[Books] Good Books Megathread!

[Agroculture]

Portnoy's Complaint

Lord of the Flies

Ulysses

[UnknownSoldier]

If you enjoy "A Song of Ice and Fire" I suggest you give Steven Eriksons "Malazan Book of the Fallen" a shot. In my opinion it's even better than Martins work. And Erikson writes faster than Martin

Esselmonts two books set in the Malazan world are decent, nothing superb but once you get immersed in Eriksons world you just can't stop. (The world was co-created by Erikson and Esselmont)

Edit: And yes, the books are so good that I had to register just to say it =)

Fuck yes. Already have the final book pre-ordered, and have for some months.

[Loto Bordeaux]

I highly enjoyed the Orison Scott Card Ender Series (Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, etc). Overall the books were very enticing and I recommend them as an excellent futuristic psychological thriller. Plus, the amount of subliminal sattire about the author's views on government and economics were pretty entertaining.

[ChildeRoland]

anything classic should do the tric, avoid cheap fantasy tho :P

Define "cheap fantasy"....

Wow~ many nice books, thx for sharing~

Np, that is the point

Portnoy's Complaint

Lord of the Flies

Ulysses

Portnoy's Complaint, it is fiction? The name just made me think of Mike Portnoy

[Giantpanda602]

Lovers of fantasy should deffinitely read the Farseer Trilogy (beginning with Assassin's Apprentice) by Robin Hobb. Anything she writes is really amazing. The other series she has are also really really great but you won't understand any of the other besides Shaman's Crossing and the other 2 books in the trilogy unless you read the Farseer Trilogy followed by the Tawny Man trilogy first.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman is also a trilogy of completely epic quality, though you may want to skip this one if you are a serious religious practicer because Pullman is, well, atheist to say the least.

---------- Post added 2010-12-24 at 03:14 PM ----------

And I hate to double post, but the Bartimaeus trilogy is a very good trilogy that many have said they cried during the end. Personally, I didn't because I think what happened was completely deserved. Still, a magnificent fantasy series.

[Darthysis]

I've read Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy and am so looking forwards to The Traitor Spy Trilogy. Damn good books with kind of simplified use of magic (magic being just the "extension" of ones will sorta), simplified in a way maybe but still damn interesting.

Also I'll throw in David A. Gemmel's Drenai books, those are the best fantasy books I've read. Will try his other books someday too...
I encourage people to check these 2 writer's works out!

[Faradn]

Lovecraft short stories still scare me sometimes.
Also the Dune saga is a good one.

[ChildeRoland]

Lovers of fantasy should deffinitely read the Farseer Trilogy (beginning with Assassin's Apprentice) by Robin Hobb. Anything she writes is really amazing. The other series she has are also really really great but you won't understand any of the other besides Shaman's Crossing and the other 2 books in the trilogy unless you read the Farseer Trilogy followed by the Tawny Man trilogy first.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman is also a trilogy of completely epic quality, though you may want to skip this one if you are a serious religious practicer because Pullman is, well, atheist to say the least.

---------- Post added 2010-12-24 at 03:14 PM ----------

And I hate to double post, but the Bartimaeus trilogy is a very good trilogy that many have said they cried during the end. Personally, I didn't because I think what happened was completely deserved. Still, a magnificent fantasy series.

His Dark Materials have close to nothing to do with christianity as we know it. I know a strong religious guy that loved the books immensely, but he too understood why it wasn't made more films, etc.

[Knoxontholos]

A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

[Deleted]

John Grishams books!

[Diabloss]

Everyone should read 1984 and gain a healthy paranoia

[makominami]

only read the first 3 books of the sword of truth books

[Phera]

Well, if comics are to be included, I'd say "The Sandman" is a must-read.It is actually far better than many novels that receive high praises from critics.

Some other all-time favourites from my bookshelves would be:

- Nick Cave, And the Ass saw the Angel: its weird, sometimes disgusting and brutal and yet strangely beautiful at times. You never know if you pity or hate the protagonist...extremely great writing!

