books...

[MadduckUK]

newsflash - goalkeepers may dive

[sammyc]

Give us an idea of what you like, as TAKTAK said - no point recommending War & Peace if you're more into Noddy Goes to the Seaside, or vice versa

....but to be going on with:
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Alan Sillitoe)
Slow Down Arthur, Stick to Thirty (Harland Miller)
Milk, Sulphate & Alby Starvation (Martin Millar)

[neonplanet40]

Magician by Raymond Fiest ONce u read it u'll be addicted and will want to read the next 20!!

O and the da vinci code

[matty-hodgson]

well.. genre.. as i said at the top, i've only really recently got into reading, only read 3 books. so tbh, to give you a genre of what i like right now would be difficult.

the 3 books i read were:

Others by James Herbert
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet by James Herriot

any chance you could work something from there?

[finlay666]

Choke, also written by Chuck 'fight club' Palahniuk, and as with fight club, the book is 'better' than the film (imo).

Really? Choke was released on DVD recently (saw it in HMV)

I thought Fight Club the book was rubbish compared to the film, thought the Choke novel was better though.

[Whiternoise]

Anything by Iain M Banks, or Iain Banks for that matter

Try going for the Dirk Gently series by Douglas Adams, very good!

If you're seriously saying you've only read three books, then you should go back and read His Dark Materials, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings (it's dull but you need to read it at least once i think), etc. There are some other good mystery/fantasy/thriller/crime/etc books like the Da Vinci Code/Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and Labyrinth/Sepulchre by Kate Mosse. Neil Gaiman writes excellent novels that are sort of like adult fairy tales, including American Gods, Stardust (the book that made the film) and Neverwhere.

Ok i'll try to make a rough genre list..

Sci-Fi (yay)

Iain M Banks (Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Excession, Feersum Endjinn, et al)
Isaac Asimov - the grandmaster! (Foundation Saga - starts with Prelude to Foundation, and of course "I, Robot" and the other robot novels)
John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids, The trouble with Lichen, The Chrysalids - old stuff but they're timeless)

Fantasy

Terry Brooks (Shannara series)
J R R Tolkien (The Hobbit is a better read than LOTR any day)
Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time series)
Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel - great book about England and magic)
Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials)
Neil Gaiman (Stardust, American Gods, Neverwhere, Smoke and Mirrors)

Mixed/Bestsellers

Kate Mosse (Sepulchre, Labyrinth)
Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Deception Point)


Horror

Stephen Kin
John Wyndham (as above, most are sci-fi/horror novels)

Comedy

Stephen Clarke - the "Merde" series (A Year in The Merde, Merde Actually, etc) a ridiculously funny series about a guy who moves to Paris to open a cafe, cue stereotypes abound...

Non-Fiction is something you shouldn't skimp on, there are a ton of books that you should read. For instance, anything by Bill Bryson - especially "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Richard Dawkins, besides being a bit over the top sometimes is a superb writer and has penned some great stuff on genetics besides the God Delusion. If you're after science books in general then there are plenty of books on how the universe works like "The Elegant Universe", and even Einstein's "Relativity" is very accessible. Otherwise Carl Sagan, the legendary astronomer has written some superb books - Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot. In a slightly less sciencey vein (sorry, but it's my field!) - the aforementioned Bryson writes bloody hilarious travel diaries (what he's most famous for).

[Tzarbo]

i've only really recently got into reading

Aww.

only read 3 books. so tbh, to give you a genre of what i like right now would be difficult.

Double aww.

I like the 'only recently got into books' thing... how did you get to this point in your life without previously 'getting into books'? Who are you, Katie Price?

the 3 books i read were:

Others by James Herbert
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
and It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet by James Herriot

any chance you could work something from there?

Yes, keep the Douglas Adams, throw the others away, don't waste you time reading the Da Vinci Code, and consider reading:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - erm, William Shakespeare.
The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien.
A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson.
The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle.
Frank Skinner - Frank Skinner. (autobiography)
Ulysses - James Joyce.
The Age of Charles Martel - Paul Fouracre.
The BFG - Roald Dahl.
James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl.
Matilda - Roald Dahl.
The Universe in a Nutshell - Stephen Hawking.
A History of Britain - Simon Schama.
Moab is My Washpot - Stephan Fry.
The Shack - William P. Young.

