Friday, 6st June 2003
Choose - an experiment
[And now, for my next gimmick...]
I'm going on holiday on July 4th for two and a half weeks with some friends - my parents are a little bit envious :) Part of my packing - probably a large part of my packing - will consist of books because I read an awful lot on holiday. Last year on holiday I read:
- Gone With The Wind (1024 pages)
- About half of In Search Of Schrödinger's Cat (started before I went on holiday - say 150 pages)
- From Here To Infinity (322 pages)
- QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (176 pages)
- The Rich Are Different (704 pages)
- Sins of the Fathers (720 pages)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (160 pages)
- Northern Lights (416 pages)
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (192 pages)
- Life, the Universe and Everything (162 pages)
- So Long,and Thanks for All the Fish (192 pages)
- The Subtle Knife (352 pages)
- The Amber Spyglass (560 pages)
- Mostly Harmless (240 pages)
Grand total of 5,370 pages in two weeks, which is a lot more than I was expecting when I started this entry. But I digress.
The point is that I get through a lot of books when I'm on holiday (although to be fair, my rate of reading was probably increased by the fact that I'd read most of those books before). And although I have a huge number of books that I'm waiting to read to choose from, I am very indecisive about these things. I'm currently reading The Once And Future King because I asked someone for a random number between 1 and 50ish and then went down my list to find the corresponding book. I rely on recommendations.
And that's where you come in.
For the next four weeks I'm going to put it to all of you to choose my holiday reading material for me. Voting from the list, naturally, with a few additional clauses:
- I'm taking Gone With The Wind. Ever since I read it five times in one year I've limited myself to reading it only once a year, and this has sort of resolved into me reading it on holiday each year.
- I'm taking Fight Club as well, because I said I would :)
- It's fairly certain that no one's going to vote for The Serenth Tree or Blade of Serenthis because they're as yet unpublished. Written by a friend and former English teacher of mine. I have them printed out, though, and I'm going to give them one vote each right now.
- This probably won't come up (and it's a fairly obvious clause anyway), but I won't take a sequel without the first one. So if Children Of Dune makes it into the final results but Dune Messiah doesn't, I'll take both or neither.
- Vote for as many books as you like, no restrictions, taking into consideration that I'll want at least 12-15 books overall.
- Recommendations of books not on the list (and hence not in my room) are warmly welcomed - I'm always looking out for new books - but bear in mind that I probably won't get the chance to buy the book in question before I leave.
I think that covers it... I'll also throw in some books that aren't on my books page because although they're not actively waiting to be read I wouldn't object to reading them again next month. And I'm not including No One Told No One by Danny Kodicek or Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow because I was planning on reading them as downloaded files rather than printing them out (or buying it, in the latter case... I will if I want to reread it, though).
On with the list - oh, and I apologise if you want to check them out on Amazon. Most of them are on my main books page though if you want to look, with links and everything! But it's already taken long enough to put the list together, so in the interest of going to bed this side of midnight, I've decided to leave that little bit of extra legwork to you. Sorry.
*drumroll*- Spellsinger - Alan Dean Foster
- Foundation - Isaac Asimov
- Look To Windward - Iain M. Banks
- Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
- The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien
- Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
- Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake
- Titus Alone - Mervyn Peake
- Dragonflight - Anne McCaffrey
- Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
- Lost In A Good Book - Jasper Fforde
- The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
- Sleepers - Lorenzo Carcaterra
- The Tombs Of Atuan - Ursula le Guin
- The Farthest Shore - Ursula le Guin
- Tehanu - Ursula le Guin
- The Silence Of The Lambs - Thomas Harris
- Disclosure - Michael Crichton
- L.A. Confidential - James Ellroy
- Primal Fear - William Diehl
- The Godfather - Mario Puzo
- Enigma - Robert Harris
- Animal Farm - George Orwell
- The Serenth Tree - Beverley Hipkin
- Blade Of Serenthis - Beverley Hipkin
- Ghosts - Paul Auster
- The Locked Room - Paul Auster
- Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
- The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury
- The Quantity Theory Of Insanity - Will Self
- Les Aéronautes - Terry Pratchett
- The Deeper Meaning Of Liff - Douglas Adams, John Lloyd
- Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
- McCarthy's Bar - Pete McCarthy
- The Man In The High Castle - Philip K. Dick
- An Equal Music - Vikram Seth
- A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
- 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
- Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
- The Secret History - Donna Tartt
- Einstein's Dreams - Alan P. Lightman
- Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
- Dune Messiah - Frank Herbert
