll with it for the lolz.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick.

I've gotta get my stuff together and really bust through my list of books-to-read; I've read Radio Free Albemuth and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoyed both of them, and I've still got Ubik and A Scanner Darkly waiting in the wings while I'm currently reading through a bunch of my dad's sci-fi and fantasy collection. I've been getting distracted lately by all kinds of games and comics, though.

I've read Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, Eye in the Sky and I'm currently reading Dr. Bloodmoney. I picked Ubik as a favorite just because it was my first and I might as well single one of his books out. Together with "Eye" and "Do Androids" I think it's also his most fun novel. But anything you can get your hands on comes highly recommended.

Hey Johnny, since you're here: what's your favourite Argentine book?

Another Top 5:

El Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges (for the sake of singling out one of his books)
Bestiario, by Julio Cortázar (idem)
El juguete rabioso, by Roberto Arlt.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, by Manuel Puig.
Los pichiciegos, by Rodolfo Fogwill.

I ask because I read Marechal's "Adán Buenosayres" just before I went to study in your country, and dear lord I fricking loved it! In fact I just had to read it again.

Never read anything by Marechal. I think. Isn't he a poet?

If you don't mind me asking, are you a porteño?

Yes but I spent most of my life in Mar del Plata so I don't feel very porteño.

 

[AliasBot]

In large part due to recency bias, my pick right now is probably Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens. That thing was devastatingly funny, and I basically didn't put it down from when I picked it up to when I finished it.

Off the top of my head, other notables are John Scalzi's Redshirts, the Hitchhiker's "trilogy" as a whole, and basically anything ever written by Jasper Fforde, but the Nursery Crime series in particular.

 

[aliengmr]

I don't understand why, but for some reason Airframe by Michael Crichton always ends up at the top of my most enjoyable list. I guess I like Crichton's style. Though I don't enjoy all his books, but I do really really love how he wrote.

Also liked Metro 2033, and Roadside Picnic was really good as well.

Lord of the Rings trilogy made me want to claw my eyes out by the time Frodo and Sam made it to Mordor. I actually yelled "For fuck's sake end already!!!!" Walking and camping walking and camping walking and camping, I was going out of my mind. Seriously War and Peace was more engaging, in my opinion.

But, The Hobbit was much better and ends up in one of my top spots.

 

[San Martin]

I ask because I read Marechal's "Adán Buenosayres" just before I went to study in your country, and dear lord I fricking loved it! In fact I just had to read it again.

Never read anything by Marechal. I think. Isn't he a poet?

I think he's more well known for his poetry, yes, but he wrote a couple of novels too.

If memory serves from other threads, you like Dante's "Divine Comedy", right? If so, you may well enjoy "Adán Buenosayres" because the last third of the book is a re-imagining of the journey into the inferno that features hellish versions of places and people from 1920s Buenos Aires. It's quite amusing and also beautifully written.

Off-topic: now that I don't live in Argentina it's a bit weird that I have San Martín as my name and avatar. I dunno, I just think he was a bit a hunk and an all-round dude.

 

[The Madman]

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

I'm not even quite sure why, but something about that book just really appeals to me to such a degree I've read and re-read it a number of times now and still love every damned chapter. I'm not even sure I'd say Neil Gaiman is my favourite author nor Neverwhere his best book even, but nevertheless of all the books I've ever read Neverwhere is just the one I inevitably find myself returning to every few years and loving time and time again.

 

[Nikolaz72]

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett.

It always gets me up when I read it, until I remember how he's fighting a loosing battle against the greatest bastard on the planet, and I get pretty depressed.

 

[hazabaza1]

From recent memory it would be The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien. It's a weird surrealist short book that discusses the many implications of good and evil, the nature of humanity and existence and what is means to be a good person. It does this by having the characters muse over boxes filled with boxes that go to a subatomic level of size, and an innate fear of bicycles for if you ride one too long the DNA of human and bicycle will mix and you will be changed.
Real fucking weird.

 

[JohnZ117]

Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama - I don't have a lot of exposure to hard sci-fi (Isaac Asimov is on my aforementioned list) and the descriptions were mind-boggling at times (though it can hardly be said that that isn't fitting considering the subject matter), but that was a damn fine read. I particularly appreciated that the only real antagonist was time itself.

I loved the whole series. Excellent story, well written characters, and I also liked that while it involves Humanities first contact with extra-terrestrials, it is human greed that fucks everything up.

My favorite stand-alone novel is The Light of Other Days by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, a depiction of what may happen when a media mogul makes a device that "brings all the walls down."

 

[shrekfan246]

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick.

I've gotta get my stuff together and really bust through my list of books-to-read; I've read Radio Free Albemuth and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoyed both of them, and I've still got Ubik and A Scanner Darkly waiting in the wings while I'm currently reading through a bunch of my dad's sci-fi and fantasy collection. I've been getting distracted lately by all kinds of games and comics, though.

I've read Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, Eye in the Sky and I'm currently reading Dr. Bloodmoney. I picked Ubik as a favorite just because it was my first and I might as well single one of his books out. Together with "Eye" and "Do Androids" I think it's also his most fun novel. But anything you can get your hands on comes highly recommended.

Yeah, having read Radio Free Albemuth I've been rather interested in getting his VALIS trilogy, as it serves to apparently be something of a connector to the world of that little series, even though it's perfectly readable standalone.

I actually got interested in Philip K. Dick's writing because of (perhaps unsurprisingly) some of the films based on his novels, and the stories surrounding them (such as how A Scanner Darkly is a semi-biopic about his own experiences with drugs and whatnot).

Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama - I don't have a lot of exposure to hard sci-fi (Isaac Asimov is on my aforementioned list) and the descriptions were mind-boggling at times (though it can hardly be said that that isn't fitting considering the subject matter), but that was a damn fine read. I particularly appreciated that the only real antagonist was time itself.

I loved the whole series. Excellent story, well written characters, and I also liked that while it involves Humanities first contact with extra-terrestrials, it is human greed that fucks everything up.

My favorite stand-alone novel is The Light of Other Days by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, a depiction of what may happen when a media mogul makes a device that "brings all the walls down."

I'll admit I'm a little bit leery about getting into entire franchises with these "classic" works, particularly when they work well by themselves. I've also got Dune yet to read, and while I'm sure that the follow-up books are deserving of praise in their own right it feels like some of the mystery and eccentricity that makes those stories interesting is kinda lost by constantly bringing us back to it.

I dunno. I might look into them eventually. It's not high on my list right now just because I have so many other things. XD

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Ubik, by Philip K. Dick.

I've gotta get my stuff together and really bust through my list of books-to-read; I've read Radio Free Albemuth and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoyed both of them, and I've still got Ubik and A Scanner Darkly waiting in the wings while I'm currently reading through a bunch of my dad's sci-fi and fantasy collection. I've been getting distracted lately by all kinds of games and comics, though.

I've read Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle, Eye in the Sky and I'm currently reading Dr. Bloodmoney. I picked Ubik as a favorite just because it was my first and I might as well single one of his books out. Together with "Eye" and "Do Androids" I think it's also his most fun novel. But anything you can get your hands on comes highly recommended.

Yeah, having read Radio Free Albemuth I've been rather interested in getting his VALIS trilogy, as it serves to apparently be something of a connector to the world of that little series, even though it's perfectly readable standalone.

I actually got interested in Philip K. Dick's writing because of (perhaps unsurprisingly) some of the films based on his novels, and the stories surrounding them (such as how A Scanner Darkly is a semi-biopic about his own experiences with drugs and whatnot).

Me too! The obvious insertion point was Blade Runner and Minority Report and Totall Recall. Honestly I've liked everything I've read by the guy, you can't go amiss unless maybe you pick up one of his non sci-fi books, maybe.

 

[TheRiddler]

Five that I'm feeling pretty good about at the moment:

-The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler: I adore Raymond Chandler's work. He's the greatest writer of noir fiction I've read. And this is one of his best. A twisting plot, and intrigue all around.

-The Friends of Eddie Coyle, George Higgins: This was written as a realistic depiction of the Irish mob at the time. Sort of the anti-Godfather, in that it completely unglamorizes the mob and those that worked within it.

-Watchmen, Alan Moore: You guys probably already know about this one. So I'll just say that it took the superhero comics industry and placed the whole thing in a real world, historical context.

-They Also Ran, Irving Stone: Speaking of historical context, this is a great history/speculative fiction work. It goes through all the presidential election losers to about the 70s, and examines their policies and how the world may have been different if they were in charge.

-The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson: I stand by this completely.

 

[lacktheknack]

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy of Five. Specifically, "Life, the Universe and Everything".

The man not only was a brilliant comic writer, but he had just the right mix of creativity and logic that allowed him to make, among other things, the act of accidentally flying sound completely manageable and rational. After all, you just have to throw yourself at the ground and miss.

And it just kept coming. Never a dull moment in the whole book.

 

[steodosic]

Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King and finally, The City and The City by China Mieville.

 

[Queen Michael]

Beijing Doll by Chun Sue. The Swedish translation.

It take splace in China, but the youth-time experiences Chun Sue describes are so universal that it might as well have taken place here in Sweden. I've read it three times, and the English translation once.

 

[rorychief]

The old man and the sea, Ernest Hemingway. Simple story, great prose. I like to read it whenever I get bogged down in my own writing and things get dense or obtuse. Short enough to pick up and fly through to remind myself how direct and minimalist writing can be while still working beautifully.

 

[San Martin]

Beijing Doll by Chun Sue. The Swedish translation.

It take splace in China, but the youth-time experiences Chun Sue describes are so universal that it might as well have taken place here in Sweden. I've read it three times, and the English translation once.

It sounds intriguing; could you tell me more? When is it set? When was it written? What's it about generally?

I've been interested in getting me some Chinese literature, having not as of yet read any, and this seems like as good a place as any to start.

 

[Queen Michael]

Beijing Doll by Chun Sue. The Swedish translation.

It takes place in China, but the youth-time experiences Chun Sue describes are so universal that it might as well have taken place here in Sweden. I've read it three times, and the English translation once.

It sounds intriguing; could you tell me more? When is it set? When was it written? What's it about generally?

I've been interested in getting me some Chinese literature, having not as of yet read any, and this seems like as good a place as any to start.

Good choice. It's about Chun Sue -- not her birthname, but that's what she chooses to call herself -- and her years as a teen in Beijing around the end of last century. She works as a music journalist, goes to rock concerts, writes poems, tries to endure school, and goes through a series of temporary relationships. It's really poetic -- partly thanks to Chun Sue being a person with a very poetic view of things in general, and partly because she's not interested in any self-distance or aside glances to the audiences. She has the courage to take herself and her story completely seriously,

The last thing that makes it so great is that she never tries to wallow in the Hardships of Youth. This isn't any kind of mis-lit where the writer tries to evoke as much sympathy as humanly possible. It's just a really well-written book. I hope you'll enjoy it even if you can't read it in Swedish (or better yet, the untranslated original).

 

[Artina89]

For me it will always be Sherlock Holmes. My dad used to read them to me when I was small, and the first novel I read was The hound of the Baskervilles. They are the stories I always go back to.