top 10 books

Thinking back to the genesis of the grupo libros, I seem to remember it all started by us sharing our top ten books. these were:-


cdh

10

Lord of the rings - JRR Tolkien
Magician - guess who
pillars of the earth - Ken follett
captain corelli's mandolin - Louis de berniers
Fear & loathing in las vegas - Hunter s thompson
perfume - Patrick suskind
his dark materials trilogy - Phillip Pullman
the wasp factory - Iain Banks
the histories - Heroditus
breakfast of champions - Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.

20

at swim-two-birds
birdsnog
winnie The pooh
dune
the ragged trousered philanthropists
the snow leopard
clan of the cave bear
lake wobegon days
lanark
trainspotting

30+

the amazing adventures of cavalier & clay
the good soldier svejk
the metamorphosis & collected short stories
the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
the grapes of wrath
the god of small things
1984
on broadway
i claudius
lolita
Ali & nino
the life of Pi


rjm

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - still the single funniest book I have ever read
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - favourite all time novel
Dubliners - James Joyce -sublime and haunting.
The Secret history - Donna Tart Unputdownable
The Great Gatsby -Scott Fitzgerald
Heart of Darkness - Conrad - second favourite novel
The Caine Mutiny -Herman Wouk - fabulous - I want to remake the film
Dune - Frank Herbert - Loved it - one of the best SciFi books ever. It has everything. Read it in Goa on miles of sand. Wow
The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailor - Yup
Creation - Gore Vidal Not a book I would have picked off the shelf. Rather a direction from the Anthony Burgess top 100 novels
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - The first book is marvellous - the 3rd book less so but its still breathtaking. Should have won the BBc top novel. And No LOTR isn't here. I've read it 4 times but the film highlights the books flaws. It should be here but even I'm fed up with it winning everything
The French Leiutenats Woman - John Fowles - It was between this or the Maggot
Love & War in the Apenines Eric Newby - not strictly a novel but may as well be. Got it from Radio 4 a good read. Can't think I'd ever have picked it up otherwise
Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd - Like all the best books I've been back to reread it again and again.
The Stand - Stephen King - this could have been a biblically fantastic book. It is a fantastic book.
The Cornish Trilogy - Robertson Davies - 3 novels - I confess to not having read the third but I loved it. Unpreposessing
Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - There is just something about this book.
Artemis Fowl - A little to close to Terry Pratchet but an absolute romp. Come to think of it the first 5 Pratchett books were excellent
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Only read it last year. Its beautiful
New Confessions - William Boyd
Despatches - Michael Herr - God I love this book - not really a novel but my 3rd fave

And also rans...................

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
Bridehead Revisited - Evely Waugh
The Cruel Sea - Nicholas Monserrat "Snorkers Old Boy!"
Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - infuriating that it takes 150 pages to go anywhere but haunting and elegaic
Rendevous with Rama - Arthur C Clarke - David you'd hate this one. its SciFi - nothing happens but its wonderful
Diary of a Madman - Gogol
Diary of a country Doctor -Mikail Bulgakov


njb

Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Iron Dream - Norman Spinrad
Kim - Kipling
The Happy Prince - Wilde
Paingod - Harlan Ellison
Neuromancer - William Gibson
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter Thompson
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Conan Doyle
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test - Tom Wolfe
Maus - Art Spiegelman
Schinder's Ark - Thomas Keneally
My Last Breath - Luis Bunuel
Alexander the Great - Robin Lane Fox
Into the Heart of Borneo - Redmond O'Hanlon
From the Holy Mountain - William Dalrymple
The Code of the Woosters - P G Wodehouse
My American Century - Studs Terkel
To Be or Not to Bop - Dizzy Gillespie


dsa


The great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
A secret History - Donna Tarte
Fugitive pieces - Ann Michaels. Not a cheerful book but beautifully written- Starting in Holocaust Poland and following on to life afterwards in Canada.
Gone with the wind - Margaret Mitchell - great story and great characters set against the American Civil war.
Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
Songlines - Bruce Chatwin. part story of the Aboriginal life and philosophy and part exploration into the nomadic nature of the human condition - sounds heavy and
it is in places but no the less fascinating.
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Moon and Sixpence - Somerset Maughan - Boy with slight disability and his journey through life. Not as depressing as it sounds
Wild Swans - Jung Chang
New confessions - William Boyd
Daniel Martin - John Fowles. I too was spoilt for choice with Fowles.
Lord of the rings - Tolkein - First time a film has nearly lived up to the book as well.
To kill a mocking bird - Harper Lee - only book that I have read twice.
Brother of the more famous Jack - Barbara Trapido - gentle observed humour. I must read it again to remind myself of how good it was.
Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich - Solgenitzen - I know the spelling is wrong but I couldn't find the book. As it says on the tin this is the life in a day of a man in a Soviet Gulag.
For whom the bell tolls - Hemmingway. Life though the Spanish civil war - I could also have chosen The old man and the sea but this one has more body to it.
Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving - Very funny and black at times. not as weird as he gets later so about at the limit of my tolerance for strange.
The Passion - Jeanette Winterson - Magical/strange tale set in Venice and I think in the 16th century.
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressel
Sons and Lovers - DH. Lawrence - Partly because I studied it for A level and partly because I liked Lawrence when I was more impressionable.
God - this was a hard thing to do as I sure I've forgotten loads and given others undo weight because of the impact they had on me - which is after all what is important.

Not quite making the cut were
The woman in white - Wilkie Collins
1984 - George Orwell.
Stone diaries - Carol Shields (her latest and last book is very good "unless")
Frankie and Stankie" by Barbara Trapido
"Astonishing splashes of colour" by Clare Morrall
oryx & crake by Margaret Atwood
eating wolves by Alexis Scott