- Children Of Dune - Frank Herbert
- The Player Of Games - Iain M. Banks
- The Tesseract - Alex Garland
- Dreamcatcher - Stephen King
- The Dispossessed - Ursula K. le Guin
- Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
- The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul - Douglas Adams
- Of Mice And Men - John Steinback
- Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
- The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
- The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
- Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
- Mort - Terry Pratchett
- Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
- Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
- Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
- Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
- Eric - Terry Pratchett
- Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett
- Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett
- Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
- Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
- Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett
- Men at Arms - Terry Pratchett
- Soul Music - Terry Pratchett
- Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett
- Maskerade - Terry Pratchett
- Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
- Hogfather - Terry Pratchett
- Jingo - Terry Pratchett
- The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett
- Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett
- The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
- The Truth - Terry Pratchett
- Thief Of Time - Terry Pratchett
- The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents - Terry Pratchett
- Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
- The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchett
- The Alchymist's Cat - Robin Jarvis
- The Oaken Throne - Robin Jarvis
- Thomas - Robin Jarvis
- The Brethren - John Grisham
- Good Omens - Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
- American Gods - Neil Gaiman
- Wild Swans - Jung Chang
- Northern Lights - Philip Pullman
- The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
- The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
- Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
- Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
And remember, I am relying on your votes and suggestions. Given the very large number of books there, I'll need a fairly large number of votes to make it in any way fair. So, this is an appeal: If you comment here regularly or semi-regularly, I want to hear from you. If you read my blog regularly or semi-regularly, I want to hear from you. If you haven't commented here before, make this your first comment! If you've stumbled across my site by accident, cast your vote anyway. You never know, it might be fun to try and influence the life of a complete stranger...
Spread the word, plug it on your own blog, whatever... I'd like as many people as possible to dictate my holiday reading material to me. (Er. That is to say, 'dictating' in the sense of 'issuing orders or commands'. I don't want the whole lot of you standing around and dictating 5,000+ pages of fiction to me.)
It's down to you now!
[Hoping everyone responds... this'll look quite foolish in the archives if I only get two comments!]
Comments
Books I most want to read (I mean, think you should take):
Fahrenheit 451
The Quantity Theory of Insanity (Will Self)
The Deeper Meaning of Liff
Enigma
Others that sound interesting
The Illustrated Man (Ray Bradbury)
McCarthy's Bar
The Man in the High (Philip K. Dick)
Long,Dark Tea-time of the Soul
Primal Fear (William Diehl)
And another few I’ll put a vote in for:
Look to Windward (Iain M. Banks)
Lost in a Good Book (Jasper Fforde)
Sleepers (Lorenzo Carcaterra)
LA Confidential (James Ellroy)
The Brethren (John Grisham)
:)
S
My votes go for:
-The silmarilion (have you read it before? I haven't..I will get round to it one day though...honest!)
-Sleepers
_Neverwhere
-Good Omens
-American Gods
-Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
-The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
i enjoyed 'the secret history' [donna tartt], so i'll recommend that. anything by douglas adams is a shoe-in, and the philip k. dick books are excellent too.
so along with the recommendations in the previous comments, that should keep you busy for...the first day or so. ;)
PS I'm definitely bringing 2 Nick Hornby books - About A Boy and Fever Pitch - both or neither of which you may want to read!
Dirk Gently and Long Dark Tea-Time (sigh - Douglas Adams), and the Mervyn Peakes cos they messed with my head. I didn't enjoy Lost in a Good Book as much as The Eyre Affair.
Also (not on your list):
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon is a masterpiece.
- The Stephanie Plum adventures (8 books) by Janet Evanovich are rollicking good reads if you're someone for whom hilarity and character moments make up for flimsy plots.
- The Changeover by Margaret Mahy (New Zealand author extraordinaire) is utterly wonderful.
I envy you.
So many nice books.
Take
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman,
Vikram Seth's An Equal Music,
and do do do take
Thief of Time.
So Long and Thanks for the Fish is .. queer.
Take it for safe measure. XD;
Oh, forgot - if you can catch hold of Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer or Paperback Raita by William Rhode - take those along as well.
Captivating, easy to read stories.
Philip Pullman gets my vote.
Thought about Flaubert....Madame Bovary?
