McBif Posted May 5, 2006 Report Share Posted May 5, 2006 I won't count stuff I ate up in my 'teens but which I now regard as drivel like Herman Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut and crackpot non-fiction like B.F. Skinner, Baba Ram Das (gulp!), Alan Watts... In my 'twenties I was completely knocked out by Hemingway though I now regard his stuff - other than "The Old Man and the Sea" - as a lotta sound and fury. But his prose style is gorgeous. Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" is a book no one, or at least no young man, should pass by. His work declined after that, IMO, just the same stuff reworked. Dickens. I pity anyone who hasn't read "The Pickwick Papers". You strike gold when you come across Dickens as an adult. Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammett are the real and original thing for hard-boiled fiction. No one's come close. Detective pulp fiction raised to literature. If you're down (or up), read P.G. Wodehouse, especially the Wooster and Jeeves books and short stories. What a beautiful writer. He has given more joy and pleasure to the world than anyone. George MacDonald Fraser. I've read all the Flashman books four or five times over. What a hoot! Never stale. Read 'em while they're still available and not banned for political uncorrectness. Also a fabulous insight to historical events and people. Patrick O'Brian. 20 novels describing life in the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars. If you read one of his books for the first time and love it, you're in luck. 20 novels! A lovely writer. If you love well-written prose, George Orwell is your man. His essays I've read again and again. His novels? I've read them all of course, but the only one I really enjoyed was "Coming Up For Air". The greatest English prose stylist ever. You enter his world and you don't come out unscathed. Your own prose style is changed for the better. For modern non-fiction I recommend the miltitary historians John Keegan and Victor Davis Hanson. Mind-boggling and meaty stuff. Well, that's what I think. Bif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted May 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2006 Anybody remember Stephen Becker's Asian trilogy? My ex wife gave my copies away but I managed to get "The Blue Eyed Shan" back, trying to get the others through Amazon. Thought they were real adventure stories set in a time when Asia was in total chaos. (As opposed to now when it is only 99% chaos) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Topcatta Posted May 5, 2006 Report Share Posted May 5, 2006 What about erotic literature? What's your favourites? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted May 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 when I read erotic literature which is rarely it's usually magazine type stuff TC. Off hand I can't think of a single main stream writer who writes it that I like; unfortunately these days the line between eroticism and porn is fairly ill defined. Some of D.H Lawrence's books perhaps. I can't remember ever finishing his stuff though. I read Agnar Mykles books as a teenager but more as a masturbation aid than through literary appreciation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mekong Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 I dont tend to read as much now as I used to, about 65% of my work entails going through contracts, bid documents and also inturpretation of specifications etc so in my free time I tend to give the eyes a rest (like looking at this board 55555) The last book I read was "Empire - How Britain Made the Modern World" by Niall Ferguson, a fascinating read IMHO. The wife is now getting into some old books, her current one is Orwell's 1984, she cannot believe it was written in 1948, many of Orwell's visions have come to fruition. But one part that made us both laugh, its been years since I last looked at it, is the explanation of NEWSPEAK 'The Official Language of Oceania "Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well... If you have a word like 'good', what need is there for a word like 'bad'? 'Ungood' will do just as well... Or again, if you want a stronger version of 'good', what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like 'excellent' and 'splendid' and all the rest of them? 'Plusgood' covers the meaning, or 'doubleplusgood' if you want something stronger still.... In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words; in reality, only one word." (Part One, Chapter Five) Sort of sums up the Thai Language actualy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Scrutinizer Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 Julian, Reading Tom Robbins' 'Another Roadside Attraction' at the moment. Just finished his 'Jitterbug Perfume' and also his 'Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates'. All are excellent reads, beautiful writing and word play and use. And all are extremely funny and 'trippy' stuff. His mind is very creative and off the wall, but he says much in his stories that is interesting about the condition of mankind. I've only just ran across his books recently. I also have his 'Villa Incognito' to read once finsihed with the roadside attraction. Witty and intelligent and amusing as hell (at least with my tastes). Also read recently: 1. The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell (the best damn SciFi book I've ever read, and that is saying a lot) 2. Children of God (the sequel to #1)- Mary Doria Russell 3. Zero - Eric Van Lustbader 4. Five Quarters of the Orange - Joanne Harris 5. Chocolat - Joanne Harris (excellent read I thought, great storytelling and writing) 6. 1421 - Gavin Menzies (very interesting and filled with many interesting points and 'facts', but the author becomes a bit obsessed in making his points toward the end of it all. All in all an interesting read, though a bit academic for some I think who bore easily) 7. Saucer - Stephen Coonts (one of his best I feel. A nice light read) 8. Naturalist - Edward O. Wilson (nice autobiography-interesting subject, for me anyway) Plus many others the past 2 months that I enjoyed. I have a sister who manages an upscale book store in Mass. where she gets me a lot of 'advance copies' of bestsellers to read before they come out for sale. She also knows my tastes and keeps the ones for me to read she knows I would like. So I get some good books. Plus my brother sends me 50 softcover books in the mail every few months. We have some similar tastes in detective fiction. (Randy Wayne White's excellent stories comes to mind.) I have a good bunch to still read here in Surin I brought along and was given by a friend in Hua Hin recently too. So that is cool. I read maybe 2 to 4 books a week. Cent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Central Scrutinizer Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 Julian, I also have WEB Griffin's Brotherhood of War - The Generals - #6 in that series of his, if you'd want it and haven't read it. Just PM me your LOS mailing address and I'll send it along. Cent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 Erotica? Anis Nin! DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 Love to read....good thrillers or a crime story. John Grisham Wilbur Smith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BelgianBoy Posted May 6, 2006 Report Share Posted May 6, 2006 Cent said:6. 1421 - Gavin Menzies (very interesting and filled with many interesting points and 'facts', but the author becomes a bit obsessed in making his points toward the end of it all. All in all an interesting read, though a bit academic for some I think who bore easily) Cent, Yes, I mentioned this book earlier in this thread, and also yes, I tend to agree with your comments, but the book really fascinated me....! BB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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