Books

[CorkonianHunger]

Just finished Philip K Dick's Ubik with two other friends (we read in sync). Its very good, keeps.you guessing till the last page and melts the brain at points.

[Don Gately]

Started reading Wild Houses by Colin Barrett,  one you would fly through.

[Mooncat]

Been re-reading some Bukowski; Factotum and Women. Both great. Also started into his poetry for the first time and really enjoying it too. He has a way of sucking you into his world, even though his existence is pure drudgery.

About halfway through Great Gatsby for the first time. He's a good writer, though I'm not super engaged by the story yet. Obviously have to wait until the end to judge, but so far it's not quite punching up to it's greatest novel ever (one of them) status for me.

[Mooncat]

This thread seems to exist as a 'now reading' space, but I'd also like to hear what everyone's favourite books ever are.

For me I'd say:

Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerny
Women - Bukowski
Please Kill Me - The Oral History of Punk Rock
Scar Tissue - Anthony Keidis (he's a tit, but I'm totally absorbed by his story)
Our Band Could Be Your Life - Michael Azerrad (discovered so many amazing bands from this book, and turned me onto underground and independent music in general)
Animal Farm - Orwell
The Devil Rides Out - Dennis Wheatley

[Born of Fire]

For me it's got to be my battered old copy of the 3 Lord of the Rings books in one. I spent many a night engrossed in those pages until the wee hours as a young lad. Tolkien was phenomenal at crafting an insanely rich and vivid world.

Runner up for me would be Endurance by Alfred Lansing. The story of Shackletons expedition to Antarctica. Incredible story of resilience and survival.

[Don Gately]

I read Endurance last year, fantastic

My own personal favourite books are, Great Expectations,  A confederacy of dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Butcher's Crossing by John Williams, Small things like these by Clare Keegan. 2666 by Roberto Bolano. Blood Meridian by Cormac mc Carthy, Infinite Jest by David Wallace.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Just finishing up Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler, his dramatized account of the Stalinian show trials. Powerful stuff. For the metal reference, Koestler and a friend later came up with the idea of a book collecting personal accounts of famous intellectuals (incl Koestler himself) who had liberated themselves from either membership of or influence from the international Communist party. That book was called The God That Failed 

[StoutAndAle]

This thread seems to exist as a 'now reading' space, but I'd also like to hear what everyone's favourite books ever are.

I'm a big Bukowski fan myself. As you say, he has a gift for turning what was probably a bleak first-hand experience into something far more entertaining and infinitely readable.

I get a brain lock when I think about my favourite books but off the top of my head I would say;

"The Commitments" and "The Van" by Roddy Doyle.
Nearly everything by Bukowski.
"American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis
Nearly everything by Sue Townsend

"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" by Stewart Lee
The Clive James autobiography series (certainly the first three)

"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" by Peter Biskind

"England's Dreaming" by Jon Savage
"Everything" by Simon Price

Our Band Could Be Your Life - Michael Azerrad

Really great book. I just started "Sellout" by Dan Ozzi yesterday but I think that you may enjoy it (if you like Azerrad's book that much) and also Andy Greenwald's "Nothing Feels Good".

[Maggot Colony]

Some great books mentioned above. I love The Devil Rides Out, and A Confederacy of Dunces is the funniest novel I've ever read.

My own personal favourites:

Dracula - Bram Stoker
Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh
Wise Blood - Flannery O'Connor
We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Killer Inside Me - Jim Thompson
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War - Karl Marlantes
Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
A Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny
Stone Junction - Jim Dodge

[Carnage]

My favourite would be Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow. Tragedy wrapped in sci fi, the reveal at the end is devastating.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I can maybe do favourite novels of all time:

Lord of the Rings has to be in there for me too.
Dune (Herbert)
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (PK Dick)
Slaughterhouse 5 (Vonnegut)
Good Omens (Gaiman/Pratchett)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
Giovanni's Room (Baldwin)
Nausea (Sartre)
The Fall (Camus)
Lolita (Nabokov)

They're all ones I've either read at least twice each or, in the case of the Dostoevsky and Nabokov, want to read again as soon as I find the time.

Some mentioned above that I want to read but haven't yet are A Confederacy of Dunces and The Road.

The Sparrow doesn't ring a bell, must add it to the list.

[Carnage]

It's one I read every ten years or so, I'm overdue a re-read, come to think of it. There's a sequel (Children Of God) that's not quite as good, but manages to compound the guilt factor.

A lot of my other favourites have been mentioned, I'd add The Dice Man by Luke Rinehart & The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy among others.

[Don Gately]

East of Eden worth a read also. I read Matterhorn way back , good book.

[Mooncat]

This thread seems to exist as a 'now reading' space, but I'd also like to hear what everyone's favourite books ever are.

I'm a big Bukowski fan myself. As you say, he has a gift for turning what was probably a bleak first-hand experience into something far more entertaining and infinitely readable.

I get a brain lock when I think about my favourite books but off the top of my head I would say;

"The Commitments" and "The Van" by Roddy Doyle.
Nearly everything by Bukowski.
"American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis
Nearly everything by Sue Townsend

"How I Escaped My Certain Fate" by Stewart Lee
The Clive James autobiography series (certainly the first three)

"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" by Peter Biskind

"England's Dreaming" by Jon Savage
"Everything" by Simon Price

Our Band Could Be Your Life - Michael Azerrad

Really great book. I just started "Sellout" by Dan Ozzi yesterday but I think that you may enjoy it (if you like Azerrad's book that much) and also Andy Greenwald's "Nothing Feels Good".

Forgot about American Psycho! For some reason I'm really drawn to 80s New York yuppie fiction. American Psycho, Bright Lights Big City, and Bonfire of the Vanities are the holy triumvirate of that genre.

Thanks for the other recommendations!

I can maybe do favourite novels of all time:

Lord of the Rings has to be in there for me too.

Lolita (Nabokov)

I've only ever read the Two Towers (in impatient expectation of the second film coming out). Really must set aside the time and get lost in that trilogy properly for the first time.

Lolita I found hard to get through. It starts off like one of the best books I've ever read, the writing is so incredible. About halfway through I found it got really wearing though, like Nabakov is so in love with his own prose and himself that it became a bit insufferable (oddly enough I had a similar experience with My Booky Wook by Russell Brand, though the wearing out happened much sooner there). Must revisit it also though, it's been a good 20yrs since I read it.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Haha, love the comparison! 

I don't entirely disagree on the prose, but I got into it as adding to Humbert's schtick pretty nicely. I only read it about 8 years ago, first Nabokov I'd attempted, and was blown away by how unexpectedly (to me) rich it was, psychologically, morally, philosophically, all the rest, and with poetic sentences like this creeping up out of the blue: "I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past." Sure that could be a Warning lyric!