Try Poisonwood Bible..........Hilary Clinton and I seem to be the only 2 people to have read it.
Oooh, I love book lists. Here, in order (best at the top), are what I recommend:
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Of Mice And Men - John Steinbeck
The Illustrated Man - Ray Bradbury
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
The Tesseract - Alex Garland
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
The Silence Of The Lambs - Thomas Harris
The Godfather - Mario Puzo
All books to lose yourself in.
I have heard good things about Wild Swans, and it is sitting on the bookshelf for me at home, waiting for exams to finish.
i reckon rub all us shmarmy Christians noses in it, and read the whole Bible in one go. that must be only a few thousand pages. and i think its cool to skip the "and Heshath begat Megabaal, who begat Gehusathesh..." bits
I'll vote for:
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
- The Player of Games by Iain M Banks
- Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett
- The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Can I also recommend 'Inversions' as Iain Banks' best SF novel (imho) and 'Crow Road' as his best not-SF novel. And I've just finished reading 'London Dust' by Lee Jackson and rather enjoyed it.
Ditto what iona says about "Lost In A Good Book". While the first was witty and novel, the second has a strong feel of cranked-out sequel about it -- and ends on an abrupt cliffhanger for book 3.
"Dreamcatcher" is Steven King in bleak-and-nasty ouch-that-van-bloody-hurt mode; it has a similar feel to "The Tommyknockers" but without the wit. Try to avoid jumping ahead to the afterword before finishing it.
I recommended the "His Dark Materials" trilogy to a friend whose whole skiing party ended up reading it, so I guess that gets my vote here.
Totally forgot about Wild Swans........YES you will love it and if it's on your shelf you save money to buy Geisha Girl/Binding Chair...and all of the others in the same genre.
You haven't told us where you are going.....this could be important.
My votes are for George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and Arthur C Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'
I'd also recommend Ayn Rand's 'Anthem'.
Thanks all for your comments so far :) I still need lots more votes though since at the moment only a handful of books have been mentioned more than once, so keep them coming!
Lots and lots of recommendations.. some are already on my wishlist, most of them I have yet to check out, but thank you anyway :)
Clair: No, I haven't read the Silmarillion yet.. my LOTR-obsessed friend insisted that I should buy it but I haven't got around to it yet. But like Gormenghast, it's one of those books that I'm getting nervous about reading because of the hoardes of people who swear they couldn't finish it :/ Read Wild Swans, it is superb. A few years ago when I was trying to rank my books to determine my favourites (something which I'd be utterly incapable of doing now) it came second.
My wonderful, and no doubt highly influential, vote goes to:
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
Comedy genius.
Oh, it’s so hard to choose! But here is my (tentative) vote.
Catch 22 and Animal Farm because I’ve always meant to read them, and if you do then I can live vicariously through you.
Good Omens because, quite simply, it’s brilliant. And maybe Carpe Jugulum.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because I’m just reading if for the first time, and loving it.
Off the list:
The Changeover, or anything by Margaret Mahy, because she is amazing and ought to be sainted.
A Brief History of Time, because it’s so interesting and may inspire weird and wonderful blog entries.
The Sacred Diary of Andrian Plass Aged 37 & ¾ (but only if you’ve ever willingly or unwillingly been to church at any stage during your life) because it’s hilarious.
The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox because it’s my favourite fiction book ever.
Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones because I want to know what you think of it.
And any two of the following (cos I like them); Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, Holes by Louis Sachar.
Without reading all these titles too closely a few comments on things that jumped out at me.
Animal Farm is a classic (if a little light) and well worth reading. Pete McCarthy is a good travel writer, I'd add Road To McCarthy to your list since it's pretty fun, slightly more comic than McCarthy's Bar. Of Mice And Men can be pretty emotional so possibly not ideal holiday reading, but definitely worth reading. Fahrenheit 451 is something I really should read even if you don't.
Not mentioned (that I saw): Of course there must be a recommendation for a Bill Bryson when you talk of holiday reading, A Walk In The Woods probably being mine for today. The English by Jeremy Paxman is an enjoyable read. Maybe a few history books to tie in with your fiction choices? Or your destination?
Here are my recommendations, for what they're worth. And how is it that you can have books lying around without reading them? I go to the bookstore, buy three or four (this happens every few weeks, much to the chagrin of my wife and my bookshelves) and then ignore all human contact until the books are read. Then I do it all again.
