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10th World Book Day today

edited March 2007 in Troubleshooting
As part of which a vote was held on the books you can't live without.

1) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 20%
2) Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkein 17%
3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte 14%
4) Harry Potter books – J K Rowling 12%
5) To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee 9.5%
6) The Bible 9%
7) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte 8.5%
8) 1984 – George Orwell 6%
= His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 6%
10) Great Expectations – Charles Dickens .55%


I think I have 9 of the 10 in my house thou I've not read them all (Lady Irving likes those bronte/Austin tomes)

So how many have you read and are there any books you would add to the list (obviously Home and Away and the Valiant 500 by Colin Cameron and the Rothmans football yearbook are in there but what else)

Comments

  • I have all but the pullman book. I have at least started reading all of them, but admit that P&P and wuthering heights were a long way from finished.

    To kill a mockingbird is one of my most favorite reads. To that I would add:

    Catch 22
    Catcher in the Rye
    100 years of solitude
    Don Quixote
  • Pullman and Harper Lee are the only two I haven't read at least some of.

    Hard to think of others but when I was a spotty Yoof Catcher In The Rye by J D Salinger was considered a rite of passage.
  • only got 3 of them and i'm not including potter or rings.

    on a quick thought i'd add.

    name of the rose - umberto eco
    devils of loudon - aldous huxley
    heart of darkness - joseph conrad
    london fields - martin amis
    the outsider - albert camus
  • I have read them all and most prob have them in the bookshelves somewhere. Apart from the Harry Tosspot books which dont appeal at all, and the bibble which I own but have read no more than psalm 23..
  • I might try some of them. Have any of them got nice colour pictures in them?
  • Great Expectations - the story is fabulous but I had to work hard with an older style of English.
    Mocking Bird - wonderful and timeless prose.
    LOTR is jank imo - big waste of my time - only a pathetic duty bound need to finish a book I've started drove me on. A fanstatically realised world with the most dull dialogue and one dimensional characters that seems to have inspired The Bill.

    I can live without these (once read I'd rarely read again), but enjoyed them thoroughly:

    Bill Bryson - Notes on a Small Island (Sucks up to us a bit, but so many funny Englishisms looked at)
    Michael J Fox - Lucky Man (Very heartwarming and inspiring)
    PG Wodehouse - What Ho, Jeeves (compilation) (Funny)
    Bruce Robinson - Withnail and I Screenplay (which I am reading again at the moment)
    Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms (Like his style, great story and characters)
    Mike Dash - Batavia's Graveyard (Laiden with precise historical facts/figures but when the story gets going it is a stark reminder of how horrific humans can behave)
  • must add Pillars of the Earth to the list.
  • My two favourite authors are:

    Tom Sharpe
    Terry Pratchett
  • edited March 2007
    On giving it a bit more thought:

    DH Lawrence -Short Stories The Rocking Horse Winner is my favourite

    Alan Sillitoe- The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner and Saturday Night Sunday Morning

    James Joyce- The Dubliners and Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

    Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

    Not necessarially books I couldn't live without but they are all books that I've enjoyed reading.
  • my top 5: and a bonus

    scepticism inc by bo fowler on there
    the astrological diary of god also by bo fowler
    also gone with the wind by margaret mitchall
    sleepers by lorenzo carcaterra
    apaches by lorenzo carcaterra
    the twits - roald dahl
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  • I do own all the top ten and have read them all - fine books each and every one however my all time favourite is still Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, closely followed by Hugo's Les Miserables.

    For something less heavy and still very well written I would have to go with Stephen King, probably The Stand, and as a choice of reading for the Train, Plane etc any Sci Fi - no limits there from EE (Doc) Smith to Robert A Heinlein and everything in between.

    For pure horror it's got to be Ramsay Campbell especially The Doll who ate it's Mother.

    BTW 1905 if you like Pratchett (which I don't) try JK Rowling again and stick with it, she has better puns.
  • I've read LOTR and His Dark Materials trilogies - enjoyed LOTR but loved the Pullman books they really are better - I implore you to read the first "Northern Lights" - - you won't be able to resist the other two then! I think the LOTR people are filming His Dark Materials at the moment.

    Mocking Bird, Catcher In The Rye and Great Expectations are also fantastic books - read them twice - well CitR three times.

    Others I would recommend for that list are "Atonement" by Ian McEwan and "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck - the Steinbeck one is only 100 pages so get stuck in and enjoy!

    I also second Crime and Punishment - might have to see of there is a recent translation and enjoy it again!
  • I've got & read them all (yep even a bible) apart from Harry Potter (what on earth grown ups see in that I have no clue) & I keep meaning to read Mocking Bird but still haven't managed it.

