One for the book worms....

[johnny on the spot]

Agree with Mackenzie on Wuthering Heights. Emily was the real talent in that family and produced a novel of rough-hewn beauty, emotional savagery and undeniable quality.

If it's quality literary reading you're after, you really should read either To the Lighthouse or The Waves by Virginia Woolf at some point. There's a whole world more to Woolf than feminist politics. She was actually a fooking genius.

Also when Jack Kerouac got it right, he was unbelievable. Recommend you look up Doctor Sax, Visions of Gerard and On the Road. My other top Yanks include Bret Easton Ellis, whose Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is suddenly and frighteningly topical again.

In the last year or so I've really got into the Icelandic Sagas. They ramble a lot, but open up a whole world which you'll often find imitated but never more authentic in even the work of greatest modern fantasy authors, including Tolkien.

 

[dannybcity]

The ragged trousered philosophist is the best book ever. Although it does turn you into a raving socialist.

 

[blueinkwell]

I'd recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, a fantastic read.

 

[masterwig]

Nineteen-eighty-four.

It's brilliant and makes you question a lot of your beliefs.

I wouldn't bother with 'The Catcher In the Rye'. If I remember correctly nothing happens in it. It's just about some teenage lad's thoughts.

 

[kronkonite]

Life of pi
is grear

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Any of the Rebus novels by Rankin or the Morse novels or Dalziel and Pascoe. Anything by Robert Ludlum is a cracking read too. All of Graham Greene's stuff and Evelyn Waugh as well.

 

[berger10]

the boy in the striped pajamas is great
the film is too and doesn't ruin the book in te slightest

Funnily enough, my grandad has asked for the DVD for Crimbo!

 

[berger10]

Cheers, im gonna bookmark this page as there are quite a few suggestions. I bought 'Catcher in the Rye' and 'American Psycho' last night.

A few others added to the list are Bram Stokers Dracula, 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' and 'Haunted' (Chuck Pahahniuk) and 'Frankenstein'

See how I eventually pull back towards horror lol

My mums gonna wonder what the fecks going on when 8 new books come through, ill just blame it on mania!

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Three superb books I'd recommend:

The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Big book but well worth the effort. Sort of a psychological thriller.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

 

[berger10]

'The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919' by Captain J C Dunn.

So from this book and your username I take it your into the first world war! I went on a school trip to the Somme as I studied history for a GCSE, we walked on the fields and between us found a belt buckle, bullet and even a pick that held the barbed wire. Amazing place I will go back to one day!