Anyway:
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Excellent book.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. This is probably one of his better books, but it's still weird.
The Silmarillion, by JRR Tolkein. I love it, other people hate it. It's not what you expect, but once you take it on its own terms, it's excellent.
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. The movie is incredible, I forget the name of the French director. The book is OK but depressing. Both have an unlikely ending.
If you're going to read one Terry Pratchett, take them all. Most of them are kinda fluffy, and don't take more than a couple of hours to read.
Not on the list, but WELL worth the effort, is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Very good attempt at postulating a new society.
That's it. Kinda heavy on science fiction, but hey, so am I.
Russ
Argh! I forgot to include Bill Bryson.. all our BB books are in my parents' room, so I missed them :(
So far I've added eighteen books to my wishlist on the basis of these recommendations... you lot are going to drain my wallet:
List price (total) - £113.81
Amazon price - £93.00
Used price from Amazon - £50.31
I think I may need to buy second hand, in that case!
Russ: Firstly, I don't think I have room to take thirty Pratchett books with me since my bag isn't big enough! And the last time I tried reading through the whole series (about two or three years ago) I got through 25 books in three months, at normal reading speed. I do make a conscious effort to try to take a reasonable length of time reading most books, else it just feels like the plot whizzes by too fast, and you're compressing the timespan of the book too much. That's probably also why I have all these piles and piles of books lying around, some that I bought six months ago or more, and not be reading them...
Occasionally I will read a book in a day or two, this means that either: (a) I'm on holiday!, (b) the book is really gripping and I can't put it down, or (c) the book is really boring and I'm trying desperately to finish it. Reasons (b) and (c) are why I read The Salmon of Doubt (Douglas Adams) and Dead Famous (Ben Elton) in two days each. Work out for yourself which reason applies to which book :)
Kevin: I've never really got into history books, it all seems to be fiction or science books with me. I'm going to Brittany in France, so I suppose Les Aëronautes (French translation of Wings by Pratchett) is appropriate?
I forgot about Douglas Adams. Back during the easy days of Napster I downloaded the audio version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I listen to it on long car trips. Very good stuff.
I suppose bringing all the Terry Pratchett books would take up some space. My favorite ones are Wyrd Sisters and Pyramids. Also Good Omens is fun.
Oh, and if you're going to read Philip K. Dick, read his short stories. Much punchier than his novels, in my opinion. One of the best collections is called the Philip K. Dick reader (something like that, I'm at work and don't have it handy).
Russ
It occured to me that I didn't vote for dear My Pratchett's Night Watch earlier...so am putting a vote for that one in now, as it is definately one of the best discworldian books.
(Procrastination? What's that?)
My votes go to Animal Farm and Good Omens. I'd need to drop Orwell's 1984 and Down and Out In Paris and London (this is a pretty short read - don't forget to watch BBC2 tonight (Saturday) at 9.05 - more info here).
I quite enjoy short stories, so I'm going to through Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson into the mix.
Enjoy your holiday ... if you manage to lift your book-bag off the ground. ;-)
Go for the Pratchett - all of it.
So far it seems Good Omens is the clear winner with six votes :)
Btw, Martin, I just edited your comment to include the URL you gave as a hyperlink, cos the URL was so long it was going across the whole page (I really should remember to redo the MT comments template to reflect what's allowed in the comment box)
Can I muddle the puddle a little and also suggest Phil Whittaker's "Eclipse of the Sun" (see http://www.thebookplace.com/bookends/column/whitaker.asp
Highly recommded.
Good Omens, Dune Messiah, 2001, Animal Farm, Look to Windward, and Foundation.
The Dispossessed!! Read!
Oh, and something frothier...The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle.No no....don't confuse with the animation. There's a new version of the film being made with Sir Christopher Lee as King Haggard (when does that poor man sleep?) and you need to read the book FIRST! Oh..get Beagle's 'A Fine and Private Place' too, if you ever find a copy.(no, there are no marks for identifying the source of that title) Iain Banks? 'Complicity' is SOO nasty I recommend it without a moment's hesitation. Anything else? 'Knowledge of Angels' Jill Patton Walsh. Can we vote against a novel? I loathe and loathe 'Animal Farm'... sorry..I just do.
"...The grave's a fine and private place..."
One of the only interesting poems we studied at GCSE :)
I would go for Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy myself.
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