    Pullman is pure quality. I received the Dark Materials trilogy as a Christmas present years ago & must have read them all over three days. I have since read others by him and the man is a brilliant writer.

    Pratchett has been a long standing favourite of mine, a copy of his latest always accompanies us on the holidays. And if anyone thinks that Harry Potter women's one liners are funnier they obviously just don't get Pratchett' s humor, which is fair enough.

    The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho I really enjoyed reading. Not because it answered all those unanswered questions but because it was very well written & had some great one liners that I have used since.

    I didn't finish Curb's biography.................all this 'I'm West Ham through & through' has left a bitter taste in my mouth now. Still, he put four kisses on it for me, so maybe some 'Ammers' fan with the same name as me will buy it off me on ebay ;-)
  • [cite]Posted By: KBslittlesis[/cite]Pullman is pure quality. I received the Dark Materials trilogy as a Christmas present years ago & must have read them all over three days. I have since read others by him and the man is a brilliant writer.
    What would you recommend as another book by Pullman?
    Northern Lights/Subtle Knife/Amber Spyglass are huge, fantastic pieces of work!
  • The Sally Lockhart quartet are good to start the first of which 'The Ruby in the Smoke' was adapted well for TV with Billy Piper starring in the lead role.

    The Broken Bridge was brilliant. It's actually classed as a young adult book, as were the Dark Materials, but it's a great read for any age imo and has a twist at the end that made my jaw drop!
  • Agree with Sco on Bored with the rings. Such laboured language that i couldn't get past the first few pages.

    DOn't mind the Potter books but nothing special. She's clever in that every theme from Children's tales are included eg orphan, boarding school, bully, baddy, special powers, friends, adventures, wise adults.

    Was told to read Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager at School. Hated it perhaps for that reason.

    Most hated book most likely On the Road - rich kid gets drunk and listens to jazz until he runs out of money and has to wait until mummy and daddy send some more.

    Books I've gone back to again and agian include Shoeless Joe comes to Iowa - WP Kinsella. all of his stuff is good. Also the Sword of Honour trilogy and Brideshead by Evelyn Waugh.

    I recently read Northern lights. enjoyable and will get the other two some time but not in any top ten and even Philip Pullman said that on Radio 4 this morning
  • I don't read books.
  • Only got a few of those - read Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice for A Level - enjoyed at the time, but not sure I would read again...liked Equus for O level which is getting a lot of publicity at the moment too thanks to Harry Potters arse (not read any of the HP books - just don't get it).. Read and enjoyed LOTR and The Hobbit as a young teen....

    Personal favourite authors (in the sense that I'll buy any new release) are probably James Ellroy, Hunter S Thompson, John Irving and Gore Vidal. 'On The Road' was the rite of passage book for me in my teens / early 20s (along with going to see Oliver Stone's 'The Doors')...

    Try and read every day before I go to bed - too many good books out there to ignore...
  • [cite]Posted By: Ketman[/cite]I don't read books.

    What do you do with them then? Eat them?
  • best book i have read recently - Noam Chomsky - Hegemony or Survival (Americas Quest for Global Dominance)

    essential reading imo
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  • [cite]Posted By: Oakster[/cite]best book i have read recently - Noam Chomsky - Hegemony or Survival (Americas Quest for Global Dominance)

    essential reading imo

    Just reading "What's left?- where the left went wrong" by Nick Cohen
  • [cite]Posted By: Henry Irving[/cite]
    [cite]Posted By: Ketman[/cite]I don't read books.

    What do you do with them then? Eat them?

    Don't buy them, then don't have to read them ?
  • [cite]Posted By: Charlton Charlie[/cite]Personal favourite authors (in the sense that I'll buy any new release) are probably James Ellroy, Hunter S Thompson, John Irving and Gore Vidal. 'On The Road' was the rite of passage book for me in my teens / early 20s (along with going to see Oliver Stone's 'The Doors')...

    Try and read every day before I go to bed - too many good books out there to ignore...

    how could i forget ellroy! american tabloid is genius.

    and very true last comment, charlie, very true......
  • edited March 2007
    I'd include

    Dune - Frank Herbert
    HHGTTG - Douglas Adams
    Sky Sports football yearbook - Glenda Rollins
  • The only real books I can read again & again & again & would never worry that I am no longer a child are the Chronicles of Narnia. Amazed and transformed me to a much needed magical world, inspired me to draw, gave me a strange feeling of optimism which I'd kept until very recently.

    Actually, now would be a good time to read them again!
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