That should have all your bases covered. The classics, pop culture, a bit of real history, the best 'childrens' books, and some real page turners.

[subucni]

Strange i just posted a reply but it seems to have gone missing.

Anyway, like a lot of others have said anything by Douglas Adams.



And also pick up yourself a copy of

I am legend - Richard Matheson

I personally found it an awesome book to get myself back into reading, great story (different to the film), only 160 pages, and really easy to pick up and get hooked on.

[kopite]

Terry pratchet books

Start with colour of magic then go through the rest should keep u going for a while and they are amazing books

[chuckskull]

Lot of great recommendations in here, read many myself.

Not mentioned so far that I could see; Chris Brookmyre. Read a few of his. Loved Quite ugly one morning and One fine day in the middle of the night. Darkly violent, satirical and very funny.

Russel Andrews, another author in a similar vein. Give Gideon a look.

And one of the very best books I've read in recent years; Blood, sweat and tea by Tom Reynolds. Basically the compiled blog/diary of a London ambulance driver. Interesting subject, well written and lots of gallows humour .

Blog here: http://randomreality.blogware.com/

[Knoxville]

Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
The Dark Tower series - Stephen King
The Heroin Diaries - Nikki Sixx
Love All The People - Bill Hicks

I probably shouldn't reccomend the Dark Tower books until I've finished all seven but I'm enjoying them too much not to throw them in there to be honest.

[chuckskull]

Love All The People - Bill Hicks

Ace book. His works still hilarious and relevant over a decade after his death.

RIP Bill. (and goatboy )

[Lucio]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Terry Pratchett's books yet! As weird as it sounds, I'd recomend picking up the more recent books first (particularly Going Postal, Night Watch and Making Money), they've got a certain je'ne sais quoi about them that the early books didn't have.

Other than that, I'd heartily recomend simply trawling charity shops and second hand book stalls, I've picked up some fairly surprising reads that I might not have considered had the books been full price (for example, I Corriander, a book given to be by a friend turned out to be a good read considering it was a children's book)

[Funkstar]

Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About it
by Simon Singh.

Also Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh is great too.

Generally I read a lot of crime fiction and fantasy fiction. Terry Pretchett is awesome, Robin Hobb is good, but her book are pretty heavy going. Good value for money though, 900 pages per part of a trillogy

Oh, and I'll second Ian (M) Banks. His Sci-fi stuff is cool, but his general fiction is also awesome, some really unique ideas to some of those stories. The Bridge is perhaps his best book in my opinion.

[JPreston]

I like the 'only recently got into books' thing... how did you get to this point in your life without previously 'getting into books'? Who are you, Katie Price?

Ah Katie Price; one of the few people to have written more books than she has read. It winds me up when people are proud of never reading, my housemate is like that, ignorant beyond the point which you would have expected was the minimum level of knowledge necessary to survive in today's environment and really nothing more than an ambulatory houseplant.

Another vote for Richard Dawkins' science books starting with The Selfish Gene - if a genetic organism were only ever to read one book then that is the one it should go for to gain maximum understanding over the space of biological history, evolution and experience. I also find Matt Ridley very good and accessible (The Origin of Virtue is particularly good - that's book number two).

If you want to fry your brain read 'Godel, Escher, Bach' by the computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter which won the Pullitzer.

As far as fiction goes, another vote for John Wyndham because he doesn't get enough props - Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick also in the same genre. A couple of modern classics; Orwell's 1984 is a cracking read and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is my bestest novel of all time.

Steer clear of drivel like Dan Brown, you might as well be reading the back of a cereal box. "There is no worse thief than a bad book" or however it goes.

[kidzer]

I'll chip in and suggest any book by Kathy Reichs, I've read a few and I really like 'em!