- Jospeh Conrad, Heart of Darkness: Couldn't really tell you just why I am so fascinated by the way the story is told. I just love it and I really get soaked up in this story (ore rather the way it is told) everytime that I read it (and I've read it often actually)

- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest: This was the only time, finishing a book felt like an acomplishment...it is incredibly hard to read. Being a German student of English I have voluntarily or not read many tough English works and do know a good lot of vocabulary, but this (one of the voluntarily read ones) compares to no other thing I have ever read. It is a monster made of vocabulary and confusion but the thought alone that maybe after finishing these 1000 pages all of these fragments might actually make sense is strangely addictive. I think a filled 2 pages of paper with unknown words while reading the first 10 pages of the novel alone...would be interesting to know how easy/difficult a native speaker of English would rate it.

- Voltaire, Candide: Thats an old one but it is just like an absurd never-ending episode of Tom and Jerry, only with Humans in the 16th or 17th century that are constantly running from one misfortune into the next, really hillarious. It is difficult to get atranslation that does justice to the absurd humour though, at least a German translation, maybe English translations of it are better.

- Michael Ende, The Neverending Story: A German children's book, but like Alice in Wonderland it is also a great read for adults because it is so rich in details.
A young boy, who is running away from some other kids that try to bully him and finds himself in an old book store. There he sees a book and is so fascinated by it that he steals it, hides in the attic of his school and starts to read. It is about a fantasy kingdom that is vanishing into nothingness and the inhabitants seek a way of preventing it. It turns out that he (the boy reading) is the key to saving that kingdom and so the story within the story slowly becomes reality (with you as a reader reading exactly the same book that the protagonist read...). It has very beautiful descriptions of places and fantasy landscapes and a great twisting plot...don't know how well known it is outside of Germany but if you are interested in fantasy or stuff like the Wizard of Oz/Alice in Wonderland oder Where the Wild Things Are you might want to give it a shot.

and of course:
Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Just because! Everyone should read it. Abolutely fabulous, and absurd (and that is probably why it is so fabulous!). Got my first tattoo because of that book.

[Deleted]

1984 and Animal Farm. George Orwell is a man of genius.

Also, graphic novel wise. Scott Pilgrim series, Invincible and Walking Dead. All incredible.

[Deleted]

Anything by Douglas Coupland (JPOD, microserfs)

Jennifer Government


If you're into crime/thriller, Simon Kernick is an excellent writer.

Simon Kernick is simply amazing, Relentless being my favourite but really everything he has written has been incredible.

[ChildeRoland]

Well, if comics are to be included, I'd say "The Sandman" is a must-read.It is actually far better than many novels that receive high praises from critics.

Won't add any comics to the OP, but to list some really good comics:
300 can't remember the name of the author, but it's the same guy that made
Sin City. Those are together the two best comics I've ever read.

[Boltenstein]

Anything by Terry Pratchett;

The Wee Free Men series, and Going Postal for example, are great books.

[zealous]

Lovecraft was a genius, even despite (or because of) clearly being from another planet. His books are a must, buy a collection of his short stories asap if u haven't read him yet.

I also love Robert L. Asprin (r.i.p) and his Myth series (turned shit after like 8 or so books but was awesome before that) and Phule's Paradise series. Great humor, in line with his friend Terry Pratchett.

[Deleted]

Naked Lunch by William Burrows
Incredibly fascinating book with extremely vivid language. Its mainly a compilation of work written by Mr. Burrows and has alot to do with drug-use and hallucinations. Can be hard to read if you arent very profficient in english though.

[Hollygrove]

Dune series by Frank/Brian Herbert
Ender's Game Series by Orson Scott Card
Ringworld series by Larry Niven
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Foundation Series by Issac Asimov
Gateway series by Frederik Pohl
Anything by Philip K. Dick/Kurt Vonnegut

All great stuff, and most if not all won the Hugo and Nebula awards